I now know what it means to be a football widow. The World Cup rules our schedule. We have out of town guests (hence the short blog posts this week), and on a day we’d planned to take our guests for a hike, I was informed that the hike must end before 12:30 or start after 14:30. Or, we could just leave my wife at home. Portugal was playing North Korea right in the middle of the day, and there was simply no way she could not watch it live. (I asked about recording the game and watching it later, and subsequently learned of my extreme ignorance in these matters. Apparently that is not an option.)
We left without her. Toward the end of our hike, I called the house to see if it was safe to come home. She said, “Portugal is up 2-0! I’m in a good mood!” But there was still most of the second half to play, so anything could happen.
By the time we drove home, the game was over. My wife swung the door open and beamed at us. “We won 7-0! I’m in a very good mood!”
Whew. Thank you, Team Portugal.
And the US squeaked through today, with a last-minute goal! My wife, who had been saying all the way through that “they’d better score, or they’re out of the Cup,” then shouted, “YES! Now they’re first in the group!”
How can one single goal make the difference between being first in the group and dropping out altogether? The World Cup is a mysterious business, requiring comparative mathematics and attention to detail. I’m learning, though. It seems to be practically a requirement for European residency.
Oregon Expat 
Hahaha…I don’t get sports either. it seems like they make up all these complicated rules and then it’s “acceptable” somehow.
You’ve been with your wife how long and never knew she was THIS into football, er, soccer?? You must have been with her during the last World Cup.
I like the phone calls and then the door opening with the 7 to 0 win and all that. Made me laugh right out loud.
My brother was into the Toronto Football Club. He laughed when I’d first though FC was…”You watch the Toronto Fight Club?” Boy, I learned my horrendous error. Jerry had all the scarves, tickets, everything. When they were on tv, nothing could disturb him. He was getting chemo, in preparation for the bone marrow and was dog sick and I called. “can’t talk…” I hear throwing up. “Sorry, Toronto FC is playing…later.” and he hangs up, hugging a pail and watching his team.
I wore his Toronto FC pin on my collar through the cancer ride in his memory this past month. In fact, though I have heard nothing back, I have contacted them about donating a jersey and ball, signed, so i can raffle to fund raise. I’m learning.
I may drop in on them in July.
So, if Portugal keeps climbing towards the final game, you’ll have to amuse yourself while the wife is parked in front of the tv, leaning forward and acting possessed?
Apparently that one single goal has kept the Australians out of the next round. Oh well. Usually there would have been major headlines and sadness about this, but a little matter of our PM being deposed and replaced by, gasp, a woman, has taken all the attention. Yippee!
Congrats, ozrob! Geez, I don’t read the news for a lousy 24 hours and there’s not only a major change in government, but a historical first. Am I out of date in thinking that Australia still has a fairly pronounced gender difference in politics and power?
Yep, we are still somewhat unbalanced in terms of politics and power, although probably better than many other places. From what I’m reading so far public responses seem to be 50-50 as to whether it is a good thing or not. She made a very impressive speech yesterday; time will tell of course…
But, good on us!
All i’ve heard is G8/G20 stuff here, and then we were hit with a 5.0 earthquake. I was a bit nauseous, on the 18th floor and moving back and forth. epicenter was Ottawa area, felt in Buffalo. Bizarre. i thought I’d suddenly awoken in SF again.
Wait, the Australian PM deposed. What did he do?
Re: Australian PM. His popularity took a dive and instead of doing his job he white-anted his deputy. It all happened very quickly. In retrospect, deposed was not the right word – no physical force involved but it was very sudden and very decisive. Even seasoned observers have been surprised.
Wait, there was another earthquake???
Just in Ottawa, but we felt it south of Toronto and into Buffalo. I’ve hear we had them here, but never felt one. This went on a bit.
I wish our PM would wander off….
I don’t like football. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why all my friends are football fans. But if my national team played in World Cup I would totally do what your wife did. I would watch the game with mentioned friends, cheer my team madly and I would be extreme happy if they won. Heh 😀
I wish our entire Govt. would have a building fall on ’em.
All Whites play early tomorrow morning our time (NZ) in a win or die game for us. Should be interesting at Course to see what happens.
M. I’m with you. I don’t get most things like this. Hockey and football, the American/Canadian types, confound me. At least with soccer, get to net, in, it’s a goal. Hockey there’s these assinine rules I will never comprehend. Football here, what the hell is 1st and down. Suddenly you think team A is heading for goal, but then, they have to go back.
If Ireland ever gets to the finals…do they have a team?…I’ll watch, heritage and all. If USA, I was born there, I’ll live in front of the tube. Canada gets there…oh, has that like EVER happened??
It’s the only sport after biking I can endure watching on tv.
Though I’ll watch just about anything Olympic except opening ceremonies. Snore….
KUGAI: On Gov’t? LOL. All Whites? Explain for the completely ignorant please.
i just HAD to post this on my own blog (http://porta19.blogspot.com/2010/06/world-cup-widow.html). it’s a perfect rendering of how Americans, even those who’ve been living among us for some time like you and that seem to have adapted very well to our culture and way of life, still have a long road ahead to blend in perfectly 🙂
brilliant.
by the way, another related post (also in Portuguese) regarding the stupidification that American TVs vote their viewers, also in my blog (sorry for the advertising) here: http://porta19.blogspot.com/2010/06/azuis-vs-amarelos.html
Thank you…and did the American commentators really have to say that Cameroon was in yellow and Japan was in blue?? Wow.
i didn’t believe it either, but apparently ESPN thinks Americans are all beer-drinking, pretzel-munching hollow brains…
Maybe they just think that Americans who watch ESPN are all beer-drinking, pretzel-munching hollow brains. 😉
There has to be one unifying cause in Europe. *grin*
INGE: High-Five for the best response all day! And a good outlook on it.
High-five back at you. 🙂
See you around!
Well, we’re out of it after a 0 – 0 draw against Paraguay, but that’s not bad and is a HELL of a lot further than we got our first time we were in the Cup.