Football - Not Soccer

You cannot work in India and not know cricket. Everyone talks about it and you would feel left out if you do not have any interest in the game. A similar scenario prevails in the US with respect to American football. For a starter it is only Football and not American football anymore. The Football that we used to know in India and the rest of the world is Soccer here. Since I came to the US with the decision of not staying here for more than a year and since I was too lazy to start following a new sport, I was oblivious to football, NBA and baseball. The other 2 are fine, but not knowing football seems to be considered equal to blasphemy here. Good mornings are followed by discussions on the game and team lunches are filled with football opinions. Forget the Americans, even desi lunch and dinner chats center around football. I was still stubborn not to follow the sport but then the local team here, The Minnesota Vikings, started performing well during early December and the discussions in office became even more frequent. So I started learning the basics of the game and watched few minutes of some games.

As fate had it, the Vikings crashed out of the tournament as soon as I built some interest around the sport. Not that I am big fan of the team, I hardly know any player. It is just that the talks in office have reduced and following a sport is always easy when you support and follow a team. But let us see. With this new found interest I might follow the play-offs and determine a favorite for next year’s season.