A World Cup Memory: My Introduction to the Cup

I blogged previously about my reservations about soccer, but I have to admit that I've gotten quite sucked into the World Cup. Today was an especially dramatic day with the last-second, Hollywood-style USA victory in extra time, and it made me think about some of my other memories of the World Cup.

I had never even heard of the World Cup when our tour bus rolled into Paris on June 10, 1998, but soon I would hear about nothing else. I was on a whirlwind European tour with members of my AP European History class and we were only staying in Paris for three days. By sheer coincidence, we arrived in Paris the day the World Cup started.

Since the teacher of the class doubled as the school soccer team coach, there was a lot of overlap of European history fans and soccer aficionados in the tour group. I remember the excitement among on the bus growing exponentially with every mile (or rather, kilometer) that brought us closer to Paris. At the front of the bus there was this large clump of kids talking excitedly about 'the World Cup.' After a while I finally asked them what they were talking about. They looked dumbfounded. "The WORLD CUP?!? It's only like the biggest sporting event in the whole wide world!" "Oh," I sheepishly replied. "So, it's a soccer game?"

We finally disembarked in Paris and it was pure bedlam. Everywhere you looked there were mobs of people waving their country's flags and screaming obscenely loud. I was completely baffled as I took in the whole scene - why would such a large, rowdy assemblage come from all over the globe just to watch a soccer game? Surely the game was but a diversion before they hit the Louvre, right?

Like all good American tourists, we made a beeline for the Eiffel Tower. As we approached this universal symbol of the French nation the air was naturally filled with the sound of... bagpipes? Scotland was playing in the opening game of the tournament (against Brazil!) and a humongous clan of Scotsman had gathered underneath the Eiffel Tower. They were all clad in kilts with drinks in hand, and their singing and chanting was far louder and rowdier than all the other nationalities we had yet seen. Several times they all yelled "SCOTLAND!!!!!!!" in unison and literally made the Eiffel Tower shake up above our heads.

Their drunken revelry was generally amusing, but the funniest sight of all was a kilt-clad Scotsman breakdancing to "No Diggity"(remember that song?). He was pretty good and a crowd quickly materialized around him. A couple girls from my tour group squeezed their way into the inner ring of the circle while I remained too far back to see anything. A minute later I heard my friends scream as they pushed their way out of the circle. They explained that the breakdancing Scotsman went into a prolonged headspin with his legs straight up in the air, causing his kilt to fall down and revealing that he wasn't wearing anything underneath. They were both pretty traumatized by the whole incident, but the Scottish breakdancer and his fellow countrymen were unfazed and the party continued.

And that was my introduction to the World Cup.