World Cup is interesting since it really marks time. Last World Cup in 2010, I was working at a
company based in Europe and most of the people I worked with were in Glasgow
and Dublin so needless to say there was a “football” pool. I did really really well at first - I had
picked a wunder team of players, accidentally and it felt nice to represent
being the only American and female participating in a group of 30 or so. But then it all went south quickly. I didn’t realize you could trade your team
members and then when I did, I didn’t understand the nuances of the rules and I
quickly got stuck in a corner and tanked.
This year, there was another work pool, but this time it was just
picking the winning teams. I decided to
pass since I had just barely made money on the American football pool last
fall. And it wasn’t cheap. Then I find out that the world cup pool was
only $5 and I was missing the comradely competitiveness. It’s a much smaller group than either falls
football pool or the last world cup pool.
But last week, I talked my way in even though a bunch of games had been
played. I’m not officially competing,
(no money), but still get to joke around and anxiously see how the teams
do. I forgot how fun it can be. Granted I know nothing about football and
couldn’t even name a player, but I like traveling and know enough about the big
players. And the great thing is that if
I do really well, I get extra bragging rights from coming in from behind. And if I come in last, I have the best excuse
- it’s almost a given considering I came in late. So no pressure.
This week I came in to work and I thought I did pretty well. And then I heard I did really well from some
of the other guys participating. I was
at 9 points, only 4 points away from the bottom person. Considering I didn’t get to choose 17 of the
first games, not too shabby. I was not in the know about Netherlands and had
picked Spain to win the first round. But
don’t think I was alone on that front. Again,
I didn’t know all the rules, like you can pick “draw” instead of which team to
win. But don’t think it will hurt me too
much.
At first I didn't remember the 2006 World Cup much thinking I
was in transition - moving between states and starting a new career. But the I remembered a one night in Madrid, we were walking through a neighborhood after dinner and all the cafe/bars were spilling out with spectators watching a game on the TV. The energy was great and it was fun people watching while we stopped and had a beer on a warm summer night.
The 2002 games I remember really
well because I was just starting Grad School (my program started in the summer)
and I was subletting an apartment on main campus before I moved into my
house. My roommates were several guys
from France in engineering/computer science programs. They were really nice and I kept wanting to
correct how they said my name. With
their accents it sounded like Susan but then I realized my name is popular in
France and they were just saying it the French way. Anyways, they were really into the matches
and since it was in Korea/Japan, they were watching them late at night due to
the time difference. I just remember
them always trying to scramble to get the laptop connected to the TV so that
they didn’t all have to crowd around the small computer screen to watch. For some reason there was always some cabling
problem.
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