CNN anchor John Berman is apparently a huge World Cup fan. But don’t call it football — and certainly don’t give Berman grief for calling it soccer.
“Like billions of people, I love the World Cup,” he began Thursday afternoon. “And like millions of people, I enjoy tweeting about the World Cup. So imagine my outrage when people on Twitter complain that people are sick of reading tweets about the World Cup. There’s even an app now that lets you block all World Cup tweets.”
Berman tried to convince people that passing on World Cup tweeting means “you’re missing a huge opportunity.”
“Do you know how easy it is to infuriate Europeans?” he asked. “Just call the game ‘soccer,’ instead of ‘football,’ ‘futbol’ or ‘vutbol.'”
“Watch this,” Berman said with a grin. “Soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer!”
“You hear that? That’s the sound of 1,800 Dutch people throwing wooden shoes at the TV!” he snarked. “Or 500 Brits grunting in a language they CLAIM to be English!”
“Why would you pass up the chance to ridicule these people on Twitter?” Berman asked. “Why would you pass up the chance to share the experiences?”
“So for all of you who don’t want to be a part of this,” he concluded, “who don’t want to play in this great social conversation, why don’t you just lock the doors, shut the windows and play with yourselves?”