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Fans' cup runneth over (2)

(China Daily)    09:05, June 13, 2014
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Sick notes

"I will try everything to watch the games I'm really interested in, such as the one on June 16, Germany against Portugal," Xue Mangmang, 28, said. The employee of a financial services company in Suqian, Jiangsu province, has been a die-hard fan since 1998 when he watched the final between France and Brazil.

"Some of my soccer-loving friends have been adjusting their body clocks so they can stay awake between midnight and 6 am, when the games will take place. I have to work during the day, but I think I'll be able to take naps at noon, which will be very helpful," he said.

That may work for Xue, but some other fans have taken far more radical measures to ensure they get their nightly soccer fix. Some hardline supporters have turned to the Internet, where fake sick notes have been on sale on portals such as Taobao, one of China's biggest online sales platforms.

One vendor, based in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was even offering genuine sick leave certificates he claimed to have bought from a hospital, according to Chengdu Business Daily, which reported that a certificate covering the entirety of the monthlong tournament costs 300 yuan ($48).

"Soccer sickness" is nothing new, of course: In 2006, when the tournament was held in Germany, about 10,000 people in the Netherlands registered for a month's sick leave.

Xue fully understood why people would go to such extremes, but stressed that he wouldn't be buying a fake certificate: "It's too obvious, isn't it? Bosses will see through it easily."

For some soccer fanatics, the World Cup is a good excuse to quit their jobs. On June 7, a 27-year-old in Huangshan, in East China's Anhui province, told the press that he gave up his 100,000-yuan-a-year job in Shanghai so he could watch the tournament.

"I've been working for several years, but I think something has been missing from my life. Life is not all about work, and so I've decided to take a break. Watching the World Cup relaxes me because it reminds me of my childhood when I played soccer with my pals," the young man, who used the alias Li Quan, told the Yangtze Evening Post. "I'll just have to find a new job after the competition," he said.

'Male model team'

For die-hard fans, the tournament is a matter of life and death, but for many people, it's simply entertainment, and a chance to indulge their wilder sides.

"I think I'm a 'real' soccer fan because all my family are. We have watched soccer together since I was little. But the fact is that I really fell in love with soccer when I saw David Beckham on TV," Zhang Leyang, 22, a government employee in Bejing, said with a chuckle. "Fine! I'm a female 'fake' soccer fan, and I love handsome men!"

Many of her peers seem to share that feeling. Photos of handsome soccer teams in their official World Cup suits have been spreading like a virus across the Internet. Netizens unanimously voted to replace Italy with Germany as the "male model team," that is, the most handsome collection of players in the tournament.

"My heart broke into little pieces when Germany's Marco Reus tore an ankle ligament and was ruled out of the World Cup," Zhang said.

To satisfy demand, a wealth of videos and other instructional material has been produced. Many have become wildly popular online, especially one site that identifies the most handsome players in the 32 teams, including the Spanish duo of Fernando Torres and Casillas Fernandez, Brazil's Oscar Dos Santos, Robin van Persie of the Netherlands, and Mats Julian Hummels and Philipp Lahm of Germany.

Other online material provides soccer illiterates with basic facts about the teams and star players, so women will be welcome to watch the games with their boyfriends and husbands, safe in the knowledge that they won't commit faux pas such as: "Why isn't David Beckham playing?", or - much worse! - "Where is the Chinese team?"

Since soccer is almost exclusively a male activity in China, the next four weeks could prove make or break time for many lovebirds, as the men stare at TV screens, forgetting to talk to, text, or even notice, their girlfriends and wives. The divorce rate statistics may make salutary reading when the tournament ends.


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(Editor:Liang Jun、Huang Jin)

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