An American's guide to the World Cup

Believe it or not, America, starting Friday is the beginning of a sporting event that is bigger than the Super Bowl and BCS national championship game put together.

I'm talking about a little month-long event called the World Cup.

HA! OK, I totally couldn't keep a straight face on that one. Nobody in this country cares about soccer. But humor me for a second here: Let's pretend you have one of those strange "foreign" friends who's always talking about how "smashing" a "match" of "football" is and when they finally talk you into sitting down and watching one, you're all like, "Wait, so, why don't they ever try to score?" and your friend is all, "Right-O. It's called strategy, mate," and that's when you finally get it. Of course, I'm referring to the urge to eat at Outback Steakhouse.

Never for a minute do you think that maybe, just maybe, 26 billion people (the amount of people who watched the last World Cup in 2006) might be onto something with this whole soccer craze.

That's why this year maybe you should give the World Cup a try. After all, there's that whole England versus America thing that should be hilarious because it's a no-lose situation for us. For instance, if we beat England, for the next four years we get to remind them how a bunch of guys who just heard of the sport three weeks ago formed a team and then beat a country that's one and only obsession (if you don't count skipping dental appointments) is soccer. And if we lose, well, we'll just go back to not caring about soccer and drinking beer.

That said, if you want to be in the loop, here's what you need to know about the World Cup:

There are 32 teams involved.

Sadly, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands did not make the cut, but household names like Slovenia and Slovakia should make up for that with their exciting brand of soccer that will no doubt stand out from the other countries because they will be wearing different colored uniforms.

Teams are broken down into eight groups of four.

Each one of these groups is given a letter designation. For instance, Brazil, Ivory Coast, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Portugal make up Group G, or what experts refer to as "The Group of Death."

Whereas the U.S., England, Algeria and Slovenia are in Group C, or what experts refer to as "laughter." Two teams from each of these eight groups will move on to the final 16, which is also known as the, "OK, you can stop paying attention at this point because the U.S. probably won't be one of them."

All the good teams are from South America and Europe.

This means you can go ahead and rule out about a third of the field. Sorry, New Zealand, it's probably not going to be you versus us in the final. Unless of course they decide to pick the finalists based on the percentage of countrymen and women who know what "Flight of the Conchords" is.

The official mascot is Zakumi.

Sure, a leopard with green hair might be a little creepy, but on the bright side, at least it's androgenous.

Be prepared for nothing to happen.

Ask any soccer fan and they'll tell you one of the more charming aspects of the sport is that it is a thinking man's game by which they mean "Zzzzzzz." So quite frequently, the final score of these games will be something like 0-0. Or, if you're really lucky and find yourself watching a real barn burner, 0-0 with an injury.

Armed with this basic knowledge, watching the 2010 World Cup should be a much more enjoyable experience.

OK, so it should at least get you to the first commercial break without lapsing into a coma, after which you can flip over and see what's on HGTV.

Bryce Donovan can't wait to watch the England vs. USA game (at least until he falls asleep). Reach him at 937-5938 or bdonovan@postandcourier.com. For more, check out his blog "The Bryce is Write" or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brycedonovan.