World Cup Diary: June 9th

Holy Shit. The World Cup is two days away. I haven’t posted in a while mainly because all of my time is being taken up by working like crazy to get stuff done before the World Cup and listening to World Cup preview podcasts. The fever is most definitely here. I’m going crazy with anticipation. The drama, the media, the football, the fans, everything.

I can’t imagine how I’d feel if Canada was actually there. I think I might explode. Anyways before the tournament I thought I’d lay out some early thoughts on the World Cup.

The first thing I want to talk about is the England-USA game. Many Canadian bloggers have been calling for all Canadians to support the Americans in fact Squizz went as far to say, “So, to be clear: if you have English blood in you, and you would support Canada if they were playing, then the following sentence does not apply to you. But for everyone else any soccer fan in Canada not supporting the USA in this game can go fuck themselves.”

Probably tongue in cheek from Squizz, but regardless I’ll be backing England. Not because I disagree that development for soccer in the USA helps Canada I agree with that point. But as a Canadian sports fan in general I find it difficult to cheer for the United States in any sport. Especially against a team which has two player from Manchester United in Rooney and Carrick. So I do hope the USA does well, but I consider England to be somewhat my surrogate team behind Canada. So all the power to the Americans to do well after the England match, but this weekend I’ll do what the rest of Canada is doing put their support behind a European superpower and claim some sort of personal attachment. Yep sounds about right.

The other thing that I enjoy about supporting England aside from the Manchester United connections is the culture. The self-deprecating, over-hyping, over-analyzing, the penalty shootouts. It’s all great. As a “supporter” listening to the ridiculous phone-ins, the pundits who will lose their brains over the next month in blatant bias and the massive circus is enjoyable. So yes I’m supporting England at the World Cup. Will I be gutted if they are eliminated in the same way I am after a big Manchester United or Canada loss? Of course not. But I’m along for the ride with the three lions and ready to have some fun.

My other team at the World Cup is New Zealand. The main reason being the only two countries I’ve lived in during my life are Canada and New Zealand. But as a Canadian supporters we should be able to sympathize with the Kiwis. In New Zealand soccer plays second fiddle to sports like Rugby, and Cricket. They are a country with a rich sporting history that theoretically should do well in soccer. They haven’t qualified for the World Cup since 1982 (1986 for Canada) and they are overshadowed by their big neighbours in form of Australia.

New Zealand probably aren’t that much of a better team than Canada, but this shouldn’t be a reason to begrudge the Kiwis being their. It’s a great underdog story.

Finally not really a team I have any history with, but for obvious reasons I’d love to see South Africa do well. As would the rest of the world presumably.

So the big party is only two sleeps away!!!!