Tomorrow will be the first time I've been inside this notorious stadium.
The stadium's PR department explains why I'm going inside for the first time...
AT&T Stadium will host a World Cup watch party for Team USA’s Round of 16 match against Belgium on Tuesday, July 1, 2014. This will be a unique opportunity for all Team USA supporters to come together in one location to watch the biggest match of the year to date on the largest video board structure in the world.
Parking and admission are FREE, so fans of USA soccer can join together in the comfort of climate controlled AT&T Stadium, to cheer on their team together. What better way to experience the thrill of World Cup soccer, an opportunity that comes just once every four years.
The match starts at 3:00 pm. Doors to AT&T Stadium will open at 1:30 pm and parking lots will open at 12:30 pm. Fans can enter the stadium through Entry A, C, H and K.
The current AT&T Stadium bag policy will be in effect for this event. No large bags or purses will be allowed into the stadium. Only small, single-compartment clutch purses are permitted.
Where am I going to find myself a single-compartment clutch purse by tomorrow? And what would I put in it?
I think I've mentioned before that I find it bewildering that watching soccer games is so popular with so many. To my limited imagination the World Cup seems to be an awful lot of ado about very little to get in much of an ado mode over.
Others beg to differ on my soccer-perplexed point of view. Others, like Mr. Galtex, who waxed poetically about the wonders of World Cup Futbol in a blogging he wrote back during the 2010 version of the World Cup titled Dance for Space.
The regularly provocative Ann Coulter, she of right-wing nut commentator fame, wrote a column about soccer and the World Cup recently which many found to be aggravating, but I found to be mostly amusing, and a bit appalling, what with finding myself sort of in agreement with a few of the things Ann Coulter opined about soccer.
The AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER title of Ann Coulter's soccer column pretty much sets the tone for the rest of what she had to say.
I will glean a few of the Ann Coulter hating soccer gems....
I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.
I'm impressed Ms. Coulter was able to hold off for a decade sharing her thoughts about soccer.
Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep.
I don't quite get the MVP point in the above paragraph, but I find myself in agreeance with the second and third sentence.
Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.
Okay, the above Coulter assertion seems a bit rude, but also sort of has a grain of truth to it.
No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.
I've long said if soccer got rid of having a goalie the game would become much more entertaining. Along with having basketball game-like scores.
The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.
Well, if Lady Thatcher really said that, well that's sort of amusing.
Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.
What is wrong with me that I'm finding this Coulter lady to be funny?
You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them!
The above, in addition to the no timeouts, and the low to no scoring, is what I've always found oddest about soccer.
Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine.
The metric system emerged from the French Revolution? This I did not know. Or forgot that I knew.
Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared.
I thought that Beckham guy got paid a few hundred million dollars to play soccer on some California team, so someone must have cared. Or been very foolish with their money.
I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.
I really think Ms. Coulter may have erred with her above assertion. Mr. Galtex is an American. I'm almost 100% certain the great-grandfather of Mr. Galtex was born in America, likely in the Texas part of America. And Mr. Galtex seems to be totally addicted to watching soccer, I mean, futbol.......
