Today the world stopped for about 2 1/2 hours to watch. Here in Antigua, bars and restaurants filled up with people from all over the world to witness Spain win the World Cup. The bar I was in was 100% for Spain and we groaned and cheered and groaned again, and finally we all claimed our questionable ancestral rights to call ourselves championes and joyfully screamed ourselves hoarse. Enthusiasm is infectious. My new friend Caroline from Scotland admits to not being a big futbol fan, and I, typical American, don't know much about the rules or teams, but we cheered along with everyone else and got utterly swept up in the excitement of what was truly a thrilling game. Drinking Moza (the best dark beer in the world) helped a bit.

Last week I read an editorial in Time Magazine about the lack of success futbol (okay, "soccer") has in the US. The gist was that most Estadounidenses (people from the US--you can't really say "North Americans" b/c that includes Mexico) don't have the patience to watch athletes play so damn hard for so many minutes, yet with little to no actual scoring. If you think about our national sports, basketball probably comes closest to futbol in the level of constant exersion on the part of the athletes. Yet compare the scores: basketball scores are often close to 100 point per team, whereas today's game ended with 1-0, with the one score coming in the last 5 minutes of the second overtime. For those of you who watched, you probably noticed that MANY times, one team or the other almost scored. Frustrating, very very frustrating, but probably more so for the players. (I also found myself wonding if part of the professional training inclues instruction and intense practice on how to grab one's shin and writhe in agony after being felled by a player from the other team. But I digress.) Yet it was exciting, very very exciting. No time outs, not clock stops when the ball went out of bounds or someone got a free kick; just relentless, hard-driven play. Who couldn't love that? I am not 100% sold on the the point the Time editorial was making. Maybe I was simply infected with the fervor of a futbol-loving country watching its cousins kick ass, but , damn, it was worth every second!