Opening World Cup Thoughts

As you probably already know, on Tuesday I will leave the United States and head to Johannesburg for the 2010 World Cup.  About a full day and one layover in Dubai later, I will arrive in South Africa where I'll be spending ~15 days touring the country and following soccer.  While I've had fun updating Caught Looking over the last two months (and hope that you've enjoyed my ramblings on baseball, basketball and other US-centric sports), the foundation for this blog was my upcoming journey to Africa.  I hope to be able to post periodically from abroad, updating you on my progress and describing what I'm seeing.  If computer access is hard to come by, I'll be taking handwritten, journal-style notes and will update the blog when I get back in early July (complete with pictures).

While I'll actually be spending most of my time doing non-soccer-related activities (I'll be attending 6 games over 15 days, so plenty of time for sightseeing), most of what I write about here will have to do with the games I attend, stadiums I visit and fans I encounter while in South Africa.  I'm particularly excited for the US games I'll be attending (versus Slovenia and Algeria, and a potential second round match with a team from Group D), and will be fully decked out in a road blue USA jersey and American flag cape.  What might be more interesting, though, are the games I attend as an objective observer, watching fans from other countries cheer on their teams.

I hope you all enjoyed this morning's entertaining contest between host South Africa and Mexico, and will tune in for the United States versus England game tomorrow afternoon.  I'll try to post before I leave with my thoughts on that game, as well as on ESPN's World Cup Match LIVE gamecast application (how I've been following the games at work).  I'm also going to be posting this weekend on my first 2010 trip to Yankee Stadium for tonight's game versus Houston, which will likely be my last non-soccer post for a while.  In the meantime, here is a list of the games I'll be attending, when they're on in the US, and on what channel.  Enjoy!

1. Thursday 6/17 -- Argentina vs. South Korea -- 7:30 AM on ESPN
2. Friday 6/18 -- Slovenia vs. United States -- 10:00 AM on ESPN
3. Sunday 6/20 -- Brazil vs. Ivory Coast -- 2:30 PM on ABC
4. Wednesday 6/23 -- United States vs. Algeria -- 10:00 AM on ESPN
5. Thursday 6/24 -- Cameroon vs. Netherlands -- 2:30 PM on ESPN2
6. Sunday 6/27 -- D Group #1 vs. C Group #2 -- 10:00 AM on ESPN