There's always football somewhere....Gibraltar?

Day 22. What happened today in Brazil.

Can I call yesterday Day 21 and today Day 22 when there was no football? My dilemma, do we count non-playing days as days of the World Cup? Not really a big a dilemma as: 1. how to watch both quarter finals tomorrow while stuck at work, with work that needs to be done, and 2. what to do on July 9th, second semi-final starts 4pm, Toronto time, me and family's flight leaves at 5.45pm. I could possibly be flying all night and not know the result. How will I write update on time?

Today feels like the World Cup is starting all over again. Two days of no play and now tomorrow and Saturday we get into the real nitty gritty. The wannabes are gone home and now the serious contenders are ready to do battle. Even Costa Rica have to be in that bracket. All credit to them, it was no fluke. Italy, Uruguay and England, and then the probably the hardest team to beat, Greece.....and they came through. Costa Rica....quarter final...I have to keep saying that to myself. Poor Holland, the pressure, what happens if they lose to the Ticos?

All the experts are busy predicting results. Who really knows? What's the difference between France and Germany, Argentina and Belgium.....Colombia and Brazil. Excuse the cliches, but really, who is going to step and shine. Who's going to do a Maradona, or Rossi. This is the time....Maradona against England in '86 and Rossi against Brazil in '82.

Meanwhile in the other football world, every Premiership club in England is checking their bank balances to see which World Cup star they can spend way too much money on. But in another football world, the one you may think starts happening in October, the Champions League and Europa League have started. Before players in the World Cup finish playing in the World Cup, and then go on vacation and then start pre-season training, there are clubs, who will not be able to afford any of those World Cup players, trying to get through qualifying rounds to get to the Holy Grail of the groups stage. Yesterday, after the excitement of Belgium-USA, in the Victoria stadium in Gibraltar, Lincoln, the Champions of Gibraltar, the first team from Gibraltar to play in European competitions, drew 1-1 with HB Tórshavn of the Faroe Islands. I wonder what Alex dos Santos, the Brazilian playing for HB Torshavn, thinks of Neymar and Fred and Jo. Countrymen, but a world apart.