Ghana Is Rationing Electricity To Make Sure People Can Watch Today's World Cup Game So It Kinda Feels Like We Already Won

QZ.com- When the teams kick off at 6pm in New York and 10pm in Accra, the most pressing concern for American soccer fans may be how to find the game online. In Ghana, the issue is whether there will be enough electricity to power everyone’s televisions. Ghana has been suffering from a power shortage this year due to low water levels at hydroelectric dams on the Volta River. The nation’s utilities regulator is already rationing electricity by mandating sporadic shutdowns. To ensure that World Cup viewing won’t be interrupted, Ghana is purchasing 50 megawatts of electricity from its neighbor, Ivory Coast. Power plants will also be running at maximum capacity, and Volta Aluminum, the nation’s largest smelter and a large drain on electricity, will slow production during the match.

So as I’m sure everybody already knows today is USA’s first World Cup match.  Big day for America.  I don’t give two shits about soccer but every 4 years I catch a ruthless case of soccer fever that knocks me out cold.  I act like I don’t care up until the very moment when the games start and then I realize that soccer isn’t all that terrible to watch.  It’s actually pretty great.  Goals like that header from the Holland guy was worth the price of admission alone.  Throw in the part where it’s country versus country and that I’d watch just about anything where the red, white and blue is competing and let’s just say I’ve been watching a lot of World Cup games.  Tonight the USA team plays Ghana and I don’t know much about either team but I do know that we don’t have to ration electricity in order for people to be able to watch the game so it kinda feels like we already won.  I might just toss on all of the lights and electronics in my house just to spite the whole country of Ghana.  No rationing here.  We’re a country obsessed with using too much of every resource we have.  We should’ve made this a country wide thing.  Turn on every electrical device we have for a week leading up to the game and get deep inside Ghanas brains before it even starts.  Sure, even our own coach says we have no chance in this tournament and that might be true.  But at the end of the day we’re still America.  The greatest country to ever exist.  So my advice to you is to go into tonight’s game with the knowledge that even if we get beat tonight that we don’t have to depend on a river to watch sporting events and syndicated episodes of Seinfeld.  Think big picture.