And so it begins...

The years of anticipation have finally come to an end. The two years of qualifying, the draw in December, the fluid roster changes...all came down to this morning with host nation South Africa against CONCACAFs second-best team and habitual World Cup underachievers, Mexico. I wasn't necessarily drawn to this game because of the two teams (as I don't really care about African football and Mexico is meh), but I was hyped on the pure fact that this was the beginning of my month-long soccer fest.

I had no expectations coming into the game...just a little groggy considering I had to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to watch it. I turned the TV on real low so as not to wake my roommate and watched as the biggest (and greatest) sporting event in the world unfolded. The first half made me a little nervous, as South Africa was looking a little overwhelmed and giving Mexico some chances. Mexico's best chance came later in the half on a corner. They managed to put the ball in the net, but the goal was called back on account of the scoring attacker being offside. And he totally was. The goalkeeper had creeped past him, leaving just one defender between the attacker in the goal. For those that are not as aware of how Law 11 works as I am (from being a hot-shot referee and all), that's basically the definition of an offside. Yet, the two commentators, Martin Tyler and some other guy with a rather ethnic name (yet had a British accent) were convinced that this was a bad call and that the referees cheated Mexico out of a goal. Now, I know that since you're British that you think that you know all about soccer, but before you go and call the referee incompetent, please pull your head out of your ass and check the law book. I'm just saying.

The second half was definitely more interesting and entertaining. South Africa mounted a counter-attack and fed a lovely through ball to Siphiwe Tshabalala (which is the best name ever by the way) who one-touches it into the box and launched a rocket into the backside upper-V, past a diving Perez. Magical stuff, people...the kind of stuff that ignites the passion within an entire country. After that, the Mexicans appeared discombobulated, almost like they didn't think that they could possibly give up a goal to a team ranked 83rd in the world (Mexico is ranked 17th). Then just a few minutes later, SAs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune comes up with a great save, further demoralizing the Mexicans. Then, because of a pure brain fart on the part of the South African defense, Mexico scores to even the game. Balls. As the game enters stoppage time, South Africa had an opportunity to win the game on another counter-attack, but the ball hit the post. Blast! Despite the tie score, the game was fairly exciting and got me jazzed for the Uruguay-France game coming up two hours later.

However, this game was not quite as exciting. France has a good team on paper, but there were worries that they wouldn't be able to put it together in time for the big tourney. And as for Uruguay, I only knew one of their players (Diego Forlan) and not much else. I thought that this would be a tight, hard-fought game. But instead, it was a pretty boring 0-0 game. France was okay, and Uruguay just played hardcore defense the entire time. Meh. Nevertheless, today was definitely a good way to get me pumped for the rest of the month, and I'm sure tomorrow will be even better. I have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn again to watch my boy Messi dismantle Nigeria, and then...bum bum bum...USA vs. England game. Stay tuned to the blog as I plan to do a running diary of the game. Hopefully the US wins...and it forces Wayne Rooney to move into a shack up in Liverpool. I just really don't like that guy.