we had a great time @ the woody's on saturday and sunday. the 3rd place match between germany and portugal was fun to watch and i'm glad that germany put the smack down on portugal. portugal played hard, and several of their stars shined a bit but germany was too good. watching this world cup has made me appreciate germany. it may even make up for how they treated pele in victory.
oh, and the secret is out. kendall is a good poker player. don't invite her to your home game without knowing that she is good and will take your money.
onto the final game. i enjoyed the match, and would have loved for the match to end in something other than pk's. i thought both teams played their hearts out, and france seemed to dominate much of the match. i was pulling for them (as mentioned in other w.c. posts i hate italy) and it looked like they would be rewarded for their hard work. but, alas, it went to pk's. neither keeper looked particularly stunning or terrible @ this point and an unfortunate shot off the cross bar lost it for france.
onto zidane's ejection: he deserved it. i don't care what was said to you, who just fouled you, whatever. you can't retaliate in that way, and definately can't be that obvious about it. as we watched the replay, i commented to those around that i bet the italian had made a racist comment, especially because zidane is from algeria. again, it doesn't matter what was said, zidane should not have responded that way. but, knowing the racist streak that lingers in soccer, i figured it would be racist. here's what an espn story had "The Paris-based anti-racism advocacy group SOS-Racism issued a statement Monday quoting "several very well informed sources from the world of football" as saying Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist." It demanded that FIFA, soccer's world governing body, investigate and take any appropriate action." and "Materazzi, meanwhile, was quoted as denying the terrorist comment. "It is absolutely not true, I didn't call him a terrorist, I don't know anything about that," the Italian news agency ANSA quoted Materazzi as saying when he arrived with his team at an Italian military airfield."
UPDATE: this article claims that a lip reader determined the italian said, "“the son of a terrorist whore” before adding “so just f*** off” for good measure"
we'll see what comes out of this all. for those sportwriters that don't think that they (or some american athlete) would have reacted that way, bull. if dirk nowitski drops the n word on shaq or dwayne wade during the finals, he's at least catching an elbow if not an uppercut.
but, zidane still won the golden ball (not boot as i said earlier).
on to the commentators outside of soccer. some of you may know, i listen to jim rome on the radio. he, like other sports talking heads, doesn't like soccer. okay, i get it. stop talking about it then. honestly, in the past day i've seen at least three stories talking about why they don't like, or why they think americans don't like soccer. it's not just jim rome, they even had some dummas on dateline talking about it, and showing blog quotes. here's one for you. i love soccer. i enjoyed watching the world cup. soccer is america's game, too, even if we haven't won big on the world stage. it's growing in popularity, especially with leagues like mls, pdl, and usl getting stronger. now, it's your right to talk about what you want. and, if you've got a show, you can decide what to talk about. but if you don't like soccer, why not just ignore it? talk about baseball. talk about football or basketball signings. talk about tour de france. talk about golf. plenty of sports happening, so why focus with story after story on why you don't like soccer. it's not that hard. there are plenty of sports i don't like (women's basketball and soccer, hockey, curling) but i'm not wasting my time ranting on about them. then again, maybe if i dedicated my life to talking crap about sports i don't like i might be able to make a good living. (if you read bill simmons, which i do, that's pretty much his take on most boston sports media.)
9 comments:
Jim Rome. What a turd.
I'm an American, and I like soccer.
I like golf.
I like Tour de France.
I like football.
I wanna eat some of them chitlins!
I like pigs' feet.
Is it cheesy of me to say that I really liked U2's tribute after the game. :)
Yes.
I hardly know a thing about soccer, but after watching the game and the headbut I am suprised about the golden boot.
And really, the more I learn about poker, the worse of a player I will be. Trust me... you can still invite me.
Meh, I'll chime in on Zidane. It's not the first flagrant foul to ever happen in soccer, nor is it the first foul committed away from the ball. So it was his last game, so it was the World Cup Final, whatever, deal. I wouldn't expect any soccer player to be less impassioned or less likely to do the same thing because of the game or venue. In fact, I would expect it to be more likely. The guy fouled another guy, he took his red card and left the field, let it be.
i wasn't surprised that he got the golden boot still. i haven't read enough to know if the award was decided before the game or not. if it was, it really makes sense. if it was after, then it should be considered i guess.
adam brings a something i will comment on: he took his red card and left. that's something i love about soccer. sure, you've got people that flop (and i've got some thoughts on certain continents that seem to specialize in that sort of play), you've got guys that argue calls, but usually, people get their cards and move on. yellow, red, it's pretty much out comes card and it's done. the captain, who is allowed, may come over and talk to the ref, but there isn't a lot of debate. you don't see coaches running on the field, kicking dirt, throwing bases, etc.
and another thing, it's pretty common to have fights and cheap shots in sports. how many times have you seen a guy get hit by a pitch in a baseball game, he rushes the mound and the benches clear. that happens in regular season and playoffs. hockey allows fighting. at least one player missed a game in the nba finals due to hard fouls. it happens. so, zidane made a stupid move, reacted to something, and clocked the guy. and yet the american media can't figure out how it could happen.
I'm not particularly fond of soccer, I know nothing about it, but I agree that the media's hate of this sport is outrageous and boils my blood. I think it stems from a deeper hate of the rest of the world, us thinking we are better at everything and if we don't like something or get behind it then it must suck. I've heard how many times from how many sources how it's a European game so we have to hate it. I'm not fond of Europe, I hate their foreign policies, but do I have to hate their game to be pro-American? Do we have to tie this to patriotism?
On another note, since you brought up the SG, I have to agree with him that another reason soccer may never become a pastime here is that we lost the best players to Europe. Let's say the best 10% of NBA players went abroad to play professionally, leaving us with the rest, would basketball be as famous? I'd argue not. Same with baseball and football. Now, let's say that the best of the world came here to play, I'd bet the game would catch on professionally.
Another article, with info re: the racist ties to the Italians:
http://www.alternet.org/story/38780/
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