I have fond memories of watching past world cups, especially those of my childhood, from 1986 through to 1998. These I watched at home in front of my TV watching as many games as I could on our free-to-air TV channels. I have vague memories of the 86 world cup, some of which have surely merged with memories of watching highlights later in life. However I have better memories of the 1990 world cup in Italy, and better again for the 1994 and 1998 world cups in The US and France. The main interconnecting memory though was of watching them at home in front of my TV at what ever hour of the day (or night) the game was on. Some games had to be worked out to be able to watch around school and other such things, but back then, according to my memory, the free-to-air tv here in NZ showed replays in the afternoon as well as the live games, which made watching games easier. However in later world cups the free-to-air channels have showed less and less games, with the only place now to watch all games is on the pay tv channels, albeit on a dedicated channel with in depth previews, analysis and commentary. However I do not have the money, nor the desire, to pay for this service as I need to pay for a minimum 12 months and get 50-100 channels that I have no interest in, all to watch the greatest tournament in the world once every four years.
However the free-to-air tv does have most of the games live, which are 10 of the group games plus all the play-off games. The 10 games were not advertised for sometime, and it has only been in the last week or so that these games were released. This meant that Numbernine and myself had plenty of speculation on those games. Four of those games were known, The opening game plus the three England games, which left the magical six over which we could argue on which would be best. These six ended up being as follows (in NZST):
Sat. 14/06/2014
Spain v Netherlands LIVE
0630 – 0900
Tue 17/06/2014
Germany v Portugal LIVE
0330 – 0600
Wed 18/06/2014
Brazil v Mexico LIVE
0645 – 0900
Sat 21/06/2014
Germany v Ghana LIVE
0630 – 0900
Tue 24/06/2014
Australia v Spain LIVE
0330 – 0600
Thurs 26/06/2014
Nigeria v Argentina LIVE
0330 – 0600
Both Numbernine and I wanted the first two games, as these may be some of the best games of pool play, and include the insane re-match of the 2010 final in pool play! However from there we had different opinions on what was a good game to include, although I had argued that one of the Australian games would be included because Australia, and I was right, even though it will be more of a training match for the Spanish team than a real game. I had however thought that there would be more of a range of groups shown, not limited to just the 4 groups that we got. Sure We get a lot of Group D games thanks to Englands inclusion in that group, but we donāt get the potentially table defining match of Uruguay v Italy, nor do we get some of my personal favourite games of Ivory Coast v Colombia or Belgium v Russia or South Korea. The games we did get are generally from groups that have reasonably obvious favourites, and even somewhat obvious 2nd teams that should go through, the groups that missed out are more up in the air on which teams would advance.
In any case I want to watch as much of the free coverage as I could, and to achieve that some scheduling of my time will be needed. On top of the games above we have the following games:
Fri 13/06/2014
Brazil v Croatia LIVE
0745 – 1000
Sun 15/06/2014
England v Italy LIVE
0930 – 1200
Fri 20/06/2014
Uruguay v England LIVE
0645 – 0900
Wed 25/06/2014
Costa Rica v England LIVE
0330 – 0600
Thus on this coming Friday I am starting work late so I can catch the opening game, Brazil v Croatia. Spain v Netherlands on Sat morning and England v Italy on Sun morning are easier to watch. There is no monday morning game to manage, and Tuesday morning I can watch Germany v Portugal before work. Brazil v Mexico on Wed morning may require some negotiation with work, or potentially watching it at work since my work is nice and has a TV in our lunch room which includes all the NZ pay tv channels. The next game to be shown free-to-air is the friday morning England v Uruguay game, which may also require a late pass to work, and maybe a pub to watch it in as it is sure to be a great game. Surprisingly there is no Saturday morning game in the second weekend, however Sun morning Germany v Ghana is easy to watch.
Monday also has no games, Australia v Spain is early Tuesday morning, easy enough to watch before work, though probably the easiest one to miss. Wednesday has the Costa Rica v England game in a nice pre-work time slot, before the group games are wrapped up with Argentina vs Nigeria, which I expect to be confirming Nigeriaās third spot in Group F, but is the only Argentine game on the schedule before the knock-out rounds that it is a must watch for me, and so will be another early start. This leaves really only two mornings where there may be some issues, Wed 18th with Brazil v Mexico and Fri 20th with Uruguay vs England. The semiās will also require time off, as well as 2 second round games, so it maybe that I will not push for the Brazil v Mexico game, but will watch the England v Uruguay game, though possibly at work with work mates.
In any case, despite the lesser coverage of my penny pinching self, I am sure this world cup will provide plenty of good moments that will turn into great world cup memories
NineSixFourTwo 