I wrote this for last week’s column, but forgot to post it. I intended to blog a lot during the World Cup, but have just been too distracted. Hopefully I will be better this week.
If you see me over the next month or so and I look a little more distracted than usual, I have a good excuse.
It’s World Cup time.
In past year, I might have had to explain the reason, but now I feel confident most people have seen the advertisements and know that soccer fans like me have a lot on our minds these days.
The tournament actually started over the weekend, giving me the opportunity to immerse myself in the fun right away. I had to write this before the weekend so my idea of fun may have changed based on the result of the American team’s first game on Saturday.
On the weekend, I actually enjoy that the games take place in the morning and early afternoon. I don’t have to wait for the action and enjoy watching with a hot mug of coffee as much as I do with a cold glass of beer.
The flip side is that I will struggle to stay focused at work when the games take place during the day the rest of the week. In the evenings, I will try to catch up on as much of the action as possible. This is where drinking coffee while I watch games comes in handy.
I’m not one of those people who will try to avoid the scores all day so I can watch the games “unspoiled” when I get home. Part of the fun is talking with friends about what happens. I just don’t have the kind of patience and discipline to hold off on doing that until midnight when I have watched all the day’s action.
You can see that this event is about more than soccer. It’s about planning and organizing your schedule. There’s a lot going on here. Everything fell into place for me late last year when they determined the schedule, allowing me to plan vacation days for the U.S. games. That’s when the countdown started for me.
As the tournament got closer, I cleaned up my Man Cave, got plenty of snacks and drinks and dug my USA scarves out to use as chew toys during the more tense parts of matches.
I don’t expect everyone to get it. In fact, I know not everyone will get it. I’m not one of those soccer fans who thinks everyone has to enjoy the sport. If you’re not geeked up over the next four weeks, that doesn’t bother me at all.
I hear people on the news saying that ESPN is trying to make people like soccer against their will, but nothing could be further from the truth. They’re just trying to make people like me happy.
So don’t expect me to beat you over the head with reasons why you should find the match between North Korea and Brazil fascinating. I won’t bore you with my opinions on the television commentators for this year’s event. You won’t hear a word from me about why the New Zealand-Slovakia match intrigues me even though they are pretty weak teams.
Just do me a favor and don’t tell me how little you care. I have a lot on my mind these days. It’s World Cup time.