No One Celebrates a Draw Quite Like We Do..

Not even one week into the World Cup and suddenly everybody is a football fan.

Or more specifically an All Whites fan, so much so that Nike have had to get the sweatshops working 23, not the usual 22, hours a day just so they can churn out more jerseys for a gagging NZ public. It seems the total sum of 28 years worth of jersey sales – roughly a dozen - was not enough to keep the racks stocked this time round and for that you can hardly blame Nike. Or maybe you can.

We – see what I did just there – drew with Slovakia to make a four way tie in a group that is suddenly looking a lot more interesting than it did a week ago. Winston Reid, the guy who was for most of his life Danish through and through until he realised he wasn’t good enough to make their senior team and decided to be a Kiwi instead a la Rory Fallon, scored a last gasp equaliser that sent the country into delirium.

You can't blame him wanting to stay Danish, they do wonderful things with pastry do the Danes. As do the Dutch. Not so the Swiss who are great with watches, pocket knifes and Toblerone, nor Ze Germans who just like to do kinky things with their sausage....

And then things started to get a bit funky. Some sleep starved, caffeine pumped journo decided that it could quite possibly be NZ’s bestest sporting achievement ever. Meanwhile over in Australia, where the football fraternity there are still coming to grips with their team playing like, well, what we all expected NZ to play like (against Ze Germans), declared the victory an ‘Australasian’ one.

To top it all off – and I wish he would - Martin Devlin, quite possibly the most annoying fuck ever, continues to grind out “C’mon you All Whites” at the end of every promo he does in a manner that makes you wonder if he’s passing a vuvuzela. Through his urethra.

I personally didn’t stay up and watch the game, something that seemed to disappoint a colleague of mine who appeared to be quite distraught when she learnt that I hadn’t and promptly gave me the silent treatment for an hour or two. Plenty did though, last night’s match was watched by just about as many people who watch the TV1 news each night, which is as good as it gets for viewership in this country. Great stuff.

See, I’ve watched enough World Cups to know that one has to pace oneself when it comes to late night matches; get into the schedule too early, when teams are happy to play out a draw, and you’ll be physically and emotionally shot. It’s best to save that shit till the knockout stages when teams will still play out draws, albeit high scoring ones.

Which brings me to my point. Football, particularly World Cups, have always been this emotionally charged. Maybe not to the fair-weather fans who now want to buy the jersey to prove that they’re New Zealanders, but we football fans have been soiling settees the world over every four years for quite some time with all the excitement.

Now I love that the success, or perceived success, of this All White side has gotten people into the game that otherwise wouldn’t give a flying fuck. I really do. All of my boys at training are talking about and wanting to be All Whites which augers well for the future, so for that I am right chuffed.

But let’s slap ourselves out of it shall we? It was a draw and with two group games to play we’re still in the same boat we were before the thing started and with the two toughest teams still to play it ain’t going to get any easier.

Yep, no one celebrates a draw quite like NZ football fans do, which is a bit tragic really.