I don't know anything about football. (Soccer)

Maybe 'cept this. A good game usually has goals in it.

That's the whole purpose of the game isn't it? To score goals? All eleven people trying to push the ball past all the eleven other guys without using their hands? Taking the shot, scoring the goal? That's what it's all about isn't it?

To me, that is the soul of the game. Take that away, and I think it becomes an empty charade.

How do you take it away? Maybe it's most obviously seen when a team simply wants to hold a lead score. They play a delay game, simply passing the game time by. Of course, you can get a kick out of seeing the other team flounder and try desperately to score. But it's not a good game, is it?

(What am I trying to say?

This is another one of those entries that try to find parallels in life with the everyday. So stop reading if you don't like it.

You have been warned.)

Then there's the high-handed world of trading football players. Sure, when someone says they got so-and-so for "fifteen", they mean "$15,000,000", but it really seems like some barter for livestock. Maybe that's why the World Cup's so attractive to me. The players do really have something other to play for than money.

What am I trying to say?

I think that every morning when you wake up, you're out on that field. And your purpose there is to help score a goal. If you don't know who you're playing for, who your teammates are and where the *#%* the other goalpost is you're in trouble.

I'll find this hard to remember, let alone believe tomorrow morning at Wake-Up plus 01, but the reason I'm here is to play a good game.

So what's my goal?

Where are my teammates?

Where's the opponents?

The score? The score's not too good, I think. But I'm here to help that, right?

What if we lose?

No matter. Why do you think there's the tradition of shaking hands and commending the other team on, "A good game."?

Because that's what I'm here to play. A good game.