Football!

It’s not exactly the football I usually write or obsess about during the fall, but it is football.

(The rest of the world loves deriding American football — “That’s not football,” said a Fox Soccer Channel commercial — which has always irked me in a way. Along with rugby and Aussie Rules Football, football and footie are descendants of the same sporting ancestor. They may look very different now, but in the mid-19th century they were one and the same. It’s football to us.)

The much-anticipated 2010 FIFA World Cup has begun. I got up at my old waking time (my old bus riding waking time; I’ll get to that some other time) and watched the entire first half of the South Africa-Mexico match. I saw Philipp Lamm score the first goal of Germany ’06 and wanted to see the first goal of this tourney. But it wasn’t to be. I missed the whole second half getting ready for work and driving to campus. At work, my office computer would not let me update the latest Flash version, so I kicked it old school: I waited until the game was over to get the score. I watched the Uruguay-France game at Zee German’s office.

I’m unsure what the impact the World Cup will have on South Africa. A month-long tournament is not going to heal apartheid’s lasting scars (only time — and lots of it — will repair those deep wounds) or cure all of the country’s ills. However, watching the first game in Johannesburg, I couldn’t help thinking it would do a little good.

It will do me a little good, at least. Until July 11, I’ll have an alternative to baseball keeping my sporting glucose level sufficient until college football season begins September 2.