adidas AG

Apparently there were some announcements, but I was outside smoking and I met a guy named Tyler up from Florida. West Palm, he said. "I'm a senator now!" he said, and asked for a cigarette. "I guess I have to quit my job." He was wearing an Adidas track shirt. Where did he work? "Adidas."

"I'm a freakin' Senator!" he said. He said the Clinton people campaigned for him, had flown him up, put him up at the W, and he had to be on a flight back to Florida at 7:30 a.m. "Man I'm hammered," he said. He said he'd won as an Independent by 18 votes. He was a just slightly-overweight, kinda buff white guy, definitely over 30, probably not 40, and maybe 5' 11". He had a little hipster beanie-hat on.

So, okay, he was a Senator. So then what was he going to do now? "Bend over a page, I guess," he said.

He looked around at all the suits outside the Sheraton. "These guys don't even know I'm one of them," he said. "I'm not going to be like them, am I?" --Choire Sicha

There we were jammed on to Spring Street in the 26th minute, watching the Adidas-sponsored Jumbotron, along with I don't know, 5,000 other soccer fans, when the screen went black. We all waited for it to spark back on. Nothing. A guy with glasses and a headset climbed onto the thing and made an inaudible announcement, versions of which were passed through the crowd: There were too many people in the street, they hadn't counted on this crowd, it was considered a danger, the police had ordered it shut down.

At least that was the word on the street, as we sprinted for cabs to watch the game elsewhere.

And throughout the rest of the game, ESPN offered us shots of City Hall Plaza in Boston, crammed with what looked to be 20,000 fans. I know, everyone loves Bloomberg. But does the city have to be so goddamn efficient all the time?

A few more reasons not to pull for the U.S. against Italy tomorrow:

10. The players reportedly don't know what their roles are, why should the fans?

11. Soccer moms: The game still has an entitled, suburban feel here, and nowhere else. The Adidas ad is set in a gritty cityscape for good reason; soccer blooms in those cracks.

12. A lot of soccer moms became security moms and voted for Bush, who unleashed a piece of international aggression that has justly alienated world opinion. Let American's international symbolism suffer, till Bush changes the policy in Iraq...

13. South America never gets any airtime. It gets it now, deservedly.

14. American uniforms are too bland/cool. Soccer is hot. The Brazilian, Italian, Trinidadian, Ecuadorian uniforms are so much wilder than ours.

15. When else do we get to be Anglophiles?

16. The Ivory Coast played like lions in losing two close games to soccer powers, and meantime we unfairly undermine the fabric of their society with cotton subsidies...

The reason I love the Adidas ad set in the South American sandlot is that the two kids' dream of playing with Zidane, Riquelme, and Beckham isn't just a sappy kid story, it's what the World Cup is at its best: Nobodies taking on the world powers, and showing they can do it. Go Trinidad and Tobago!!!

Best ad so far is Adidas's Jose + 10 ad, all in Spanish, featuring a kid playing sandlot soccer with a bunch of stars... blogged here from Singapore.

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