What, Mr. Soccer Not Know What CONCACAF Is?
I was so excited when my friend informed me that they were about to hold the richest CONCACAF tournament ever, I got goose bumps. And believe me, I love it when my goose gets bumped.
All I had to do was ask one thing:
“What’s CONCACAF?”
“You don’t know what CONCACAF is?” my friend asked.
“Something about conquering caffeine?”
“I can’t believe you don’t know what CONCACAF is,” my friend said.
“Go ahead, tell me what CONCACAF is.”
“Shhh. I don’t want the whole world to know that you don’t know what CONCACAF is.”
Well, CONCACAF happens to be the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, my friend explained.
“I knew that,” I said. “I just wanted to see if you knew that.”
It seems that starting Friday at the Coliseum and Rose Bowl and running through July 7, eight teams representing the United States, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and my favorite country of any country, Trinidad & Tobago, will be here to play for the $250,000 Gold Cup.
“Oh, wonderful,” I said. “But didn’t Jamaica already win the 1991 Gold Cup?”
“No, stupid,” my friend said. “Jamaica already won the 1991 Shell Cup.”
“Damn,” I said. “I always get those two confused.”
Naturally, I wanted to hear more about this, being Mr. Soccer and all.
Some of you out there in readerland might recall that just last summer, your old Uncle Mike spent five weeks bouncing all over Italy like a soccer ball, watching those titanic World Cup tussles between Italy and Argentina that kept everybody from San Diego to San Jose awake nights waiting for somebody named Diego or Jose to score a goal.
After one week, I became interested in soccer. After three weeks, I considered myself an expert in soccer. After four weeks, I was collecting Diego Maradona rookie cards and trading them for some promising newcomer from Czechoslovakia. After five weeks, I stopped asking people why the goalie was the only one who used his hands.
But I wanted to learn more and more about soccer, being that the United States is supposed to host the next World Cup, and because my boss does now consider me Mr. Soccer, my being the only one in our office who has spoken to a player from Cameroon.
This is an important period for soccer in the United States. I’m pretty sure it’s the final period.
If we don’t start supporting soccer now, with this World Cup coming up a couple of years from now, we’re not going to have anything to read in the sports pages except coverage of the 999 professional golf tournaments being played somewhere in America this weekend.
The whole world was watching when our American boys kicked the ampersand out of Trinidad & Tobago, earning us that trip to the World Cup. Unfortunately, I have a suspicion that Ma and Pa Kansas were sitting out there in Topeka watching the umpteenth rerun of “Barnaby Jones” instead of watching our soccer boys on TV.
Personally, I can’t wait to see these Gold Cup matches at the Rose Bowl and Coliseum. The 1994 World Cup finals might be held at one of these two stadia, unless, of course, the nutty groundskeepers of the Pontiac (Mich.) Silverdome go through with their intriguing plan to grow grass indoors.
We have a chance to win the next World Cup, believe it or not.
First, our national team has a new coach, Bora Milutinovic, who will be making his Southern California debut next Saturday at 6 p.m. when the U.S. team opens play against those always dangerous Trinidad-Toboggans.
I happen to believe that Bora Milutinovic will be a very good coach for America, and possibly an even better coach if he ever learns to speak English.
Now, we also will have an improved team for the next World Cup if we can keep our California dudes such as Marcelo Balboa of Cerritos, Paul Krumpe of Redondo Beach and Eric Wynalda of Westlake Village playing soccer instead of going to the beach to go roller-blading with some babe wearing day-glo dental floss.
And, what we have to do is persuade the Michael Jordans, Magic Johnsons and Bo Jacksons of the world to give soccer a try instead of confining themselves to those usual inner-city sports such as basketball, baseball and bobsled.
Well, I’ll support soccer if you will, so I hope to see everybody at the Gold Cup next weekend. Be sure to wave to me. I’ll be the one in the press box. No, I mean it. I’ll be the one in the press box.
