For anyone remotely connected to someone who loves soccer, you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that as of today the doors of heaven open to the beautiful game with the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. It’s the biggest single-sport event on the planet, in which case you’ve lost your spouse, father, brother, cousin, boyfriend or girlfriend to six weeks of pure football (as it’s properly known) passion.

On the slim chance there are any football fans reading this, than you’re not sitting pretty in Brazil right now. Cheer up, Americans may have come late to the party but interest and passion around the game has built up over the years with World Cup fever sweeping the nation. If you live in a rural area this could mean there may be a park or town square showing the matches on a big screen, which is a pretty nice way to experience it. City dwellers will have their pick of places to watch a match and anyone lucky enough to have a Brazilian restaurant in their neck of the woods will get more than a taste of the motherland. It’ll be full on excitement in Italian restaurants and English pubs this Saturday with England vs. Italy. Wherever you are, get out there and root for the underdog.

On a road trip in Canada right now, I hightailed it from Brooklyn where my mate has made our place command central for all things World Cup and where my cats are probably dressed in England t-shirts by now. It’s a great time to fly the coop and that’s my biggest piece of advice to anyone in my shoes. Unless you want to be totally ignored, do yourself a favor and make tracks.

You’ll be scoring big points.

(Photo credit: soccercat)