Well, who’d have thought that your very first ramble here would be on the subject of football? But it is that time of half decade again and let’s face it, it’s inescapable.
Not, surprisingly, that you want to escape it.
Partly this is, of course, that it gives you something to chat about at the water cooler which isn’t Big Brother (well done for restraining yourself from putting inverted commas around that splendid Americanism, by the way). It is the sort of event which even the British can comment on happily to strangers when stuck in a lift. Especially at a time when the weather is interesting enough to be an actual topic rather than small talk.
Mostly, though, it’s because tournaments are much more user friendly than trying to mug up on the latest stats and facts whilst spending endless weekends trying to keep on top of them.
No, you’ll reserve that investment of your free time for Formula One. A sport which is in every way superior to football. Yes, it is. I mean, there’s a point to it for a start, even if it is only to produce road cars which are more about fuelling Jeremy Clarkson’s wet dreams than anything you’ll actually get to drive. You certainly can’t really argue that the skill of manoeuvring a spherical object made of leather with your feet is going to improve life on earth.
And it is sheer porn for anyone as obsessed by organisation as you are.
But it doesn’t have tournaments, so in order to really appreciate the subtleties (no sniggering at the back there. Schumacher has never always won), you really do have to pay attention for most of the year. Or five. Whereas with a nice four (is it four?) week contest you can happily actually have a clue by the time it gets round to the final of who the heck are the people running around incomprehensibly down there and what they’ve been up to lately. It’s a satisfying burst of totally not delayed gratification.
Unfortunately, this still doesn’t give you much of a feel for what constitutes playing well. This means that any fancy you take to a team – in this case I’m thinking
Poland – turns every match into an agony of nail-biting anticipation. Frankly, as far as you are concerned they could be flipping coins to decide who’s won.
Although, it’d always be a good bet to assume that
England will lose.
But then that just goes to put another chalk mark up for the sport of F1. No one can accuse that sport of not signalling the winner with plenty of time for your blood pressure to get used to it.
