Skip to main content

In the Blood

I'm not a huge soccer fan, but I do have an appreciation for the game. I know who Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are, for example. I mean, so do millions, if not billions, of other people, but I at least follow the sport enough to know some of the major stars. Hell, I even have a favorite goal, courtesy of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Now, as you probably know, the World Cup is happening right about now. For anyone who enjoys watching soccer, this is a big deal. For one, it only happens once every four years. You know that saying about absence making the heart grow fonder? It's like that. Imagine if the preseason was three years long. You'd be awfully curious how your team played in the "real" season, wouldn't you? Now throw in the fact that your team isn't just for your local city or even the state/county. No, it's for the entire country. There's quite a bit of pride and fandom that gets mixed in with the whole thing, with good reason.

Personally, I was especially curious this year, because Peru had qualified for the World Cup after a 36 year drought. I wanted them to do well, so I probably kept track of the scores a tad more than I would have otherwise. Hell, at one point, I was tracking the outcome of the game on a laptop because I wasn't near a television.

Sadly, the Peruvian team did not do very well this year. They were mathematically eliminated after their first two games, so I didn't have as much to root for after that. Still, the World Cup had my attention by that point, and I wasn't about to stop watching. It also gave me something to talk about with friends and coworkers, so it was kind of fun.

The funniest thing, though, came in how I described the whole thing. Inevitably, someone would be surprised that I followed soccer, and I ended up having to explain it. Given everything that I've said up to this point, it should probably come as no surprise that I boiled it all down to, "it's just in the blood. Every four years, the World Cup stirs it up in me."

Soccer is my blood, folks.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Good Things ...

August 8, 2009. Over twelve years ago, I started blogging with this simple post . I didn't really have a great reason for starting the blog, other than I wanted to try it out. I wanted to try writing and putting it where others could read it. I don't know, it just seemed like a new adventure to try. Along the way, there have been all sorts of posts and all sorts of life events, but through it all, I kept writing. It just became a part of what I do at some point. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to write a blog post, it was a matter of when. The Mild Wife has described it as a "writing practice," and it was one of the reasons why I kept writing. Honestly, it's good practice, and it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft. I'm no professional author, but we all have to write stuff in our everyday lives. Why not give yourself reps to get better at it? However, I think it's time for that practice to change. My weekly anecdotes sure kept me amused...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...
1 comment
Read more