Football Frenzy

The world cup has finally started and the whole world has come to a standstill. Thank goodness it is happening at this time of the year because had it been held in March I know for sure that I would be sitting for my univs again this year....I am actually quite surprised at my sudden interest in football. Anyone who knows me well will know that a good game of cricket is what really gets me on the edge of my seat. I could live on watching one- dayers i.e ONLY if India is winning..... football, however is an entirely different ball game altogether. Not only does it take much much less time than a game of cricket but it is definitely more physical and much more brutal. Football may be considered the world's most 'beautiful game' but it is by far nowhere close to being the 'gentleman's game' that cricket is.
During the last cup, I remember watching only a few important matches and I thought it was going to be the same this year. But I must say, the media's influence on the public has definitely increased lately. People have been talking about this phenomenon for a while now but frankly,
this is the first time I've understood what its all about, being as I am a victim of the media hype myself. For the past three months the first thing that caught my eye when I opened the sports page of the Times of India was the countdown to June 9th. 9u0 days to go...45....20...2...IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! No longer are journalists concerned with Saurav Ganguly's exclusion from the cricket team, Kolkatans are instead busy conducting pujas for their favourites, Brazil and Argentina. The debate over Wayne Rooney's fitness has found regular place in the sports pages and I'm sure that even people who've never heard of him before now know who the Manchester United star is.
I think another reason people are so mesmerised by an event like this is because the carnivalesque feel attached to it. All the fans are at their energetic and creative best- the flags( and other things) painted on their faces, the colourful hats and of course, the women in their skimpy bikinis, the beer guzzling, the rowdiness...they are all reminiscent of the carnivals in Rio de Janeiro. Pubs with giant screens become the hippest hangout joints, native flags are waving from cars and windows alike, jerseys, mini footballs, t-shirts...the list is endless. Since we were in Germany and England just before the cup we managed to see first- hand the kind of hold football has on people.
I have one favourite in this world cup and that is England. After watching their second match against a low ranked team like Trinidad & Tobago though, I am not so sure David Beckham and his team are going to be able to win the coveted cup. They may have won but they have no chance against teams like Germany (Brazil has really not impressed me so far). Watching yesterday's match between Germany and Poland you could literally feel the excitement in the air. Every German player was pumped up and doing their best to earn glory for their country...they may have scored only in the 91st minute but they gave it their all.
Now, England on the other hand.....most of the time I felt like I was watching a game in a park. There was absolutely no fire in anything they did, whether it was passing, defending or most importantly, scoring.....Come On!!! they must have had at least 10 chances to score and all of them were botched up. It is excruciating to see your favourite team miss out on shots that in 95% of the cases should have struck the net. Everyone was listless and they seemed to spend more time on passing than attacking. All the big names- Gerrard, Beckham, Lampard, Ferdinand & Rooney- these are the ones I'm most familiar with and they did not live up to the tag of being potential world cup heroes for England. Beckham has been good, but what is the use of passing the ball if the strikers can't get it into the goal?? Unless they up their overall game in the next match or so, they can kiss their dreams of becoming world champs goodbye.
July 9th it all ends. Whether England wins or not I know I'm going to be hooked to the television. After that, it's back to my 'normal', boring life. I'm hardly going to keep track of what happens on the football field after this tournament is over and I know I'll have to wait four more years for the next football onslaught and, frankly speaking, I can't wait for it to come (and this, when the present cup isn't even over!!)