World Cup

O.K., last time, and then I'll give it a rest. I gave it fifteen minutes today, the U.S.'s last fifteen. I was fully prepared to go with a mea culpa if they pulled it out. Not to worry, they got beat by, as I've already pointed out, Africa's Oregon. By the end, I was enjoying watching Ghana & their fans. I'm going to guess anybody on Ghana's team is going to have a hard time paying for their own beer in Ghana anymore. It's nice to be immortal.

Stayed with the broadcast to the studio show. Julie Foudy and whoever the guy talking head is proceeded to dismantle a) the team & b) the coach. Yea, and if they had a dog we'd kick it too! Foudy was a nice choice for studio analyst because she could talk from the pulpit of having played on a team that was tough.

Finally, the whole soccer dynamic of pretending like your mortally wounded every time you lose the ball just kills me. Baseball has knockdown pitches. Football has unnecessary roughness. Basketball has flagrant fouls. In general, men have testicles. Soccer has the pansy flop. I guess we need to except the McBride guy who took an elbow in the Italy game & kept playing. Claudio Reyna today, gets picked, maybe they knocked knees & that can hurt, but the ball is going one on one at the goal. Claudio please, not for America, but for men, chase the play.
Claudio then takes a stretcher off the field, but somehow miraculously returns to play. Must have been a magic stretcher. Here's the list: blown ACL's, broken weight bearing bones, neck or back injuries that require immobilization, line drives or fastballs to the head, you get the cart. Everything else? Walk off the field.
Could we take the lead in fixing this? Would it not be refreshing to here an announcer say,"The Americans will not flop for a foul call."

I guess I don't get it. I now return to my chronic indifference for the sport.  ¶ 1:48 PM