My World Cup Highlights

We all knew this day was coming, but nothing can really prepare you for the empty hollow feeling that engulfs your body when that day finally arrives. Today was the day, the first day in 2 and a half weeks without football on T.V. Like a junkie I have been looking for a fix on the internet, outside seedy bars, on the street, hell I even tried to watch an MLS game to ease the pain but alas I am left cold and unsatisfied.
I took this as a sign that it was time to reflect so here are my personal World Cup Highlights so far.

Katlin McGrath crying when USA lost to Ghana. It wasn’t seeing Katlin upset that was so exhilarating, more the fact that she would perhaps understand my own frustration with the England team now she had been let down by this beautiful sport. I tell you something if she wants to be a QPR fan she better get used to that feeling.

One slow day during the big match that was Paraguay versus Slovakia an elderly woman suantered into the restaurant and looked at the screen for about 2 minutes. She then asked me who was playing, I told her. She paused, thought for a second before enquiring ‘What was the Israel score yesterday?’ I had to explain to her that Israel wasn’t in the World Cup. She told me that she thought it was a World Cup and that surely Israel should therefore be involved, she then decided there lack of inclusion was a glowing beacon of racism. She was so entertaining I decided not to correct and agreed with her wholeheartedly.

Working at 7am is never fun. It’s even less fun if you make no money because FIFA arranged all the glamour games to be played later in the day. So when I awoke at 6:30 to serve (I assumed) no people whilst North Korea and Portugal battled it out I wasn’t happy. I ranted and raved to the manager that nobody was coming in because it’s not like any North Koreans are allowed to leave the country. In a huff I began setting up the restaurant. I heard a tapping at the window where a small, disheveled Korean looking woman was standing. I opened the doors and she climbed up on a bar stool, surely not!? Before I knew she was joined by more Korean women and there Portuguese friends to watch the game. Kim Jung-Il must have let a couple of devotees slip under the radar.

I have, over the last couple of weeks, bonded with the back of house staff at work. The Mexican cooks, the Nigerian delivery guy and many more. However Mamadou, the Senegalese line chef has become my personal favorite. He often predicts the wrong score and always tells me England should do better, but he just bloody loves football so I bloody well love him. One slow day I found a football in a drawer at work, pulled it out and started having a kick about in the empty restaurant. Mamadou emerged from the kitchen and asked me if I played. I told him I wasn’t great, Mamadou said he hadn’t ever really played 11 a side football. He then proceeded to nick the ball off me and produce 50 kick ups on his left foot before producing another 20 on his right. He then trapped the ball passed it to me and told me to try, I managed 7. I blame the FA.

So I await Friday morning with baited breath. I have the day off as I assumed England might make it the the Quarters and am ready for more football festivities. I am of course yet to miss a game and have perfected the art of napping through the sound of a vuvuzela during some of the more laborious fixtures. Football, bloody hell.