World Cup scorecard

No, not the teams and the tournament, but its use as an educational tool.

With our wallchart almost complete, I wanted to share some of the things the boy has learned over the last month:

• He’s learned to fall over, holding his leg, waiting for the ‘doctor’ to come on and spray his leg, befofre immediately getting up and continue playing. Where on earth could he have learned that from?
• Flags – well where do we start? Within a week of the start of the tournament, he was waiting for a bus outside a pub displaying small flags of all the competing nations, he asked if that was Portugal’s flag he spotted next to that of Trinidad & Tobago? Why yes it was.
• Walking down Park Avenue last Monday, once the semi-final teams were known, there’s a French restuarant that for some reason was hanging large flags of Brazil, France, Germany, Portugal and Italy. He spotted them and asked if they had deliberately hung the flags of the four semi-finalists and if so, what was Brazil doing there too?
• Tears were shed when Sweden scored against England and when England went to penalties against Portugal in the quarter final.

As the torunament went on, we switched our attention to the second kits of countries, mostly the ones that had been knocked out. Just this morning I had this conversation:

Him: what’s Brazil’s second kit?

Me: Blue.

Him: What’s Switzerland’s second kit?

Me: White, I think.

Him: Oh just like South Korea! And speaking of South Korea, what’s their second kit?

Me: Erm, perhaps blue, I’m not sure.

Him: OK

Swap out those teams with any others in the World Cup and you have the basis of many conversations over the past few days.

Overall grade for the World Cup as an educational tool? A+, I reckon.