5 hours ago
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Two years ago, as I was preparing for the birth of my first child, a friend offered me some sage advice. There were many sleepless nights ahead. That was a certainty. But there was a silver lining: European football.
I’ve been a football fan for as long as I can remember. But never in my life have I gorged so much. I managed every minute of Liverpool’s title-winning Premier League campaign. That was just for starters.
The entire continent suddenly opened up to me. I was tuning in to Celtic at St Mirren and Aberdeen, St Pauli at home at the Millerntor. In one particularly grim period of sleep regression, I turned to the Conference League for midweek salvation.
This is the lot of us longsuffering Australian football fans. Football and sleep deprivation walk hand-in-hand in this country. The waking weekend hours are a haze and Mondays are four-coffee days. We gamble so much more on that 90 minutes. A scoreless stalemate takes on new levels of frustration when you know it’s going to leave you functionally impaired for 24 hours.
And now, while we Australians find ourselves in a position of relative bliss, the shoe is, of course, very much on the other foot in the UK. This World Cup, held in Canada, Mexico and the US, has given England fans manageable group-stage fixtures. But Scotland fans are being hit with a 2am kick-off, right off the bat. Others are staring down the barrel of midnight and 3am starts. Forty-four of the 104 games are being played between midnight and 5am UK time.
So, I’m here to offer you the wisdom of football fans who were born on the wrong side of the planet. We’ve tried every approach you are now contemplating.
In this state of pre-World Cup euphoria, the first thought likely to enter your head is that you’ll pull a boozy all-nighter with your mates to make it to that 2am kick-off. Maybe you naively believe you can sleep for one or two hours post-match, and still be alright for work. Sure, it works in your 20s. But if you’re approaching 40, like me, you are sentencing yourself to a week from hell.
You must also remember an unshakeable rule. Your ability to call in sick without raising suspicion is inversely related to the significance of the game. You’ve pulled an all-nighter to watch Curaçao-Ecuador? Your boss isn’t batting an eyelid at the empty chair at your desk. England in the round of 32 with a midnight kick-off? Expect a call from HR.
Your next thought will be to sleep through, avoid the score, and attempt an 8am on-demand replay. Push notifications and group chats will put an end to that. Turn your phone off, put it in a drawer. Silent mode will not help you. Your crippling smartphone addiction will lead you subconsciously to Facebook or Instagram. The algorithm knows you. I know you. Your feed will be flooded. The score will be plastered across your screen before your thumb gets anywhere near that lock button.
I learned this lesson again in May when I unthinkingly reached for my phone the morning after the Champions League final (which was a 2am kick-off on Australia’s east coast).
If you’re watching matches on delay, normal human interaction must also be suspended. It’s an unfortunate but necessary consequence of preserving the watching experience. Speak to no one. Ignore your neighbours. Ghost your significant other. If something compels you to go outside, do not, under any circumstances, wear your team’s strip. In fact, avoid football merch of any kind. Strangers cannot be trusted. Social norms will encourage them into pleasantries and small talk.
Even if the words “good god, that was a torrid display last night” don’t come tumbling out of their mouths, they’ll find a way to communicate the result to you. That dog-walker who gave a near-imperceptible nod as you crossed paths? That means you’re through after penalties. Your usually friendly barista couldn’t look you in the eye? Out in the quarters.
The safest approach, therefore, is to go to bed early, take the sleep and wake up just before that 2am kick-off. But there are risks here, too. Waking up to a 1.30am alarm is hard enough. Doing it so that you can walk 10 metres to your couch is something your brain will actively resist, recognising it for the absurdity that it is. For the unpractised, I recommend multiple alarms at 10-minute intervals, starting from 1am. Don’t worry about the volume. Your partner, I’m sure, will understand.
Take care not to make yourself too comfortable on the couch and don’t sit in the dark. Aggressively bright lights are your friend. Sensory overload is a problem for the morning. If those eyelids start to droop, you’re done. I’m afraid to say you are destined to wake up in the post-match and see the score. The whole exercise will have been in vain.
Finally, it’s important to wear these early-morning wake-ups as a badge of honour. They make you a better fan than everyone else. I’m sure of it. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves down here. There’s no other way to justify this unique form of self-torture.
