I love the World Cup because my Italian friend Luca is coming over shortly to watch the second half of Brazil vs. Ivory Coast and I haven't had the nerve to call him to confirm arrangements since Italy's shocking failure to defeat New Zealand this morning. Luca is a very rational man, but not when it comes to football!
I love the World Cup because ten minutes after New Zealand had finished heroically clinging on to a precious point in that match against Italy, my Kiwi friend, Gary, sent me a text message which simply said: "Shattered. What a result."
I love the World Cup because Gary's wife's company (which previously didn't seem to have anything to do with football) has launched a World Cup twitter app, which is apparently all the rage. As a result, Jodi has been getting up at 4.30 to liveblog matches! Go Jodi!!
I love the World Cup because Luca's Mexican wife, Dushka, who has similarly never previously shown an inclination towards football, has apparently been converted during the World Cup, if her post on Facebook is any measure. "I want Mexico to win 6-0. Is that greedy?" she wrote.
And I love the World Cup for the USA vs England match (for which my wife decorated the entire house with Star Spangled Banners), and the other deadly sins it apparently brought to bear. My English friend in New York, Radley, for example, appears to have suffered particularly harshly at the hands of his American wife and her friends, who have taken to referring to England only by the abbreviation HMFE (Her Majesty's Fallen Empire).
On the subject of Fallen Empires, we Dutch are having a good World Cup. I bumped into another Dutch Bay Area resident yesterday. We enthusiastically agreed that Holland beating Argentina in the Final (the reverse of a painful 1978 defeat) would be a truly wonderful way for the tournament to climax.
And so it goes on! My former colleague Christian was up and hosting a World Cup party at 4.30am last Saturday in honour of his Korean wife and her team's victory over Greece. And my German former colleague Suzanne, commented on my "Clinical" assessment of Germany's victory over Australia with ;-)). I don't think she was bragging....but I can imagine she was beaming with pride!
Truly, is there any event that brings the World together like this? Not at all! Hup Holland.
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