Writing this will be painful for me. But, also a little cathartic.
Before the World Cup draw in December, I would wake up in the middle of the night and wonder how it would unfold. Yes, the draw.
My colleagues and I would do our own mock draws in the office and analyze them, deciphering how well the U.S. would come out of the imaginary groups into which we drew them. And before you say anything, I'm fully aware that admitting this is akin to signing a confession that we are enormous dorks. But bear with me.
Needless to say, the months and weeks leading up to the actual World Cup itself dragged out for me. I look forward to the event more than any other. I'd find different ways to keep myself busy in the final days before kickoff.
"Sure, I'll go for another walk today. That'll kill another half hour until the World Cup starts." I even took my future better half out to a movie on the evening before the whole thing kicked off, just so I wouldn't go out of my mind bouncing off the walls with anticipation. It didn't really work, but that's another story.
Then, South Africa and Mexico finally kicked off the event. Unfortunately, it's all gone downhill from there. As we head into Group G play, this event can officially be classified as a disaster. If the 2010 World Cup was a video game, I'd be frantically pressing the reset button and starting the whole thing over. Goals were flying in at last year's Confederations Cup in the same stadiums the teams are using today, so the environment isn't the main factor. What changed?
One major difference is the Jabulani ball. Yes, I realize adidas releases a new ball before every World Cup, and I realize players complain about it every time.
But the complaints have never been this numerous before, and the complainers absolutely have a case. How many routine square passes are you seeing elude teammates and roll out of bounds?
Same goes for chipped passes - even Usain Bolt couldn't catch up to what should be a simple lobbed pass, but the goofy trajectory of the ball combined with the thin air at high altitude makes it seem like every single chipped pass is well out of reach of the intended target and going over the touchline for a goal kick.
Goalkeepers and defenders are also misjudging balls horribly, to the point where I wonder whether coaches are going to start instructing their players to take a bit off their crosses so they don't float over everyone's head. We still have yet to see a single goal come from a free kick, and the two best shots I've seen all tournament long (Cameroon's Stephane Mbia and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo) cracked off the woodwork. FIFA just picked the worst possible environment in which to introduce a new aerodynamically wacky ball.
Want some numbers to back that up? Five games and two days were required to produce six goals in South Africa, and it took just one game to do the same in 2006 in Germany. So far this year, there have only been two games in which we've seen more than two goals scored (Germany destroying Australia, and Brazil taking North Korea lightly).
Germany is still the only team who has scored more than two goals in any game. As of now, we're on pace to not only break, but shatter the record for the lowest average number of goals per game in any World Cup. The current lowest on record is 2.2, and it happened in Italy in 1990. The 2010 version is in the neighborhood of 1.5. If I was only looking at the final scores and not watching any of the action, I'd wonder if FIFA didn't shrink the goals down to the size of an average encyclopedia.
And as if the poor quality of play wasn't bad enough, the incredibly annoying vuvuzelas serve as the proverbial cherry atop this poo poo sundae. Even die-hards like me are starting to get fed up with tuning into boring, low-scoring affairs ... all while having to listen to what sounds like hundreds of wasps simultaneously receiving electric shock torture ring in the background.
The best World Cup 2010 experience I have had to date was watching USA-England at an Irish pub, because the noise and atmosphere of the patrons not only drowned out the annoying buzzing, but felt much more consistent with a traditional fan base atmosphere. When I see the games at home or at work, the whole thing is like watching some kind of weird science experiment or reality show unfold - how awkward can we make the conditions in which the world's grandest event is staged?
FIFA recently stated the vuvuzelas are here to stay because they are uniquely South African. That'd be fine and dandy if this was a South African-only event, but I, along with what seems like the rest of the free world, find them incredibly irritating.
Where would FIFA draw the proverbial line? What if I and a few of my friends wanted to bring a bunch of instruments into the stadium and have a jam session during the game? Broadcasters are even going as far as to find headset microphones for their announcers which will filter out the vuvuzelas as much as possible which will also, naturally, filter out some of the chants and singing. South Africa and FIFA seem hell-bent on keeping them around, though. I wonder if they'll reimburse claims for carpal tunnel syndrome from so many worldwide users turning down volume on their television sets.
Hang in there, though. This will get better. It has nowhere to go but up, and my optimistic side tells me the quality of play will improve as teams get more comfortable and accustomed to everything. But they shouldn't get too used to South Africa, though. Call it a hunch, but I can't see FIFA (or any other governing body of sports) awarding the country the chance to host another major international event for some time.
John Juhasz is a writer and editor for FoxSports.com.
