David and Goliath at the Same Time

“Does anyone else associate World Cup summers with this deep sense of relaxation tinged with childhood nostalgia?” Sohrab Ahmari asked a few days after the tournament began. I do. Time slows down during World Cup summers, even for adults. If you watch enough games, you start to feel something akin to a flow state. It must be the languid pace of most soccer games, at least before those rare moments of intense tension. This pace resembles the languorousness of baseball, another relaxing summer pastime. But one advantage that soccer has over baseball is fewer commercial breaks. In fact, according to the laws of the game, a soccer match breaks only once, for halftime. This means that for at least forty five minutes, the viewer can enjoy a match without interruption.