It seems a lifetime ago now when the first match started, and then on this past Sunday it was all suddenly over.   It leaves one feeling a little bit adrift, a little dazed like when you walk out of the shade and into bright sunshine.   Thinking that perhaps you have to go back to paying attention to the real world again, and I feel that is a depressing turn of events.  It is fun to think back on all of it now, though most of the memories have started to fade, and I find that most moments lasted only so long as the next match.  I regret now that I didn’t write up thoughts during the tournament.

I’m no seasoned footballer, but I completely enjoyed the entire spectacle and fully embraced all of the emotional euphoria and catastrophic heartbreak that the World Cup provides.  I purposefully committed emotionally to the entire concept, and I don’t feel that the effort was wasted.  And having done that I can see why so many people around the world are so enthusiastically enveloped by the sport.  For that entire 90 minutes there’s nothing else in the world going on, and you don’t worry about anything, you don’t think about anything.  If your team wins then you are too overjoyed to care about anything else, and if they lose you’re too heartbroken to care about anything else.   You can say this of almost any other sport, but it’s the concept that there are so many people around the world all joined together in this emotional maelstrom that makes it extra special.  When the U.S. lost to Ghana, as heartbroken as I was, I suddenly had sympathy, perhaps empathy, for all of the other fans out there who’s teams were gone.

This is the third World Cup that I was aware of on any significant level.  I started small with the 2002 Cup, and followed it only distantly.  In 2006 I was able to pay more attention to the matches, and thanks to Univision I was able to watch a good deal of them.  By this time around I was ready to jump in with both feet, and I did so without reservation.  When I wasn’t able to watch a match I listened to it live via an app on the iPhone; it was an eight dollars well spent.  I bought two U.S. jerseys over the period, a cheap shirt from Target to begin, and a more significant replica away team jersey from E&D Deportes.  I was prepared to spend more on regalia, but the defeat against Ghana put the brakes on that…for the moment.    I’ am pleased that more effort was made to make the games accessible to those of us who wanted to be interested in the tournament, especially ESPN 3 that allowed live streaming of every game, and that ABC was willing to show matches on the weekend.  While it doesn’t live up to the great coverage of the Spanish language stations, I was pleased that it was there at all.  As a side note, a very special FU to Time Warner for not signing with ESPN to allow streaming, though for some reason it worked up until the second round.  I’m considering changing providers just for this alone.

With it all over now I’m slowly wading into the soccer world, looking for avenues to feed my desire for more football.  I was thinking earlier that these are my salad days of soccer.  I don’t know enough to be upset by any part of the game, my knowledge not refined to the point where I’m disgusted by various aspects of the game.  Everything is a wonderment and I’m only eager to experience more with the hope of recapturing the elements that I enjoyed during this most recent World Cup.   I’m tentatively excited about the beginning of the U-20 Women’s World Cup tomorrow.  More group play, more knockout stage…I admit I got a little giddy looking at the blank standings table.