World Cup

The 2010 World Cup starts this Friday, and lasts until July 11th.

Imagine if “Super Sunday” lasted for an entire month, and you’ve got an idea of what this means to fans of the world’s game. The last World Cup (2006) drew an average of 93 million viewers per match — every match, for a month — with an estimated 715 million watching the Final.

So, to say that I’m going to be a bit distracted in the coming month is a bit of an understatement.

This year, the World Cup will have far greater reach than ever before, even here in the United States. This blog post lists all of the sources for following matches: TV (ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, Univision), Online (free and legal streaming via ESPN3.com and Univision Online), Mobile devices, and more. This doesn’t even talk about the countless thousands of unofficial blogs, podcasts and streaming sites.

ESPN also has a great dedicated website, aggregating news, scores, video and more (including a bracket predictor that I just filled out for the fun of it).

(….and for another smile, Google “World Cup” and scroll down to the bottom of the page.)

One month, 64 games. Bring it on.

World Cup and Birthday Cook-Out.

This is mostly for the local folks —

My birthday this year is on a Sunday. The day before, however, is a big glorious Saturday — Saturday, June 12th, in fact. A date which hold special significance as the day that the United States will play our first World Cup match — versus England.

So, here’s the plan, for folks what are interested: A group of like-minded hooligans will be descending upon The Red Lyon pub here in Lawrence to watch the match, which starts at 1:00 p.m. local time. We’ll probably be heading over at noon-noonthirty in order to secure prime location.

We will watch Footy and drink many pints.

Then, after the game (roughly 4ish), we will return to Minas Skarka, where various meats will be charred over coals, more drinks shall be had, and celebrations of a vaguely birthdayish nature shall occur.

Drop me an email or comment below to let me know if you’re joining us for either leg of the day’s epic events.

(Non-locals: Can’t attend? Feeling left out? Feel free to get in on the birthday festivities! My Amazon wish-list is up to date. :) )

World Cup Predictions

Inspired by Theron’s Livejournal post, I figured that I’d venture forth to humiliate myself publicly by going on the record with my predictions:

Group Stage (Top Two Advance)
Group A: France, South Africa (home field excitement, plus Mexico’s inconsistency)
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria
Group C: England, United States
Group D: Germany, Serbia
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark
Group F: Italy, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Chile

Round of 16
Nigeria over France (yes, I’m predicting an upset here)
England over Serbia
Netherlands over Slovakia
Brazil over Chile
Argentina over South Africa (although I’d love an upset here, I don’t see it).
United States over Germany
Italy over Denmark
Portugal over Spain

Quarter Finals
England over Nigeria
Netherlands over Brazil
United States over Argentina
Portugal over Italy

Semi Finals
England over Netherlands
Portugal over United States

Final
England — yes, I think it’s their year.

And I’m probably massively wrong. We’ll see.