I enjoy the world cup, and not just for the football – the weird and wacky live subtitles as they try to keep up with the commentary and cope with all the wonderful and interesting names provide almost as much, if not more, entertainment. I remember fondly the frequent mistakes of four years ago, as my mother and I laughed at the subtitler’s efforts – whilst being grateful that at least they were trying. Milosevic, for example, became Miles of itch, while the Czech, Japanese and South Korean teams provided much amusement.

We’re only a couple of days in, and I must say I’m impressed at the accuracy of the names thus far, the occasional blip notwithstanding, clearly someone’s invested in a better program or something to deal with them, but sentences are still refreshingly and entertainingly random. Sensible commentary has been interspersed with phrases such as:

They’re not playing with any urgency whats the weather

The covering defender of was birth

Intercepted by Castlerock Otto (Assou Ekotto, Cameroon)

Okuba is filed.

Foul by Matip on a Hannah

To name a just a few, but overall I must say the subtitles have been pretty good. It’s good that they’ve improved, but a little disappointing that we probably won’t return to the hilarity of the 1990 or 1994 efforts. Still, kudos to better subtitles!