World Cup on My Mind

I’ve been a little slow writing this week as my audience is on vacation. (Dad, I hope you’re enjoying Maine). Plus, all of my energy is focused on the quickly approaching World Cup.

I’ve spent the past couple years climbing through the ranks of soccer fan. For a long time, I was on the level of Mild Interest. Then with the purchase of FIFA 2008 for Playstation2, I shot through the lower levels of Casual Observer, Soccer Enthusiast, and Fairweather Fan, and now am somewhere between Soccer Loyalist and I-Call-It-Football Fan.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to sit through a pretty rough start for my hometown team, DC United. I would say that I’ve remained much more optimistic than most DCU fans, and as a result I’ve been sadly disappointed 8 out of 11 games this year. A few key players are healthy again, so things are looking up. Plus the ESPN game on Thursday is in passionate Seattle , so it should be fun to watch.

Things are looking beyond up elsewhere though, with the World Cup kicking off on Friday. It’s just a little exciting. The US begin on Saturday against England and I’m just as curious to see how they do as I am excited to watch it. I’ve been watching over a year of qualifying and this is it. It should be fun.

I’m also excited to see the other teams too, even though I don’t know much about any of them. I think that if I watch as much of the games as I would like to, I may have to move up another notch or two of fandom. I’ll have to control my viewing some though as I could be dangerously close to Outright Hooligan.