on fifa 2006

four years ago, conrado de quiros wrote in his 'there's the rub' column that filipinos are no football fans. if i remember it right, he said he drove around the streets of manila to find a bar or restaurant that was showing the world cup then. good he found one.

four years later, most filipinos remain indifferent to football even if it's taking the rest of the world by storm. we've not caught up with the fever. i understand that basketabll is still THE popular sport here, next to boxing i guess, but that's only when pacquiao is competing. or until another filipino world boxing champion emerges.

i'm a boxing fan myself and like most filipinos i'm hooked to the teevee set whenever a well-touted match is aired. but i had to forego last sunday's pacquiao-larios match in favor of the late telecast of germany-argentina and italy-ukraine quarter final matches. and the night before that i woke up every hour from 12 midnight to 5 am in an attempt to catch england-portugal live. after all, the world cup happens only every four years.

i always like to watch football game whenever i can, even back to the time when the only player i knew was pele. i'm amazed with the acrobatic stunts that i thought were already "not-human". unfortunately, i only get to see highlights of various games when i channel surf.

this year i made sure i could see at least one full match. thank god for cable tv. although solar sports' telecasts are delayed i got to see so many games, yipee!!! (trinidad & tobago vs. england, trinidad & tobago vs. paraguay, portugal vs. netherlands, australia vs. croatia, australia vs. italy, france vs. togo, brazil vs. ghana, and the ones i mentioned above). the thing is any game is unexciting unless you root for a country. not having anything in mind i had to choose a team to root for before each match began. criteria varied from how popular the team is to how goodlooking the players are; who was playing fair and who wasn't; whether a country is for "war against terrorism" or not?, developed or developing country, black or white.

i settled first for england because of beckham and crouch. then australia over croatia because croatian players were bullying them. then portugal. that's after mulling over that i could root for the dutch because they're funding one of our projects; germany too because of funding. argentina because i already knew early on that they lost to germany and my heart bled for them. i liked italy because of totti and because of the mafia novels i read but they were up against australia when i first saw them.

so that made the games thrilling for me. it didn't matter that i was the only one in our street watching football, cheering, screaming, full of agitation. and because they are super-delayed telecasts i stopped watching cnn and bbc every morning so as not to preempt my exhiliration or frustration. like this morning, i could just tune in to the news to see how england-portugal concluded (the game was last july 1) their match and eliminate the chance of me coming to work late again. but hell no, i wanted the suspense. i wanted to feel the euphoria of triumph or the agonizing thud of defeat.

and yes, i felt it today when england lost to portugal. beckham was a "peripheral figure" during the first half, and was out of the game just few minutes after the second half started. rooney was sent off for misbehaving, crouch got in in the second half but was hardly impressive. ronaldo of portugal tormented the english team, and me with his almost perfect ball skills.

the game concluded with a penalty shootout. the commentator incessantly blabbed "england never won in a penalty shootout". and what was i to do? it was a hint to switch loyalty to the likely winner portugal. but hell no,again. along with live audiences i held my breath in anticipation, applauded for the one successful shot of england, groaned for every good shot of portugal, and boy, the anxiety i felt as cristiano ronaldo walked in to finish it off.

so now that england is out i'll choose between italy and portugal. i dont know when's the next game, and surely i wont see any live game so i'll have to block cnn and bbc news programs off my morning ritual from today till the finals.

and because filipinos are for boxing and not for football lunch today consisted of fried fish, vegie dish and pacquiao's victory. no mention of football. sigh, i'll just keep my emotions to myself.