Footie Fever

I'm often terrible about responding to emails in a timely fashion. Just this morning I was finally getting around to catching up on writing some emails, and I ashamed to find that I let some languish for a month before replying. Yeesh. On the plus side, sending some emails reminded me of some things I wanted to post about. The fact that the World Cup is coming up leapt to mind when I was writing to someone who I had let slide for a while; I don't want to say who because I don't want them to think that I don't care enough about them to get around to writing emails, so I'll just call him Richard H. Wait, no no, that might give it away. Let's call him R. Hernandez instead. Yes, that's much better.

With footie fever soon to be hitting Bundesrepublik Deutschland, I wanted to give my friends in the states a quick rundown of the what to expect with the World Cup. Here first is what to watch for:

Togo: No offense to either England or the US, Togo is who I'm rooting for the most. How can you not root for a country that only has 9 airports, and only two of them are paved? Which gives you a 7 in 9 chance of landing on a dirt runway when flying into Togo. I like those odds. Oh, and check out the awesomeness that are stamps in Togo:

Gotta love a country that uses stamps to show the abject fear in the face of dinosaurs who seem to know they are facing the last few minutes of their lives. What this has to do with football, I don't know, but it really makes me want them to win.

Football chants: Particularly the offensive and tasteless variety. While many chants during games are clever, some are fairly crass. Here is an example:

A somewhat sinister riposte to Manchester United supporters' song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" which they customarily used to sing when leading to taunt their opposition is to be found in a song sung to the same tune "Always Look on the Runway for Ice", a reference to the tragic Munich air disaster of February 6, 1958, in which 23 of the 43 people on board died, 8 of them Man United players. This has been countered in recent years, such as against Leeds United, when the song "Always Watch Out For A Turk With A Knife" which is a reference to the two Leeds supporters who were fatally stabbed whilst in Turkey for a UEFA Cup match.

And here is what to avoid:

Lager louts: The name given to the notorious British soccer hooligans, who were so out of control that English footie fans were banned from European matches during the 1980's. Wow, how would you like to have fans from an entire country banned from an entire continent? That's extreme hooliganism.

Brazilian team: Despite being slight favorites in the tournament, I would suggest giving their games a pass if you aren't familiar with soccer. Otherwise you could have the maddening task of trying to keep up with a team that features the following players on their 2006 roster: Rogerio, Ricardinho, Ronaldinho, Robinho, and Ronaldo. Or how about Lucio and Luisao. Or Edmilson and Emerson. If you do decide to watch, your best bet is to just try to follow Fred or Cris. That's his name, just Fred and Cris. Talk about getting jobbed in the name department on your team.