Chp 73. World Cup: Of women folks and football

Football. To most women, the very word itself can bring about a new height of insecurity. After all, it is the one element on Earth that they can never compete with. No matter how much Azzaro perfume they spray upon themselves (somebody’s gonna kill me for saying that! ) Or wear the most revealing designer minis and spaghettis, men will always ignore them for football. It is the Universal truth.

World Cup is the only time when we-men relax and wo-men yawns. But I really appreciate women who take that extra mile just to please their men. After all, we men do take a lot of effort just to please our woman like leaving the damn toilet seat down every time we finish peeing or flicking our cigarette in the ashtray and not everywhere we feel like. Take for example the UEFA Championship Finals. My roomie n I went all the way to KMG to watch it LIVE with a couple of other guys. Eventually there were around 15 of us and 50 rounds of beer. And among the people watching the match, 3 of the guys brought their girlfriends along. Two of the girls slept off even before half-time, and the remaining girl just kept text-messaging her friends through-out the match. Why did they come to the match in the first place when their boyfriends were going to ignore them anyway? I guess it’s because they want to show how much they love them by being present at such a special moment.

There are ofcourse many women crazy about football. I once watched a crucial match between Brazil and France with my mom! The sound effects she made when the ball was close to the goal was simply priceless. She would scream in her shrill high pitch voice “hets hets hets heeettsss…”, “khai khai khai khaiiii…”, “pet ro pet ro pet ro pet roooo…” (In English: “kick it kick it kick it kick itttt”). But the main difference between them and us is that they don’t analyze the players or game strategy like we do. They just sit and cheer with all their hearts out but have no idea what an offside means or what’s the difference between a direct and indirect free kick. Sometimes when a player plays a dummy role by acting as if he’s receiving a pass but let it go past him in the final second to fool the opponent, some women actually think “what a useless player, he can’t even receive a pass!”

Hence this post of mine is dedicated to all you women folks out there (and a few men like Benjamin, Admin of misual.com ) who think football is just about 22 men chasing a ball and trying to kick inside each other’s goal. I will start off with my dear friend Jenny. She works at the AOL call centre in Bangalore. She came over to my place one day and my roomie and I were watching an Arsenal match on ESPN. She has completely no idea about football and since my roomie and I were so deeply engrossed in the match, she tried to strike up a conversation regarding the match. Out came the ultimate football joke of the Century: “So has Arsenal qualified for the World Cup?” Gawddd!!!!! I have never laughed out that much in my entire life!!! And it was a very genuine and innocent question too. These are some of the reasons why I’m so grateful to God for making women so different from us. It’s as if they are here just for a comic relief

And then there is that mizo housewife who saw David Beckham during the World Cup 2002 and exclaimed in surprise “I thought Beckham was playing for Manchester United, how come he’s playing for England too?”

Another time I was in my own World watching Arsenal beat Leeds United 3-2 and a couple of friends were there too. David’s girl Julian (name changed) was there in the crowd and I was really impressed about the way she was seriously watching the match, until Arsenal scored their third goal and ESPN showed a clip of Arsené Wenger rejoicing. She exclaimed “Look look, their “Boss” is so happy!”. LoLz. I mean, in a way, he is their “Boss” but who calls him by that designation anyway? Women. Sigh.

For a guy, explaining the concept of Offside to a girl is probably one of the hardest things to do. Let me rephrase that. It is a Herculean task. Just when you thought they understood everything you told them, a few exceptional cases will occur, like when the ball strikes the body of the opponent and goes to the striker who was in an offside position but is actually not an offside since it was the opponent who touched the ball last, or when the linesman gives the benefit of the doubt to the defensive team even though it was not an offside, and the girl would start “Why is that not an offside? Why why why why why?” and all you feel like right then is taking out a shotgun and blowing her brains out.

Football is one game where we would like to be left alone without any questions asked. Mothers, sisters, girl friends, wives, concubines, please stay out. Maybe you enjoy watching the game, but you don’t understand the game and you never will. One reason why we have penises and you don’t. When God took that rib out from Adam and gave it to Eve, He unfortunately forgot to transfer the ability to comprehend football, and so that’s how things will be. After all, it’s just a once-in-4-years experience so quit cribbing and let your man enjoy. Cheer for a team if you must, but don’t ask silly questions during the game.

Just because a particular country has many good strikers doesn’t mean they can all play at the same time. And no, every foul does not deserve to get a yellow card. Yes, I can see the ear phone in the referee’s ear. What’s he listening to? Aaaargh. Shakira’s “Hips don’t lie” from the local German radio station. Happy? No I have absolutely no clue why he’s lying there screaming and grabbing his ankle even though the replay showed that there was no contact. Maybe the contact was so fast that the video camera failed to capture it. Yes a “banana kick” is an easy way to score a goal from a corner kick, why don’t you tell that to the players because I think they don’t know. No honey, for the umpteenth time, there are no commercial breaks during the entire game except at halftime. And no, Pelé is not playing for Brazil anymore. Huh, what did you just ask me? Do I know Maradona? No dear, I’ve been watching football all my life and have absolutely no idea who or what Maradona is. Is it an Italian dish? Aaaargh. Honey, can you please pass me my handgun from under the mattress?

After July 9th, you can nag him all you want. But till then, please, I beseech all you women folks out there, leave your man at peace. And by “your man” I mean, your boyfriend, husband, brother (especially little brothers ), cousin, father, uncle and anyone that’s remotely related to the male species of our race. The other day I was watching the Japan Australia match. The Japanese side was barely hanging on to a 1 goal lead and then on the 80th minute my sister told me we’re going out for dinner. Much as I hate to leave my personal space around the TV, the look in her eyes screamed out murder if I skip dinner again. So unwillingly I went out with her. Later I found out Australia scored 3 goals in the last 8 minutes! Aaaaargh! And when I told my sister what I missed because of chow-time, all she said was, “So what, it’s only 3 goals. People score that much all the time during football na?”. Aaaargh. Once again, where’s that handgun?