Soccer fever at the highrise

With World Cup action starting Friday in Germany, your highrise correspondent has chosen Spain as her favourite team. Go Spain!

(at far right, 19 year old Spanish midfielder Francesc Fabregas battling an unidentified Ivory Coast player in March)

Now, you real sports fans will argue you don't pick a 'favourite' team, you pick a winning team. You pick a team with the best players, the fewest injured players, the top coach.

No. Here at the highrise, we pick a nice middle of the road team, one that may or may not win. Why? Because, as with the mice and lemmings, we like to root for an underdog. We like the suspense of fearing our team may lose in the first round. This method takes real risk, real guts.

And, this approach has an "artistic" aesthetic quality that suits us. Just as you can't be expected to say exactly why you like a certain work of art, you don't need a reason to like Spain. (Hence qualifying a soccer tournament for a blog that covers animals, apartments, and art.)

Graz, when asked which hapless team she might recommend, suggested England. But the Saturday Ottawa Citizen guide to the World Cup stated that England is ranked number two in bookmakers' odds. When I pointed this out to Graz, she countered that England is only #10 in the FIFA standings, whereas Spain is #5.

Critics may argue that being #5 hardly qualifies a team as a long shot. Well, no, they're not a real underdog such as, for example, Ivory Coast, which is #32 in the standings (with 34 teams in the tournament after all).

Still, the Ottawa Citizen persuaded me on Spain, when it claimed

"Spain is a semi-final prospect."

I do want a team with some chance. Now if they can make it that far, they might go all the way, I say.


2006 World Cup Team Spain