"Someone always knows more [Karate]"

Aurora

Wow. Don’t know how it happened but my underdog team, Aurora, ended up finishing the season very well. I really got lucky with this. Their last game was for a chance at the title. And not only that it was El Clasico; another game against Wilstermann. Last time they met Aurora won 2-0, and they had shown a lot of fighting spirit in the last couple of games. Things were looking pretty good. I went to buy tickets five hours before kick-off but it was impossible. As I waited in the red-rich line at the stadium people mulled about in consternation. But nobody was going to get more tickets.

We ended up watching the game in a bar on El Prado. Aurora scored first, early on, and then ended up losing by one goal. It was pretty disappointing. The Gurkas took to the street and showed some classy Latin American victory celebrations. I was also jealous of all the men in the bar, in unison shouting out the Wilstermann cadence. If one of my teams ever win something what am I going to shout?

At least I got to watch the game with some beer and friends.

Mundial

I remember saying "weird, next time the World Cup is on I am going to be in my thirties." A strange thought four years ago. Subsequently Sarah and I started to plan a year in Bolivia and the Mundial was forgotten. Later it struck me that I was going to be in South America when it was on. I had created for myself a position where I could watch as much World Cup as I liked, with impunity. There would be no worry about drinking beer and wondering how it would affect work the next day. No Leave Forms to fill out if I wanted to take the day, week or month off.

Then, unpredictably, The All Whites qualified through Oceania. Month by month, day by day the proposition of New Zealand competing has become more and more exciting for me. I would not claim to be the most patriotic person I know but the idea that I am actually going to get to support my own country this time-around is uncommonly thrilling. It is unlikely that I will get to do this again anytime in the future.

Moaning

New Zealand has gotten a lot off stick for making it in to the World Cup. There is no doubt that there are some pretty amazing football-playing nations which have not qualified. It irks me something chronic that people are on our case about this. To criticize us for qualifying in a tournament that somebody else created seems illogical not to mention whinny.

Nobody with normal cognitive functioning is claiming that New Zealand is a powerful football playing nation. But neither should anyone apologize for qualifying.

Game One

With lead up games like England wilting against an inferior side from the USA and Germany handing Australia their asses there were plenty of moments which curdled as I waited for our own game against Slovakia. I ended up surprising myself and feeling sorry for the aging Australian side that was totally out of its depth and sad for England who look like they actually (this time) have a world-class squad. England’s game should have been fun for the "anything can happen at the Mundial" aspect and Germany should have been thrilling except for the fact that it underscored the miss-matches that are on offer at the World Cup. These games were unwanted foreshadowing for our (first; second; third) game.

Here is my two line analysis of what happened after kickoff of game one:

1. We were the hungrier side in the first half and if this were a boxing-match we would have accrued more points than the slicker Slovakian side but as it was our forwards lacked the finishing to induce fear or concern from anyone on the pitch
   
2. In the second half the Slovak’s showed glimpses of their speed, depth and proficiency leading us to look, at times, moribund but our yield-less hunger from the first half was rewarded in the final seconds of the game with an astonishing, pitiless, header to draw us 1-1.

Out of the autobiographic imperative that comes from a blog like this I have to express zeal and ardour for this moment. When the goal was made I wasn’t able to acknowledge what I saw. This was an impossible finish. Then Sarah, Hannah and Phillip (random Kiwi who’d turned up in Cochabamba only hours before) jumped up and went berserk. I kept screaming like I’d been shot in my nut-sacks* and frightening the wait staff at Cafe Brazilian in the process. While this kind of behaviour is not uncommon in Bolivia the place was empty and it was around 09:00AM.

Ya

Ya, sugarcane is in-season now so I am ready with my length and for the next couple of games of football. As the hours pass from that miraculous header I feel incredibly privileged to act like an idiot supporting my own team in an archetypal World Cup moment. The competition will be painfully difficult in the next All Whites games but, too bad, I am still gushing that I have been able to experience this moment in, what seems like, a recreational [football supporting] watershed.

* I am thankful that I don’t know how to do the Haka but now wonder if I should learn the Aurora or Wilstermann cadences as proxy to keep things on the safe-side.