Here’s a real treat: a guest post by Coach Chris Hall. He’s enjoying the ultimate Father’s Day with his young son at World Cup 2010 in South Africa! Be sure to check out his blog, “A Coaching Life”, too.
It’s World Cup time and I write you from the frigid reaches of . . . South Africa? That’s right, it’s freezing here, literally (minus one Celsius as we sat in Ellis Park for Brazil v. North Korea). But JennyLee didn’t ask me to post a weather report, so where were we . . . ?
That’s right, how to watch the World Cup with your kid. I was lucky enough this year to take my son with me halfway round the world to see it in person, but what I’m learning will apply just as well if you and yours are catching the games on television. Here’s my tips in no particular order.
1) Have a rooting interest!!!
This is the most important thing to get your kids excited. No one wants to watch a game with an uninterested party. “I just want to see a good game” is an awful thing to say to a kid. Especially mine. If I don’t care, he doesn’t care. As I jumped up out of my seat with Brazil’s first goal against Ivory Coast the other night, he jumped just as high with his hands pumping into the air in excitement. I desperately wanted Brazil to win and so did he. Your enthusiasm is contagious.
2) Kids will not generally watch every second of a match. Learn to love that.
You can beg, plead, cajole, threaten, but if your child is anything like mine he will spend plenty of match time looking at Ronaldo lookalikes in ostrich costumes (seen at 2 matches so far) or girls from Wisconsin dressed as the Statue of Liberty (seen at U.S. v. Slovenia) or whatever shiny thing you have in your living room, AND MISSING THE GAME!!! It’s no big deal. Let them play with their Pokemon cards in front of the couch while you watch the match. They’ll look up to catch the replay if something good happens that gets you shouting and celebrating.
3) Get them a costume and some noisemakers.
My son has worn a Brazil-colored mohawk wig through half of South Africa. That goes for match days and rest days. He’s blowing his vuvuzuela like he was raised doing it. I can’t get it to make a sound. When he uses it, the thing sounds like an elephant. Add to that the soccer-themed construction hat (I’ve forgotten what South Africans call them), the whistles, the flag caps, the face paint and you’ve got an environment that seems created by small children. “Son, do you want to go watch soccer?” “Eh, I don’t know.” Compared that to, “Son, do you want to dress funny and go make a ton of noise”, “Of course, when do we leave.”
4) Teach them the songs.
Every team worth its jersey has supporter songs. That goes for clubs and national teams. If you support a team, you should know them. So should your kids. We support Barcelona, Brazil, and the USA in roughly that order. So we know the Barca anthem (in Catalan because otherwise you’re the only one there singing in English), the Vivao Brasil chant, and that Ole Ole tune that US supporters like so much. Kids like to yell and football songs are a perfect excuse to do it in public with like-minded individuals. Luis Fabiano scored twice last night and my son was jumping up and down in the middle of thousands of other folks chanting “Luis Faaaaa-biano, Luis Faaaaa-biano, Luis Faaaa-biano.” I’d bet it was his favorite part. Especially since he was still humming it this morning.
5) Write the scoring system down.
I don’t know how I learned the point system used in soccer tournaments. But I know it. Trying to convey that to my 9-year-old is not working out so well. Finally I resorted to writing down each group and drawing the brackets for the knock-out rounds. We roughly had it down. But now every South African is talking about goal differential and that’s started us down the road of how the World Cup breaks ties. I’m hoping to have it all sorted out for him by 2014, but writing the basics down helped a ton.
6) Have fun around the game.
We had a great time watching Brazil v. Ivory Coast last night. But if there hadn’t been a game involved we still would have had fun. We posed for funny pictures in front of Soccer City, we ate pies filled with Pepper Steak and Vegetable Curry (this after learning that pie doesn’t always mean sweets just a couple days earlier), we tried to walk behind every TV reporter who was doing a live shot. We just had a good time. You can do the same in your living room. If the game is on, make it special. Buy their favorite snack, get out their favorite beverage and a couple shot glasses and take an apple juice shot every time one of the British announcers says a shot was “ambitious.” Throw out all your inhibition and make it an event. They’ll love it whether your team wins, losses, or draws.
