World Cup Redux Part 1

Once every four years the world stops and America watches baseball, basically cuz we're knob ends but a few of us more cultured sort get all giddy with excitement as the World Cup kicks off, in conjunction with the good people over at the Toxic Towers we will be commenting on the Coupe de Monde as an ongoing thing bringing you the view from both sides of the Atlantic, this here is a recap of all the previous World Cups that i was an active or inactive participant in...

1994 - This was BL or before Limey as i say and i was living in Ocean City and vaguely aware that a large soccer tournament was taking place in our country, at the time our best known player was a ginger haired hippy who like to sing folk songs in his spare time and we also quite possibly had the most atrocious uniforms in World Cup History (see above), my induction into the game happened one day by accident at the local pub across the street, O.C. was home to a large contingent of Irish kids all partying and working for the summer, i noticed that the bar had covered all the pool tables with plastic and removed most of what wasn't nailed down, on further inquiry i was told that a large number of Paddies would be watching Ireland v. Italy and the place wanted to be prepared for the mayhem, of course what they didn't know was that Ireland would beat Italy sparking a celebration unlike this American kid had ever seen, even the Ocean City cops seemed dumbfounded as hundreds of Paddies poured into the streets and sang and danced and drank and then sang and danced and drank some more, fucking beautiful in my book and i didn't see the game only got to join in the after party... Coupe du Monde winner Brasil.

1998- then something glorious happened, in the the intervening years i moved to the burgh and set up shop as the North Oakland Player, i lived in a shit apt. and after the nice black woman moved out who used to jam the chocolate anthems all saturday afternoon and come down and borrow rolling papers now and then a student moved in... this student was called Kazzam and she was a lovely girl and she had this rather interesting boyfriend named Limey, i won't go into the courtship of the Limey and myself but one fine day as we sat around stoned and drunk the Limey had gone out and rented Fifa 98 for my roommates video game player and i must now admit that on that day a monster was born... i took to that game like a drunk to a bar fight and discovered i had a natural knack for it, had a good basic understanding and was deft midfielder with a knack for springing teammates and a nose for goal, i would only improve upon this as i played this game in the following years and i now freely admit that while i don't play video games i own a PlayStation and one game, Fifa 10, in between i've owned other systems but still have only ever really played one game, Fifa, fitba, football...

by the time the Limey had gone back to Eng-guh-lan he had created a football junkie, i moved in with the girl and promptly got a satellite dish so i could watch the European and English leagues and have really never been the same since, in all actuality the Limey may have created Frankenstein as sometime later he would state that i knew more about the game than most of the guys he grew up with, namely other Limeys and may i add what a beautiful lot they are... 1998 was the year of the Frog and introduced me to my all time favorite player, one Zinedine Zidane, the Frogs won the cup that year on their home soil and being a bit Croatian on my mom's side i had an underdog to root for as Davor "Golden Boot" Sukor led the Croats on an improbable run to the semi-finals and a third place finish, it was also the tourney where Dagenham Dave Beckham was red carded against Argentina and in the end became a pariah in his own nation for being a dipshit and not only because he married and anorexic Spice Girl, of course we all love redemption stories and Dave's would be a doozy but the real story was Zizou, Ronaldo's ridiculous haircut and the fact the Samba Boys got waxed in the final 3-nil, England of course went out in the quarters to a South American team which is pretty much the script when it comes to the Eng-guh-lish...

of course later that year i went to Eng-guh-land and got to hang in the world's greatest pub with some of the world's greatest people, i lost bets and ate fish and chips and got ridiculously drunk and one night i stated that i knew what was wrong with the England side and me being a septic tank and all drew rather funny looks from those about the pub, cuz really what would a septic know about football, and so began my soliloquy about how the English that year were long ball merchants and that their tactics were all wrong and how they had the players to play a more fluid style and blah blah blah and the in one of those moments when friendship takes on even deeper bonds the Limey stood and smiled as all his mates from the pub stood jaws agape and concurred with the Septic and they patted me on the back and told me nice one mate and stood me pint after pint for the rest of the night, good night indeed, of course i also got to go to the old Wembley Stadium and to see a thrilling nil-nil draw between England and Bulgaria, on the train of course the Limey was warning me about the Engrish being the most violent sports fans in the world and that i should be careful and as the fans sang There's only one Alan Shearer he asked if i could tell the different accents and i admitted they all sounded Limey and as he explained the linguistic nuances the guys on the train began asking where everyone was from and for a brief moment i could tell the Limey was a bit nervous and as the got to me and asked i said Pittsburgh, Pa and donned an England jersey to which the response was a moment of stunned silence and then, Well fuck you've come a long way and was promptly handed a can of lager and patted on the back by all around... at the end of the game the boy's in the off license took bets to see if i was Billy Connelly the stand up comic, to which i replied no just a septic and the money changed hands and someone yelled, i told you he was to tall to be BillyfuckingConnelly and off we went to the beautiful, scenic South London... to be cont.