Suckers for soccer

I was in a dinner meeting with a Singaporean investment banker earlier this evening. During the meal, the topic of conversation somehow veered from bonds and currencies to the upcoming FIFA World Cup. The guy mentioned that, historically, stock markets worldwide tend to dip a bit during the quadrennial World Cup.

I laughed. But the guy was serious lah. Stockbrokers and just about everyone else will be too busy watching the football games to pay full attention to trading, he said.

I doubt that the Philippine stock market will be affected much though. Football (as in soccer, not that strange American game with fat people wearing helmets) is of course the most popular sport in the world. But here in the Philippines, almost no one gives a crap about football. Most of us prefer basketball instead. I know I do.

I like basketball. Basketball is fast. Basketball is exciting. I like the Phoenix Suns not because I am a fan of any of the players on that team, but because they regularly score 120 points a game. Their fast and entertaining style keeps me from drifting off to sleep while watching their games live at 8 in the morning. When I see teams like the Spurs or the Pistons score just 70 or 80 points, I fall asleep, wake up, yawn, complain, and fall asleep again.

It's not hard to see why I find football utterly unwatchable. A game takes 90 minutes, and the final score is usually what, 2-1? Snore.

Local sports afficionados like to say that Filipinos should be playing less basketball and more football. What they're saying makes perfect sense. Basketball favors tall people, and on the average, we Filipinos aren't very tall. We need a game that rewards skill, quickness, and conditioning. We should be all be playing football! Yeah!

But they'll have to make it less boring first. Good luck with that.