day 2

so, this is how my daily life for the first two weeks of the world cup are going to go, if the first two days are any indication:

watch the first game of the night (10pm korea kickoff) at a pub, the second game of the night (1am kickoff) at a different pub, and the third game of the night (4am kickoff) at home, comatose, on the sofa while my wife sleeps the sleep of the blissful and uninterested. i will stumble to my place in bed around 6am, sleep amidst barking dogs next door, yelling lunch patrons outside all of our open windows, and the interminable brightness that daylight seems to bring.

match 3: england v. paraguay

the same pub from the germany game the night before, kim's, was the scene as more than 20 of us descended to watch the english stamp their mark on this world cup. the locals in the pub grew more and more wide-eyed as more and more of us round-eyes poured in and took over. we might as well have been there to watch steel melt, as the game was, aside from the first ten minutes, as exciting as a vasectomy performed with a spoon and a soggy cigar. did i really pick england to win the world cup? england were as crap as an elephant after laxatives. it was excruciating because as crap as england were, the south americans were crappier because they couldn't take advantage of england's wilting in the hot german afternoon.

the highlight of the entire two hours was this: just before kickoff, we all threw in KRW1000 on who would score england's first goal of the night. about six of us made our picks and then my wife asked if the just-recovered wayne rooney was going to play. when she found out that he wasn't going to play, she declared that england's first goal would be a paraguayan own goal (meaning that a paraguayan would put the ball in his own net for an england goal), to which we all laughed at her sense of humour. four minute into the match, david beckham lined up for a long-range free kick and none of were prepared for what happened next. as the ball rocketed toward the net with typical beckham curlishness, it didn't stop until it hit the back of the net for an england goal. as all of england celebrated, so did a lot of us for the rousing england start. then, we all realised that jason had won the pot with beckham's goal. as we grumbled at his good fortune (jason knows little about footie and only chose beckham because that's the only name he knew), it was announced that a paraguayan defender had headed the ball into his own net. it was an own goal! my wife, with her joking remark, had won the pot. as we pried the winnings out of jason's grimy paws, seung-hee announced that she couldn't take the money because she hadn't put any in the pot. when questioned as to why she hadn't put money in, she, in complete symmetry with how england would play the rest of the match, said she'd been too lazy to get out her purse and take out some money to put in. thus, no one was the winner and the bet was extended to the next england goal, which will have to come on friday morning at 1am in their next match against trinidad&tobago.

it was such a dull england start to the tournament that we decided we were too bored even to go around pretending to be hooligans. bashing in car doors, throwing sofas into shop windows, yelling at beat cops for no reason had just lost its appeal on the heels of such a shit match. if this is how england are going to play for the entire tournament, the world cup drought for the three lions is going to continue.

match 4: trinidad&tobago v. sweden

from now on, i will not refer to trinidad&tobago in their usual long form. their nickname, the "soca warriors", is also too long. thus, i have decreed that "trinibago" is a much more palatable way to address this team; after all, why are there two names in the first place for such a small nation?

anyway, there was not too much hope that this match would be any more exciting than the england one before it. in fact, it was overheard on more than one occasion that the schedulers should have flip-flopped this game with the potentially much more exciting argentina-cote d'ivoire match to follow so that we could all get to bed at a decent hour. but, it is the world cup and i was determined to plow ahead and watch this match anyway. i was glad i did, as it turned out.

for this match, we had transferred ourselves from kim's bar near home to the wherehouse dance club downtown where we frequently occasioned in order to dance, drink, and shoot pool. my wife wanted to shoot pool while i watched the footie, so it was a perfect compromise for us.

i had little faith in tiny trinibago's chances of success against sweden, though there were others who thought the tiny nation might give the blond-haired scandinavians some trouble. however, it must be said that the ones who thought this weren't exactly using footballing logic to come to this conclusion. in fact, one scouting report from one of my friends who picked trinibago came down to this: "i figure it like this--trinibago are a bunch of big, black guys from the islands going against a bunch of pasty white guys from a cold climate; should be a cakewalk for trinibago." i can't make this stuff up, folks, and it's hard to argue with such logic.

i thought of this comment as we watched the teams line up to start and noticed that the two teams were negative mirrors of one another, meaning this: ten of the "islanders" were black and one was white and ten of the "pasty faces" were white while one was black. it was almost disconcerting.

anyway, the match was a might more exciting than the england one, although no one could score in the first 45 minutes. trinibago was not as bad as we all had thought, though, admittedly, the swedes were marginally the better side in the first half. it was with hope that we approached the underdogs' chances in the second half.

less than a minute in, our hope seemingly faded when a trinibagian defender was shown a red card for his second bookable offense. let me be honest: i've seen the replay one hundred and seventy-three times and it's still not a bookable challenge. the island guy never touched the skiing blond guy. it was a very harsh red card and now trinibago were down to ten men for 44 minutes remaining in the match. surely, the lumbering ice hockey players could score on the plucky caribbean rasta guys.

one thing we forgot, though, in rationalising this: trinibago is used to running around in hot, humid weather and the german late afternoon was like a refreshing romp in a springtime swiss meadow, ten men or not. they gallantly fought for the entire 2nd half, defending with passion and verve, if not always with tactical skill. in fact, though trinibago's keeper singlehandedly kept the islanders in the match with several amazing saves, it was trinibago who actually came closest to scoring on a blistering shot that beat the swedish keeper, but not the crossbar.

when the final whistle blew, we clapped and cheered as we watched the trinibago players mob each other and man-of-the-match keeper, shaka hislop (an ex-geordie doing his old side and his nation proud!), and the trinibagians in the crowd dance euphorically, i was reminded, again, at how great the world cup is.

seeing the pure joy in the islanders' celebrations, seeing the shock and agony on the swedes' faces, imagining the uplifting of english spirits as they now stood alone atop of the group now, our own reactions halfway around the globe to a thrilling and shocking result all convened to nail down what i've been telling americans for two decades: no sport in america commands the widespread joy and agony and attention that the world cup does. over-commercialisation or not, there's not a greater sporting event on the planet. and the scenes in dortmund on this occasion were reason enough to support my long-held contention.

match 5: argentina v. cote d'ivoire

finally, the third and final match of the night had arrived. i was feeling energised by the trinibagians' success against the swedes, my spirits were buoyed, and i was winning the battle with fatigue by the time kickoff arrived. however, i decided to fight the battle of this final match of the night at home, on the sofa, in case the fatigue took me hostage and bolted me down in a complete comatose state. additionally, i figured that a match between perhaps the best teams from south america and africa would be an entertaining, wide-open affair.

i was not disappointed.

the ivorians showed an amazing amount of panache and flair for much of the game, even when they went down, 2-0, to two well-taken goals by the south americans.

though down at half by the same 2-0 score, it was not a fair reflection of the match, which is why it never seemed that the west africans were out of the match. they had the better of the second half as the argies held on for dear life against the elephants' assault. time and time again, the africans had chances, only to see the stout defense of argentina close them down and kick away trouble. it was an end-to-end affair, for the most part, and just rewards were finally brought to fruition for cote d'ivoire in the 82nd minute. however, they never could get the deserved equaliser that would have so pleased a great part of the footballing world.

i was numb from fatigue by game's end, the sunrise not doing much to awaken the deadness of my being, but i was still able to applaud a fine, entertaining game and could take a bit of satisfaction that the ivorians aren't out of the hunt for a bid into the next round.

i found my bed and my fast-asleep wife and fell into it and next to her like a punch-drunk, washed-up old fighter who'd taken one too many to the noggin, barely realising that it was only match day 2 of a month-long vigil. all i knew was that i needed rest for today's weekly sunday football run-out amongst all of us teachers in the area and for tonight's next 3 matches...

see the very bottom of this page (actually, not the bottom of the page, but the bottom of this internet window, left corner) for today's matches. it may not surprise any of you that today's leanings are toward holland, iran, angola, good football, and close contests. what i would prefer not to see are a portugal goal-fest, a joint mexican-american invasion of iran when the persians best the central americans, and any koreans doing korean cheers two days before their teams plays just to make a show of themselves in front of us non-koreans who actually give a damn about today's games and not games that are 48 hours away. it's called the "world" cup, not the "korean" cup, for a reason...