When the World Cup is on, no work gets done

By John F. Molinaro

World Cup fever has swept through the offices of CBC Sports Online.

I use the term "offices" charitably because anyone who has ever stepped foot in our windowless, cramped and roach-infested work area has been appalled at the squalor we are forced to work in - but I digress.

During the course of a normal workday, all five televisions in the department are tuned in to MuchMusic (the minute a Nelly Furtado video comes on, all work ceases). The talk over morning coffee and our two-hour lunch break centres around who is winning the baseball fantasy league. And Dan and Chris, two of my esteemed colleagues, are always focused on organizing the next poker night instead of meeting their story deadlines.

It's a miracle, really, any work gets done around here.

But a funny thing has happened ever since the World Cup kicked off.

All five televisions blare with the sound of British commentators who you would never mistake for Bob Cole and Harry Neale, such is the scholarly level of language they use. Debates over Derek Jeter's fantasy pool stats have given way to discussions on the merits of England's 4-5-1 formation and whether or not France plays better with one or two strikers up front.

And instead of trying to get everybody together to play cards, Dan and Chris want to know at which Toronto bar we're all going to watch the England-Portugal quarter-final on Saturday.

I could not be more delighted, of course. I am the lone soccer fan in the department and the World Cup provides me with a captivated audience: people ask my opinion, they listen intently to things I have to say (for a change) and I have become the office's authoritative voice (as opposed to its constant dissenting voice).

What's more, I don't feel like the office geek anymore when I show up to work wearing my Juventus jersey. It's a pity the World Cup only comes around every four years.

When the games are on live we sit intently with our eyes glued to the tube, argue over blown calls, and "ooh" and "aah" in unison over every goal.

Andrew, my boss, sitting in his ivory tower (a real office with a window), rushes out of his comfy abode every time he hears us hooting and hollering. He watches the replay, offers up some lame observation - his pathetic attempt at being "just one of the guys" - and then quickly returns to his private lair after hanging out with the riffraff.

I have half a mind to tell him off, but then I remember that watching the World Cup has to be painful for him - he's a Scotsman. Poor guy is still clinging to the memory of Archie Gemmill's goal against the Dutch in 1978.

Our little cubby hole within the CBC Sports Television department has become the place to be. Members of the CFL on CBC crew, the production people behind the scenes, routinely congregate in our area to see what all the fuss is about.

Josh, a young director, who wouldn't know a free kick from a kung fu kick, keeps asking us for scores and updates. George, a verbose veteran producer, is parked in a chair next to me so often that he's had his voice mail forwarded to my phone line.

Others who work for the CFL on CBC - Trevor, another Dan, Susan, Karl (people who normally look down their noses at us Internet folk and would never give us the time of day otherwise) - don't want to be left out of the loop so they're constantly huddling around us whenever a game is on. Invest in a TV, people!

Michael, a former producer on Hockey Night in Canada, keeps phoning me every five minutes during a game, asking me to explain to him the offside rule just one more time - guy, it's not that difficult; if you haven't grasped it by now, you never will.

My friends at CBC Arts Online - you should see their posh setup down on the second floor: windows, a couch, plants, a water cooler - are just as caught up in the excitement as we are. Greig, the editor, has taken to harassing me via e-mail about my beloved Azzurri. I've since added his name to my blocked list; his messages are now filtered out along with those annoying e-mails selling Viagra.

Jessica, a friend of mine who's a reporter down there at Arts Online, has also become enraptured by the festivities in Germany. "More like the sniffles," she told me when I asked her if she had World Cup fever.

She plays it very cool, but methinks the lady doth protest too much. She wasn't at work last Thursday and Friday and had to stay home because of a stomach bug. Or so she says. Many is the time when I had to stay at home with a "stomach bug" whenever there was a big game on TV in the middle of the day.

As for me, I've parlayed the World Cup and my love of soccer into personal stardom.

I've been interviewed on CBC Radio two dozen times since the tournament kicked off and appeared on CBC Newsworld twice. After my most recent appearance, I was recognized in the cafeteria during a coffee break.

"Didn't I just see you on television?" the young lady asked me. I confirmed that I was.

"Do you know George Stroumboulopoulos?" was her next question. "Oh, George and I are really tight," was my response. An obvious lie, but it worked - she scribbled her phone number on piece of paper and handed it to me. Maybe I'll call her, maybe I won't.

Mindful of my celebrity status, I have now hired an agent and am developing a pilot for CBC Television.

Keep an eye out for "Soccer Idol," the latest reality TV series hosted by Simon Cowell, set to debut in September in the current timeslot of The National with Peter Mansbridge.

John F. Molinaro is the editor of CBC Sports Online's 2006 World Cup website. John covered the 2002 World Cup, 2003 Champions League final and Euro 2004 for Sports Online. He also won a CBC.ca Award of Excellence for his work on Sports Online's Euro 2004 website.