The Jersey City Independent "

An ongoing series on how Jersey City soccer fans — and those who aren’t — watch the games.

Unlike its namesake, there was a distinct lack of explosiveness in the deflation of Zeppelin Hall’s U.S. soccer fans Saturday afternoon. The de-massing of the German-style beer hall– in single-file, or in small clumps of friends, silent or angry or still in denial– took the air out of the room and the national team’s fans with them. Some strange twist on a personification of a Don DeLillo story — Pafko at the Wall updated for the 21st century, perhaps to be titled Twice the Black Star, out of respect for the small African nation of almost 24 million knocking the U.S. out of two World Cups in a row (the Ghana national team’s self-applied nickname is “the Black Stars”). Baseball’s history, the typically storied-American pastime, remains hindered for many by the performance-enhancing-drug controversy, and for the time being the World Baseball Classic is anything but. The Olympic basketball team, meanwhile, has its followers, but it’s generally assumed, fairly or not, that while we still have the best talent, many players would rather focus on their NBA teams.

So it is significant when Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast striker who is also the leading goalscorer for the current English Premier League champions, Chelsea, says: “To be able to play against Brazil and Portugal, two of the best countries in the world, is like a dream for our country. We were unlucky but at the same time really happy to have played those nations.” Not to mention, of course, that he played in the World Cup despite a fractured arm injury incurred shortly before the start of the tournament.

Words to think about for the 1,500 or so disappointed loyal soccer fans during their slow exit of the Zeppelin Hall. The fans and friends of fans, or World Cup-hangers on, or people looking for another mid-afternoon drinking excuse, non-jingoistic patriotism via sports on display. Liter-mugs of beer emptied, they made their way out of the stunned-silent Hall and into the overcast afternoon, headed back home or to the PATH train or light rail, or anywhere else really.

By now, for most of us the U.S. squad’s exit from the World Cup could be plotted (seriously or otherwise) along the Kübler-Ross model for the five stages of grief. There was stage 1, “Denial,” at Asamoah Gyan’s 92nd minute goal for Ghana at the start of Extra Time, when the U.S. started to look flat again after the frenetic push at the end of the second half of regular time. The team finally came together in that half to realize in fact they did know how to play soccer, and for a moment — but just a moment — believed they could score another goal and prevent extra time.

Stage 2′s “Anger” could be found later on in the arguments overheard after the match, or as one fan asked loudly and to no one in particular upon exiting the building, “Hey Ghana, what’s your GDP again?” Inappropriately offensive, but no one said anger was reasonable, or just, or truly reflective of the person emoting.

Next was Stage 3, “Bargaining,” which I noticed in one fan’s vain pleading. “If only those disallowed goals in the other games had counted …” But what exactly do those games in the group stages have to do with this one?

Stage 4, “Depression,” and Stage 5, “Acceptance,” I can attest to more personally.

Dealing With Sports-Related Depression

Or, how two friends, unable or unwilling to cope responsibly with sporting despair — citing another wasted year for the Knicks (and a pending free-agency that seems filled with potential for disappointment), not to mention a Mets team that seems likely to pull their team together only to once again collapse as the season winds down — end up at an Atlantic City craps table at 3:30 am, 10 hours after the United States exited the World Cup.

The Showboat’s tagline is “Where Bourbon Street meets the Boardwalk,” but the long walk through the back entrance to the casino is reminiscent more of the HBO show Treme than the Mardi Gras they have in mind. The hallway benches are crowded with sleeping gamblers waiting in front of mostly long closed bus terminals for a ride that’s already left or apparently isn’t arriving for hours. The small restaurant at the end of the hall is still serving hot sandwiches, though predominantly to casino employees, as the gamblers on the floor look too preoccupied to be hungry and those huddled in the benches in front of the bus stalls don’t appear awake enough to eat.

A group at an almost full blackjack table start a half-hearted “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chant, which sends the dealer into fits of laughter. Appropriately, someone at the table is wearing a Danilo Gallinari jersey, he of New York Knicks fame and the 6th overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft — considered by many the wrong choice at the time of the draft, which was only reinforced by a rookie year plagued by back trouble and lack of playing time. Yet another fan of depressing teams looking for a distraction. The chant starts again but doesn’t have the same enthusiasm and fizzles quickly.

Across from the blackjack table, past the pit of security, money and chips, yet another round of spontaneous applause breaks out at a half-filled craps table. A man with the biggest stack of chips here knows by name the boxman, the supervisor of the table, and the nearer base dealer, the woman overlooking her half of the table. The man is moving fast, throwing chips and calling out numbers for his side bets, and calculating his winnings faster than the people running the table. When he bets heavy others bet heavy with him, and when he loses, which of course he does, there isn’t the same feeling that he was at fault as when someone else does. A woman comes around taking drink orders, and is told to come back with seven whiskey-cokes and a bud.

This, we agree, is where we will drown our sorrows — over a dice game we only half understand, with players out of our league financially, because there’s four more years till the next World Cup and we don’t want to be awake for the next day’s 10 am Germany-England game (which Germany has since won 4-1, though there was yet another botched ref call on a missed goal for the English side). We’ll be back to watching the games soon enough, but for a few hours we can do without soccer. Is this a sign of immature soccer fans or is this typical of how the supposedly more knowledgeable European fans look at it? While at LITM for the USA-Algeria game, bartender Shane Smith (again, disclosure time — he is also one of the founders of this publication) mentioned that he had French couch surfers at his apartment for a few days. When he asked them if they were following the World Cup they said, “Not anymore,” which he impersonates with a better than passing fair French accent. France’s early and embarrassing exit was apparently too much for them.

We are, if not in good company, than at least in like-minded company — and at this point in Stage 5. Which is why I make a point, on the drive home at 6:30am, to be awake for the Argentina-Mexico game.

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