Why I’m Rooting Against South Korea in the World Cup
The World Cup may have already kicked off with host country Qatar falling to Ecuador. But for me, the tournament only starts when Group H action begins, at which point I will be rooting against South Korea.
Why direct the full force of one’s psychic hex at a team representing a nation with a passing grade in the human rights department during the World Cup, an event that’s meant to promote a global citizenry and goodwill towards all? Especially when the team is not your nation’s group?
Gambling is the only justifiable reason.
This is coming from someone who believes that the quickest way to ruin the very fine pastime of watching sports is to place a wager. Sure, it adds a jolt of adrenaline to the last-place teams middling it out on the field. Suddenly, every bounce of the ball is weighted, the organized chaos of people you’ve never met and never will meet is meaningful.
Just like when you watch your own team, it’s back to being about you. Will you take the money of ill-informed chumps? Or will poor you be the latest victim of bad luck or rigged officiating?
Win or lose, what betting takes from you is more than just financial currency. For as long as your money is on the line, you’ve lost your seat at the sports bar of the human collective. You become blind to the drama, always waiting like a heavy hitter on deck. Just like the way something existentially real can emerge from the pages of a genre book. Just like how a transcendent scene, simple as falling leaves, can descend upon you amid the routine. In each case, you have to be open to it. Gambling closes that door.
In the everyday game, it forces you to betray your human instinct to root for the underdog. Or the one with the jerseys you like. Or the one with the that one player you admire. The boring, lackadaisical yet still pleasurable sports viewing that resets your dopamine levels. The Daoism of spectating.
Then, there are the times when it can rob you of something truly special.
Imagine waving Carlton Fisk’s ball the opposite direction or cursing as Kirk Gibson limped around the bases? Or flipping a table when Boise State completed the Hook and Ladder? Or punching a hole in the wall when the Vikings walked off in Minneapolis? All because you had money on the game.
But I’m also cheap. My biggest buy-in for fantasy sports or Texas Hold ’Em was $50 and that was in the recklessness of my youth. Now, I only get a piece of the action if it’s a pool at work. Buy a square for the Super Bowl or fill out a March Madness bracket — both formats that require more luck than betting expertise. And both no more than $10 with the long shot of winning up to $200.
It reminds me of the time my friend Dylan and I picked up another friend from JFK and Dylan convinced us to swing by the racehorses at the Aqueduct on the way home. The oversized parking lot was reminiscent of a casino. Inside, 40- to 70-year-old men in Marshall’s sweatsuits or baggy business suits made calls on their phones and paced in a room with the atmosphere of a bus terminal. On this fine day, most of them looked up at tiny square television screens, while the horse races they bet on took place across the reinforced glass windows. (This is the hell your soul goes to when you bet seriously, by the way).
The three of us joined the good people spectating from the seats. One of them was walking up and down the stadium stairs looking for cigarette butts that, apparently, had not been fully smoked. We held our paper cards and watched as our horses let us down. But our spirits were high — we’d had a good time. It gave us something to talk about.
That is the beauty of the work pool: fodder for water cooler talk and a reason to watch a sporting event you might not have any real interest in.
We, Americans, have to hope our team makes it out of the Group stage. After that, the question is not if we’ll win it all but how far we’ll get. Those who are lucky enough to have a soccer-proficient ethnicity have two horses in the race.
The drawback of the work pool is that format randomizes the nature of your bet, probably to avoid any claims of ‘gambling in the workplace.’ In this case, the World Cup teams were arbitrarily assigned to every participant.
I got South Korea.
Wouldn’t I root for the team I received? Or at the very least, not root against them? Unfortunately for South Korea, the bylaws of this pool also include an extra finishing category. Aside from first place and second place, there is also a $10 prize for placing last in your group.
Getting my entry fee back might not convince you to join me in rooting against South Korea, so I’ve researched this quick Hater’s Guide to South Korea’s National Team.
1. They have an extra name. They call themselves the Taegeuk Warriors. Superfluous if you ask me.
2. They’re basically a juggernaut. Outside Europe and South America, South Korea is the first country to qualify for the World Cup in ten straight tournaments. That feat puts them in the company of other elites: Brazil, Germany, Spain…and Australia.
3. They’re led by a Goliath. South Korea’s star striker is Son Heung-Min, one of the world’s best soccer players at the moment. He was the Premier League’s top scorer last year for Tottenham. Don’t let his boyish good looks or the fact that he’s been described as “one of the most likable footballers in the league” stop you from hating the Warriors. Then there’s the fact that after a brutal collision that left him with a broken eye socket, Son Heung-Min has healed just enough, just in time to risk his own personal safety to rejoin the squad.
And wearing a bad-ass mask. And maybe dating a K-pop star. Ready to lead his team to glory—
Screw it, let’s go Warriors.
