As one observant blogger friend noticed, my family ended a year without television because of the World Cup. I’m determined to get lots of work done in the next month, but the distraction of the world’s greatest sporting event is powerful, even when the lure is Germany v Costa Rica.

I went with John, a non-fan colleague, this morning to our local coffee shop, which has – like my family – installed a TV because of the World Cup. The usually mellow Berkeley morning crowd had been displaced today by some different faces, including one young man in a Germany shirt. John and I sat down, not reluctantly, to watch the first few minutes of the game. Amazingly, even though we only watched 12 minutes, we saw two goals. John is going to get a very wrong idea of football.

For the office-bound, minute-by-minute coverage, as pioneered by The Guardian, is a vital link. I was excited yesterday when The New York Times’s very good World Cup blog announced that it was going to provide a play-by-play of every game. Sadly, it is a very, very pale imitation of the original. Compare the NYT coverage with The Guardian. One understands both the game and humor; the other doesn’t. Message to the Times bloggers: loosen up.

Incidentally, when my football-obsessed 10-year old son and I discussed the opening match this morning, he authoritatively proclaimed, “Germany will rout them.” Not so fast, I cautioned. When I lived in Italy, I went to the opening match of Italia ’90. A friend was desperate to give away seats since no one wanted to see Argentina trounce Cameroon (particularly in Milan: Maradona had led Napoli to the scudetto over AC Milan, and he was hated in the city). The result was one of the World Cup’s great moments.