Slim young men and women spring up from the sofa like gazelles to celebrate a goal. If they lose, they commiserate peacefully with a rueful shrug. And, of course, they only consume alcohol and food in modest, balanced proportions.
Reality, as you may have guessed, is rather different from the Never Never Land of television ads.
For hundreds of millions of fans, say experts, the World Cup will be a life-affirming fiesta but for others it will be unhealthy, painful or even lethal.
"The biggest risk comes from emotional stress which builds up during the match," said Jean-Francois Toussaint, director of France's Institute of Sport Biomedical Research and Epidemiology (IRMES).
"The risk is naturally greater when a fan's team loses rather than when it wins because the cumulative stress is negative."
Investigators in the southern Germany city of Munich found that local hospital admissions for heart attacks or palpitations rose 266 percent on days when the national team were playing in the 2006 World Cup which was hosted by the Germans.
In the northwestern English county of Lancashire, incidents of domestic abuse rose by 38 percent when England's team played and lost in the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups, police reported.
One of the big movers and shakers is hormones -- and not just testosterone, found in both men and women, which is associated with aggression.