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3rdgensooner
7/18/2011, 11:45 AM
American Football in the Alps (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2011/07/american-football-in-europe.html#ixzz1STYwppUs)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/cham-american-football.jpg


And if, on Tuesday afternoon, you happened to be flipping past Eurosport 2 or scouring various dark corners of the Internet, there was yet another, stranger European sight: a game of football, the helmeted kind, being played in an Alps-surrounded stadium in Innsbruck, Austria. It looked like our game of football, but was it? The quarters were twelve minutes long and the referees spoke in accents unfamiliar to the gridiron. The teams on the sideline were national squads representing the United States and Mexico, which raised two questions. First, they play football in Mexico? Second, we have a national team?

This was, apparently, the fourth iteration of something called the World Championship of American Football (http://www.americanfootball2011.com/en/), a tournament sponsored by the International Federation of American Football. The organization is based, improbably, in La Courneuve, France, and its president is Swiss. Equally improbable: America has lifted the World Championships of American Football trophy only once. Japan has won twice.

A moment to explain. The I.F.A.F. has a stated goal of spreading interest in the game to the world, and, at some point, getting it into the Olympics. Professionals are prohibited from its marquee tournament, and, as an olive branch to the world, the American team requires that its roster spots be evenly distributed among the lower echelons of play; namely, Divisions II and III of the N.C.A.A. So, Tom Brady, Troy Polomalu, and Maurice Jones-Drew were not in uniform against Mexico, and neither were their backups. A sampling of the colleges that provided players: Saginaw Valley State, Occidental, Southeastern Louisiana, Otterbein. Cody Hawkins, the American quarterback, currently plays for the Stockholm Mean Machine.

And yet, the Americans had outscored their opponents 109-7 heading into Tuesday’s tilt. No one in Innsbruck seemed particularly interested in the game. America won—and the television broadcast was drowned out by the in-stadium musical interludes between plays: “Uptown Girl,” Bon Jovi, “Billie Jean,” MC Hammer, “My Sharona.” Tivoli Stadium in Innsbruck holds just sixteen thousand fans, but the paid attendance was even smaller: precisely five thousand, according to the the I.F.A.F.’s conveniently round figure. When the U.S. was inside the one-yard line, on fourth and goal, there was no concern about a raucous opposing crowd in the end-zone seats because there was no crowd in the end zone at all. Da’Shawn Thomas, an American running back who, at some point, played for a junior college in Kansas, leapt over the defensive line for a touchdown. The announcer, perhaps assuming that no one was listening, the F.C.C. included, said of the play: “Thomas gets high … but not in the Ricky Williams sense.”

Halftime had little to offer the American sports fan—news about cycling, rugby, non-American football—and things only really became interesting, for a moment, when two American defensive backs collided in the third quarter, allowing a sixty-five-yard completion that lead to a Mexico touchdown. Apparently, the U.S. responded with a quick touchdown of its own, to put the game out of reach, but I couldn’t tell you how it happened. I had zoned out. So, too, it seemed, had the play-by-play man. When “Twist and Shout” came over the P.A. system a few moments later, he started singing along.

So the U.S. moves on to Saturday’s final, in Vienna, where Ernst Happel Stadium holds fifty-one thousand people, still ten thousand fewer than Soldier Field, the N.F.L.’s smallest stadium. We’re playing Canada. The Women’s World Cup final seems like the more entertaining option this weekend, but watch this if you must. Even if the N.F.L. returns in the fall, this is the only American football game you’ll see for some time. The Dry Season has just begun. http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5014/clipboard01di.png
(http://www.americanfootball2011.com/en/)

(http://imageshack.us)

Mississippi Sooner
7/18/2011, 11:49 AM
I remember back, in the late 70s I think, when East Central in Ada played against a team from Monterrey, Mexico. The first game was in a downpour in Ada, and ECU won by a pretty big margin. The following year they played in Mexico, and the Monterrey team won, as I recall.

Jammin'
7/18/2011, 11:57 AM
They must be awful. All those that can run, jump or swim are already in the US.




(If your not sure why swimming was thrown in there, that's the way I remember the joke, just go with it)

cantwait48
7/18/2011, 01:11 PM
I thought swimming was in there because they swim the rio grande.

anyway I did not know the US had a football team that competed against the world

cantwait48
7/18/2011, 01:17 PM
nm

King Crimson
7/18/2011, 02:23 PM
Cody Hawkins was the "US" QB.