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'O jogo bonito” exclaimed The Doe.

Pardon? 'Futbol, le foot, football – o jogo bonito! The beautiful game.”

What the hell?

'Pele – his words – football, the beautiful game. The world's greatest sport.”

Really? Beautiful I take to mean aesthetically pleasing, delighting the senses or mind. So I am not sure how 90 minutes of lacklustre, low intensity scoreless-ness, followed by an added 30 minutes of scoreless-ness, constitutes a thing of beauty?

Then all the diving, feigned injury, time-wasting, player histrionics...Not really beautiful.

'Regardless,” exhorted The Doe. 'The kittens and I want to go see the FIFA Women's World Cup. It's the biggest show in town, the biggest sporting event ever in New Zealand. A beautiful thing.”

Already, I'm accepting my voice is probably a lone voice in a football universe of an estimated 3.5 billion fans watching 250,000,000 players in 200 football-mad countries.

'Just a minute Dear,” I replied patronisingly, as you do when you feel you might be losing an argument.

Beauty in sport

Beauty in sport is something like rugby's ‘try from the end of the world' at Eden Park in 1994. Philippe Saint-Andre gathers the ball 80 metres out, it passes through nine sets of hands and a ruck, and after a medley of draw-and-pass rugby and angled running lines Jean-Luc Sadourny scores to beat the All Blacks right on time. Better than beautiful – sublime! It was like a symphony – played out in slow motion with a full orchestra backing. One of rugby's best tries ever. 'Zambia plays Japan in the first FIFA match in Kirikiriroa,” chimes in The Doe. I don't think she was listening to me. 'And if we enjoy that ‘beautiful game', which I am sure we will, we can go back and see another ‘beautiful game'; Switzerland playing Norway.” I sense this argument is slipping away from me.

And Doe, if we are discussing beauty in sport, then of course Sugar Ray Leonard was a thing of primal beauty – without question one of the greatest boxers in history. Blinding hand speed, dazzling foot work, toughness and an eye for the kill. All the basics with a unique dash of flair…truly beautiful!

'Or..,” says the Doe, 'we could go to Wellington to see the world champions USA”. 'That would be a buzz!”

When you are on the ropes, play dirty. Of course the most recent celebrated example of a beautiful game was pretender to the throne Chris Luxton, slipping and sliding his way out of a sales deal for a taxpayer-funded Tesler.

And only surpassed by his jab and right cross combo that New Zealand is 'very negative, wet, and whiny” before retreating with his Italian shoes wedged in his mouth. In itself the comment was ‘whiny', so watching him shimmy his way out of that mess was verbal athleticism, beautiful to watch.

Magnetism

However, I concede football's penalty shootout is a thing of beauty...and, a sport in its own right. The penalty shootout could be to football what T20 is to cricket. Quick and dirty and wonderful – hit or miss, triumph or humiliation. The stands would be packed with people baying for someone to miss from the penalty spot, and in the process pare millions from his value on the transfer market. Football's answer to a blood sport. Let's all go to a shoot-out!

'There's no ‘set universal explanation' why football is considered a beautiful game. It just is,” says The Doe. 'It's magnetism lies in its unpredictability. And besides, won't it be a nice change from men with cauliflower ears burying their heads between other men's buttocks?”

Who said if you can change your mind, change your opinion, you can change your life. So I set all my prejudices aside and look at the numbers.

Thirty-two teams will contest the FIFI Women's World Cup – 12 more than the men's Rugby World Cup. Twenty-nine of the 64 matches will be played in New Zealand with an estimated $200 million pumped into the Aotearoa and Australian economies with an international audience of 1.5 billion people. It's big.

No cake

And so why aren't we talking about it more? Probably because Tauranga doesn't get a decent slice of the cake. Yes, we are a ‘team base camp' – we're hosting Netherlands at Baypark. 'Welkom in Nieuw-zeeland. Je bent onder vrienden.” We're already emotionally attached.

There's also a $240,000 government sweetener to ‘celebrate and empower women' alongside the cup'. But it's sad the city and its bars and restaurants, hotels and motels, and our international image, won't have window seats on this gravy train, won't benefit from games being played in town and a full influx of fans and their wallets.

Wouldn't our girl footballers want to see the world's best playing their game in their own backyard? Wouldn't it be a ‘I wanna do that' moment for them?

Figure this. Games will be played in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin. I can already feel the hype in those centres.

But New Zealand's second and fifth biggest cities, Christchurch and Tauranga, don't get a look in. Not one FIFA Women's World Cup game between them. Dunedin, the country's seventh biggest city and just a snowball's throw from Antarctica, gets six. I wonder why?

'Don't you dare use the ‘S' word,” warns The Doe. 'We are on the brink of something ‘beautiful' and we don't want to upset the naysayers.” Futbol, le foot, football – o jogo bonito! Go the beautiful game!

Email: hunter@thesun.co.nz