There are seven deadly sins, and within fifteen minutes of the final whistle of the U.S. defeat at the hands of Ghana (and a shoddy call in stoppage time of the first half), I had ran the gauntlet through them all.

During the break from my History class (which had started after halftime at 8 a.m.), I discovered via a classmates cell phone, that, indeed, Ghana had held off the United States 2-1. I thanked him before walking on my very way, fists clenched and teeth gritted.

Wrath and envy arrived unavoidably. The same sneer/grin that often comes across the faces of menstruating graduate students who happened to catch their periods during finals week now etched onto my face, a crude welcome mat. The next to tread upon it, between the various twitches and thoughts of gathering a militia to bring to justice, and the guillotine, the various football powerhouse favored referees, came pride. It oozed throughout my thickening veins and made room for the piss and vinegar that accompanied the regular strain of hemoglobin as a friendly escort for the sins. They continued merrily until avarice and lust (I prefer the Latin “luxuria” or ‘extravagance’ here) came, day’s events then a daydream played in images of the glorious victory of the plainly dressed militia doused in blood like Wayne Rooney, and held in either hand stretched out from him at the sides, still beating hearts of the bleating umpires freshly picked from the white-stripe laden green fields, all the while trumpets blared and tubas bellowed “Ride of the Valkyries” and, to cap off the irony, Andrea Bocelli sang the poem “Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori” in tune with Wagner’s masterpiece.

By the time I arrived at The Store, my dream had started to fade, and the reality of our finality in the World Cup, the U.S., fifth ranked team in the world, my face dripped off the five and relegated itself to gluttony, my thirty-three and a third ounces of carbonated, official sponsor of Sac State therapy: a liter of Pepsi. Mental and physical slothery was soon to follow, and it lasted the walk to ARC Room 1008, throughout the second half of Professor Quinn’s history 51 lecture (Meiji Restoration to the Russo-Japanese War), past the better half of my work shift and up until 20 minutes ago (2:07 PM) it had continued until, finally, I got tired of waiting for people to show up to my work enough to check the Internet for an official recap of the game.

That’s when the wrath came back and settled into some more noble, more reflective virtues. For, you see, in my disappointment and anger and hate and jealousy and rage, then apathy, I had lost track of what it was for that I felt such a strong inclination to commit grievous bodily harm to persons overseas-in the end, it’s the United States team that was slighted by the officials, so, in the end, my sympathy and general disposition must have been brought in defense of those brave stalwart defenders of American ideals.

So when I saw the US players’ comments on the FIFA/yahoo Web site, I realized this was an Evita situation. Only the US team, unlike Evita, didn’t have the guts to tell us not to cry for them. They left the door open to make themselves a pity case.

They are the complaints of lesser athletes and greater wusses, a time capsule of spoiled spawns of the 60’s generation. You don’t know what else you could have done, Mr. Convey? Disappointed, Mr. Cherundolo? Is it really a “bad feeling” when you’re down two goals, Mr. Bocanegra, or is that just the feeling I get in my stomach when you try to extract pity from me?

What kind of sports heroes talk like this, sounding like arrogant, underachieving English majors writing for a collegiate newspaper rather than highly respected, highly paid and highly anticipated to-do-wells that they were made out to be? Rather then members of a team that tied Spain as the fifth best in FIFA rankings.

Worse than the rest, Landon Donovan “couldn’t find his game” on the biggest stage in the world, he’s telling us, the best football player in the United States, that he lost his game? Is he stealing a page from Shawn Michaels’ book? Did Landon Donovan just lose his smile?

I daresay-these guys don’t even sound like any decent American athlete, let alone ones deserving prestige. If American soccer ever wants to get popular domestically, the American people need people they can idolize, not someone they can relate to. We have plenty of people we can relate to in the Paris Hiltons, and Ryan Seacrests of the world: talent-less hacks whose only chance at greatness lies in hitting the lottery or a string of dumb luck.

And if they need an example, they can find it in the NBA. That’s right, time to remake the cliche anew: When it comes to taking a game, “What would Dwyane Wade do?”

Like Brian Botano, it’s safe to say Dwyane Wade would make a plan and he’d follow through. If his chips were down, down two games to none, two goals to none, he wouldn’t get all apathetic and tell everyone how his team was “done hard” a couple of times. He wouldn’t “work hard” to get back in the game. Dwyane Wade would drop the funk like the Oba Nobunaga of basketball he is, the Great Unifier of the NBA. He’d come with force, put on pressure and make sure to “find” his best game before he got to the playing field.

You see, I stuck up for the U.S. soccer team when I watched the games on the second floor of the Union. Every time someone said, “Well, soccer isn’t popular. I wonder what would happen if our best athletes actually played football,” I retorted with, “We’re still number five in the world, we still have a shot and even though we’re in a group of death that no one acknowledges as such, we’ll prove the world that we deserve to be here.”

Thing is, I think our U.S. soccer “athletes” are still looking for their game. Unfortunately, the only thing they found was a shared feeling of empty disappointment and external blame. Except for Brian McBride; at least he seemed honest and forthright about the losses, and still managed to keep his head up at the same time.

I’m going to stop laying my hate on the officials despite the fact they were awful. It seems apparent that the U.S. team bought into the media B.S. They want to be “punished?” They need to “find their game?” Well, they can find their game out of my sight, and within the obscurity of Major League Soccer. I know when the World Cup concludes that I’ll be watching the “major league” athletes in Europe and Mexico. I mean, why waste my time watching athletes with a minor league mentality? Enjoy the heckling from the cheap seats and the small time game. I sure as hell won’t.

In the meantime, there’s a damn good Ghana team representing Africa in the round of 16 that made it through. I’ll be waiting for them to, with a miracle, upset Brazil, and for Edwin Van de Saar to lead the Oranje to an improbable World Cup victory. It’ll be better on my blood pressure too.

JUNE 19 – Why do you build me up, Ivory Coast? … Just to let me down?I feel sorry for those who’ve not made an effort to see World Cup games this year…Though not in that stuffy way most soccer fans feel sorry for those too uncultured to understand what soccer represents; I’m not patronizing you. I’m not here to show off my historical knowledge of the World Cup (for I am far lacking from many others in the world, even on this campus), nor to qualify the proper perspective from which to assess the aesthetics of the game (I don’t know what to call the various one-on-one moves ball-handlers like Ronaldinho and Zidane use to trick defenders to free up running and passing room). I only say I feel sorry because, being English major and an American, I’m a sucker for a good story and some drama that envelops me into its madness.For those of you who didn’t see Germany win the opening match of the World Cup 4-2 against Costa Rica, I’m sorry for you. For those of you who didn’t see France score their first World Cup goal in eight years, only to give up a goal with less than ten minutes left in the game to draw the Republic of South Korea last Sunday, I’m sorry for you. However, for those of you who missed the Ivory Coast team, a nation in the middle of a civil war, who matched two of the top five teams in the world stride for stride for ninety minutes a piece, only to lose by one goal on both occasions, clinching their elimination even before their third and final game was to be played, it is hard to understand just how sublime, terrifically horrifying that moment was.To see the desperation, the fatigue and the solemn dignity in defeat that could be known only in the hearts and the solitude that remained within after the finality of three lone, long blows of the whistle…it was a moment, not just in sports, but in the history of human suffering on Earth that remains unique. Both parties of the civil war, the rebels and the State of the Ivory Coast, had called a cease-fire before the World Cup began, both sides riding their hopes and dreams on the same twenty-three man roster. In most cases, an African nation could consider their team lucky to not be beaten to a bloody pulp by a European powerhouse, but for those who stood shocked, crushed…they seemed as far away from the Ivory Coast players as Germany is from their home country.You see, while the fans in the stands had tied themselves in knots over politics and the pure horror of it all, and others yelled to others about refereeing, strategic details and the minutiae of the game that could have eked the match in their teams favor, the Ivory Coast players gave their interviews to the press. Giving interviews similar to the ones they gave before the Cup started: disinterested in their meaning within the political structure, downplaying, or not catering at all, to the sound-byte inducing questions concerning the broader implications of their defeat. To the Ivory Coast, it was simple: the reason they lost was because they didn’t have enough experience. Bakary Kone, a star forward for the nation, stated that they lacked luck. To the players, it was a learning process, and they were already looking forward to the next time.But wait…what next time? Isn’t this what their country needed, for them to win on the biggest stage on Earth, to unify the peoples of their nation? What is this next time? Next time isn’t timely, or heroic…it’s too late!Hmm. Perhaps it is human nature to think that we, as a people, can unite behind a cause as simple as soccer to try and jumpstart a broken relationship. And no, I’m not saying that the Ivory Coasts’ players’ even-headed way of pushing aside their status as national symbols is any more correct than their fans’ passion, their desire to feel a sense of unity from a team that consists of players whose goal is to strike a stitched ball into a net. I don’t have a clue on what the nature of humanity is, other than our instincts to survive, procreate and feel accepted amongst the closest members of our group, and even then, how can you trust me? I can’t even do the loop/swoop and pull thing everyone else learned when they were three (I use the double bunny ear method).What I do know is that, even if it’s not the nature of humanity as a whole, it certainly is the nature of Americans to lose themselves in the middle of a good story. At an event where 32 countries compete against each other and there are expected to be over one billion (1/7th of the world’s population) watching the games on television, there’s going to be layers and layers of drama.And as I’ve shown you, it isn’t always with the action on the field. To me, the beauty of soccer, as a team sport, is unparalleled: the Ivory Coast is just one team, with one group of fans, with 23 players, nearly all of which are young, inexperienced and honestly, just happy to have made it now so they can learn for later. But what happens when you get older players with other motivations? Zidane, a legend in France, may have played his last game on Sunday after a highly disputed yellow card, as one of many examples.How about when history comes into play, like in Day 2 when Angola played Portugal? The nation of Angola garnered their independence from Portugal less than 35 years ago…think there wasn’t bad blood? Angola had to forfeit after receiving four red cards one of the two times they had played prior to their World Cup meeting (red cards are given for excessively rough fouls). Not to mention the United States, which, believe it or not, was the fifth-ranked team in the world coming into this World Cup? Honestly, all the other countries in the world get a kick from us too; mostly from our actors, our singers and our President are all over their newspapers (especially in Europe). Meanwhile, the fans’ storyline, our storyline for the World Cup has been monotonous. ‘U.S. Fans Apathetic Again’ doesn’t make for a catchy headline, especially when repeated year after year. Come on, don’t you want to be involved, don’t you want to be a part of something? Don’t you want to feel famous, even vicariously? Don’t you want to feel like you’re the star of your own reality show?Okay, I was patronizing you that time, but you see what I mean. There are real people feeling real emotion over this game and not just the beer-swilling anger that comes with watching the Cowboys lose 35-3 against the Washington Redskins as their playoff hopes are doused into embers (grumble grumble), but a passion, daresay? A love for the sport that, well, often goes beyond reason, and, indeed always, soars beyond the ball and the net. If you watch, you will find that every soccer game is unique; indeed, every soccer player, and every soccer team has their own unique style. The World Cup displays the unique qualities of athletes as athletes and as persons from nations with unique heritages, unique trials and sometimes seemingly otherworldly (ironically) physical and social environments. But even with these differences we see that common thread that allows us to understand that we, as members of the same species, share so much in common with each other. Sometimes, though, it takes seeing how far people from a representative group of eleven implement a 4-4-2 to be able to compare them with ourselves.Frank Loret de Mola can be reached at [email protected]