Me and The World Cup Final

There’s a bloke in work who really likes his football, you can see it in his face, in his eyes. When he talks football he sort of sparkles a bit. Football bloke organsied a sweep-stake and I got Belgium. I embraced the spirit of the venture and decorated my desk area with Belgium icons: Hercule Poirot, Tin Tin, some nice looking chocolates and so on. I even kept an eye on the Belgium match, whilst I read Jack Vance.

I’m not into football. Being Welsh I’m more into my Rugby, not that I understand all the rules or can conceive what might take place in a scrum, but football has never been part of my heritage.

This weekend in the interests of social cohesion, and in respect for football bloke, I sat and I watched The World Cup Final between Argentina and Germany. What follows is my view, as an innocent, as a veritable alien to The Beautiful Game.

There was much running back and forth, much bounce boing bounce, and occasionally a real deep thud of boot to ball. The commentator explained when a good thing was happening and why things that looked good were actually bad.

I watched the boots dart about the field looking as though they had been dipped in Dulux’s Write Your Own Story, and the crowd told me through roars, screams and whistles, if I should open my eyes wide, gasp and feel excited.

The commentator introduced me to names that sounded so exotic I understood them in terms of drink and dance, Mesut Ozil, Jerome Boateng and best of all for sounding like a drink you should avoid at all costs Bastian Schweinsteiger. On the opposing team we had dancing names; Pablo Zabaleta, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Mascherano. Incidentally legend has it that the Javier Mascherano, can only be danced in a pool of yack’s milk, whilst wearing pale blue organza, when the moon is full and the bats have shed their wings.

The footballers really did dance,  and they appeared to have hinged necks and thwacked the ball with their foreheads, with their chests, with their fists. The flying green goalie was so desperate to keep the ball away that his knee collided quite spectacularly with his opponent. There was much falling on the floor. The crowd were chanting something indistinguishable and yet tangibly familiar. Something similar happened to me in Bioshock Infinite, I worked out all the tunes bar one in that game.

The commentator announced that it had “been a terrific hour.” Yes in a way, there were moments when it nearly happened, but it didn't happen and that was disappointing, I had wanted to read a bit more Jack Vance before bedtime. 

 I then experienced extra time, which in this case had two periods.  By the second period the indistinguishable chant had become nightmarish as had the falling over. I grew concerned that this pained din might enter my dreams and a green flying giant would decapitate footballers with his knees.

I was becoming somewhat distraught or slightly bored and then there was a goal! The blue and whites in the crowd had tears in their eyes, which quite upset me, to see them so hurt, did not seem especially beautiful.

Germany won, it was interesting, and yet deflating, so much passion, so much energy and running around for one goal, just once the ball went into the net, then some people cried and some people cheered. It is over, until the next time, four years hence. I’ll watch if we do a sweep stake.