South Africa - Mexico

One down, sixty-three to go! So I could have prepped better. Not enough sleep at /all/. It's amazing how people come out of the woodwork for big matches; it's like the city has these little crevices and niches and a few times a year people POP out and appear. I had /never/ seen people in South Africa kits before today. There were almost as many as people in Mexico kits.
From a spectacting perspective, it was almost a perfect opener. Mexico with most of the possession as you would expect for long stretches of the first half. Then South Africa, propelled by the power of the Vuvuzela, or the spirit of Madiba, or something......suddenly looks so cool and calm on the ball and creates great combination attacks resulting in a goal. Mexico looked like they were going to implode until they got their act together. Have to think that perhaps Blanco may start next match; they looked so much better with him holding the ball and waiting to create. Could easily have been 2-2 or any combination. Some great saves, and some unlucky shots off the post.
I watched the highlights from 4 years ago and hard forgotten about the card festivals; FIFA seems to have gotten the word to their refs to make sure they keep control early. It wasn't rough by any stretch but you have to think that ref from Holland-Portugal last year would have sent somebody off.
France-Uruguay next. The bar has emptied out, but considering how busy it was at 7 am it must be the calm before the storm.

Attire-watch: So this morning I wore my old US kit. Had to go home for a bit and...rough decision. I own a '82 France kit. France is /not/ anybody's favorite team after the Henry two hands of God debacle to even get into the finals. But....I own it. And it's slimming. So here I am. Tomorrow is all about the US Kit. I think the Ajax kit and the Timbers kits will be my neutral attire for the next month. Thoughts?

The Night Before

So it's the night before, and I didn't get much sleep last night. I'm hoping I can sleep well tonight, because starting tomorrow I'm going to inflict a lot of pain on myself. It's funny, people have one of two reactions when I tell them I'm going to watch every single match live and write about it. Either they think it's a great idea, or they wonder why I'd do that to myself. It does help that most of the people I talk to are also soccer nuts, or I'd have abandoned this as a silly idea. What with a busy week I haven't gotten to do as much research as I'd like, although honestly, most people don't know much about Uruguay other than Diego Forlan. And anyway this is going to be as much, or more, about the experience of /watching/ the entire tournament than just analyzing and previewing and predicting. There's lots of that out there.
But the experience of watching every match, from the marquee matchups to the 'who is on that team again' 4:30 am kickoffs (You know you're up early when coffee shops /aren't/ open yet in Portland.) That's something I haven't seen, or at least, something I think is worth documenting.
The World Cup is the one sporting event where chances are, no matter where two people are from, they can talk about. So many of the legendary stories of the game have come in World Cups, from the ghost of '66 to the Hand of God. Joe Gaetjens in 1950 to Zinedine Zidane imploding four years ago.
So here it is, my document of the entire 2010 World Cup, from the kickoff to the final one month later. Wish me luck.