Losing Sleep Over Football Fever

A soccer fan I know recently turned down a date because he had to go watch the World Cup. "You are the only man," another friend commented, "who has ever chosen soccer over sex."

"No way," my friend replied. "I'm the only American man who has ever chosen soccer over sex. The rest of the world does it all the time."

Last Saturday night, a record-breaking 1.5 billion people, about one in four of the planet's population, chose the final match of this year's World Cup over all else -- over sex, over sleep. And for those of us rooting for Brazil, especially those of us lucky enough to be anywhere near a group of Brazilians with drums and flags, it paid off in spades. Brazil beat Germany 2-0, in a trademark display of Brazil's jogo bonito, the beautiful game. Around the world, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians poured into the streets to celebrate. Now, we dedicated few in the U.S. can breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, we can get some shut-eye.

While the World Cup did well this year, in the States -- ESPN2 had its largest soccer audience ever -- American soccer fans still represent only a sliver of the audience that the Superbowl draws. The mania hasn't quite infected the U.S. mainstream yet. But the nutty kickoff times for the World Cup matches this year highlighted how when the symptoms take hold, they come on strong.

For U.S. fans this year, sleep deprivation was a bonding thing. U.S.A. Today called U.S. fans "scarce, but fervent."

ESPN watched its ratings for World Cup time slots double, which is significant not numerically but as a measure of dedication: those slots landed at 2:30am and 4:30am on the West Coast, others were a barely more civilized 2:30am and 7:30am on the East Coast. Coca-Cola ran an ad in which three guys scramble out of bed in the pitch dark, splash water on their faces and pull on soccer jerseys. The camera pans out to show them sitting around their TV clapping, behind the only lit window in the entire apartment building.

For soccer fans, the bags under our eyes became coffee cooler conversation, a badge to be worn with pride this Cup. "Senegal-Turkey?" "Yeah."

For some, the need for extra caffeine at the office added a bit of European cachet. Emma Taylor, a British soccer fan in New York said, "It kind of seems cooler than being into an American sport. You're an early adopter."

But for most of us, it was more than that. World Cup 2002 offered a particularly rich set of Cinderella stories, starting with African newcomers Senegal beating former European champion France. "I think as soon as I saw Senegal beat France, if there was any question that I was going to watch every game, it went out the window," said one fan. The Brazilian team started out under a cloud of pessimism and scandal, and went on to turn its star Ronaldo into a national symbol of recovery and hope. South Korea turned their coach into a national hero by making it to the semi-finals. Amidst all this, the U.S. team's unexpected trip to the quarterfinals was gravy.

Football fever is so pervasive, so fanatic, so passionate everywhere else, that once you're around it for a while, it rubs off. "I'm surrounded by internationals, people who really care," said Katie Hisert, a New York World Cup fan and graduate student at Rockefeller University, where a significant portion of the student body is international. "I didn't want to hear people talking about how great a game it was afterwards, so I couldn't miss any. It is like an addiction. I don't know why I got up to watch Turkey vs. Brazil. I was lying in bed, thinking, I could just get some sleep. But then, I was like, NO. I have to watch the game."

That unwillingness to merely videotape the game, no matter the cost to your health, became the sign of true infection here in the States. Other symptoms included: extra cups of coffee, yawning and general grumpiness. "I walked into a door," said Hisert.