If you haven’t taken notice yet, you’ll soon be surrounded by the fun and fervor of the quadrennial soccer tournament officially known as the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Admittedly, sports don’t grace the columns of GeekDad and GeekMom very often; however, many of our kids will play soccer for years and hone valuable life skills, such as team work, sportsmanship, and mental determination, while out on the field. Yet despite the value that soccer brings to the lives of our kids, we rarely expose them to the most inspiring athletes and teams who play the game at its highest level. Imagine teaching your child an instrument without taking him or her to a concert, or exposing your child to science without venturing to a museum.
The World Cup is truly something to share with the family. World Cup presents an unparalleled opportunity to expose your young soccer player to the world’s most popular sport and provide them with inspiration that they can take back out to the field.
But how do you watch a thirty-two match tournament without getting burned out on soccer or resigning yourself to guessing which matches are going to be exciting?
The answer lies in a service called Thuuz that has been created by a group of (soccer) geek dads. Thuuz is a service that alerts parents and kids to the most exciting soccer matches without revealing any of the results or details of the match. In fact, every day of the tournament, Thuuz communicates the most exciting thirty minutes of action so that parents can opt to follow the tournament in bite sizes that match the shorter attention spans of our young kids. This way, families can record the games on their DVR in the morning and watch the exciting games or game segments in the evening. Or, for those with high speed Internet service in the US, you can take advantage of Thuuz’s direct links into ESPN3 which will provide live and archived streams of all World Cup matches. You can sign up for World Cup alerts here .
So, ease into the World Cup and enjoy the emotion and action of this international spectacle without having to camp on the couch for three hours a day. Embracing the World Cup experience will go far to build your child’s soccer IQ and provide indelible memories of truly exciting matches and the best female players performing on the world stage. And for those GeekMoms and Dads out there who are concerned that soccer might inhibit your child’s inner geek, you will quickly observe that soccer is a lot like chess… with the added benefit of bicycle kicks and slide tackling.
[This is a guest post by former GeekDad contributor, and THUUZ co-founder, Warren Packard.]
