The World Cup is here

---

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.

Bill Shankly, In Sunday Times (UK) Oct. 4 1981

Kaan refused to sleep today. He finally took a one-hour nap when he was so exhausted that he just fell asleep instantly when he blinked. He just couldn't open his eyes again for an hour. But when he did, he was ready to go again. Why, you ask? The World Cup!!

Soccer chocolates
Everything here is soccer right now. Soccer shirts, soccer balls stuck on bank windows, soccer truffles. Unless you live in a cave (or in the US, which has other priorities), you know that the World Cup began today and is being hosted by Germany. The first game was in Munich and Germany won (against Costa Rica). I expected the streets to be full of cars waving German flags after the game, but they were relatively quiet. Actually, they were eerily quiet. There were no cars. Except for police cars. Everyone was either at the stadium or in front of the boob tube. In case you are interested in coming to Germany right now and seeing a live game, GOOD LUCK. It's too late. It's probably impossible to get into this place right now!

Go... team!
As a multicultural-multinational family, who should we support in the world cup? If Turkey were playing, we would by default have to support Turkey because the biggest soccer fan in the family is, as everyone knows, Levent, and he is, of course, Turkish (as is Kaan). Alas, Turkey is not playing in the World Cup, 2006. This does not mean that Levent is not glued to the television watching the Cup as I type this. But who should we support? Do we support the USA because Kaan and I are American and Levent lived there for a long time (and the goalkeeper is from Lacey, a suburb of Olympia, where we moved here from)? Or do we support Germany because that's where we live now, and it's where Kaan was born (and because we would otherwise be way outnumbered here)? Or do we support Japan because our friend Ai-san is also a big soccer fan and he surely wants Japan to win. Or do we support Brazil because everybody, including Newsweek, thinks they're going to win, and this way we get to be on the winning side?

You can voice your comments and help us decide 😊

---

Photos

Soccer/Football's Newest Fan
Kaan's not really allowed to watch TV. But he is definitely interested.

Comments

[Uday]

Kaan's favourite colour
It's simple really, to make the decision. You let Kaan choose his favourite colour and the team that has the closest colour gets all your backing.

[Erika]

World cup allegiance...
You didn't mention us seeing the Costa Rican team bus on their way to lose against Germany, but I would have to say that that was (and probably will remain) my most exciting World Cup moment so far. I will be cheering on Brazil, because that is the country where my love for (okay, casual interest in) soccer was born. And besides, who doesn't want to root for a team that calls their sport "the beautiful dance?"