The World Cup..

I am a big fan of the World Cup. Ok, maybe not big by global standards, but by US standards, I am.

When I lived in Germany in 1996, the European championships were held in England (Germany won it all, which was cool since I got to attend the victory celebration in downtown Frankfurt).

Initially, my friends would ask me to go watch a game with them. As an American, I didn't really care, but seeing it as a chance to practice German, I figured why not?

I started to appreciate the game.

By the 2nd week or so, I was rounding people up, "hey, Portugal is playing Denmark! Let's go!!"

It's a great sport, but I hate the injury faking that is so prevalent. That drives me crazy. Some embellishment, ok, but the crying and whining, come on!!

Today I turned on Italy vs. Ghana (got to root for Ghana since I went there. Well, went to Italy too, but Ghana is more remote to my imagination). There was a guy fake crying...at one point, he opened his eyes to see if the ref was watching, kind of like my 3 year old nephew. It was too much.

They took him off the field on a stretcher.

A few minutes later he scores a goal. Too much.