Watching England-Paraguay at a kopitiam

image by dsnake1

Watching England-Paraguay at a kopitiam


So, there are still many people without cable TV at home. Two hundred plus, at my estimate. There's the number of football fans watching the live England-Paraguay game at the coffee-shop near my home. It was a largely youngish crowd, in t-shirts, bermudas and flip flops. The beer girl was kept busy by beer-guzzling, hokkien-spewing uncles. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the humid air, and I wonder what will happen when the smoking ban at coffeeshops kicks in next month.

I still haven't talk about the match? Really, there's nothing much to talk about.
England won one-nil, thanks to an own goal by the Paraguay skipper, Gamarra in the 4th minute of play and then laboured and grinded out a slim victory. One irate fan called the second half "(expletive deleted) nonsense." I tend to agree with him, I was feeling bored and irritated myself. Soon parts of the crowd were rooting for Paraguay, maybe they were pissed off by the English performance, maybe they had money riding on a draw.

So England won, but they will not be able to win the World Cup with this type of performance. Okay, it's only one game, and it may be opening game jitters, but I can feel my bet on England lifting the Cup getting colder by the day.

10.06.06
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