Down now to eight teams in the World Cup we have seven top teams and only one measly remaining underdog, Morocco, and we have our first days off since the games began. Everyone can now rest up for two days- Wednesday and Thursday- maybe I won't even write about The World Cup for all of Thursday! And then Friday it's back to action: Croatia play Brazil in the morning. Argentina lose to the Netherlands in the afternoon.
And in this moment of collecting ourselves FOR THE REALLY BIG GAMES, and because we found the Spain Morocco game very disappointing, we'd like to discuss...
Underdogs!
When criminals in this world appear
And break the laws that they should fear
And frighten all who see or hear
The cry goes up both far and near
I have found, in being a passionate follower of the World Cup, that people love underdogs.
People were super excited about South Korea, Australia, and Japan, and now Morocco. And I am fine with these teams, but skeptical. Because I have found that people enjoy the easy nobility of supporting the little guy when they have nothing on the line, and don't really care. It is a theoretical stance. And I have also found that people only really support a specific underdog after they are successful. An upset by Japan, or a last minute win by South Korea, created many fans who vanished without a tear as soon as their inevitable losses. No one, absolutely no one when I signed up people for my World Cup pool, said anything like: Give me Ghana!
Which doesn't matter I guess, because these people are mostly not watching these games, or not caring about them very much anyway. But I will say I appreciate a fan in this context, someone who has made their pick and decided to care. And if someone at the start of this tournament were to decide to support Brazil because they were the biggest favorite in the tournament, and then they watched them and cared and enjoyed their flair and style, well, their heart is on the line too. There were 32 teams, and a half dozen of them were very very good, another half dozen could be the best team in the world on a special day. Which means that at the start of this tournament every single team alone, no matter how excellent, was, nevertheless, an underdog,
just some more so than others.
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