Let the media frenzy begin! Appearing on The Colbert Report last night, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher kicked-off World Cup fever in true American fashion—by trashing the game of soccer entirely. “Soccer is un-American,” Fisher, proud owner of the title America’s Most Prominent Soccer Hater, told host Stephen Colbert. “It’s a great game for little kids running around on a field, they get a little cardio in, they go eat cookies, but then they grow up.” No fan of the footy himself, Colbert, who denounced the sport as “just another thing the rest of the world tries to shove down our throats like the metric system and the Geneva Convention,” was nonetheless looking foward to Saturday’s marquee matchup, the United States versus England: “We will finally have a chance to get back at those limey bastards for the oil spill!”

WTOP’s Neil Augenstein interviewed a South Africa fan at Cafe Citron in Dupont Circle about the allure of watching Friday’s opening match at her local D.C. watering hole. “If things are going well for South Africa, you can always, you know, trash talk,” she points out, “whereas if you’re sitting on your own…who are you going to trash talk?” No one was trash talking on this day: South Africa and Mexico battled to a 1-1 draw. Meanwhile, Uruguay frustrated former World Cup champion France, 0-0.

WJLA-TV’s Julie Parker staked out Summer’s Restaurant in Arlington, where some 40 people where waiting to get in at 7 a.m. on Friday, followed by a visit to busy Lucky Bar near Dupont Circle. “I’d say, by this time of day, my sales have easily tripled,” bartender Meredith Pearson reported. “We had a packed house the other night for the Nats game when Strasburg was pitching but this is even well beyond that.”

DCist shows us that World Cup fever has even reached the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, where small mammals have been “playing with soccer balls covered in peanut butter.” Animals!

Games resume at 7:30 a.m. Drinks at 8 a.m. Where to go? Consult our trusty guide: Where to Watch the World Cup.