 "If football is a drug, I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms")
Arnav: The thing about tournament football is that it comes at you all at once. Two or three games a day, and you end up spending at least 2.5 hours in front of the TV. Then you’ve got the constant stream of analysis: the player ratings, the match reports, the expert takes, the things we’ve learned, the tactical dissections, the team power rankings. Next comes the process of actually writing a little about it yourself, and discussing the World Cup with friends. Once you’ve done all that, there isn’t time for much else. So when there is a day between rounds, like today, you are forced to go completely cold turkey. Nothing to do. Stare at the wall all day imagining the most fanciful tactical arrangements and creating mental dream teams. Perhaps you’ll spontaneously remember that ‘its coming home’. But besides that, you’re at a complete loss for things to do. Today, I opened up a different page of the newspaper for the first time in days. It turns out, there’s an England-India cricket series been going on this entire time, and Wimbledon is approaching its conclusion. The British government might be about to collapse, and 8 of the Thai boys have been rescued. Who knew?
Arnav: The thing about tournament football is that it comes at you all at once. Two or three games a day, and you end up spending at least 2.5 hours in front of the TV. Then you’ve got the constant stream of analysis: the player ratings, the match reports, the expert takes, the things we’ve learned, the tactical dissections, the team power rankings. Next comes the process of actually writing a little about it yourself, and discussing the World Cup with friends.
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