Germany '06 will be the seventh World Cup that I will have seen in some part or the other in my lifetime. After looking at that first sentence I just grew a few more gray hairs.

It's pretty amazing to me how the World Cup and soccer in the US has grown between Espana '82 to today. We have gone from a failing league and limited english-language coverage 24 years ago to all matches in HD, a league that continues to improve each year and a press that is maybe catching onto the sport in this country.

I wish I could be in Germany, but its probably a good thing I'm not because as a beer snob, I would be in a near drunk state the entire time Ip was there as I tried every beer possible, meaning I wouldn't remember too much of the games. So, I will have to do like the rest of you guys are doing: watching the matches either at home or at the local bar or pub.

For my first post on WAATF, I would like to tap into the memories of each of the tournaments I have seen and how my love for the game has grown during that time.

Spain '82: I knew of the game already, but I was a casual fan at most at the time. The Chicago Sting were the reigning NASL champions (first Chicago sports title in my lifetime), but being I was stuck living in the far north suburbs and liviing with parents who thought my interest in soccer was another sign that I wanted to be English rather that American meant that I had to listen to Sting games on the radio.

I didn't see too many games in this tournament. Most of the matches I saw were on ABC's Wide World of Sports, which were providing weekend coverage of the tournament. At the time, my parents were running a flea market and I had the job of collecting the admission money, so I remember sitting at my little card table, bored to tears, watching Italy win the cup final.

Mexico '86: First World Cup where I made the effort to watch some of the matches. Most of them I watched on spanish-language TV (with all the name changes of those networks over the years, I can't even remember who did cover the World Cup that year. That was my introduction to Cantor's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAALLLL!, of England's bad luck on the world stage and the beginning of rooting against Mexico.

That year, NBC had the rights to the World Cup and they were showed several games on the weekend, with commercials regularly interrupting the coverage of the match. Imagine how spoiled we are now that we can enjoy a full match without one ad disrupting the flow.

I also lost my first soccer bet that year. A guy I worked with at Sears bet me on the Final and I went against Maradona and Argentina. Lost $20 bucks on the match.

Italy '90: Of course the interest level was big for me since the United States made the finals for the first time in 40 years. I was still living at home at the time and I got my parents to let me watch the US-Trinidad match on the lone TV that had cable in the house.

Soccer was still a bit of a mystery to me but I was starting to get to know a bit of the sport and some of the names on the US team. I saw some of the US friendlies on TV and started to know names like Harkes and Balboa, but the sport was still low on my radar, especially being a Chicago guy who was addicted to Michael Jordan and the Bulls, who were putting the final pieces in place to begin their dynasty run.

TBS was doing World Cup coverage this time for those who were spanish-challenged, so I was watching most of the games on that channel. I remember waking up late on the day the US played the Czechs and when I got the TV on, I saw the US was already down 1-0. It was pretty much a wake-up call for this newbie about how far US Soccer was going to need to go before they could even hope to win one game in the tournament.

USA '94: To me, this was my first real World Cup. It was the first one where I watched the tournament from beginning to end and it was the only one to date where I got to see matches in person.

When Chicago was announced as one of the venues for the tournament, I decided I wanted to volunteer, not because of the hope I could get into the games for free but to help build civic pride here in the city. I was accepted and assigned to food services. Not a glamorous job but the best perk was that we got finished early and could go into Soldier Field to watch the matches. That way I got to see the Bulgaria-Greece and Germany-Belgium matches in their entirety. Both games were packed with people but my biggest memory of those two matches were watching the small Bulgarian contingent celebrating their win while the Greeks, who were the majority in the stadium, were silent as they saw their side get destroyed in front of their eyes.

Of course, the opening day of the tournament was pushed to the background in the media as OJ Simpson went missing after having a warrant issued for his arrest in the murder of his ex-wife. I had taped the Germany-Boliva match and the game was interrupted by updates on what was going on with OJ. By the time the Bronco finally stopped and OJ surrendered that night, we added another checkmark to the reasons why the rest of the world thinks we are a weird lot.

France '98: By this time, I am on the way to becoming a soccer fanatic. The Fire were playing their inaugural season and I was going when I could. But, at the same time, my relationship with my fiancee was falling apart and by the time the tournament kicked off we had broken up.

Needless to say it was a miserable summer for me and Soccer was a good way to distract me from all the pain I was dealing with at the time. So, I dived right in and watched as much games as I could, either at my apartment or at the bar. It didn't totally distract me from what was going on in my life, but it offered me a way to forget my troubles for a couple of hours.

My two biggest memories of that tournament were the US loss to Iran (a great disappointment to all of us in the bar that day) and the final a couple of weeks later as France began their run as best team in the world with their dominating win over Brazil.

After that, soccer became permanent in my mindset and it was welded in there permanently when the Fire achieved the Double that fall. By that point, the game wasn't a way to get away from my problems, rather it was my new passion.

Japan/Korea '02: Four years on and I am running a soccer news site with almost no experience with high hopes that I could do this professionally someday. This was a year where I was trying to convince the Fire that I was legit and should get press box access, but they would only let me in the locker room after the games in Naperville. To be fair, they probably were right to do it. I had to serve a year in the stands, doing the best I could to cover the games, before I got into the press box the next year.

June, 2002 was the Month of No Sleep for myself. I was working nights at a publishing company, making edits to financial documents and being trained as a desktop publisher. On top of it, the job was on the other side of town, so I had a brutal commute home every night. By the time I got off work , I was pretty tired, but I would go either to a bar or home and watch the World Cup before getting a couple hours of sleep so I could go back to work.

It was the tournament of upsets, but to me it was the first evidence that the rest of the world was catching up with the traditional powers, thanks to the continuing process of globalization. Still, it was pretty insane to see South Korea make their run to the semi-finals, something that I doubt they can do again this year.

Of course, this was the month the US made their great run as well, kicked off with their win over Portugal. When the final whistle blew in that game, I was in tears as I felt that the US had made the breakthrough in the international game they needed. Of course, that was only the beginning of the roller coaster ride we fans of the Nats would go through, from the high of beating Mexico to the lows of losing to Poland and Germany. In the end, though, we were all proud of our boys and our future look pretty darn bright.

So, now we are less than a week before the start of this year's finals and I am ready for it. My DVR is set to record every match so I will have them waiting for me when I get home. My pub, The Globe, will show all the matches and will repeat them at night, so I can avoid the results at work and catch the matches either there or at home. On top of it, the US has their strongest team in history and I think they should make a good accounting of themselves, even if they can't survive the tough draw they were given.

I'm ready for some new memories and I hope to be telling them to the people I meet when I am in South Africa in four years, watching, hopefully, the US make it all the way to the finals of the tournament.