Balls!

Well we finally got here. I’m So excited. At 3pm today, the hosts South Africa will kick off against Mexico. And they’ll be using a new ball called The Jabulani, which apparently means, “moves funny through the air”. I made that up. It means, “celebrate”. Whatever, people have been complaining. Someone (Julio Cesar?) said it was like a ball that you bought in the supermarket. Don’t know if that’s true. I’ve never bought a ball in a supermarket. And I’d bet he hasn’t either. Adidas say that it‘s the roundest ball ever (?) but it doesn’t move in a predictable way. Is that a good idea? An unpredictable ball? I wasn’t aware that the old balls needed replacing. If we’re going to experiment, how about bigger goals? Or alternatively, no goalkeepers over 5ft 7.

Obviously, the main reason we’ve got a new ball is that the fans can be fleeced for even more money than they’ve already shelled out. But why use it at the tournament? I’m no expert in global events but to me, they don’t seem to be the place to try something experimental at least not with possibly the most important part of that event.

Other than that, Wayne Rooney’s been told to mind his language. He got booked in a friendly the other day when he swore at the referee. For us here in England, it’s no surprise that a boy from Toxteth in Liverpool should use bad language. But in the rest of the world, Wayne spitting out a string of expletives may be seen as slightly offensive and result in a booking or worse a sending off in a match that actually means something. To that end, the referees have been given a crash course in the twenty most commonly used swear words in English. Now I haven’t seen the list so I tried to compile my own and I could only think of seventeen. And I like to swear. I’d appreciate some input on this. If you haven’t got time to make a list at the moment, just watch an England match and note down the ones you come up with. My partner suggested that he learns how to swear in another language. She thinks Klingon. It could work although it’d be just our luck to get a referee who also happened to be a fan of star Trek.

Of course seeing as Wayne Rooney is from Liverpool, there may be other swear words that I’m not familiar with. It’s also possible that the list will not be needed if, as the England players have promised, there’s no swearing. And pigs might fly. Although if they’re anything like the new ball, their direction might change suddenly.