Five . . . On your sofas then, couch potatoes; Four . . . Loosen your belts; Three . . . and undo your buttons; Two . . . Phone off the hook ; and One . . . Grab your remote controls. We're off, writes Tom Humphries in Munich.
Thirty-two teams. Sixty-four matches. Twelve stadiums. More divas, divers and dope-testers than you could wave a yellow card at. Chances, chancers and catennaccio.
The greatest soap opera in sport unfolds for us over the next four weeks. It's World Cup time. You can go to the garden and mope with the rhododendrons or you can commit to a healthy diet of TV dinners and unnatural light.
The Germans, hosts again after 32 years, got things under way last evening with a spot of pageantry followed by a 4-2 victory over Costa Rica in the opening game of the tournament. Hard to tell which was the more odd.
Great sporting events make you do your penance first, of course. Yesterday's opening ceremony was short and sharp and endeavoured to deliver on what we are told is the phrase invented by the Viennese "multi-artist" Andre Heller: "A time to make friends."
Just makes you want to sample more of Andre Heller's work, doesn't it.
Anyway, for the fetishists, there was lederhosen and schuhplattel, hiphop and Bavarian folk dancing and all of it delivered by clear-eyed Aryan youngsters who danced as if they were going to save the world by dancing. The hot dog stand did good business while it lasted.
Some 158 World Cup medal winners walked or hobbled the turf to respectful applause. President Horst Kohler made a little speech, everyone in the crowd waved the plastic flag that had been left for them on their seat. As expected, it made a pretty pattern. In Munich's new high-tech stadium this all seemed vaguely quaint.
So too did Germany's performance which involved scoring four fine goals and conceding two bad ones. The Germans have been at pains in the run-up to the tournament to point out that their team is too young and inexperienced to win the thing. Last night they made their point well.
The host nation won't be worried. Avoiding humiliation will be sufficient for the next few weeks. Anything else is a bonus.
Afterwards the tannoy made repeated pleas to the fans. The two gigantic fan festivals taking place in different parts of Munich were already overcrowded. Please go somewhere else, they begged, please stay away.
It was a moment of chaos redolent of times past. Sadly for Ireland, a nation awash with SSIA money, this is a stay-at-home World Cup, an event to be seen through a plasma screen rather than green- tinted glasses. Our neighbours England get under way today, but it's not the same thing.
Can it really be four years since the Saipan wars and the antics of the FAI multi-artists? We miss it so.