This week my Word of the Week is: Football!! #WotW

This week my Word of the Week is:

If you know me at all, this week's word was always going to be football! The World Cup is finally here and I am loving it already. For the next few weeks, you will be able to find me sat in front of the TV watching match after match. I don't even care what teams are playing. I'll happily sit and watch football from morning until night when the World Cup is on. I am even planning on recording some of the matches that are being shown during the middle of the night and hopefully avoiding seeing the scores beforehand.

I have been watching football all week, with the friendly warm up matches been shown. On Wednesday, I was ready for England's match expecting kick-off at 9pm only for them to postpone it because of a storm. It was chucking it down at one point and the pitch looked more like a swimming pool than a football pitch. By around 10pm it was clear. I don't know what sort of magic they worked but it was impressive!

Of course, I'll be cheering England on. Supporting England is part of the fun, we always seem to do so well until we don't. It is a rollercoaster of emotions being an England fan. I always find myself rooting for the underdog teams too. I love seeing countries make history. Cape Verde are one of the teams I'll be keeping an eye on because this is their first ever World Cup. Just qualifying is a massive thing. Curaçao is the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup and has less people in it than the nearest big city to us. Then there are teams like Haiti and the Ivory Coast where their fans have been unable to travel into the US after their visas were denied. It feels unfair that so many fans won't be able to experience the tournament in person. I also have a reason to support the Netherlands. Stu drew them in a sweepstake at work and if they manage to win the tournament, or even finish second, there is money to be won.

One of my favourite things so far hasn't even been the football itself. It's been seeing everything happening around the tournament on social media. I have spent far too much time watching videos of teams arriving, fans celebrating and countries sending their players off in style.

Brazil's plane set off with their plane being baptised, Turkey had what seemed like the longest convoy escorting their team, Norway's players dressed as Vikings for photographs and managed to look intimidating and hilarious at the same time and Senegal had a special dinner with their country's leader before leaving. I love it all! It shows just how much the World Cup means to people.

The American advice videos on TikTok have also been making me laugh. There seem to be hundreds of videos aimed at England supporters warning them not to walk to the MetLife Stadium as it's illegal and dangerous but I understand why fans want to. From what I have read, the train ticket prices before the World Cup cost around $12.90, which is roughly £9.50 but since the tournament arrived, some prices have jumped to around $100, which is about £75. Football fans already spend enough money on tickets without those sneaky price rises.

Another thing I've been wondering about is how everyone is coping with the heat. The players are fit but even they look like they're struggling at times. I've seen clips of players pouring water over themselves and wearing cooling scarves packed with ice and then we have the water break half way through each half. The fans must be finding it hard too, as some of the stadiums are not exactly shaded.

How has your week been? I hope you have had a good one! I am of course linking up with Anne who blogs at Raisie Bay to join in with her Word of the Week linky!