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Manu | 12 June 2014 | no comments

My third World Cup abroad starts today. I was dreaming to be in Brazil for this world cup and I’d never ever expected to see it from far away Iceland.

While watching the World Cup in your home country is a safe place where you are surrounded only by people supporting your national team, making it stronger in a way, at least in your imagination, watching the tournament from abroad is different, as you have to confront with the rest of the world and expecially if you watch it in a bar, as they do not have big screens in the squares in this part of the world, you may have to control your reactions when your team or the other one scores.

Ready for the World Cup!

Ready for the World Cup!

In 2006 I was in London, I was young and I was in love. And Italy won the World Cup. London became for a night like Rome or Napoli. Clacsons were trumpeting everywhere, Italians came out of the blue singing the nation anthem at every corner of the streets, the rest of the world disappeared for one night and the party went on all night long in Trafalgar Square. It was unforgettable.

Four years ago it was much different. I was in Amsterdam but I was going through a bad personal period and don’t remember a lot of that World Cup, except for the final when the town dressed herself in her most joyful colours and met up in Museum square for a day of songs and dance, before having their dream stolen by the Spanish. What a night!

This year I will be in Reykjavik. I hope it will be a memorable one. The fact that Icelanders do not have a national team playing makes me wonder who they are going to support, hoping they are not going to support England.

I will miss the summer atmosphere that the World Cup is associated with, at least in my mind, and this time if Italy gets to the final….I go home!

3 matches are worth to be watched this week.

Brazil -Croatia: it is the opening match. Brazil has a lot of pressure on it, for a World Cup full of polemics and because playing at home it cannot fail. Sometimes it is not too good being considered the favourite, even though they deserve it as they are an incredible team. But never understimate Croatia, like all the other Balcanic teams, as they are always very aggressive in these kinds of competitions

A Dutch supporter on the final of last World Cup!

A Dutch supporter on the final of last World Cup!

Netherlands-Spain is the replica of the final of 4 years ago. The Dutchies have the possibility to have a revenge, but Spain is one of the strongest teams of this competition and one of the favourite for the victory of the world cup. They have won the last World Cup and the last Euro Cup and the last Champions League with 2 teams in the final. It is gonna be tough for Holland and it is gonna be an awesome match to watch.

England-Italy: because it is England Italy and even if you don’t support any of them you watch it if you like football.

Italy has a long tradition of starting the World Cups very bad, and when this happens we usually go further in the competition and sometimes we even win. It is almost part of the mentality of the team and of the country. We know it is gonna be difficult and probably many of us expect even the worse, without getting to worried about it. Let’s say we like getting life complicated and when there is the World Cup we usually do it on the first match. Despite the fact that England is a big team, however, psychologically it is not as bad as it would be if it was Spain or Germany we had to play against. Or even worse France. Those are our biggest enemies. The English are ok, we will survive them and, by superstition, in case we don’t, we will qualify 🙂

So is it all ready? Let the game begin, then!

 

Click HERE to have a look at the full photo album of the last World Cup final Holland-Spain!