Posts Tagged ‘soccer’

This is the worst timing for the NYT

Posted: July 3, 2010 by datechguy in media, Sports
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since Bill Ayers was featured on Sept 11th 2001. Headline: An Apology to Maradona, a Rollicking Genius

We misjudged your appointment as coach. We believed that Julio Grondona, the 78-year-old president of Argentina’s soccer federation, had lost all sense of reason in asking you, a fading icon without a coaching badge, to pick up a broken national team and lead it through this World Cup.

Well, so much for so-called expertise.

The very next days, the big story in Soccer:

Germany Crushes Argentina 4-0, Advances to World Cup Semifinals

and Maradona?

Diego Maradona strongly hinted he was stepping down as Argentina’s national football team coach after their 4-0 whipping by Germany in a World Cup quarter-final match Saturday.

Ah the NYT always right on the ball.

Unbelieveable US Wins in 91st Minute!

Posted: June 23, 2010 by datechguy in Sports
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I had to go somewhere today and got back with 10 minutes left to the game seeing England ahead and the US game at 0-0 with under 10 min to go. The England game just finished and Slovakia was in for about 30 seconds when Donovan scored on the rebound.

One important thing to point out, the goal would not have been possible if the US Goalie at the other end (Howard) didn’t make the save and wasted no time throwing the ball forward to start the break. That will not likely be remembered but it should be.

Yeah it’s soccer but it’s US Soccer!

Update: This is consistent with what I wrote before:

Asked about the earlier disallowed goal, a glory-drenched Donovan responded, and I paraphrase: “We embody what Americans are all about. We can moan about or we can keep going.

Does that sound conservative or what?

Update 2: Cripes Stacy is so excited that he has TWO posts on the subject.

No wonder they like soccer

Posted: June 21, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
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You know come to think of it Soccer does seem the perfect international game where playacting is rewarded vs reality. Do you remember the first Gaza Flotilla that were portrayed as activists until the video game the lie to it:

And it looks like they are going to try it again:

Over the next few days, the media will dutifully repeat the lies of the organizers of the latest attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. They will tell you that the Mariam is just a ship full of simple women who want peace, who are bringing much-needed medications and humanitarian supplies from Lebanon to Gaza. They will call the women “activists” and repeat their insistence that they have no connection to Hezballah whatsoever.

They will be lying.

The man who is funding the boats, Yasser Kashlak, is actively anti-Israel and does not believe in a two-state solution. The woman leading the Mariam is the wife of one of Rafik Harriri’s assassins who has close ties to Hassan Nasrallah. Their ties to Hezballah are numerous. Hezballah refused to allow a Lebanese pop star to join the women’s boat, saying she was too immodest for their tastes

International bodies falling for flops and fakes and not trying to actually win? Unable to deal with objective reality? Yup it all makes sense.

Morning Joe Echos commenter “Proud to Serve”…

Posted: June 21, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news, Sports
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…likely this will be one of the few times this will be true:

Americans love competition. Repeatedly watching soccer players moderately contacted across the thigh or hip, only to react by clutching their head and writhing violently on the ground, will not sit well with Americans. This is x2 when the same said player immediately jumps up and joins the play after his theatrics earn the opposing team a yellow card.

Morning Joe devoted a full segment to the subject complaining particularly on the flop in the Brazil/ Ivory Coast game that cost Kaká a Red Card. (Forcing them to play a man down for the last 5 minutes.) The replay that clearly showed that he was barely touched in the chest while he grasped his faces as if he had his eyes gouged out spoke volumes.

Of course since the NYT covered the story Morning Joe had to as well so they took notice but such acts tend to rub Americans the wrong way.

As long as this remains the norm Americans will turn away.

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