This Friday, to consider yourself a worthy dweller of the planet earth, you are supposed to participate in the month-long nuts-a-thon that is the World Cup of Soccer.

It’s just what we do.

It doesn’t matter that, for the past 47 months since the last one, you haven’t given two hoots or a hangnail about the “Beautiful Game”, it’s the spectacle that’s the thing!

Last time around, it was the “spectacle” of those 79 people dying in WC related violence and suicide that left me most amazed. For others, it was the grand scale of the entire globe tuning in for, what is, the simplest of all sports. But for most, the draw has always been the jingoistic pride in pulling for ones home nation, no matter how tenuous that relationship is.

There are 195 countries in the world, yet only 32 are represented in the tournament. Meaning most of us are supposedly on the outside looking in. Not that that matters any – there are always ties that bind if you look hard enough.

For instance, my home country is out, but I could quite comfortably be pulling for United States, England, Portugal, Italy or Spain if I wanted to. Hell, if I really stretched it, I could be all about the host country South Africa, such are my twisted international relations. It’s pretty much the same for everyone else most likely, and that’s the thing about the World Cup.

Everybody everywhere is qualified to be a fan.

So – faced with that reality, it’s time to figure out what we should care about since there is only one thing worse that being a neophyte fan – and that’s a woefully ignorant neophyte fan.

First thing you should know, probably the only soccer players you have ever heard of isn’t playing this go around. David Beckham tore his Achilles and is off the English squad. Not that you won’t be seeing a lot of him. He’ll be in every second commercial played for the next month on the tube. He might even speak – but don’t listen – he’ll suck the IQ right out of you.

Next, it’s the lingo. Lofty is the hyperbole. Terms like “The Golden Goal” and  “The Hand of God,” have become immortalized. For the first few weeks, the “Group of Death” will be positively dripping off the keyboards and tongues of the writers and commentators to add the perception of grandeur to this game, which is in its basest form, foot on ball.

Get used to it.

Also get used to injuries, kinda. A player will look like he was shot with a bazooka complete with death throws and writhing injuries and carried off non-compos mentis via stretcher. And then, by seemingly divine intervention, minutes later he’ll sprint back onto the pitch. There is one particular asshat from Argentina named Lionel Messi you have to watch, who also just happens to be the best player in the world. He is also the best diver.

Get used to hating him. A lot.

Of course, there will be the, “how will England screw it up this time?” In their opener, they face a defence-first U.S. team who are cockily wearing tribute jerseys to their shocking 1950 victory over Britain. If England loses in the first round, that 2006 79-death count is going to look like a Sunday tea party.

You will learn how to pronounce “Jabulani”, which is the name of the official soccer ball of the tournament – and like every other official ball of every other tournament before it, the players hate, hate, hate it.

“Disaster”, “horseshit”, “appalling”, “supernatural” are just some of the words used to describe the innovative new super-aerodynamic design.  American player Marcus Hahnemann summed up the controversy best saying, “Technology is not everything; scientists came up with the atom bomb, doesn’t mean we should have invented it.”

But the top reason for all of us to hunker down and enjoy the World Cup this time around will surely be Diego Maradona.

Since his playing days (and during most of those as well actually) Maradona has been a travelling disaster area wreaking havoc wherever he’s been. A drug-addicted alcoholic, he makes the press on a regular basis for one screamingly bad decision after another. So what did the head of Argentina futbol decide to do with their most famous son?

They make him their national team’s manager.

First he flexed his administrative muscle by forcing the aforementioned Messi to play out of position. Then in qualifying, he used a total of 78 players, never with the same lineup twice. Last month he had to delay the start of training camp because his dog bit him in the face and then just a few weeks ago he had a run-in with the press. Well, more like a run over. He drove over a cameraman’s foot with his car, and instead of apologizing, called him an “asshole,” and then criticized him “for putting your leg where it could get run over, man.”

At least he didn’t shoot him. Which he’s done before by the way.

Although I have no familial relationships with Argentina, I’m hoping they win simply because Maradona has promised to run naked through the streets of Buenos Aires if he wins it all.

It’s not called the “Beautiful Game” for nothing.

Cheers – Gavin McDougald – AKA Couch