The World Cup is killing me 世界盃要了我的命

Literally!  All these late night (actually early morning to be precise) 2am matches are really taking the toll on me in the past week.  Luckily there’s only two more weekends to go, so life will go back to normal soon.
連續幾晚凌晨兩點熬夜看賽事，實在要了我的命! 幸好只剩下兩個週末的賽事，很快就會回復正常生活。

I’m not actually a football fan. I don’t watch the FA cup or Premier League, and didn’t watch most of the world cup knockout stage matches.  The only matches I really watched were the two that England played.  In fact I watched the England vs Panama match in a bar in Taiwan, a rarity as football isn’t popular in Taiwan.  Boy, that was a great match, but then we were playing Panama who were 43 places below us on the FIFA ranking.  Nevertheless, a win is win , especially when you win 6-1.  That was definitely a much needed boost of confidence for us.
其實我並不是足球迷，之前分組賽也只是看了英格蘭的兩場賽事。 其中一場對巴拿馬，我到台灣的酒吧看。足球在台灣不太流行，能夠像英國到酒吧看球賽十分開心，而且還大勝6比1，實在為英格蘭國家隊打了一支強心針。

Two nights ago I watched Belgium vs Japan, not that I had planned to, but Japan were playing really well, and before I knew it I had sat through the entire game.   By the time I went to bed it was 4am.  The next morning I woke up at 11am, missing my normal yoga lesson.  See how the World Cup messes up my life!!!
兩晚前原本沒打算看比利時對日本。但日本隊表現出色結果不知不覺看完整場賽事。上床時已是凌晨4點，第二天早11點才起床，還錯過了瑜伽課。你看世界盃多麻煩噢！

England was due to play Colombia yesterday, kick off at 2am my time.   I had planned to watch that despite the previous late night.  What does sleeping a few hours less matter when you’re supporting your home team.  By around 3.30am things were looking pretty much settled.  England was leading by a goal and there were just a few minutes of the game left. I was ready to go to bed.  A few minutes later, the worse thing happened, Colombia scored a last minute equalizer!  Oh no!  That would be at least another half an hour before I could go to bed.  Half an hour went by and still no sign of a goal.  It was looking more like a penalty shoot out which meant another 10 minutes or so.  On top of that, hubby tells me that we’ve never won on penalty shootouts before.  Shoot.
昨晚英格蘭對哥倫比亞凌晨2點開賽，這場一定要看。 3點半時英國仍領先一球，賽果似乎已成定局，我正準備上床睡覺。誰不知幾分鐘後，慘痛的情況出現! 我至少要再熬夜多半小時，結果原來半小時還不夠，還要多加10分鐘來個互射12碼/PK大戰分勝負。 更慘的是，老公說英格蘭在這方面從未贏過。

Well, there’s always a first for everything, and everything was worth it in the end.  As I went to bed at 5am, I noticed dawn was about to break outside.  This is such a beautiful world.
世上所有事情都總有第一次。總算沒有白費我在熬夜。 到5點上床時，發覺窗外已晨光初現。 原來世界是這樣美。

I’m not going to jinx things now, but there’s always a first for everything.  If we can do it once, we can do it again.  Bring on the next game.
能夠第一次打破魔咒，那必定可以再來一次。噢，都是不要說好，說出來可能不吉利。