you will learn to love football

almost upon us and I am really rather excited about it (believe it or not).  As a Brit, at times like this, I support any and every team from these fair isles, we are after all, the United Kingdom.  And as a fellow Brit (if you’re reading this) I know you’ll completely understand the masochistic pleasure derived from watching a British team participate.  In pretty much anything.  Televisión will be hijacked and you will, like Alex from Clockwork Orange, have no choice but to watch.

Your ears will bleed, your eyes will bleed, you may consider hiring a nurse to come and mop you down with a damp sponge, as your arse becomes glued to the sofá/internet/barstool.  There will be hours and hours of preamble, and there will be hours and hours of post match analysis, proferring such pearls of wisdom as, “Anyone could win”, “they went forward and then they went backwards”, it’s anyones guess” (um, we’re paying YOU to guess for us), “It’s true, he can kick a ball!”

And fanatics will show us how to truly illustrate our love for our country.

Keep it classy England

To help you understand and appreciate this most glorious celebration of football, I want to share with you some of the ways I AM going to be enjoying the World Cup in Brasil this year.

1. Play Fantasy football
In order to do this, you must take into consideration the following:

Ability to kick things, preferably a football
Good hair
Handsomeness (this covers good facial hair/winning smile/nice eyes)
Elegant goal scoring celebration ritual (no wiggly dances, robots, doing the caterpillar or pretending to snort a giant line of cocaine along the penalty box – keep it classy Robbie Fowler)
Thighs

settle yourself in for more heartbreak

2. Place a bet
Things you need to think about are:

Players form
National team recent form in the friendlies
Nice coloured strip
Thighs

3. Organise a sweep
……and hope to Hell you don’t get Iran. You may as well throw away the ticket, and your money.

4. Have a World Cup party
The only definitive rule here, is not to invite anyone you know,  who has, in the past, in the face of defeat:

Punched someone within arm’s reach
Punched themselves
Punched a wall
Gone on the rampage in the street, weeping and wailing and punching things
Set stuff on fire, while punching things

5. *Mentally relegate to the bench, all the players who:

Have crap hair (ban for the rest of the tournament, those with mullets/perms)
Rubbish thighs
Are too sweary
Blow snot out of their noses onto the pitch (ban for the rest of the tournament, those who miss and end up with it on their chin)
OVER. GROOM. (I am looking straight at you,  Cristiano Ronaldo).

The above must be done while saying at the telly, “you’re fired!”

In the manner of someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, here are my predictions for the World Cup 2014.

“Yes Gary (Lineker), it’s looking like it’s going to be an interesting few weeks.   You see, I think you need to keep a very close eye on South America in particular Chile (because the hot musketeer-BBC series- is from there, and there might be more like him out there), Argentina because they’re looking a bit tasty and they have Messi,  Uruguay (Suarez is a forcé to be reckoned with), Paraguay and Colombia because traditionally,  teams from here are pretty handy with a ball.   I think you’ll agree Alan (Hansen), this is quite important.

Spain could return to recapture their 2010 title, because they have a cool nickname,  Red Fury (and  they have Shakira to wiggle about in support, and she’s on my girl crush list).  Germany are looking sharp,  winning nine out of ten of their qualifying games.  And so clean and tidy in their white-with-minimal-detail strip. It’s been a while since they proved themselves on this stage,  but they could be the dark horse of the competition.

England.  Because I’m obligated to show hope and optimism (and blind faith), and there are a few hot young players providing a welcome rest for your eyes, that have been scarred by Wayne Rooney.  Also, a pundit on the radio said, ‘Well, we’ve got some players who can do some things with a football’.  Heartening words.

And last but not least, never rule out the underdog, keep your eye on Iran.” Delivered with all the nasally, monotonous passion of a talking sloth with a peg on it’s nose.

Argentina vs Spain in the final,  2-1 to Argentina. (If this actually happens, I’ll eat something with sequins on!)

*difficult,  as you could end up with only one player on the pitch, and that would be a crap game of football.

Now, where’s my body paint, I’m  off to paint my t*ts with the England flag.