IF YOU ARE FEMALE OR AMERICAN OR YOU JUST HATE SPORT, this might have made little if any impact on your consciousness but ...
FOOTBALL'S WORLD CUP... (that is soccer-football to you Americans ~ but of course) kicked off about ten minutes ago with South Africa v Mexico.Crowds of 94,000 are packed into Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium blaring away on plastic horns named vuvuzelas. Detractors claim the cheap "musical" instruments (a post-apartheid South African tradition) sound "like swarms of angry bees" or like "a herd of elephants breaking wind". European TV companies apparently went nuts when they realized the soundtrack to all games would be blighted by this noise and attempted to have the windy trumpets banned. They were not successful and instead label the strange sound the "authentic voice of Africa" ~ haha!
Traditionally soccer is a Big Deal on three out of six continents: Europe, South America and Africa. In recent years the sport has taken off bigtime across Southern and Eastern Asia ~ where the British team Manchester United is said to have fans numbering tens of millions.More recently David Beckham has done a great deal to raise soccer's status as a professional sport in America.
If you do live in middle-America you might be surprised at the level of passion this Beautiful Game evokes. Imagine the Super Bowl crossed with the Olympic Games and you're starting to get some idea of the sport's ubiquity across most of the planet.
World audiences may exceed TWO BILLION.According to Reuters, the 2006 World Cup in Germany pulled in 26.3 billion (were 20,000,000,000 of these on another planet? Because there's fewer than 7,000,000,000 people on earth).
Whatever. It's a lot of people.
So crack open a cold beer. Have a blast on a plastic pipe. Click on the telly and enjoy ...
(I'd love to join you, but I will be watching Lindenstraße and Marienhof instead ...)
(ANM. DEUTSCHER INHALT KOMMT NOCH SPÄTER)
11 comments:
Yawn! ;)
ha-ha-ha!
aye...
Yawn is right. Now hockey, that's where it's at ;)
In all seriousness, not being a footy fan, I can still appreciate the sport. It transcends it's self. It's about more than just sport. Very apparent on the streets of TO being the melting pot that we are.
With that said, I hope those that enjoy it have a great time! I'm already sick of the car horns going off and I haven't even heard one yet.
Take r easy Gledwood!
... you got it, it TRANSCENDS...
That's right!
It's fascinating last time, once England got kicked out (and how on earth is England allowed a team when Quebec and other provinces aren't?)... anyway once England were out the crowd at the local pub were reduced to supporting other nations vicariously... in the final France v Italy there were huge groans whenever France had success. When Italy won the place went berzerk!!
Last WC I was living in Little Portugal in TO (little Italy is just up the street) so the Brazililans started cheering for the Italians. People flying French flags would pull drive by moonings, flashing all the old men outside the old men taverns at 9am. Lord, I have to get my Pirate Flag out. It always confuses people during WC!
Yeah I think a pirate is just about the only thing to be during the world cup, it drives me to distraction...
... not that it's not fantastic and all... but as I say, it's actually watching the crowds that is more interesting sometimes than the actual football!
fa sure fa sure. last time monsieur marmite saw dudes partying on their front lawn with a huge boa that was sporting a brazilian flag around it's neck. whatever floats yer boat....
Dear Gledwood
Es sind wundervolle Fotos! Und der deutsche Text ist soweit ok. Bravo!
Gut zu verstehen.
BRAVO!
Liebe Grüsse
Franziska Sternenzauber
O! Danke schoen!
(Kein Umlaut kann ich finden ohne das Fenster zu schliessen)...
I will check it out occasionally. It has become a much bigger sport over here.
I haven't checked it out yet!
I know who's playing who at what time and what the results were... but that's about it.
Haven't a clue who's showing what match where channel-wise... maybe I'll watch the final ~ who knows?!
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