The World Cup Diary : Part IV

I was in an Irish pub yesterday, sitting with a glass of radler, watching the Argentina-Netherlands game when this German guy came in. He took the seat beside me and immediately mistook me to be an Argentine. Not his mistake actually, I was wearing the albiceleste (albi = white; celeste = litteraly from the sky, it is used to define a hue of blue) jersey. But the look on his face was worth a few snaps when he learned from where I really was ! But he accepted the fact that since India is not playing in the World Cup I have the right to choose a team to support (I think I let it slip though that I'll have to support Argentina thoughout my lifetime !!).

The first round is all most over, no surprises till now, but I guess some coming up soon: Italy 1 - 0 Czech; Ghana 1 - 0 USA after 30 mins of play and then of course France play tomorrow. But I don't think you can really trust any of these to win, can you? Italy couldn't win against USA even with more men on field, the less said about the Les Bleus the better. It would seem the ego of their footballers play a more important role than the will to win the cup. Brazil of course look good on paper, actually unbeatable. But still they are struggling. They might yet be able to earn the right to be called the "Real Madrid of World Cup Teams". But of course, they can get better.

If you ask me, at this stage the Netherlands and Spain look good. If any country which has never won it before has to win it, it has to be one of these two. But then I am not the first one to predict it, am I ? But whoever has to win it, has to play better than Argentina. (And this I say entirely for foottballing reasons and has very little to do with the story in the first paragraph.)

So now I wait for the physically dangerous prospect of supporting Argentina in a match (quarter-final) against Germany, sitting in Germany. May be I'll just lock myself up in my apartment and celebrate with a bottle of fine Franken wine after the hosts are eliminated.

Update: At half-time Italy 1 - 0 Czech; Ghana 2 - 1 USA