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World Cup 2006 & Where to Catch it in NYC

Today’s the first day of 2006 World Cup Tournament! Are you excited? The answer is probably “no” - soccer has never been a popular sport in the US. Things may be changing, though. Over the past decade, the sport’s built up a small (but devoted)American following - to the point where “soccer mom” has become a cliché. In New York, the World Cup’s a bigger deal than the rest of the country. This is a town with a high immigrant population, and they bring their love of the world’s most popular athletic tournament with them. Bars and small clubs in all 5 boros are having “football nights.”

For example, Brendan’s Bar and Grill will be showing every World Cup match on five big screens. It’s free and it’s next to the Manhattan Comfort Inn, so you can get loaded, cheer for your team and crash at a hotel instead of trying to get home wasted. The Manchester Pub in Midtown East will be doing the same, along with Fiddlesticks Pub and Restaurant in Greenwich Village. If you’re looking to hang out, drink and feast with hardcore soccer fans, we recommend hitting Mr. Dennehy’s in lower Manhattan, a few blocks over from Union Square. In the East Village, Standings Bar is having World Cup nights with FREE pizza and buffalo wings. If you prefer something more formal and upscale, you can try catching the games at Midtown’s classy Opia Restaurant. Or maybe you prefer the loud, boisterous, high-fiving atmosphere of sports bars — if so, then you might prefer catching the games at Perdition, in Hell’s Kitchen.

This particular World Cup should be good for non-fans, too — it’s the first one where the US team actually has a shot at winning. American defenseman Oguchi Onyewu (”Gooch” to his teammates & fans) has caused a stir in the sport. At 6′4″ and 210 lbs. he’s one of the biggest players in the game. Onyewu’s size and all-around talent for passing & saves make him one of the most feared players in the game. His presence as a defender, combined with a generally strong team this year, means America might earn its first World Cup trophy. But let’s not get our hopes up — the US team’s first game is against the Czech Republic, which has one the deadliest forwards in soccer: 6′7″ Jan Koller. Our guys may get knocked out in the very first round, but if nothing else the action between two skilled giants like Onyewu and Koller will be exciting.

For those of you that have no clue about the World Cup, here’s a quick breakdown on how it works:

World Cups happen every four years, hosted by a different country every time. (This one’s in Germany.) The tournament’s a month long and each team represents their home country. To earn a spot in the Cup, each national team has to win a series of qualifying rounds. After the qualifiers are done, 32 teams make it in. These 32 are broken into four “Pots” of 8 teams each, plus a “Special Pot” that holds a wild card team. Pots compete against each other after being broken into eight “Groups,” A through H. One team from each Pot goes into a Group. The Groups have 4 teams who compete against each other; the winners move on, the losers go home.

Let’s use Germany as an example. They’re in Pot A, and they face Costa Rica today. Also playing today are the other two Group A teams: Poland and Ecuador. The winners of today’s Germany v. Costa Rica and Poland v. Ecuador will face each other in the next round. Whoever wins the next round faces the winners from other groups in quarter-final and semi-final rounds. Wikipedia has a good visual guide to the system HERE.

The US team is in Group E, and has a shot at beating the other Group E teams — even the tough, high-ranked Czechs they’re facing in the first round. If they win the Group, they’ll face the runners up from Group F. The US is going to have to win the group in order to avoid Brazil, a team that’s bad news for anyone. Brazil has the best national team in the world, and they’ve got an unheard-of FIVE World Cup trophies to prove it. But the US team is strong enough that you can’t count them out completely - and America has been known to upset in the past. If the US team manages to win the Group matches, AND beat Brazil, it would be the upset of the century. It would also show the world that “football” has finally arrived in the US. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Edit - Now that it’s all said and done, be sure and check out our final World Cup recap HERE!