While listening to “As It Happens” (from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation) the other night, I caught a short blurb about the World Cup that starts tomorrow in Nantes, France. That’s the Foosball World Cup, if the picture above didn’t give you a hint…
The blurb I heard on the radio indicated that Canada would be sending seven players to this year’s Foosball World Cup. So being a proud citizen of the USA, I looked up our country’s roster on the United States Table Soccer Federation website, but alas their website doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2010.
However, the world-wide governing body’s website does have information about the event, including live streaming of matches. Here’s the link to the English homepage. And it was here I found the USA roster:
Coach:
Captain:
List of players
Tony SPREDEMAN
Billy PAPPAS
Ryan MOORE
Robert MARES
Dan BARBER
Rick MACIAS
Tom YORE
Bruce NARDOCI
Yes, that is correct. The USA does not have a coach or captain. Tony Spredeman is currently ranked as the #2 individual player in the world, trailing German player Jamal Allalou by only four points. Jessica Stepp is the highest ranked American woman player at #10 overall.
So if you’re looking for something to watch on your computer tomorrow during lunch/afternoon, point your browser over to the World Cup Site and watch yourself some “baby-foot”
This reminds me of the Community episode this season where Nick Kroll guest starred as a douchey, snobbish German foosball king and Jeff & Shirley discovered that their childhood traumas that shaped their character were linked to a fatefull game of foosball as grade-schoolers. God I miss that show. Thanks for highlighting this Kevin.
On a tangent: Not to be whiney, since I’m not a content creator and my own attempt at a blog lasted all of 1 week, but I am deeply saddened by the content dropoff over the past several months. It seems this site has become Thursday Challenge and weekend Liverpool rants and not much else. Certainly sites have a life cycle, and given that real people are behind the posts, it would be churlish of me to throw a fit and demand to be entertained. But I am sad because this site was one of my first and favorite links to the nationwide soccer commentariat and was responsible for fanning the flames of my fanhood to new heights, exciting me about MLS, & giving me a deeper understanding of the game. I remain deeply thankful for the work of all the folks who provided it while it lasted, and I simply express a wistful desire that the site was still producing content at its former frequency. Cheers & a happy 2012 to you all.
Thank you – I wish I could have said all that.