Late World Cup infection
July 10, 2006
Oh my god, World Cup fever has caught up with me too late. Thank the hype Les (almost) single-handedly brought on me. I was aware of the last World Cup held in both Korea and Japan, but then I thought football, in my young mind, was more of a European game participated in by Asian countries as well. I guess it’s only now when I’ve seen so many fans willing to stay up early in the morning to watch the Italy v rance final, which the former won on penalty kicks, 1-1 (5-3).
There was supposedly a World Cup exhibit, one that didn’t push through because of time constraints (but it was, I think, really close to pushing through). There were a lot of jerseys around, from the German one to the Brazilian one to the Italian one, seemingly worn by the same people who could afford to see one. The blogs were somehow abuzz - I was reading Icka’s blog recently and saw her write (and probably despair) over their star player Hidetoshi Nakata’s retirement at 29.
But not everybody seemed to like the game. Andre came into Religion 2 class and was complaining because the game was decided on penalties. (Should I give credit, notably, to France’s Zinedine Zidane, also retiring after the tournament, giving Italy’s Marco Materazzi a headbutt and earning a red card in return?) He somehow said watching the Wimbledon men’s final, between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, somehow seemed a better watch - not to mention, personally, it happening earlier.
I was indeed watching the Wimbledon games, thanks to my mom’s interest, and the family has been somehow following the games from the women’s final (seeing battle between Amelie Mauresmo and Justine Henin-Hardenne) to the men’s final, and the other games in between. (In fact yesterday I was listening to online radio just for that.)
But football has united, seemingly, a lot more peeople around the world. And, despite the Philippines being ranked 191 by FIFA, we’ve been interested. The news programs are carrying a few bits, especially during the final (but still on the people here making money out of it, I guess), and the newspapers have dedicated pages to it. (The Inquirer surprised me with a page labeled World Cup 2006 one day.)
And, as for me, whose idea of yellow and red cards have been reconfirmed by the games despite me getting content with watching highlights on CNN rather than watching the games themselves, it’s been overwhelming, yet amazing. I’m done reading the news articles online - maybe, just maybe, I’ll look forward to 2010 in South Africa.
Oh, but we’ll see.
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ust nalang kayo muna kumampi. hahaha!