Once every four years, I become a sports fan. I consider painting my face with the colors of my country, and my hands form fists that long to be shoved into giant foam fingers. Impassioned grunts and cries erupt from my throat. I swear at the on-screen referees. I am invested in the mobile bodies of men, in a green lawn, a ball that spins like a planet in quick orbit.

The World Cup is unlike any other sporting event. More focused than the Olympics, more beautiful (lithe legs, pointed toes, the bend of the ball) than the Super Bowl, more communal than Wimbledon, and more human than the Grand Prix. Reliant not on machines but on corporeal ability alone. Soccer is the only sport that I feel I know the ins and outs of. After playing the game for many years in my childhood (most often as a fullback or midfielder), I understand what it feels like to be on a field, to make space for a pass, to keep a tight defence and set up an off-sides trap. And still, I can’t imagine the clarity and precision that is required of those players in South Africa.

Last night, I watched the big America v. England game at the Hobgoblin pub. I got there early with friends, grabbed a pint of cider, and sat down right in front of one of the pub’s five TVs. I didn’t want to be able to see the glares from the Brits behind me as I cheered on my home team. For the next 90 minutes, the atmosphere crackled with intensity and excitement; I bit my nails down farther than they should go. The few pockets of Americans in the place upheld the “loud American” stereotype with plenty of animalistic cries, especially when our team was gifted with Green’s silly fumble and managed to tie up the score. Tonight was something else entirely: Germany v. Australia, in which the Aussies were massacred with a 4-0 final score. This I watched not in the hot confines of a crowded pub but on the couch with Granny (who is, surprisingly, a World Cup fan herself) with a cup of coffee and a plate of sweet Indian laddus made of lentils and cardamom. 

In 2006, I caught the World Cup final at the Kuala Lumpur airport while en route to India. Zidane broke my heart with his warrior head-butt. Four years later, out comes the face paint again—the foam fists, the noise-makers, the wave—and I am a sports fan once more.