today : I cave in and talk about the World Cup

Due to increasing, almost hysterical demand my resistance has been worn down and I have been forced to write about The World Cup. After all, everyone's doing it. For some reason, the rest of the media that isn't the sports media thinks that when we aren't watching the 2 football matches a day, we want to spend the rest of the time watching list shows about the World Cup goals, gossipy profiles of the players or whimsical dramas about Pickles the dog.

The World Cup is a fantastic thing. Football (or Sack Her as they know it in the United States) is the most popular game in the civilised world. And for good reason. It is, like life, almost totally unpredictable. It is made up, like life, of long periods of apprehension and expectation punctuated by brief moments of sheer ecstatic joy and deep, harrowing despair.

It is these moments that make footie so powerful. So, in honour of them I am going to name 3 of my random favourite World Cup moments.

1. Michael Owen scores against Argentina 1998. We couldn't believe our eyes as we jumped out of our chairs, knowing that in all probability that the boy wonder would be tackled. Except he kept on going and going. It was a bit like when you find yourself in the company of a really attractive person and, as the conversation becomes more and more intimate and the signals more and more unambiguous, you still expect that you might be mistaken and any moment they will excuse themselves and leave. Except they stay, and what's more everything turns out exactly how you dreamt it would. As Owen shot across the goalie and the ball spun into the top corner we were so far out of our seats that there was nowhere else to go. So we dove out the window.

2. Hahn Jung Hwan's golden goal for South Korea against Italy in 2002. The World Cup is such a great opportunity to support the underdog. I wonder if this is a particularly British affliction, to back to losers out of politeness and sympathy. This was the perfect opportunity. South Korea were the hosts and, as such, we could imagine the sheer joy that it would bring to our own nation and therefore we wanted it for theirs. As an added bonus, the Italian team are arrogant, vain, preening and prone to diving. We admire but despise them. They acted as as if it was a foregone conclusion that they would win by at least seven. It was set up for them to be humiliated. When Hahn's goal went off his head and into the goal it was perfect. The Italians gracelessly pouted and stamped their feet and eventually burst into tears like bunch of 14 year old girls whose parents ban them from seeing a boy with a motorcycle. The South Koreans were so overcome with joy they didn't quite know what to do.

Later, The Italians whinged & complained so much (they did have a point about the last minute penalty in normal time that had led to the Golden Goal extra time, but decisions going for the host countries are not uncommon) that they convinced FIFA to scrap the totally brilliant Golden Goal idea. The argument was that Hahn's goal was a momentary lapse of the natural order of things (if you look at the photo above you can see the expression on Fabio Grosso's face, it says "How dare you reach that ball before me, you little non-footballing nation type person!"), a little like when Elton John married Renate, or when The US intervene in a country that doesn't have any oil. Given a few more minutes, obviously The Azzuri would restore the natural order.

Churlishly, Ahn Jung Hwang's Italian club team, Perugia, stuck out their pet lip and sacked him as revenge. The only time in history when a striker was sacked for scoring a goal.

3. Robbie Keane's last minute equalizer vs The Germans 2002. It was Robbie Keane, it was the last minute. We were willing him to do it. And then he did. It was that great footballing thing. The draw that feels like a win.