It’s halftime of the World Cup match between Germany and Uruguay. I’m watching the match, but I’m not writing to comment on the game itself (things like how Germany just doesn’t look good, which should give Netherlands greater confidence versus Spain). No, I’m writing to protest there being such a thing as a 3rd place match in the World Cup. I’m generally not one to complain about being able to watch more football on television, but this is just ridiculous.
This is a worldwide tournament in the world’s most popular sport. The World Cup only comes once every four years, and is more popular than the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Playoffs, every Texas Hold’em Tournament ever held, and LOST, all put together. Qualification alone requires more than two years. And we have a 3rd place match?!
What’s next? Participation trophies and pizza parties for every country who played? Maybe we should give 5 or 6 MVP’s each match, so every athlete has a chance to be honored at least once. I hear in 2014 they’re going to ask moms to slice oranges at half-times and host pool parties after the tournament. Maybe we shouldn’t “eliminate” teams, and instead allow them to play in a separate bracket after being beaten — but we couldn’t call it a loser’s bracket. We should call it the once-defeatedonce-beaten not-yet-won-or-tied-a-match bracket. Yeah, that’s it.
And do you think we could institute a rule in which every player on the roster gets at least 15 minutes of play during each match? It’s not fair that some of these athletes are just sitting on the bench, getting their feelings hurt, after having practiced just as hard as the other guys. And what about all the poor countries not even represented in South Africa — maybe we should start an NIT for world football? Oh, and forget this trading jerseys stuff; line all those guys up on the half-line, and make ‘em slap hands in an orderly fashion after every game.
3rd place match… that ought to be for little kids. Get that corn out of my face. I’m turning it off and going to bed.
Can I pause to tell you how much I dislike the Italian soccer side — bunch of divers, divas, and complaining whiners who play for ties and desire nothing more than to win matches in PKs?
Today, we’re going to look deeper into the “art” (read that “loathsome and reprehensible act”) of diving (aka flopping). For our soccer-challenged friends, see the following (very official) definitions:
Dive (verb):
to deliberately fall when challenged in order to deceive the referee into awarding a foul
to commit the most despicable foul in sport, feinting injury for gain
to cry like a little girl on a football pitch when you were never touched
to play football like either an Italian or Cristiano Ronaldo
One of the most obvious dives of all time — Brazil’s Rivaldo (which, by the way, resulted in a player from Turkey being sent off the pitch):
Before moving on, I need to confess that I used to dive when I was a little kid. Not in attempts to deceive the referees, though, but rather the crowd. It also wasn’t generally in soccer, but other sports. You see, I hated failure — yet, I did it all the time. I was uncoordinated when I was little, and I was always embarrassed when I was tagged out in t-ball or missed a shot in basketball. So it seems I developed a defense mechanism of pretending to have been injured. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure whether I flopped in order to hide my failures… or my tears. I think my tears might have been real; I was crying because I’d failed. So I feinted pain in order to make the tears seem justified. It must have looked ridiculous to the adults who knew better. But now I’m wondering if Ronaldo and the Italians aren’t diving to mask their own sorrows? Either way, I admit I was wrong and apologize for wounding the integrity of sport. And let it be noted that I surely stopped by the age of 11. Now for a few worthwhile links exploring the dive:
Time Magazine addresses the issue of diving, calling it “arguably the worst aspect of a dark art which has infiltrated football over the past few years.”
NPR with Irish author Frank Delaney. We learn that Italian players roll over three or four times, Russians fall with a thud, the French attempt faces of anguish, while the English just sit and swear. He even blames Argentina’s theatrics on a large Italian contingency in their country. This is a good read.
image courtesy of photobucket.com
Italy: Divas of the World Cup
And now we turn to the Italians themselves. Can I just tell you how happy I am with their non-advance in the 2010 World Cup? This blog post, actually, is written in honor of just that. I’m not one to revel in the pain, misfortune, or shortcomings of my enemies, but on this one day, please celebrate with me that the Italians have gone home. Today we salute the Slovakians, New Zealanders and Paraguayans of the world. And a toast to the Italians’ failure to win a single match in what was arguably the weakest group in this year’s World Cup. [Did I just negate my tribute to those three countries by referring to their group as delicate and fragile? I feel a little bad, but my disdain for Italy's soccer club blinds me to what is polite and proper; I become an uncivilized man].
Daniele De Rossi demonstrates everything I despise about the Italian side (okay, half of what I despise — I also don’t care for playing for ties and penalty kicks). [Notice that Daniele has a girl's name to go with his portrayal of a 6-year old princess -- or a 10-year old me...]
Speaking of the New Zealand match, NPR’s Dick Meyer comments, “Everyone on the Italian side looked like Cristiano Ronaldo at his worst. If the Italians had directed the energy devoted to their play-acting into some heart and hussle, they surely would have beaten the outgunned underdogs. Their low-rent play made the New Zealand performance that much more noble.”
Oh, I love it. Ronaldo and the Italians both called out in the same paragraph — Ronaldo as a deplorable brand of play, and the Italians as that brand of play at it’s worst. Bravo, Meyer.
This is Meyer again, saying goodbye to the Italian side; this guy’s a man after my own heart. And I learned a new word during all of my gloating. Schadenfreude. Apparently it’s German for “a mischievous delight in the misfortunes of others.” Don’t say my blog’s not educational.
typical italy
Brazil vs. Portugal
Now we turn our eyes to the future. [I'm starting to feel guilty for all my schadenfreuding.] Here are a couple of previews of the next match I’m really excited about — Brazil vs. Portugal. I’ll be honest, I don’t really like either team, though I respect their play a great deal. Cristiano Ronaldo is my least favorite player in the world, but I think I still may cheer for his side — because they’re the slight underdogs. Though Brazil playing without Kaka just might level the playing field. I’m taking Portugal, if only because Kaka’s sitting and Brazil’s had two goals scored against them this tournament (to Portugal’s none) — Portugal 2, Brazil 1.
And lastly, a few previews of our USA vs. Ghana match. This is a huge match here in Tanzania. Africa really pulls together and cheers as a continent. We have advertisements in every commercial break encouraging viewers to cheer for Africa… as a whole. There’s one commercial (I really enjoy) that shows an emotional homecoming for African players who have previously gone away to play in Europe — the advertisement celebrates their return to the dark continent for the 2010 Cup.
But Tanzania also loves the United States. Just yesterday a local friend was reminding me that the vast majority of Tanzanians think very highly of both Clinton and Bush — Clinton for his work to help alleviate AIDS and Bush for his fight against malaria. He said that if I walked into just a few homes and asked about their mosquito nets, the owners (or renters or squatters) would likely credit the US and George Bush for those very nets.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say this is the first match in which we (the US) start the game well and take advantage of a slightly higher percentage of our opportunities. [Remember, we're playing to avenge our 2-1 loss to Ghana in the 2006 World Cup.] I think our defense holds up well against a Ghana side (without Essein) who hasn’t scored in actual play, and I’m looking for our best match in quite some time. I predict Michael Bradley plays a pivotal role by shooting from long-range, and leads us to a victory and advancement in the Cup. USA 3, Ghana 0.
Today is “Football Day” on aliens and strangers. Welcome to my scattered thoughts on the game of soccer.
Cable in Tanzania
Christie and I have owned a TV and DVD player the entire time we’ve been in our house here in Geita, but we’d never had cable, satellite hook-ups, or the like. Prior to the start of the World Cup, I had inquired at the cable company here in Geita about installation and pricing. The monthly fee of $10 wasn’t bad, but installation at $100 was more than I was willing to pay. Three days after the World Cup began, though, we discovered that our Tanzanian neighbors were having cable installed at their house. [Did I mention the World Cup is really big here?] Because we’re neighbors, and the cable company was able to use one wire to feed both our houses, the price of my installation dropped to $55. So we did it. I am really excited about it, too, let me tell you. [I had figured that, without cable, I definitely would have considered a drive to Mwanza to watch any US match beyond group play -- and the championship game. The diesel for a trip to Mwanza, two tickets to put the truck on a ferry, and a meal at Tilapia, where I enjoy watching matches, would have cost around $100. So I figure I'm making 45 bucks by installing cable...]
Match Times
Living in Tanzania allows us to watch the World Cup matches at decent hours. The USA match started yesterday at 5:00 pm here. I know many of you are jealous. As well you should be. For us, watching football doesn’t involve playing hooky from work.
US Play
I can’t remember the last time I saw the US team play well in the beginning of a match. And I’m thinking back years, not months. That being said, I appreciate a great deal that our team never gives up, playing hard to the end of every match. We’ve been in every game I’ve seen us play in recent years. I was especially happy with Italy having to play us for a tie in the last World Cup. [Can I pause to tell you how much I dislike the Italian soccer side -- bunch of divers, divas, and complaining whiners who play for ties and desire nothing more than to win matches in PKs?]
The Third Goal Controversy
And the third goal the US scored last night to put them ahead of Slovenia with only four minutes remaining in play — how about that whistle being blown? A clean goal disallowed. Here’s a video in case you didn’t catch it:
My thoughts on the situation are that many people are (wrongly) leaning to either one extreme or the other:
1. ”The US deserve to lose or tie. Who cares about a third goal that should have counted – the Americans should stop whining; it’s their own fault they didn’t play well the entire first half. Stop blaming the referees.” [This is generally a European take on the match -- Europeans if you don't know, need to put the US down when it comes to football and politics, because it's all they've got on us. If we pass them in "their own" sport, bad things will happen -- the US would rule the world. And that means European men would stop wearing capri pants, their women would start shaving their pits, and the Euro would drop like a brick -- wait... one of those is already happening. I hope the other two follow shortly.]
This line of thinking makes no sense whatsoever. If you don’t start a game well, or if you miss opportunities to score goals (or to defend against them), the referees are no longer responsible for calling a fair match? Only teams who play up to, or above, their potential deserve decent referees and accurate calls? That’s a bunch of crap. This is what haters say, because they enjoy watching the US fail. No fan of the game would ever say this if it were his own team hurt by poor refereeing. And no honest and objective fan of the game would say this… ever.
2. ”The whole world is out to get the US. All the referees are against us. The match was rigged; they always are.” [Generally, this is the American take on things. If we're not champions of the universe in every sport, we were obviously wronged. It doesn't matter that our best athletes don't play soccer, that our soccer programs are funded at a much lower level than most other big sports, and that our lower-level coaching in general is probably sub-par. We believe a British accent equals soccer knowledge and skill.]
While I’ll give you that most of the world IS against US success in football, we shouldn’t jump to this conclusion every time there’s a bad call. Bad calls are a part of sports — it’s either that or hours of referees standing under black sheets watching replays. Soccer’s not a game of timeouts; we don’t want that. Referees make mistakes. A ref may be inexperienced (more on this in a bit), but I doubt there are many referees willing to put their jobs and reputations on the line just to make a bad call against a US side. [Or a German side -- did you see the call on Klose?]
No, what happened was poor refereeing. [Warning: I'm about to spew a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and personal opinion.] Koman Coulibaly (or is it Coulibalu) is from Mali and, I would assume, has never reffed anywhere close to the level of World Cup matches. I’m sure he does a great job in some Malian “professional” league, and he’s probably called many a match between Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso, or Algeria (our next opponent). But these are not high level matches.
Let me use my current home of Tanzania as an example. A few months ago I was able to watch Tanzania and Uganda play (for about $4). While still fun to watch, these are not respected football teams, nor was there anything important riding on that match. A few weeks ago, Brazil came to play the Tanzanian side; they are an extremely high-level football club. BUT, Tanzania has no chance of winning that match, regardless of how good or bad the referees are. My guess is Malian Coulibaly’s experience is limited to matches similar to these.
I think we have a case of an experienced, but lower tier, referee deciding one of the 40 most important matches in the world. I’ll bet Coulibaly had his whistle in his mouth, expecting a foul, and blew it prematurely. It seems clear to me that, if there was a foul, it was committed by a Slovenian player. Generally, it’s become acceptable (something I deplore) for defenders to push, pull, and grab a great deal on set pieces in front of their own goal. But if the call were on a Slovenian defender, there would have / should have been a penalty kick. Coulibaly blew his whistle on accident because his inexperience allowed the pressure of a big match to get to him.*
I assume the World Cup Committee (or whatever they’re called) want to get refs from all over the world, so as to show no biases. Herein lies the problem: They can choose between having the best and most experienced referees in the world OR having refs from a number of nations, allowing some smaller and lesser-respected football countries to be represented. They can’t have both. I’d love to see a really diverse group of officials, but that’s not the option I choose if I’m in charge. Get the best referees in the world for the most watched sporting event in the world.
* I’m not suggesting there is no such thing as bribery and corruption in Africa. The two are very well-known here. But I don’t think that’s what happened — nor do I think we should jump to conclusions like this. It makes us sound like a bunch of whiny Italians…
[For USA Coach Bob Bradley's take, see this article.]
Maradona and Messi
Just because it was interesting to me, I want include this unrelated video. [I saw it first on this blog.] While Maradona’s “Goal of the Century” was scored on a much bigger stage (World Cup semi-finals vs. England), there are some pretty amazing similarities between it and Lionel Messi’s long and winding run to score against a lesser known Spanish club. Both Argentineans took 13 touches in 13 seconds to weave through six opponents and score from nearly the same spot on the field. Have a watch:
I’m not a Maradona fan, though I greatly respect the skills he once had. It’s integrity that I believe he lacks. And I think Argentina would be better off without him at the helm.
Netherlands
Later today, several of my Tanzanian friends are coming over to watch the Netherlands / Japan match. I’m cheering for the Netherlands right behind the US. I love their creativity and overall style of play. I enjoy watching any team who plays control and possession, but especially if they do so with artistry and imagination. I’m hoping they really put on a show versus Japan. I’m calling it Netherlands 4, Japan 0.
Michael Bradley as…
Just wondering — does anyone else think Michael Bradley looks a lot like Smallville‘s Lex Luthor on the field?
I love football — soccer that is. And I’m keeping up with the World Cup. I’m cheering for the U.S. (and second for Netherlands). I played goalkeeper and coached goalkeepers. I currently live in Africa. And witch doctors and their spirituality and medicines are of particular interest to me these days, as the practice is so prevalent here in Tanzania.
So I can’t help but repost this article which combines all of the above. For those of you who don’t keep up with football, Rob Green is the England goalkeeper who bobbled a U.S. shot into the goal, tying the two teams at 1-1. This article was originally posted in England’s Daily Star.
david james is watched by rob green and joe hart
Rob Green looks on in amazement as he gets a lesson in how to catch the ball.
The bungling stopper received a few hints as team-mate David James gave a quick guide to goalkeeping.
England fans have berated the West Ham stopper for his clanger and even nicknamed him Cinderella because he always misses the ball.
But Green, 30, was all smiles yesterday as he joined James, 39, and Joe Hart, 23, for training.
He has pledged to bounce back from his nightmare and has received the backing of his England team-mates. But it remains to be seen if Fabio Capello, 63, will keep faith with him for the crunch Algeria clash on Friday night.
African witch doctor Musa Ronald yesterday prescribed the perfect cure for Green’s on-pitch jitters – powdered Omwetango leaves.
The herbalist, 32, said he should rub the plants into his gloves to ward off bad spirits.
He said: “Omwetango is a medicine we use to boost our inner power.
“By rubbing it on his hands, Green could help to improve his concentration.”
My name is Brett Harrison. I begin each morning with several (4-8) cups of coffee and a prayer that's scribbled in the front of every notebook I own: "Today I will seek God's face. I will seek his rule in my life as I live in his kingdom. I will strive to live into the reality of my right relationship with God."
Then I pinch myself as a reminder of two other realities -- 1) that I married WAY up and 2) that my wife, Christie, and I have two beautiful daughters, Baylor Adelaide and Harper Mae. The four of us live together in Geita, Tanzania, where Christie and I are working as servants. It's not really our home, though, and we're often reminded of just that....
