2010 World Cup Fix

This is it.  Your last chance to come down with World Cup Fever until 2014.  Just watching these matches is a better scene than being at some live sporting events.  While in Paris recently, I took in a two matches at the FIFA Fan Fest in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.  AMAZING.  In Barcelona, I watched a few at a beach side bistro, one in a tapas bar and one from the rooftop of a Gothic Quarter hotel.  All experiences of a lifetime.

There are a few places in Dallas that can give you that real European soccer experience.  I traipsed all over North Texas and found two fabulous options.  Whether you're rooting for Spain to win its first World Cup or hoping that for the Netherlands the third time is the the charm, these places will almost transport you across the pond.

2010 World Cup Watching Party Observations | Paris

Fans at the World Cup Watching Party at the Eiffel Tower

I was getting coffee Tuesday morning and overheard two men talking about the World Cup.  Soccer was "about to explode" in the US according to these grande drip drinkers.  Many of my friends who had know clue who Messi or Miroslav Klose were a month ago can now tell you why Argentina failed and why Germany is such a dominant team.   The World Cup definitely has the US thinking, talking and tweeting soccer like mad.

Didn't we hear this during last World Cup?  I know I did when the World Cup was actually in the United States in 1994.  Six matches were played in the Cotton Bowl.  The great David Beckham walked through our fair town.  None of that, though, translated into a soccer boom.  Sure there might have been some growth but not the exponential kind officials and diehards had hoped.

How long has soccer been the favorite sport of young kids?  At least for a good twenty years.  It hasn't translated into a booming soccer fanbase in the US.  There are packed youth soccer fields across North Texas every Saturday morning with soccer moms and dads as boisterous and passionate as any drunken Philadelphia Eagles fan I've ever seen.  Yet, I've covered plenty MLS soccer games and there are empty seats galore.

The US is trying hard to host the 2018 World Cup.  I've heard from numerous sources that Cowboys Stadium is lobbying hard to host some of the matches.  No doubt that if there is a World Cup back in the States in eight years, it will be a World Cup on steroids.  A very American-sized, McMansion version of the world's favorite sporting event.  HD television and national tv contracts will help but if the World Cup does return, like those McMansions, I think it will be just a temporary boom.