World Cup lingual to fit in

A sensational volley by Dries Mertens and a Romelu Lukaku double fired classy Belgium to a 3-0 win against World Cup debutants Panama in Sochi yesterday. Panama held Belgium at bay until two minutes after the restart when Mertens broke the deadlock, with Lukaku’s brace completing a smooth win for Roberto Martinez’s team in their Group G opener.

With the ever-growing influence social media has on our daily lives, this World Cup is yet another opportunity to reveal that we cannot really hide away from moments like this.

So we shall by all means fit in and run with the flow. And yes, we shall not be limited to the lack of exposure prior to the world’s biggest sporting event.

And that when we sit together with family and friends, we can throw in a word or two to discard any doubts that we are clueless about what we are talking about.

For starters, it will be important to identify one player in your top five favourite teams so for instance if you support Brazil, you must know Neymar and that he is chasing Brazil’s all-time goal scorers status.
Enter Cristiano Ronaldo. That he is the oldest hat-trick (three goals in one match) scorer can be your other entry point to a conversation.

When you hear people talking about VAR – it is not some rocket science out there. This is a Digital World Cup as I mentioned last Thursday.

VAR stands for Video Assistant Referee – a brand new video technology to enhance the referee’s decision making during matches.

Once you know what this is then you can point out what you have witnessed from video replays to make a judgment for or against VAR and voilà, you are in! Just like that.

I must say that football extremists can unintentionally go into oblivion when in the heat of exciting moments. They go completely into reminiscent mode but do not be left behind.

When they talk about the Jose Gimenez’ late goal that earned Uruguay a 1-0 victory over Egypt last Friday, you could with confidence say that your greatest disappointment was Luis Suarez’ penalty against Ghana in 2010! Stay woke.

*The writer is a journalist with SuperSport Television