The World Cup: FIFA and Cocoa
Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) hosts its quadrennial Soccer World Cup. (The World Cup coincides with the Winter Olympic years -- 2014: Brazil and Sochi Russia. The Summer Olympics coincide with US Presidential elections -- 2012: London and tri-athlete Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico .)
Hard to forget the Brazilians celebrating in green en masse in the Los Angeles streets in 1994, or the 2006 contest whether France or Italy has the most beautiful women.
The first 2010 matches begin 11/06/10 16:00 SAST (South Africa Standard Time.) That’s Friday June 11 at 7:00am pacific when you account for the international month/date convention we don’t use, and then divide the globe into 24 slices, wheel around to Africa and account for the perplexing difference between their Standard time in June and our Daylight time (9 hours behind FIFA’s posted times.)
So, since that’s confusing, we’re going to take in the first week of the games from the CEST where the date and time and conventions are precisely the same as in the SAST. Prime time in the grime.
A few “must sees”:
England v. USA -- Saturday June 12 at 11:20am pacific.
Netherlands v. Denmark – Monday June 14 at 4:20am pacific (not a joke.)
Brazil v. North Korea (!) – Tuesday June 15 at 11:20am pacific.
FIFA organizes the 32 teams into 8 groups of 4.
Our sentimental favorites:
Group A: South Africa; Mexico; Uruguay; France.
Group B: Argentina; Nigeria; South Korea; Greece.
Group C: England; USA; Algeria (Mediterranean Africa); Slovenia (south of Austria.)
Group D: Germany; Australia; Serbia; Ghana (south of Syphilis).
Group E: Netherlands; Denmark; Japan; Cameroon (island owned by famed director.)
Group F: Italy; Paraguay; New Zealand; Slovakia (north of Austria.)
Group G: Brazil; North Korea (escape -- the African grass is primo!); Ivory Coast; Portugal.
Group H: Spain; Switzerland; Honduras; Chile.
FIFA schedule, rosters, cheerleaders, country-specific drink and riot expectations.
See you there!