Ron Kantowski recalls a World Cup-ful for early morning games, strange sounding English soccer lingo and athletic play seen on no other world stage

Monday, July 10, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

A few minutes after Italy beat France on penalty kicks in the World Cup final Sunday, and Bono sang about it on TV, and I walked past a guy wearing a Zinedine Zidane jersey in the parking lot of the Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas slumped over the hood of his Fiat, his team's defeat in the world's greatest sporting event (sorry Steelers fans) having head-butted his will to live, it suddenly became more crystal clear than Diego Maradona's handball in the 18-yard box.

It's going to be roughly three years and 11 months before the world gathers in South Africa to do it all over again.

My liver will surely enjoy the respite.

But having been smitten with the "Beautiful Game" since Robin Williams pulled a ping-pong ball out of a brandy snifter at Caesars Palace and referred to the giant electric board that listed the groups of the best soccer-playing nations on earth as the "world's largest Keno board" during the 1994 draw, the sports fan in me is going to miss the World Cup.

Most of it, anyway.

Things I'm going to miss

Things I won't miss

I guess beauty - and the Beautiful Game - will always be in the eye of the beholder.