Yay for Football (and we're NOT talking American Football!)

What did I do here before World Cup? How did I fill my evenings? Seriously, I've jumped into football viewing with all the pathetic devotion of your average 13 year old and, to be honest, with far, far less knowledge. Despite living in Scotland for several months during college, I'd managed to avoid learning much about soccer. Oh I knew the basics: there's a ball, loads of players who run back and forth a lot, a referee who blows his whistle 2 hours later to signal the end of a nil-nil game. Being raised on American sports, the fact that nil-nil games were possible, even fairly common, struck me as ridiculous and obvious proof that soccer was a waste of a sport (come on, I mean even baseball, which ambles along for long stretches with barely a pulse, usually manages to put a few runs up.) As if I needed further proof, big matches that ended in a tie are resolved by penalty kicks; kinda like if at the end of your basketball game you decided to pick the winner by tacking on a free-throw contest. Ridiculous right? And this is what ends marriages and topples dictators? Give me a crisp November afternoon on the gridiron with Notre Dame and Michigan any day.

But then I came to Tanzania, away from ESPN, March Madness, and the Little League field, where soccer really is the only game in town (no pun intended.) And with the impending World Cup, I knew I'd have to revaluate the old prejudices and perhaps, eventually, even go over to the dark side. I started out by watching premier league matches with my (exceedingly patient) European friends who managed to harness their incredulity at my ignorance, ("What does offsides mean?") to answer my endless questions. I began reading the sports section of the English-language paper from Dar and using precious internet time to check out FIFA rankings. I even broke out a copy of Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" (courtesy of Mr. Garrett Bucks) to get a sense of English soccer history. But I don't think I really felt that sudden rush of excitement, the butterflies, until Trinidad and Tobago's opening match against Sweden. My friend Dan and I were sitting in an open-air bar near my house, shivering at the cold desert breezes, watching a tiny TV rigged up for World Cup action with about 10 other middle aged African men. We started out ambivalent, but by the time stoppage time had finished, you would've thought the Cubs had won the pennent we were all so excited- cheering, laughing, shaking hands with anyone and everyone, all because Trinie had managed to hold Sweden to a nil-nil draw. And that was it. I've followed the rest of the games with a dogged devotion, although my recent illness necessitated the purchase of a radio so I could listen to the games (through a haze of static) in bed. The real question of course is what happens after World Cup ends. Will that be it for 4 years or will I continue to follow soccer by picking a team from the Premier league or La Liga (the only leagues that stand a prayer of getting coverage in the states.) To that end, if any of ya'll out there have any recommendations on teams to support, by all means pass them my way, although I have to draw the line at Man U (and send out some love to the US- they have to beat or hold Spain to avoid elimination!) More soon, take care

Katie