for the love of the game part 1: pleasure found in football is LIKE pleasure found in sex

my newly found love for football cannot go unnoticed. therefore a blog entry should serve as the first step towards manifesting such love. actually it already counts as the second step, since the first would be owning four shirts, one for germany, two for england and one for italy.

i am setting a new record for myself. not only have i found that one sport i am bound to enjoy for the rest of my life but also, i have found addiction for it. it was strange to have gotten hooked in such a snap. it all started with the world cup. before the cup began, there was all the buzz, world cup here world cup there. of course this isn't the kind of buzz you get from an upcoming manny pacquiao-eric morales game wherein you hear news about it in every news break of each broadcasting network here in the philippines. nor is it the kind of buzz where almost every other person you meet and every other paper you read talks abouts the nba finals, miami heat winning, who scored the most in game 6, how the mavs were crushed and so on. rather this is the rare kind of buzz, at least for me, living in such a basketball-inflicted (or basketball-heavy, a more acceptable description for the fans) culture, where it seems like it's the only sport recognized by everyone.

to say world cup is to say something big- whether in terms of the participants, the game attendees, and the audience. participated by 32 countries from different continents, attended by millions (so far 2 million plus for the first round games), watched by even more millions at home, at work or at some other place. i tried watching not because everybody was talking about it (apparently not, especially in my case) but because my curiosity was aroused by the sport's magnanimity. it is the same question that gets everybody after chancing upon something new to them, that got me: what is the buzz all about? my 'journey' started on the very first fifa world cup day: the opening ceremonies.

i tried watching the opening ceremonies through the old television set with shitty reception, with a newly found interest and curiosity and open eyes. everyone who knows me can attest to the fact that i have never been a sports fan. i was never one of the millions who stay tuned to solar sports, abc5 or espn watching basketball games. there were times when i tried to enjoy the game. but to no avail. though i had occasional peek at some golf and pool tourneys. but that was it. to actually attempt to learn the rules, to know who plays well for one team and who sucks at the other, to stay up until 5am day after day just trying to wait for the victor, to try to avoid mistakes of having to make unnecessary noise that might wake up parents- all of that is new.
after watching several matches of the world cup, i think i've already come to realize why i enjoy watching football. or world cup for that matter:

1. score arrives at unexpected times, sometimes it even doesn't. getting a goal could take as much as the whole stretch of the game. yet it could also take a measley 2 minutes from the time the game started. it isn't like basketball where almost every 15 seconds, someone scores. these are people running from one end to the end, with playing area thrice to four times the size of a basketball court. just to get from one point to the other could already take a time. and getting a goal while three or four people are trying to steal the ball away from you, all of you using just your feet (arguably more difficult to control than the hand), is already too much work. therefore, as time elapses, excitement continuously arises as every member of the audience waits for that one time when their favorite team would get a goal in. it could take forever yet once it's in, then fulfillment is just overwhelming. no wonder players who score throw themselves right in front of their teammates, their coaches or who sulk in the momeny doing emotionally-filled, sometimes ridiculous moves, do so. no wonder these people, when they goal, run all over the field as if they won the 100M jackpot of the lottery. ah, euphoria. the fruit just couldn't get any sweeter. moreover, the gratification usually found in football is just too much to handle. from a point of comparison, one can think of football as an intercourse with possible mutliple orgasms while basketball is just a long monotonous sexual intercourse.

---end of part 1----