Qatar is like Houston, but only Worse: FIFA announced the locations of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup and the United States lost its bid to Qatar. Qatar is a Middle Eastern nation with a population that’s roughly half of Houston’s. Apparently Fifa wants to expand the game in the most unstable area of the world. Oh, by the way, did I mention they still treat women as dogs? I wonder why Israel wasn’t considered.
As long as Middle Eastern nations refuse to play Israel I don’t know how FIFA can reward that area of the world. One of the perks of hosting the World Cup is that the host nation automatically qualifies for the tournament. This means Qatar will basically field a YMCA team.
The biggest loser is England. After making a strong bid England only received one vote. It was a humiliating defeat for the soccer center of the world. There’s really no explanation for why it went so wrong, but I don’t think it’s a good time in history to be an English-speaking nation.
The Blame Game: Is there anything that embodies the self-absorbed celebrity culture more than Buffalo Bills wideout Steve Johnson? In a world full of war, disease, unfairness, Tom Harkin, and Barney Frank, this player blames God for a dropped pass. Does anyone take responsibility for their actions anymore?
“I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!!” the 24-year-old tweeted from his iPad at around 5:15 Sunday after the Steelers’ 19-16 overtime victory. “AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…”
How does God expect you to learn from this? Reading the Bible would be a good start. Specifically the Book of Job.
Separation of Church and State: I’ve come to the conclusion that the only offensive religion is Christianity. At the United Nations climate-change vaction in Cancun, Mexico, Christiana Figeres invoked some ridiculous thing… Whatever… I can’t even explain it. Please just read the Washington Post story:
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.”
What a complete waste of time. After the whole Climategate fiasco the whole organization should be dissolved. These nutjobs might as well pray to Ixchel because it’s probably the most productive part of the entire process. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from four billion years of Earth history, it’s that the climate changes! Get over it! When I read stuff like this I can’t help but think these people are only a few degrees away from Fire the Grid territory.
On Saturday, the United States was bounced out of the World Cup with a 2-1 loss to Ghana. I haven’t written about it because, frankly, it’s depressing. The US defensive effort in this World Cup was awful. Escaping the group stage and losing to Ghana in the round of sixteen isn’t much of a success, but it’s far from a failure.
The problems the United States had up front on defense can largely be attributed to injuries. When Charlie Davies was seriously injured in a car crash last year we lost our dynamic presence up front and Oguchi Onyewu never fully recovered from his injury. However, the United States had a golden opportunity to advance in the tournament. There will likely never be an easier path to the semifinals.
Now that the United States is out I can enjoy the games a little more. I’d like to see Holland win, but Brazil is going to be tough to beat. I don’t think Club Soda watched the most-watched American soccer game of all time. My guess is he was too busy polishing his Bode Miller collector plates and mumbling something about the slalom.
Soccer is to sports as boycotting Arizona is to politics. All of the sudden, lots of people are ignorantly jumping on those respective bandwagons simply because they’ve been told it’s hip and cosmopolitan to do so.
What is soccer, really, but Barbie foosball on grass?
The nation is inexplicably caught up in both World Cup and Boycott Arizona fever. Even citizens in our extreme northern regions, who are normally high on hockey, are packing bars and making official statements about Arizona’s immigration law. They may not know exactly where Arizona is or what a yellow card represents, they just know it’s cool to watch the World Cup and call Arizona a racist, fascist state.
Just today I picked up a six-pack of delicious Sunshine Wheat beer and the proprietor asked me if my purchase was made in preparation for today’s World Cup games. I mumbled something about foosball and got the hell out of there. Sometimes I feel like Will Smith in I Am Legend.
This is simply another sign of the coming Apocalypse, but it also shows how the nation’s education system has betrayed entire generations. Busily teaching multi-cultural sensitivity and relativism, rather than logic and the three Rs, our schools are churning out hyper-ecumenical adults who don’t even know what ecumenical means, much less that soccer sucks or how to read words printed on a piece of legislation.
There really are true soccer fans in the U.S., but most are of the faux-fan persuasion. With all due respect, the true fans are certainly misguided, but it must be frustrating to have been infected with this disorder for years and years only to find their abnormal world suddenly populated with legions of USA/gooooooaaaaal-chanting know-nothings.
Yesterday’s World Cup match between the United States and Algeria took a few years off my life. There’s something about playing the United States that always brings out the best in our opposition. I’m sure there are political reasons for that. Algeria needed a convincing win to advance, but seemed content with a draw that would ruin our chances. In fact, after the game was over they appeared devastated that they lost the draw.
In the second half the US had chance after chance, and after 90 minutes we still didn’t have a goal. Mercifully, we scored in stoppage time (not to be confused with shrinkage time) to advance to the knockout stage. The World Cup is always a bittersweet time to be an American soccer fan. The sport is a lot more popular that in was in 2002, but it gets tiring hearing people complain about a sport they know nothing about. Considering that the World Cup is every four years, would you cut us fans some slack? Nothing else is going on right now but baseball. There’s plenty of time for World Cup coverage.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Landon Donovan. Mostly because he’s such a great talent and I wish he played in Europe. However, he’s been the real hero for the United States in this World Cup. He’ll be remembered as one of our best players and also for scoring two important goals for us in the group stage.
United States' Landon Donovan, front left, celebrates after scoring a goal with fellow team members United States' Clint Dempsey, back left, and United States' Edson Buddle, front right, during the World Cup group C soccer match between the United States and Algeria at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday, June 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
Jemele Hill ponders using the race card in her back pocket.
To be perfectly honest I have no clue who Joe Barton is or what he said about the oil spill. My guess is that he’s a Republican and he said something stupid about the oil spill. The press and the Left is all over him because President Obama is receiving too much bad PR and they can’t beat up Bush anymore. Personally, I don’t even care. The only reason I bring this up is because of the World Cup.
The United States got jobbed yesterday against Slovenia. The referee had a really bad day. He yellow carded one of our players for a hand ball when he was hit in the face. The last Slovenia defender brought down Jozy Altidore when he had a clear goal scoring chance. That’s supposed to be a red card, but it only earned a yellow. Plus, there was a terrible offside call at the end that cost the United States a goal and the win. An ESPN blog about the game is a little puzzling. Jemele Hill may cover sports for ESPN, but there’s no doubt she’s wants to be a political pundit.
The horrific call that forced Team USA to settle for a 2-2 tie with Slovenia was so bad that I’m surprised Texas Rep. Joe Barton hasn’t already called Malian referee Koman Coulibaly to apologize for the harsh criticism the official undoubtedly deserves.
The real question I have for ESPN is: Why is Jemele Hill still allowed to write for them? By Hill’s standards this is the least offensive thing she’s ever written. In the past she said that the Green Bay Packers should give Brett Farvre the “Duracell treatment” when he returns to play. Another favorite Hill quote is, “Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan. Deserving or not, I still hate the Celtics.” For both of those idiotic remarks Hill has had to make an apology.
Which brings me to this point: she has the wrong person apologizing in her World Cup article. Instead of picking on Rep. Joe Barton, perhaps Jemele Hill should call Malian referee Koman Coulibaly and apologize. It’s been a great week to be a progressive sportswriter. First Dave Zirin, and now Jemele Hill.
The only person left who defends Barry Bonds
As a soccer fan one of the most annoying aspects of the World Cup is that people who aren’t fans complain. Glenn Beck believes that soccer is being shoved down the throats of the American people. Much like Glenn Beck’s program all one has to do is turn the channel and the World Cup magically disappears. I understand not everyone likes soccer. It’s a free country, but sometimes the complaints are over the top. The quote below is from the June 11th Glenn Beck broadcast:
It doesn’t matter how you sell it to us. It doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get. It doesn’t matter how many bars open early. It doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run. We don’t want the World Cup. We don’t like the World Cup. We don’t like soccer. We want nothing to do with it. You can package it any way — you can spend all kinds of money. You can force it on our television sets. We will not enjoy the World Cup.
I’m not sure what’s more fascinating: Beck’s ignorant generalizations or the idea that he speaks for the American people. The ratings for the World Cup are up 80% over 2006. This is after a 65% increase from 2002 to 2006. I don’t really care if Glenn Beck doesn’t like soccer. Tons of Americans don’t like soccer, but many people are really starting to like it. Of course I also understand that Beck may have been using sarcasm and hyperbole, and I’m okay with that since it’s my stock in trade.
Is soccer ever going to be bigger than baseball, football or basketball? Nope, and if it does you are very likely to see four horsemen galloping down Main Street. But every four years Americans get excited about the Olympics. Both the Summer and Winter Olympics feature sports that are even smaller than soccer. Who’s complaining about that? The dumbest statement I’ve heard about the World Cup comes from The Nation’s Dave Zirin. Zirin believes that the far right hates soccer because they’re racist imperialists:
As sports journalist Simon Kuper wrote very adroitly in his book Soccer Against the Enemy, “When we say Americans don’t play soccer we are thinking of the big white people who live in the suburbs. Tens of millions of Hispanic Americans [and other nationalities] do play, and watch and read about soccer.” In other words, Beck rejects soccer because his idealized “real America” – in all its monochromatic glory – rejects it as well. To be clear, I know a lot of folks who can’t stand soccer. It’s simply a matter of taste. But for Beck it’s a lot more than, “Gee. It’s kind of boring.” Instead it’s, “Look out whitey! Felipe Melo’s gonna get your mama!”
The stupidity of some political observers continues to astound me. Wouldn’t it make sense for racists like Glen Beck to hate all American sports based on the amount of minorities who participate? I’m not even sure why I’m wasting time trying to analyze these kind of idiotic ideas. Dave Zirin is another “sportswriter” who unfortunately wants to be a pundit. Why are so many journalists liberals? This isn’t the first time Zirin has played the race card. He also believes the controversy surrounding Barry Bonds is solely because of race.
Glenn Beck and Dave Zirin… They sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they’re both overpaid morons.
The 2010 World Cup officially starts Friday. I’m super excited about watching the world’s best soccer players playing in the world’s greatest competition. ESPN is all over the event this year, inundating us with heartwarming stories about South Africa. It’s kind of like the Olympics that were held in China in 2008. These stories gloss over the nation’s problems, but all’s well because U2 did some kind of music calibration with the people of South Africa. I guess Coldplay wasn’t available.
The United States plays in a favorable group this time around and “should” advance to the knock out stage. The fact that they “should” advance makes me believe they ultimately won’t. The US national team always does its best when we don’t expect it. On Saturday Sam’s Army plays England. The country that started the sport has always believed they were one of the world’s best teams. Yes, they’re better than the US, but they haven’t won a World Cup in over forty years. However, don’t tell their fans that.
The United States won’t win the World Cup, but beating England would be sweet. The United States has beaten better teams in the past. Last summer the US beat Spain, which is a much better team right now than England. It’s not likely the US will win on Saturday, but it’s possible. What will happen? We’ll lose 3-0. My heart tells a different story, but the hopeless pessimist in me killed the US soccer optimist a long time ago.
I just finished watching the Mexicans defeat the United States 2-1 in Mexico City. After the Confederations Cup this game got a lot more attention than normal. I’ve been watching the US play a lot over the years and I thought this was our best showing on Mexican turf. It was a must win game for Mexico if they want to qualify for the World Cup.
It would have been nice if the US had won, but it’s not a big deal. The US wins 3-2 on aggregate scoring. We won 2-0 at home and it wasn’t really even close. It would be nice if the Mexican fans at the game would behave with more class. It’s a shame that fans are throwing objects at players during the game.
Overall I don’t have any complaints other than some player choices.
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