Let's Talk Footie - Football World Championship 2006

[Nin]

I watched the Swiss mathc yesterday on giant screen too... it was a great experience for the mood and the cheering!!!

And what a match!

[Lidless]

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police rescued an American soccer fan lost in Hanover and unable to find his hotel again after helplessly wandering around the city for more than six hours after a match, federal police said Friday.

The 25-year-old Boston man had checked into his hotel in the afternoon before going to see a match between Poland and Costa Rica but could not remember his hotel's name, its address or anything else about it, police spokesman Holger Jureczko said.

"He came into the police station at 3 a.m. and asked for help," Jureczko said.

"The only thing he could remember was paying 10 euros for a taxi ride to the city center and that he went past a park and a Mercedes dealer. There are a lot of Mercedes dealers in Hanover but we were able to find the one in the vicinity of a park."

Police took the American to the area that matched his vague description in the city of 500,000 and spent an hour driving up and down streets in that quarter until he recognized his hotel just before dawn Wednesday.

[Sassafras]

England 1 - Ecuador 0




We made it through to the final eight!

[truehobbit]

Pretty pic, Sass!

Not a great game, but a great goal by Beckham.

And good that he needed nobody's pigtail to hold on to in order to score!

Here's hoping to see England in the finals!

[Estel]

Netherlands - Portugal...

[Nin]

I know this is show-off.... but can't resist:


Jens Lehmann and my boys.

[Pearly Di]

Here's hoping to see England in the finals!

YEAH BABY!!!!!!!!!!



Nin, what a great pic! Jens is a right hunk. Cor!

And what lovely sons you have.

[Alatar]

An embarassing American article on Soccer...

This, from people who watch men in kelvar armour play British Bulldog against each other for 4 hours at a time!

The nihilism of soccer: The more you look, the less there is to see.
by Frank Cannon & Richard Lessner
06/23/2006 12:00:00 AM


IN ITS RECENT WORLD CUP CONTEST WITH ITALY, the U.S. team played what was widely regarded by the sport's connoisseurs as one of the best games ever played by an American soccer squad on foreign soil.
The historic game with Italy ended in an epic 1-1 tie. But in what was ballyhooed as one of the greatest games ever played by an American team, the United States failed to score. The goal credited to the Americans was scored by an opposing player who--oops!--accidentally kicked the ball into his own goal.
Think about this about this for a moment. It just about sums up everything you need to know about soccer, or football, as it is known elsewhere.
Soccer is the perfect game for the post-modern world. It's the quintessential expression of the nihilism that prevails in many cultures, which doubtlessly accounts for its wild popularity in Europe. Soccer is truly Seinfeldesque, a game about nothing, sport as sensation.
Most soccer matches end in scoreless ties (or nil, nil in soccer parlance), 1-1 deadlocks or 1-0 victories. A final score of 2-1 is regarded as a veritable outburst of offense, an avalanche of goal scoring that leaves exhausted fans shaking their heads and pining for the old days when teams knew how to play strong defense. A score of 2-0 is said to be a crushing victory (or defeat) of Carthaginian proportions rendering national shame and humiliation and potentially resulting in coup d'etat, or even war.
In truth, soccer could be played without using a ball at all, and few would notice the difference. The game consists of 22 men running up and down a grassy field for 90 minutes with little happening as fans scream wildly. When the ball actually approaches one of the goals, the fans reach fever pitch and the cheering becomes a deafening roar.
Of course, these infrequent occurrences in which the soccer ball approaches the end zone--where goaltenders wile away their time perusing magazines, trimming their fingernails or inspecting blades of grass--rarely result in a shot on goal. Most often the ball ends up high over the goal, missing everything by 20 or 30 feet. These "near misses" typically send the fans into paroxysms; TV announcers scream themselves hoarse. Then the players mill about the field for another 20 or 30 minutes or so and the goaltenders return to their musings before the ball returns, like Halley's comet in its far-flung orbit, for another pass in the general vicinity of the goal.
Mostly soccer is just guys in shorts running around aimlessly, a metaphor for the meaninglessness of life. Whole blocks of game time transpire during which absolutely nothing happens. Fortunately, this permits fans to slip out for a bratwurst and a beer without missing anything important. It's little wonder fans at times resort to brawling amongst themselves in the grandstands, as there is so little transpiring on the field of play to occupy their wandering attention. Watching men in shorts scampering around has its limitations. It's like gazing too long at a painting by de Kooning or Jackson Pollock. The more you look, the less there is to see.

DESPITE HEROIC EFFORTS of soccer moms, suburban liberals, and World Cup hype, soccer will never catch on as a big time sport in America. No game in which actually scoring goals is of such little importance could possibly occupy the attention of average Americans. Our country has yet to succumb to the nihilism, existentialism, and anomie that have overtaken Europe. A game about nothing, in which scoring is purely incidental, holds scant interest for Americans who still believe the world makes sense, that life has a larger meaning and structure, that being is not an end in itself, being qua being.
Another reason why soccer will never enthrall Americans is that the game is contrary to nature. What is it that is unique to the physical makeup of human beings that sets us apart from the animal world? Two things: Our large brains and our grasping hands with opposable thumbs. Our big brain is why we're called homo sapiens, thinking man. And our ability to use our hands to grasp and manipulate objects is why one of our early ancestors was designated homo habilis, handy man. Human beings are thinking toolmakers. We're able to imagine the arrowhead in the stone and use our hands to carve it out of the rock. These two uniquely human traits have allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet.
Yet soccer flies in the face of nature. In almost all other sports, the head is protected against injury. Players wear helmets and try to avoid contact with sticks, bats, balls, elbows, fists, roadways, goalposts and other things that might inflict injury on that big brain that gives humans the ability to plan ahead, calculate, strategize, coordinate eye and hand movements, anticipate the consequence of actions--in other words, to play the game.
But soccer players use their heads, deliberately, to contact the ball. This is contrary to all human instinct, which is to keep the head out of the way of danger. Duck, you idiot! Protecting the head against injury is deeply rooted in our nature. It's an evolutionary survival response. Sacrifice a limb if you must, give up an arm or leg, but protect your head at all costs. Yet in soccer the player is encouraged, no, expected to hit the ball with his head. This is as stupid an action as a human being can undertake.
Secondly, any game which prohibits the use of the hands is contrary to nature. Opposable thumbs allow humans to grasp things (thumbs on other primate hands such as chimps and orangutans are splayed out the side and are not truly opposable.) This is why the games human beings play involve holding things such as baseball bats, golf clubs and hockey sticks, or to grip and throw objects like a ball or a Frisbee.
Soccer denies its players this most basic human ability. Players cannot catch or throw the ball. But they can hit it with their heads. If one were to set out to invent a game fundamentally at odds with human nature, soccer would be it. Place the head with its big brain in constant danger, and prohibit the use of the hands. Soccer denies to its players the very attributes that make human beings, the thinking toolmaker, human.
Actually, the donkey would have a significant advantage over humans in soccer. It has four legs rather than two. The donkey has no hands or opposable thumbs, nor any need of them in order to play soccer. And smashing its head into a soccer ball probably would not cause any diminution of equine IQ. Soccer, then, would appear to be a game better suited to dim-witted quadrupeds than to human beings.

Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner, consultants with Capital City Partners, have spent most of the World Cup watching ESPN re-runs of the world's strongest man contest.

© Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

[truehobbit]

Great find, Alatar!

It's the quintessential expression of the nihilism that prevails in many cultures, which doubtlessly accounts for its wild popularity in Europe.

ARGH, I need to go, I haven't even had time to read this precious text carefully, let alone comment on recent games.

Reactions to recent games much of the time:

[Impenitent]

Sigh.

The Socceroos are out.

Not that there was realistic expectation that they'd even get to this stage, far less proceed to the next.

But the loss was a cruel one; I'm not convinced the penalty shot paid was legitimate. And in the last 10 seconds of injury time to boot.

On the other hand, Italy was playing with one man down, and I'm not convinced the red card that sent him off was entirely legitimate either.

Referees don't have the benefit of slow-motion replays, I guess.

But still...damn!

[Lidless]

Referees don't have the benefit of slow-motion replays

In the World Cup, I have never understood that.

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

This, from people who watch men in kelvar armour play British Bulldog against each other for 4 hours at a time!

British Bulldog in kevlar armor? That sounds like a cool sport! Where can I see it?


As a Yank I don't find that article embarrassing at all. In fact, the gentleman who wrote it nailed my experience watching the game:

The game consists of 22 men running up and down a grassy field for 90 minutes with little happening as fans scream wildly. When the ball actually approaches one of the goals, the fans reach fever pitch and the cheering becomes a deafening roar.
Of course, these infrequent occurrences in which the soccer ball approaches the end zone...rarely result in a shot on goal. Most often the ball ends up high over the goal, missing everything by 20 or 30 feet.

I will say that the young men who play that sport are far more physically fit than most of the behemoths who play American football.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's too bad, Tom. Soccer, played at the world class level, can not be matched in either athletic skill and grace or strategy (in my opinion, of course). But I guess (just like with anything) it does take a certain amount of knowledge of the game to appreciate it.

[Primula Baggins]

There may be more appreciation of the game in the United States as the generation that started playing team soccer at age 5 (3 on 3 on a quarter-size field—soooo cuuuute ) grows up. Meaning, the kids who are in their 20s and younger now. Where I live almost every kid plays.

[Frelga]

DESPITE HEROIC EFFORTS of soccer moms, suburban liberals, and World Cup hype, soccer will never catch on as a big time sport in America.

Those rotten nihilistic suburban liberals! Decaying the healthy morals of the high minded pure minded Americans to the point that they will be unable to appreciate the far more naturally beautiful spectacle of fat men in tights and animal masks pretending to through each other around.

And we all know how nihilistic those soccer moms are.

Ah well. If you excuse me for one moment

UKRAINE
WON!




Sorry, Nin. And your boys are adorable!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The authors of that article also started an ice-cream company to "combat" the "ultra-liberal" company Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream called Star Spangled Ice Cream, with the following flavors: "I Hate the French Vanilla"; "Iraqi Road"; "Nutty Environmentalist" and "Smaller GovernMint."

http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork ... 10/164.asp

[elfshadow]

I'm pretty sure the guy who wrote the article is dead wrong, because while I am an American who isn't terribly interested in soccer/football, I'm just about as nihilist as they come. The funny thing is, I absolutely love hockey, which is much the same as soccer/football only it's played on ice with sticks and pucks and a smaller net. But soccer just doesn't really do it for me.

So goooo, um...Brazil?

[notlistening]

Sigh.

The Socceroos are out.

sighs along with Impy

not that I expected them to win either...

[samaranth]

sighs along with Impy and NL.

But the loss was a cruel one; I'm not convinced the penalty shot paid was legitimate. And in the last 10 seconds of injury time to boot.

On the other hand, Italy was playing with one man down, and I'm not convinced the red card that sent him off was entirely legitimate either

You're right on both counts, Imp. Both were examples of over- (or under-) something referereeing.

They played so well, there seemed to be a real chance that they could carry it off. It was excruciating to watch them once the match was over.

[truehobbit]

Nin, wow! Lovely pic! For a moment, I had forgotten you'd meant to post a pic of Jens, and I thought you'd got a pic of someone of the Swiss team.

Such a pity for the Australians!
I agree the penalty wasn't quite fair - but, then, I can't help thinking that Australia had all chance to score a goal before and they didn't, and to me that means that they must have been the slightly weaker one of two almost equal teams. Still, losing like that doesn't seem fair.

(On the other hand, the close-up of Totti's face concentrating on shooting the penalty was quite sexy. )

And I think England should unpack their special padding and armour for playing Portugal. But maybe a somewhat rougher game will make them wake up properly!

Back to the precious text - Voronwë, I followed your link, and the more I read Alatar's text and the website you linked to the less I could believe this was serious. I've been looking for some irony-pointers or an onion symbol hidden somewhere. Surely, this is all too absurd to be real?