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Ever since the Korean-Japanese World Cup and Korea's unanticipated success in this prestigious competition, this country has been a bit soccer fanatical. Every boy wants to play soccer for their school club activity. Posters of J.S. Park and other superstar players are plastered in subway stations and anywhere else that overburdened public space will allow. Every kid at school is talking about "emmm... you know... Hitler country!" (Germany), the host of this year's World Cup and a frequent topic of conversation. Will Korea repeat their semi-final showing this year? Who will beat the filthy Japanese? Will Zombie Hitler lead Germany to a homeland victory?

Now I don't know and I don't care about these things... unless Hitler has revived dinosaurs and trained them to play soccer, which would be cool. Let's face it: living in Canada rather exempts us from World Cup fever, forcing us to retrace our bloodlines to the Old Countries if we want a viable team to support. This is hardly a decent substitute for rabid nationalism.

Still, one can always capitalize on the hype of others. One of the kids at our school has an uncle who works for a company who owns a soccer team which happened to be F.C. Seoul, so on Saturday we found ourselves headed to World Cup Stadium to catch a game. We arrived after a harrowing cab ride, in which our driver got into a heated exchange with the driver of an SUV, and incidentally taught me and Mike to say, "I hate you, dog-baby!" in Korean. A useful phrase indeed - I took great pains to memorize it, repeating it often to the dismay of nearby parents.

World Cup Stadium was huge - a relic of greater times. As it was, no mere club match could possibly hope to fill this enormity with spectators. The cavernous coliseum of steel and light was built for the eyes of an entire world, not a handful of families looking for memories and accompanying memorabilia. Attendance consequentially looked rather sparse. The stadium is built on top of a fucking mall, for Gods sakes, and has its own subway stop.

After making the brief acquaintance of the nearby Hangang Park, which is reputedly beautiful but perhaps too beautiful for just half an hour, we claimed our seats. The match commenced with the terrifying (for some) hiss and bang of fireworks. Loyal F.C. Seoul supporters dutifully roared and chanted, the tunes to their fight songs recognizably lifted from Western nursery rhymes. Belinda screamed and some kid in the corporate boxes dumped a bag of chips on her head. A toddler wandered over to us, blew his toy horn vigorously into Mike's ear and used our propped-up legs as his own personal hideaway, wallowing in spilt beer out of view of his parents.

The game itself was entirely unremarkable - a single fluky goal in the opening minutes was the only action of note. We were left wondering whether the players were drunk or tired or what. Perhaps the best were off in Germany, training for their upcoming representation of a nation desperate for victory on the world stage. Maybe Koreans just suck at soccer and this country is in for a rude surprise with a 14th place knock-out in coming weeks. Whatever the deal, as a sporting contest the F.C. Seoul game was unsatisfying - unsatisfying but free, we must recall. As an excuse for a blog post it was aight.

And I still remember: Meewha ke sekiya! (I hate you, dog baby!)

Posted by Chris at 08:51 AM >> Commentations (0)