By: Emily Duvall

Opinion Editor

Even as a semi-retired soccer player, I am quite excited about this year’s FIFA World Cup. The thing that is so beautiful about the World Cup when it rolls around is the chatter that occurs both on social media and in public places. Now, this chatter comes from all different kinds of people. It’s coming from 12-year-old kids who are convinced that they’re the next Ronaldo, the people who only watch soccer once every four years, the people making thirst traps of the players, and the rest, well, you can decide who the rest are. Needless to say, I find copious amounts of giggles in the chatter that I am hearing, especially when I didn’t know it was coming up this year myself. 

Personally, the most amusing thing about World Cup chatter is the content all over TikTok. Now, this is not just a few clips of goals here and there. I am talking about the edits of all the players and people fully dying over them. It is just so funny to me that I will be watching a livestream of a game one second, then in the next second, there’s already a thirst trap for one of the players in the game on my For You Page.

 It is extra amusing hearing what people have to say about the games taking place when I could tell you for a fact that they have never seen a soccer ball IRL. For example, when a goalie doesn’t save a shot, sometimes people who are rooting for the goalie’s team will say, “COME ON!!!! THAT WAS EASY!” Might I just say I doubt that was easy! I would absolutely love to see some of these people try to save the shots from some of the best players in the world. Or, some of these people have some lovely suggestions on how to improve the game of soccer as a whole. One of my favorites was, “We should just get rid of offsides!” Now, this is a take you do not hear often. As a semi-retired goalie, my body shivered at the thought of this. I was at a loss for words. But, nevertheless, it was still quite funny imagining what the game would be like without the silly rule of offsides.

Aside from hearing the fun talk that accompanies the World Cup, it is fun how, in practically every class in the morning, there’s at least one kid sneakily trying to watch a game. Some teachers get upset, but others just really want to know what the score is, which I also find humorous. As the World Cup continues, I really hope to continue getting good content from not just the players, but also the people watching.