Some Thoughts on The World Cup

For about 95% of my life I am extremely oblivious when it comes to sports, which makes it kind of odd how obsessed I get about certain sporting events. This includes the baseball playoffs, the Olympics (both summer and winter) and now the World Cup.
Last World Cup I was in Prague, and didn't have a TV so only saw a few games when I happened to be at the beer garden (which had a big screen). It was exciting to be involved as Prague is such an international city that the night of the final (which was France v. Italy) there were tons of people from both countries all decked out in their national colors. I didn't really care about the games as much as the atmosphere.
This time it is totally different. Much of this probably stems from the fact that there isn't really a whole lot else going on here at night, and that it is the number one topic of conversation but I am OBSESSED. I have seen almost every game (I only tend to miss the last game of the night, as it comes on here at 11:50pm, way too late for a week night). I am becoming aware of all the developing story lines, shocks and upsets (like Spain v. Switzerland the other night, which was crazy, or poor Nigeria being down to 10 players and losing to Greece). I can't wait for each new round of games.
One thing that is kind of funny about the "World" Cup is that although Asia has about 60% of the world's population, the only Asian teams are Japan, South Korea and the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (AKA North Korea, and quite possibly the most misleading country name ever). Asian giants like China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh (which believe it or not has 160 million people, which makes it the 7th largest country in the world) are totally absent. In fact less than 25% of the world's population is represented by the 32 teams in the tournament. Europe makes up about 11% of the world's population and represents 40% of the teams.  The funny thing is, judging by Bangladesh, and from what I have read about India nobody seems to care. People here just pick a team (Argentina or Brazil) and go just as crazy for them as they would if Bangladesh was in the finals. (I'm not kidding -- when Argentina was playing last night, from my apartment, I could hear the roars on the street every time they scored a goal.) The other day at the office Ruksana (Argentina) and Anindita (Brazil) got into as heated a discussion as a Yankee and Red Sox fan would.

I'll admit it as well, I've definitely jumped on the Argentinian bandwagon.