Yes...Too. Much. Football!
Yes. It has rolled around again; It's vast, overblown, and entirely fuelled by money! It is the FIFA World Cup. 2/3 years since FIFA nearly sank under the weight of it's own corruption their global jewell in the crown has landed in Russia. Known around the world for its transparent and open government, virtually free of corruption of any kind.
32 teams of varying quality have arrived in the East to win this golden trophy.
This, to me, is the most beautiful trophy in the world. When I was young one of my first memories of world football was Mexico '86. At this time I was a year from secondary school and we were at the height of the Panini sticker albums. I completed the season one for the First Division. Teams like Liverpool, Aston Villa and Chelsea etc. But over the summer of 1986 they released the world Cup sticker album. This book contained non-english people. It was the most foreign publication I had ever seen. There were names I could not pronounce and they seemed so exotic and wonderful. It was a brave new world for a 10 year old from Devon. The majority of stickers were just photo reproduced headshots of the players who were participating in the tournament in Mexico.
But one, one sticker stood out above them all: It was the World Cup sticker. It was a 'shiny' sticker and it was rare, very rare. When you had a large pile of swapsies then you might have had a chance to get one world cup sticker for 100s of normal, people, stickers.
I am not sure I ever got one. I had seen one and the way it shimmered in the light was for a young boy spellbinding. At this point I fell in love with the World Cup. Yes, since then England have failed at pretty much every single World Cup, thats when they actually qualified of course! This hasn't always happened. Following England is like this. Mainly disappointment after disappointment.
But, for all the corruption and all the greed of modern tournaments it is still unmissable. It is the pinnacle of football. There is no other tournament like it.
32 teams of varying quality have arrived in the East to win this golden trophy.
This, to me, is the most beautiful trophy in the world. When I was young one of my first memories of world football was Mexico '86. At this time I was a year from secondary school and we were at the height of the Panini sticker albums. I completed the season one for the First Division. Teams like Liverpool, Aston Villa and Chelsea etc. But over the summer of 1986 they released the world Cup sticker album. This book contained non-english people. It was the most foreign publication I had ever seen. There were names I could not pronounce and they seemed so exotic and wonderful. It was a brave new world for a 10 year old from Devon. The majority of stickers were just photo reproduced headshots of the players who were participating in the tournament in Mexico.
But one, one sticker stood out above them all: It was the World Cup sticker. It was a 'shiny' sticker and it was rare, very rare. When you had a large pile of swapsies then you might have had a chance to get one world cup sticker for 100s of normal, people, stickers.
I am not sure I ever got one. I had seen one and the way it shimmered in the light was for a young boy spellbinding. At this point I fell in love with the World Cup. Yes, since then England have failed at pretty much every single World Cup, thats when they actually qualified of course! This hasn't always happened. Following England is like this. Mainly disappointment after disappointment.
But, for all the corruption and all the greed of modern tournaments it is still unmissable. It is the pinnacle of football. There is no other tournament like it.
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