Today, I'm Belgian

 If you ask me what I think about 'football' - which is normally known as 'soccer' here because we have lots of different football - as in Australian Rules Football, which is what I call football. Up in New South Wales and Queensland, they have Rugby League, which they call football. Then there's Rugby Union, which is different again, but that's rugby not football. 

Regardless, if you ask me what I think about football/soccer, I will normally come back with the adage that if I want to see eleven people not score, I'd organise a group of mates to go down the pub. 

I'm not really a football person, of any code. I like watching the haka before rugby union games. I'm a nominal Adelaide Crows supporter. I can tell you where we are on the ladder (Currently 5th) and if we won the week before (we did). I can normally tell you what North Melbourne and Hawthorn are doing as well, as friends are footy tragics and they don't shut up about it, so I make sure I know what's going on to be polite.

 I go to the footy (Aussie Rules) once every two years where I'm told off for taking a book or my knitting with me and then I tune out until the last quarter. 

Then there's this World Cup thing going on in America, and I prick up my ears. 

It's like an election. There are tables and statistics and all sorts of things that appeal to my fizzy brain. The least of the things I'm interested in are the actual games. 

I've loved watching the fans show the Americans how to have a good time. 

The Dutch:

(I love the English translation.... skip your medication, so you can lose your mind...)

There's the Norwegians:

And the Scottish drinking every pub dry in their wake, complete with kilts and bagpipes:

Even the Aussies got in on the singing:

We also keep hearing of little towns being wonderful to the visiting teams. Case in point, the Algerians went to Kansas, and the Kansans took them on as one of their own. 

This is joyful stuff. 

Then you hear about the Americans, who have every right to play a team and do well. But when their lead striker was red carded, rightly or wrongly, and the U.S. President calls up the head of FIFA to get the red card revoked. It just stinks.

Even I've heard about how corrupt FIFA can be.

But that just sucks. 

So today, I was an honorary Belgian. 

Sitting in the office next to a colleague of Spanish extraction (he's happy) we kept our eye on the United States vs Belgium match. 

"It's 3-1 with five minutes to go," I told him at one stage. 

"There's 15 minutes to go."

"Really - I thought they were 40-minute halves."

"Nah, 45 minutes."

"Goes to show that I don't like soccer."

"Football."

"Whatever. The Belgians are winning and long may that remain. Today, I'm an honorary Belgian."

"Indeed. Me too."

I reckon that a lot of people were honorary Belgians today. 

The final score, 4-1, felt a little like a cosmic reparation.

Well, it will be until the Orange Buffoon / Cankles McTacotits / Daddy Dumpy Pants / the Overinflated Ooompa Loompa / (insert your favourite name for the current US President here) demands of the FIFA president that there's a rematch....

Time for some Leffe and chips with mayonnaise I reckon. 

Today's song: