A July Birthday, a July Marriage and the World Cup

Every four years, July becomes a month of celebration for football fans. The World Cup reaches its decisive stages, conversations revolve around teams and players, and for Indians, sleep becomes optional.

But for football fans whose birthdays or wedding anniversaries fall in July, the story is slightly different. The World Cup enters the family calendar without invitation and begins occupying dates that already belong to other important people. In my case, both my wedding anniversary and birthday fall in the first half of July. A real football fan can imagine the domestic fixture congestion this creates.

My first experience of this problem came during the 1998 World Cup. France hosted the tournament that year, and many of the matches began late at night in India and continued into the early hours of the following morning. I had just completed my master’s degree and was interning with Mathrubhumi daily in Kerala. I hail from Varavoor, a village where there were very few television sets at the time. Watching the World Cup therefore required some planning and a little coordination.

My friends and I had a simple arrangement. They would come to my house, watch the match, sleep there and return to their respective homes in the morning. My parents were also living in the house, or rather, I was living in theirs, and our television was kept in a room on the first floor.

On 30 June 1998, Argentina played England at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Étienne, France. In India, the match began at 12.30 am on 1 July. By the time the match, extra time and penalty shoot-out ended, it was close to three in the morning. My friends slept for a while and left early the next day. None of us knew that it would be the last World Cup match we would ever watch together in that room. They also did not know that Seema and I had decided to get married at the registrar’s office on 2 July.

The day before the marriage was exhausting in several ways. I had hardly slept after the Argentina–England match. There was the anxiety about how the marriage would go, how people would react and how exactly the next day would unfold. There were also the unusual preparations that accompany a marriage when almost nobody knows that it is about to happen.

On the evening of 2 July, Seema and I arrived at my house in a car. Near the bus stop, I could see my friends waiting. They looked completely stunned. Even today, I am not sure whether they were more shocked by my sudden marriage or more worried about where they would watch the remaining World Cup matches.

The quarter-finals were scheduled for 3 and 4 July. The tournament continued until France defeated Brazil in the final on 12 July in France, by which time it was already 13 July in India. But there were no more World Cup gatherings in our first-floor room.

The room where my friends and I had watched Argentina defeat England became the room where Seema and I stayed during the first days of our marriage. The Sony ORSON colour television stood there as a silent witness to the sudden change in the room’s purpose.

France won the trophy that year. My friends lost their World Cup viewing centre. I began married life.

That was the beginning of a pattern that continued through several World Cups. Over the years, birthdays, wedding anniversaries and football matches kept colliding with one another. People like us, born in July and married in the same month, would sit through an anniversary dinner appearing interested in the conversation while mentally calculating the time remaining before kick-off. Restaurants were sometimes selected not for the food, ambience or service, but after checking whether they had a television placed at a convenient angle. There were occasions when the birthday or anniversary cake had to be cut unusually early because an important match was beginning at midnight. During family outings, we appeared fully present, except for the minor detail that we were concerned about the score every few minutes.

Sometimes, members of this unfortunate July cohort would watch a match beginning at 12.30 or 1.30 in the morning and then wake up a few hours later expected to look like cheerful birthday celebrants. This was not always easy, particularly when the match had gone into extra time, penalties and emotional damage.

Sometimes, I remember hurrying home on our Hero Honda CD100, with our elder daughter seated on the petrol tank and Seema riding pillion, while I was pretending that this was my normal speed and that no football match was waiting for me at home.

Throughout those years, I regularly assured Seema, “This is the last important match.” I meant it every time. The difficulty was that, by the following evening, another match had become equally important.

The 2002 World Cup, held in South Korea and Japan, ended on 30 June. July-born football fans escaped completely that year. There were no difficult choices, no midnight matches and no need to negotiate cake-cutting around extra time.

Germany 2006 brought the problem back. Several major matches began at 12.30 am in India. On 2 July, our eighth wedding anniversary, Brazil played France. France won 1–0. It was exactly the sort of match a football fan could not miss and exactly the sort of match that a sensible married man celebrating his wedding anniversary should probably have watched as highlights the following morning.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa brought Waka Waka, vuvuzelas and several decisive matches beginning exactly at midnight in India. Our younger daughter was only three months old then. She had no interest in Shakira, Spain, the Netherlands or the World Cup schedule. She had her own match timings, her own extra time and her own penalty shoot-outs, usually conducted through crying at unpredictable hours.

That World Cup was almost a complete miss for me. One must accept that neither a three-month-old baby nor her sleep-deprived mother is likely to be persuaded by the argument that a semi-final happens only once in four years.

Brazil 2014 was even more difficult. Seven important matches began at 1.30 am in India, including both semi-finals and the third-place match. On the evening of 1 July, Argentina defeated Switzerland after extra time. The tournament final began at 12.30 am on 14 July in India, around my birthday. Germany defeated Argentina 1–0 after extra time.

The 2022 Qatar World Cup was an exception. It was held in November and December, leaving July completely undisturbed. For once, July birthdays and anniversaries could proceed without football-related negotiations. Cakes could be cut at normal times. Dinner could be eaten without checking the score. Nobody had to explain why a match between two distant countries was more urgent than a family conversation. Maybe it might have happened for the November-December cohorts.

Looking back, I realise how often important matches appeared around our wedding anniversary. Brazil played France on 2 July 2006. The Netherlands played Brazil on 2 July 2010. Argentina played Switzerland on 1 July 2014. Brazil played Mexico on 2 July 2018. It sometimes seemed as though the people preparing the World Cup schedule had a copy of our marriage certificate.

The 2026 World Cup, hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, brought July back into the centre of football. Most of the important knockout matches were scheduled during the month, many at thoroughly unreasonable times in India.

My excitement, of course, is not quite the same as it was in 1998. Life has changed. Work has taken me to Delhi, while Seema and the children are in Kerala. This year, we celebrated our wedding anniversary in June, when I was visiting Kerala. Since I would be back in Delhi by 2 July, we advanced the celebration to a date when we could actually be together. The younger version of me might still have described this as excellent fixture management.

On 2 July, I made no effort to watch the matches. I told myself that highlights would always be available. This is one of the great comforts of growing older. In youth, you believe that missing a live match is a personal tragedy. Later, you discover that the goals will still be on the internet when you wake up.

On the night of 14 July, my friends in Delhi organised a birthday party for me. I returned early because France and Spain were playing the first semi-final at 12.30 am.

I set the alarm.

The alarm rang.

France and Spain played.

I slept.

The following night, however, I managed to watch England play Argentina in the second semi-final. Argentina won 2–1 in a thrilling match.

When it ended, I went back to sleep at around three in the morning. For a moment, it felt like 1 July 1998 again. Argentina had defeated England. It was three in the morning. I was awake because of football. But everything around the match had changed.

In 1998, I had watched Argentina-England with my friends in a first-floor room in Varavoor. The following day, I was preparing to marry Seema without telling them.

In 2026, I watched from Delhi. Seema was in Kerala. Our children had grown up. The young man planning a secret marriage had become a husband looking back at twenty-eight years of marriage and football.

There is also a particular kind of guilt known only to football fans: the guilt of sacrificing an entire night’s sleep for a poor match. This year, I decided to skip the third-place play-off between England and France and save my energy for the final between Spain and Argentina. In hindsight, this was a serious error of judgement. The supposedly less important match produced ten goals, with England winning 6-4. The final, for which I had carefully preserved my sleep, turned out to be a poor-quality match. It began at 12.30 am and ended close to three in the morning, with Spain defeating Argentina 1-0 after extra time.

Our younger daughter, who is now 16, also watched the final live. The Kerala Government had declared a holiday for educational institutions on 20 July because of the late-night match. These days, even the government seems to understand that football fans may need the following morning to recover.

For a football fan born and married in July, the World Cup is never only about football. It is also about cake and party timings, adjustments in family life, lost sleep, old friends, marriage, children and the recurring promise that this really is the last important match.

At least until the next one.