World Cup 2010 Schedule Surfing – Time to make way

We’re four months out now (122 days) from World Cup and it’s time to start scheming for those days off.


I don’t know about you, but any event for this June/July that comes up around here needs to first pass the WC2010 schedule test. This includes school events, daughter’s birthday party, family vacation, ortho appointments, soccer tryouts, barbeques, etc. I’m boxing out the whole month, June 11-July 11.


Yes, we have a DVR and we’ll be recording every game. But, there is nothing like watching these games live. If you don’t, you leave yourself wide open to a friend’s good-natured call that could spoil the final score. Miss the matches live and you will need to keep the radio turned off and screen your calls. You’ll need a black piece of paper to tape across the bottom of your TV screen to avoid seeing the ticker. And finally, new to this World Cup, we’ll all need to deal with the dreaded TEXT that could interrupt us with any score at any time.


Keep in mind that kickoff times are 7:30am, 10:00am and 2:30pm all to be shown live on ESPN. However, ESPN will devote at least ½ hour of pre-game time for lineups, predictions and national anthems so their posted show start times are 7:00am, 9:30am and 2:00pm.


For the record, I am happy with these kickoff times. It would be nice to have evening games for those that work 9-5 and to facilitate evening revelry, for sure. But 7:00am is way better than those 5:00am kickoffs, and it's been worse.


And let’s just be thankful that the games are being televised live and free and at all (remember the old days…?)!


Sorry friends, but I will not babysit, volunteer, “have coffee”, chaperone, carpool or offer to help anyone out during this month. No offense, but I won’t be available. During the last World Cup my house was a mess 24/7 and we were eating pizza way too much. I was gaining weight and I was super pale from the lack of sunlight. I remember calls from my Mom four years ago about “not seeing me for ages” and “needing to catch up”. Let's watch together or catch me July 12, Mom.


I also remember though, that during the halftimes of all of these games, my kids would play 1v1 in the front yard. Shot after shot after shot. It’s no coincidence that it was during this time that they learned to love the game as much as we did. We had the wall chart and the betting chart posted.  They both started their travel soccer careers the very next season and haven’t slowed down or looked back. It’ll be something special to watch with them this time.


So - after reviewing the schedule in detail, it’s clear that most folks with day jobs will need to take off a minimum of five days. If you are wild for a particular nation, add at least two more days. During the group stages, most of the teams play two weekday and one weekend game. So let’s say a whole week for most World Cup fans.


Sound like crazy talk? Grab your calendar and check out the schedule with me to see for yourself:


** TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW **