The most exciting thing about this World Cup is...

It was the most excited I had ever felt about football. Fittingly, it happened during the World Cup – and I didn’t have to pay the telcos a single cent to see it.

You know that Nike “Write The Future” commercial starring international football stars like Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Drogba with cameos by tennis ace Roger Federer, recent NBA Championship-winning basketball MVP Kobe Bryant and doughnut nut Homer Simpson?



Well, this is even better than that.

But you ask: What could be better than an epic multi-plotline World Cup-related commercial directed by Alejandro Iñarritu, who was Oscar-nominated in 2007 for directing the epic multi-plotline Babel, which starred Brad Pitt and Gael García Bernal, who also has a cameo in the commercial playing footballer Ronaldo in a make-believe movie called Ronaldo: The Movie?

The answer: a pizza in the shape of a football field.



When I first saw the Pizza Hut ad for its all-new Goooal! Splitzza, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Is it a pizza? Is it a football field? OMG, it’s both!



The audacity! The creativity! The vision! Consider my mind blown.

And yet, the idea is so simple, I’m surprised no one else thought of it sooner. It masterfully combines two things people love – cheesy food and commercial sports – and the result is a work of art.

Yes, that’s what I said – art.

If they can pass off line-dancing as an appropriate closing event for the Singapore Arts Festival, the Goooal! Splitzza should be a permanent exhibit at the Singapore Art Museum for this and future generations to study and enjoy.

Our children’s children will then be able to marvel at how Pizza Hut carefully designed the toppings such that the intricate mix of ingredients matches the national colours of England and Brazil.

Our grandchildren’s grandchildren will also be able to appreciate how Pizza Hut savvily chose not to go with the national colours of, say, Honduras and Algeria.

The devil is in the details like these. It makes the World Cup-related promotions of other restaurant chains, past and present, seem like lazy afterthoughts.



But be warned, if you’re ordering the Goooal! Splitza, you must, must, must get the large – not the regular – because only the large is rectangular. The regular is square-shaped.

Who has ever heard of a square football field?

The regular Goooal! Splitzza is a crime against nature and the beautiful game.

And if you don’t think you can finish a large, just call me. I can always eat pizza.

- Published in The New Paper, 27 June 2010