You waited 1,430 days for this; enjoy today’s World Cup opener

It’s been 1,430 days after all since our last swim in the sweet waters of World Cup bliss.

I know fans back home are all twitchy about today’s opener, and even more so about tomorrow’s epic clash in Rustenburg. Journalists are dealing with an entirely different level of Get-It-Started-Fever. See, writing the game advance for U.S.-England at this juncture is like having breakfast with the ex on the morning after a bitterly contested divorce mercifully concludes: At that point, what’s possibly left to be said?

Well, here was my attempt at SI.com.

I’m also writing today about Landon Donovan, making the case that this man of tremendous accomplishment is the most important figure ever in a U.S. World Cup campaign. Disagree? Want to fight it out? Come find me later this afternoon at the fan zone outside Pretoria, and we’ll have it out man to man! I’ll be the one in the yellow shirt.

Finally, this: countries embrace these big events. (Mostly, anyways. France only kinda-sorta embraced ’98 until their beloved Zizou started whuppin’ ass, then everyone got on board.) Germany was all about World Cup four years ago. Portugal and Switzerland were well-flagged, well-bannered and well-versed for their Euro campaigns in 2004 and 2008. (So, too, was Austria I would imagine in 2008, but as I didn’t get out of Switzerland for that one, I couldn’t personally say.)

But South Africa is different. Everyone here is so intensely proud to be hosting, to have the world’s eyes on them. It’s really something else. Other nations get it, and they are happy to host, but their countries are large enough that World Cup can only be part of the soup. In South Africa, it IS the soup right now. It’s all consuming. Read more about a nation's proud, complete World Cup immersion on SB Nation’s Soccer Page.