Americans never will understand spell soccer casts over rest of world

A suggestion for Paul Azinger: If things begin to get a bit tight in Louisville this week and the boys appear overcome by the moment (or just by the fact the Europeans are continuing to kick our Ryder Cup tails), the U.S. captain might consider a few options to turn momentum:

1. Rub a mixture of lemon juice and vegetable oil over Jim Furyk’s bald head.

2. Wrap snakeskin around the putters of each U.S. golfer.

3. Inject the blood of a wild animal into Phil Mickelson, although you just know if that happened and Lefty played well, he would immediately claim to have planned such a strategy and secretly begin researching the forensic patterns of the African okapi.

You might have missed it. You probably did.

A story about witchcraft and 13 victims (many between the ages of 11 and 16) being trampled to death at a soccer match in eastern Congo would tend to be ignored by American sports fans more interested in whether Matt Cassel can prove to be Tom Brady of 2001 or if the Dodgers will out-bid the Yankees for Manny Ramirez next season.

The latest riot around a pitch occurred Sunday when thousands panicked and ran for exits at the sight of a goalkeeper casting spells on his opponent, probably the same curse Mike Shanahan put on Ed Hochuli before the NFL referee looked at a fumble and instead saw a raised cobra ready to strike, thus blowing his whistle in terror.

The tragedy that happened in Butembo of the North Kivu province again proves our passion for sports such as football and baseball is a mere speck amid the dust bowl of craze the rest of the planet holds for soccer.

Today, after yet another stampede cost lives, that’s not such a bad thing.

It’s so ridiculous to us. We hear voodoo and think of a lounge at the Rio. Doesn’t the term ju ju refer to candy? Isn’t black magic what Al Davis does when he absurdly makes another coach disappear? Didn’t the whole sorcery thing get solved once Harry Potter destroyed the stone?

Not to those in African countries.

Not to those in African countries obsessed with soccer, which is pretty much every living soul in African countries.

Most of the dead were children this time. There is a reason such disasters happen in soccer far more than other sports. Think of exorbitant participation numbers and religion mixed with archaic Third World stadiums.

There are close to 200 countries in a world that houses 6.6 billion people, and only 300 million of those live in the United States, meaning for every 23 bodies strolling the earth, around 22 really do believe soccer’s importance ranks just after air and right before water.

The NFL is not yet 90 years old. There are soccer rivalries that date thousands of years. It would be like Nevada having 10 NFL teams. That’s how many high-level soccer matches are played daily around the globe. England, not the size of Texas, has 100 teams many label first-rate.

With that many bodies playing and cheering soccer worldwide, some madness is inevitable.

But while sports in the United States mostly adhere to that doctrine about a separation of church and state (Notre Dame being one notable exception), many in Africa still worship witchcraft over God. Theirs are beliefs embedded deep into a culture of seeking guidance from a jujuman over a holy being.

They still opt for potion over prayer.

It is why some teams bury goats under fields and others smear the blood of slaughtered chickens on opposing goal posts. A Chargers fan will scream at the television following Hochuli’s error, rant around the house for a few minutes and then head to the beach. A soccer fan in West Africa whose team loses an important match might return to his hut and begin mixing a concoction of herbs and porcupine blood for players to apply before the next game.

It has obviously proven a fatal combination, this kind of life-and-death fervor blended with undersized facilities that are hardly up to fire marshal standards. Soccer for those in Third World countries is the ultimate diversion from a life of hardship, but it’s also true they routinely pack venues not secure or large enough to handle the kind of lunacy that happened Sunday.

You might have missed it. You probably did.

We can’t comprehend it. We never will.

Ed Graney can be reached at 702-383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.