How to Win (or Lose) the World Cup

The 2006 Fußball Weltmeisterschaft (or "Soccer World Cup" for the English speakers) starts tomorrow, and it is a big deal here in Germany, the host country this time around (which is every 4 years). And I have a sure-fire method for making sure your team will win (actually, it is a sure-fire way to make a certain team lose, which can have the effect of making the other team win. I hope that makes sense).

Let me explain how this works: I am cursed. If I am rooting for a team, and I watch the game, the team I am rooting for loses. If I don't watch the game, my favoritism doesn't have much impact. So, for a small fee, I will intently watch and root for the team of your choice. And that team will surely lose.

Here are a few examples of where this has worked:
1) I had home game tickets for Iowa State University's football games in 1989 and 1990. I attended almost all of the games. Check their record. The ISU football team lost almost every home game. If they won any of them, it was because I wasn't in attendance for whatever reason.

2) Sometime in the mid-90's, there was a basketball game in Austin. University of Texas vs. Iowa State. Unlike ISU's football team, their basketball team has always been pretty good. But when I watched that game, and saw ISU in the lead until the last 3 seconds of the game, only to have UT score a 3-pointer in the last second (when their 3-point shooting for the previous xx minutes and 57 seconds was crap), I knew that my curse was with me to stay.

3) It doesn't just work for ISU games. During the last go-around of the World Cup, I woke up in the middle of the night to watch the final game of Brazil vs. Germany. I wanted Germany to win. Oliver Kahn had been like a brick wall thru the previous games (that I didn't watch). Nothing went by him. Until I watched the game. (Sorry about that, Deutschland.)

So, there's just a small sample of the proof. Almost every super bowl in the last 10 years applies here too.

I won't limit this service to the World Cup. You name the sport, and if it is on TV, and the money is right, I will watch it and the team you ask me to root for will surely lose. The only exceptions:
1) I don't have the patience for baseball games. Don't bother asking.
2) This doesn't seem to work for ice hockey.