Jessica McFarland

My first World Cup in England has seen me go from not caring about sports at all to watching as many games as I can and totally obsessing about it at any opportunity. It’s nice to have scheduled daily entertainment and high drama, with a convenient pre-built toilet/snack break in the middle.

So, I expected to be writing this post about disappointment. I fully expected, at this moment, to be surrounded by the bitter disappointment of a nation whose dreams of glory had been smashed (by a country I had to google as, when I was learning about Eastern Europe, it did not exist).

Thankfully however, this is not the case. England beat Slovenia and will see another day of World Cup football. And no one collapsed onto the grass in tears (unlike the Italians — you won last time, let someone else have a turn!).

Instead I find myself surrounded by a cautious optimism. And I’m not really used to it. Because I’ve realised that, at least lately (I dunno, the last few years or so?), I’m quite the pessimist.
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If you live in America, I realise that the subject of this post may not be immediately obvious. In fact, you may be thinking that this is about the Revolutionary War, or perhaps the War of 1812 (which was really against Britain, not Canada, if I’ve understood Simon Schama correctly).

In fact, it isn’t about anything with quite so high a loss of human life as an actual war. In fact, it just so happens that this Friday is the beginning of a little competition called the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Now, I don’t mention this for your benefit if you live in, say, most of the world. You already know. One living in, for a more concrete example, say, England, could hardly have missed the sudden proliferation of St. George’s Cross flags and the remake of the Tears for Fears song, as well as the re-writing of every television ad for absolutely everything anywhere to make it about football (Support the England team! Eat a Kit Kat!).

But if you live in America, you have no idea.
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