I’m told the FIFA-Games begin this Thursday. All very exciting, I’m sure. Since the Spanish are playing, then they are my team (Go Spain!), but then I’m told that little Cabo Verde is doing well (they play Spain on June 15th) and that they will need our support.
Indeed, may the odds be ever in your favour.
I’ve never cared much for soccer (as you will probably have guessed by now). The sports master put me on the left wing at my first school, since I was tall and fast, but as I learned out much later, when trying to ski in a straight line, my left leg is a fraction smaller than my right, which meant I kept missing when shooting at the goal (that, and crashing into a tree). At my second (and last) school, they made us play rugger, and my inclination was to keep as far away from the ball as possible.
Since then, my only sport has been walking around in giant circles.
I’ve only ever watched one soccer game as an adult, when I was dragged to an Almería – Granada game after attending a political rally in the city bullring (you see how useful these things can be?). I genuinely thought they were teasing me, all the way to my seat high above the pitch, and this in the days before Facebook. God, it was boring.
I did join a game on one interesting occasion just after I had finally left school. I was seventeen and the foreigners (we were neither called either ‘expats’ or ‘immigrants’ – or guiris – in those days) decided to play against the cream of our village in a ‘friendly’, the losers to stump up for a jolly barbeque following the adventure.
Their side took it a bit more seriously than ours, with a final score of 11-1 (I think the Mojaquero team scored an own goal just to cheer us up). I remember that, as the final whistle went, five of our stalwarts were seen to be standing off the pitch and surrounding my mum who had at that moment arrived with a freezer-box full of beer.
But enough of this, the gentle reader wants to hear about the World Cup (Yay!).
It’s being played in various stadia scattered across Mexico, the USA and Canada. It’s apparently very expensive to go there, to stay there (while not being arrested or deported by Trump’s goons), and to travel from one game to the next, if the inclination to do so should tempt you.
For me, having just watched the first day of the Pope’s visit to Spain on the telly, plus listening to Bad Bunny on the radio (he’s still performing in Madrid), we now face six full weeks of endless footie (104 games says the webpage). No news, just penalty shoot-outs.
Luckily, I’ve just loaded up with some thrillers at our English library.
This may all be good for Pedro Sánchez, as the attention of the electorate is swung to other distractions, and it may even be good for Donald Trump (the American 250th celebrations will be held on July 4th, half-way through the games).
So, if you like soccer, have a great time, don’t drink to many beers or eat too much popcorn, and may your team make it to the finals.
If you don’t, I could lend you a book about fishing once I’m through with it.