By David Lewis features@algarveresident.com
David Lewis lives in Praia da Luz with his wife Shirley, and two children, Ollie and Fraser. Having spent more than 25 years in the City of London, he is now Financial Services Manager with the Oceânico Group.
It’s finally here. No, not our belated Spring (although back here in the UK, I have, every morning for the past few weeks, excitedly scraped the ice from the window in the forlorn hope that I might see a small daffodil shoot trying to force its way through the frozen ground) but something far more exciting.
I am, of course, referring to the World Cup. That once-in-every-four year event that raises the hopes of fans everywhere that this just might be the year that football’s greatest trophy finally comes home. Which, of course, it does. Provided, that is, that you live in Frankfurt, Madrid or Rio de Janeiro.
For the next few months, every news outlet you can think of will be full to the brim with gossip, team reports, “expert” commentary and paparazzi-style photography as the world’s greatest footballers gather in South Africa for this year’s big event. Trust me, by the time things finally kick off in June, you will be desperate for news of a Royal wedding or another General Election (OK, maybe not) just to get the darn football off both the front and back pages.
To be honest, I have to quietly confess to loving the World Cup. It’s like watching a cross between the Olympics and Eastenders. Plenty of glitz, glamour and great sporting prowess mixed seamlessly with storylines of affairs, corruption and a preference for over-acting.
It’s a strange thing about events like this. Just like the Olympics, you always reach the latest version wondering where the heck the past four years just went. I learned from a relatively young age not to project too many Olympics ahead as I just found the process depressing. Recently, David Beckham presented England’s bid to host the 2018 event. Just try thinking about that in the context of how old you’ll be when the next one starts. It’s a sobering thought.
That having been said, when the latest event rolls around, I confess to becoming entirely wrapped up in the whole event. I collect the newspaper inserts with all the fixtures neatly laid out for me to fill in with my wee pen as the event unfolds. I have started buying those little sticker packs that you can collect to try to completely fill up the extortionately expensive folder that comes with them (obviously, I claim that the stickers are for my boys, Ollie and Fraser, but my wife, Shirley, has rumbled me I think).
The sad fact with these sticker collections is that, regardless of the fact that I will spend literally hundreds of pounds buying pack after pack, I will still be unable to complete my collection thanks to the absence of a Chilean midfielder, or a Slovakian reserve goalkeeper whose name I cannot even pronounce.
So, I will slavishly trawl through the adverts on Ebay until I find the missing player, upon which time I will pay a sum at least equivalent to his real life transfer value, just to complete my collection which will then be placed in a cupboard never again to see the light of day.
The fact is that the World Cup does daft things to people. Only yesterday, I swore my wife to secrecy because the postman had just delivered a large cardboard box containing a football goal that I had ordered on the internet for the boys. I didn’t want them to know about it until I got home so we could have the fun of making it together in the garden.
The reality, of course, was that I found myself out in the freezing cold garden, scarcely able to see what I was doing in the half-light, struggling to fit together bits of tubular plastic, whilst the boys were indoors playing Mario Kart on their Nintendo Wii.
There’s another strange effect of the World Cup. Whereas, at any other time, the prospect of watching even teams like Italy playing on the TV would scarcely get me even remotely interested, come the World Cup and I am rushing home from work to watch Finland play Egypt, complete with crisps and a cold beer. If I miss a game – any game – I feel as though I’ve been cheated of some special treat.
Then, of course, there is the thrill of expectation as the England team take to the field, the merest whiff of 1966 in their nostrils. “This could be our year” the papers will have cried since mid-January. Finally, they declare, the golden generation will deliver the world’s greatest trophy to our shores.
Of course, that will all change once we slip up 1-0 in our first game against the USA at which point every sporting hack in the land will tell you that they always knew we weren’t good enough, that the players are all spoiled, overpaid prima donnas and that the manager should resign immediately.
Eventually, however, the tournament will reach its Final, an event so compelling, so glamorous and so full of promise that even my wife might decide to watch. Unless, being Scottish, the game involves England (which is highly doubtful) at which stage she will probably decide to do some decorating instead.
There is something utterly wonderful about the World Cup Final. It seems to have an ability to genuinely pull people together to watch, some in hope, others in admiration. It carries the same sense of excitement that we get from an Olympic opening ceremony or a Presidential Election perhaps. Love or hate football, no-one can argue that the World Cup isn’t one of the world’s greatest and most exciting global spectacles. So I, for one, shall be glued to my set come kick off on June 11.
Of course, it won’t beat watching our beloved Odiáxere on a Saturday afternoon, but it’s better than nothing.
