Who Is Your Favourite Handegg Team?

Mine is the San Francisco 49ers. Wait a minute, you say. Even for those that aren't big sports buffs, most people know that the 49ers play in the NFL, aka the National Football League. Those are the same 49ers that I m referring to.

So, there is something that needs to be cleared up right away. The biggest sporting event in the world is set to get underway this Friday; the World Cup, the tournament that decides which nation is the football champion of the world. What this means for me is that I am gearing up for a solid month of early bedtimes so I can wake up for the first match of the day at 5:15 AM local time, as well as avoiding all human contact for the rest of the day so I can go home after work and watch the the other two games of the day that I have taped and hopefully not heard the results for. (This will be a daunting task, but if anyone can pull it off, I believe I am that person.) But the other thing that this means is we need to clear up the debate about what we call this sport and who gets to claim the title of 'football'.

Living in North America we tend to have a very 'America-centric' view of the world. Because of this, when we hear the word 'football' we think of big men wearing body armour and crashing into each other and chasing a funny-shaped brown ball around the field. But for one brief moment let's remember that we live in a very big world, a world in which we are the minority when it comes to this debate. So once and for all, let us set the record straight: there is only one game called football.

Let's all enjoy the great game of football over the next month. And come the fall, I'll be dialed in cheering my 49ers on in another exciting season of handegg action.