The Mind of a 6-year-old.

By Alison Dennehy, writing from Reading, England

64 games in 31 days is a lot of football. I normally manage 1 or maybe 2 a week. This should show how much “growing up” is to be done over a month for a football fan. At the age of 6, I went to my first game, and I have been going ever since, but as a kid then it’s more about your team winning and the atmosphere. As I get older experience starts to kick in. You know which starting XI to play, who are the fitter players, whose passes are awkward and what position to play them in. The simple things that maybe when you were 6 years old didn’t really matter to you.

In my eyes, this World Cup I have gone back to being 6 years old again. I had no clue which games to watch or what players to look out for. I had no real experience of the teams. I tended to stick to the English football league rather than International football, and I expect many readers do the same. That is, watch local rather than worldwide. It has opened my eyes to how much football is actually being played.