ALMOST 97 MILLION people watched the 2007
Super Bowl as the New York Giants shocked the favored New England
Patriots.Almost 500 million will watch a soccer equivalent at Wembley Stadium in London Saturday.
The underdog Cardiff City Bluebirds from Wales will play the English Premier League big shots from Portsmouth in the Football Association Cup Final, soccer style football that is.
The Welsh team is a full one league (or 20 plus rankings) below their more lusty rivals. Cardiff plays in the second tier of the English soccer league system. It's a bit like a CFL team playing in the NFL and making it to the Super Bowl.
What has that to do with anything remotely Pine Belt? Well, I was born and raised in Cardiff and am a lifetime supporter of the team which last won the famous F.A. Cup trophy back in 1927, a full 81 years ago.
Long time ago
Of course I wasn't around back then, but I do remember Cardiff being in the top tier of English football. That's something they haven't accomplished since the 1960s when the Beatles were everything musical and hippies were wearing flowers in their hair.
Cardiff is ready to return at last and this amazing achievement of making it to the soccer Super Bowl will definitely help. The club is close to completing the building of a new ultra-modern all-seater stadium and everything is ready for the jump back to top level soccer after an absence of 40 years.
As a teenager, I always held out hope of playing for my hometown club and becoming a professional soccer player but had to settle for a semi-professional career in the Welsh League before arriving in America to coach professionally and eventually to William Carey in 2003 as its soccer coach.
I've had a close relationship with my hometown club over the years. There have been former players and coaches I call friends, and my heart belongs to Cardiff. I don't follow or support the big clubs; I stick with my Bluebirds.
People ask me just how big is the F.A. Cup final? I tell them it will be watched by 90,000 in the stadium and if you think getting a Super Bowl ticket is difficult, I've been in the U.S. for 18 years now but people from Cardiff are e-mailing me looking for tickets.
Musical genius
Amazingly, the team is also flying high in the music charts. A song written and produced by singer/songwriter and Cardiff native James Fox specifically for the team's F.A. Cup Final occasion is currently sitting at No. 1 in the British pop single charts ahead of Madonna and Justin Timberlake.
You can Youtube it if you want
I would love to have been flying high this weekend across the Atlantic to watch the game but commitments in Mississippi mean I will be cheering the Bluebirds on from my home in Oak Grove.
But I recently bought a wide, HD flat screen TV. it must have been an omen! If Cardiff City pulls off the shocker and wins, look out for at least one Bluebird flying high over Oak Grove on Saturday.
Nigel J. Boulton is the men's soccer coach at William Carey University.