Brazil, you say? They know how to play football over there, don't they? But it's a long way for one so middle aged as I to travel.

So instead, I shall slouch into my leather armchair and view the tournament from this side of the Atlantic. I shall try and watch every game and will definitely make wildly inaccurate predictions too.

I do solemnly vow to give you a real sense of what it's like to not be at the World Cup. This is the blog where all the colour and atmosphere and passion of watching the world's greatest sporting tournament on a wall mounted widescreen really comes to life.

Wednesday, 23 April 2014

50 days to go to The World Cup. 1950 and all that...

Fifty, fifty.

Like a market stall holder beckoning you toward his stall, tempting you with his reasonably priced fruit 'fifty, fifty, your banana, fifty, fifty' I'm marking the fact that there are only 50 days to go until The World Cup with this post.

I'm not the only football blogger to draw a parallel between this landmark and the last time the greatest show on turf was held in Brazil, in 1950, in case you hadn't guessed.

And what you also might not have guessed is that Brazil failed to win that tournament. The multi-World Cup winners failed to do the business on their own patch.

Will the pressure of expectation create another potential banana skin that will see the hosts slip up in their own back yard?

We'll begin to get a better idea in fifty, fifty days...