Everything You Need To Know To Talk About The World Cup

Ok, so you don’t know or care about soccer, and it’s just occurred to you that the next month might just be the most tedious month of your life – unless you either get new friends, or figure out how to bluff your way through an endless fog of World Cup talk. Well, we at Junkee feel your pain, and presuming that you’ve chosen the latter option, we’d love to help you through the soccer — or fudbol — banter.

Banter, or bantz, is a tightly codified activity, and one must understand the code. The first step is to figure out what sort of soccer nut you’re dealing with. There are three major varieties: The Essentialist, The Name-Dropper and The Tactics Wonk, and you’ll need to tailor your approach depending on who you’re trapped in an elevator with.

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When Talking To The Essentialist:

The Essentialist prefers broad, sweeping brushstrokes, and he (or she, but probably a he) doesn’t converse so much as impart their vast, formless knowledge. He (or she) might be a Young Liberal. To survive this barrage of smarmy knowingness, you could probably just nod and smile, but you could do better still by getting to know your stereotypes, like the following:

Jogo Bonito: This term probably translates to joy-good, or something. It’s the popular idea that the uninhibited joyousness of the Brazilian psyche leads to a joyous, uninhibited brand of soccer – it’s also known as samba football. It’s one very small step from the trusty “they’re dirt poor, but they’re so happy” trope, but that doesn’t stop it getting a mention at least every four minutes by commentators, fellow patrons and your pet newt.

Plucky Africans: African teams get similar treatment to the Brazilians, but without the expectation of success. So joyous! So naïve and uninhibited, so plucky! Never mind that the Ivory Coast has one of the most experienced and professional sides in the tournament. (NB Algeria doesn’t get this treatment: proper African Africans only, tks.)

Those diligent Asians: It’s pretty offensive to assert that Asian societies are characterised by the deference and the work ethic of their citizenry. Luckily though, it’s still fine to sublimate those same notions into descriptions of the national teams of Japan and South Korea. Technically sound! Hard-working! Unimaginative!

Oh, and Italians cheat, Argentinians are dirty, Germans are robots, the French tear themselves apart, and England always go out in a penalty shootout, usually in the quarter-finals. These clichés are tired, mean, and generally untrue, but they’ll get you through.

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When Talking To The Name-Dropper:

Name-Droppers probably know as little as Essentialists, but they hide behind personalities, rather than national identities. The aggregated utterances of the names Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez, Rooney and Balotelli will probably destroy the ozone layer over the next month, so if you wanted to, you could probably just scrape by with the odd “Balotelli…unbelievable!” (could mean anything) and a cheeky “Messi (shakes head and puffs out cheeks), right?” (ditto).

If you really want to blow a Name-Dropper’s mind (and I understand if you don’t), though, you’ll have to pull out some real nuggets.

If the subject of the Spanish team comes up, express shock that Isco couldn’t get a spot on the plane: “They could do with his guile/versatility/audacity/liquidity/viscosity/oozing qualities,” you’ll say. When England are playing, wonder aloud whether Luke Shaw’s time has come (check if he’s playing first, though). Coo about Japan’s Keisuke Honda (bleached hair, can’t miss him) and his ability to ‘make the ball talk’. If it’s Argentina, just mutter darkly about ‘Carlito’.

What does all that mean? I don’t know. No-one knows! Most impressive.

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When Talking To The Tactics Wonk:

The Tactics Wonk probably knows a lot more than the other taxonomies herein discussed, but is forever stalked by the fear that they don’t know enough. The Tactics Wonk masks this fear by rendering simple aspects of the game utterly incomprehensible. Fast players ‘stretch the game’; full-backs never run forward, they ‘overlap’; a left-footer on the right wing is ‘inverted’; an attacking midfielder is a ‘playmaker’, but he might also be a ‘classic 10’; a defensive midfielder could be an ‘volante’, or they could be a ‘quarterback’, or even an exponent of the ‘Makelele role’.

Claude Makelele (blue), demonstrating the ‘Makelele role’.

If you want to hold your own with a clown of this type, all you need to do is to go hard, and go obscure. Just remember that no-one really knows what a ‘false nine’ or a ‘libero’ is/does, so you can never be caught out. The Tactics Wonk absolutely fetishises arcane knowledge, so you could just make a bunch of stuff up, and they’ll be too scared of looking like a dill to call you out on it. This, of course, makes them look like a dill, but never mind.

Try this:

There’s no point playing a false nine if there are no water carriers willing to stretch the game by breaking beyond the double pivot.

Feel that? Instant respect.

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Now, all of this will get you in with soccer aficionados and bluffers alike, but at some point it’s worth asking yourself: do I really want to impress these vainglorious chumps? Now, if the answer is no, I completely understand. But please don’t give up on the World Cup. Sure, Fifa may be corrupt, and the evidence of unsafe and exploitative practices on construction projects is mounting. Sure, it’s pretty dubious that Brazil will gladly take on the stupendous cost of hosting the tournament despite the desperate need to address the dire living conditions of a huge segment of its population, but…

Ok, well I’d understand if you didn’t want to get involved. Except colour! Movement! Instances of unbelievable skill and drama! The unmistakable euphoria of being part of something that matters to a scarcely conceivable amount of people! The thrill of focussing your energy on the same point that millions of other people are also focussing their energy on! I know it sounds kinda arbitrary, but these are the events for which your epoch will be remembered, so you might as well own it.

If you’re still not convinced, you could just do what the majority of fans do, and chuckle at some of the ghastly haircuts (check out the gallery below), shout a lot, and perve on all the babes — the babes on the pitch, the babes in the crowd, or a mixture of both, according to personal preference.

Whatever you do, though, make sure you have earwax handy: Pitbull might strike at any moment.

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