Ah, a two-day “holiday,” as Tina’s dad said this afternoon, from the World Cup. Hard to believe there’s just eight games, eight teams, and a little more than a week, left. It’s been a crazy time. Reminds me of Hemingway’s description of the fiesta in The Sun Also Rises: while it’s going on there’s a kind of unreality to everything else, everything else is bound up in it, can’t exist outside of it, when it’s over it’s hard to imagine real life starting back up again. But this morning while slogging away at the library, I started listening to Don Delillo’s Underworld on tape. There’s a fantastic description of the atmosphere and events leading up to this moment:
Bobby Thompson makes magic in 1951
The “Shot Heard Round the World,” when the Giants stunned the Dodgers and the famous home-run call was made… For someone who’s been trying to explain to his Slovenian girlfriend what baseball is all about, this incredible passage really captures it all: the camaraderie of the men and boys in the stands and in the field; the weird timeless tension that floats around a close ballgame being played for all the marbles; the sudden shifts in momentum; the inexplicable peculiarities that come to build up around certain moments until some cosmic discharge releases them. I don’t want to wax too literary, though. Delillo manages to flit around the whole of the scene that afternoon — from a black boy who sneaks into the game and befriends an older white man in the bleachers, to Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason hanging out with J. Edgar Hoover behind home plate, to the announcer’s booth, to the players on the diamond, to the actual moment the home run is hit. Even though I knew (as any baseball knows) what happened, I was on the edge of my seat listening.
In short, I think that’s why we pay attention to sports. It’s certainly part of why Tina and I have tried to watch every minute of every game that we can — trying to catch that moment that something really transcendent happens. In soccer, of course, it’s totally different — there’s the slow build-up, the constant, unfulfilled promise of something happening, the frustration of a deflected pass or a bad call, often the bad vibe of two teams who just rub each other ugly. But every now and then…
That’s the thing, though: have we seen that yet in this Cup? I can’t think of too many games I’ll really remember for a long time. Maybe U.S.-Italy, and that Argentina-Mexico clash was one for the ages. The rest have been memorable for all the wrong reasons. After briefly thinking Brazil was back in business last week, I’m not so sure again, and hoping France has a surprise in store for them after their thoroughly convincing win over Spain. Now it’s back to the World Cup Crew for some more comments (apologies for unwrapped text):
From Paul Richter:
A little unsolicited advice; never, ever, ever move during the World
Cup. I
just (barely) survived 5 days of no TV, missing Korea’s and Australia’s
exits (two of my favorite teams this tournament), the
Portugal-Netherlands
debacle, U.S.-Ghana, and so much more. Got the cable hooked up just in
time
for Switzerland-Ukraine, whoopee! The worst game of the World Cup thus
far,
neither team wanted to win, so neither team should. Bring back
Australia to
play Italy on Friday, that would be a game. Anyway, feeling inspired
again
after today’s brilliant France-Spain match. Some thoughts:
1. Henry. I love you. I really do. But could you please get
onsides?
Please? You nearly killed your team today. This Ribery guy can play,
I
love the mix of old and new faces on the French team, but I don’t
understand
them. They barely make it out of a pretty average group, then dominate
one
of the more dangerous looking teams. So happy they beat the dastardly
Spaniards and their Jesse Helms coach (did you see him and Viera
yelling at
each other, then Viera staring him down after his goal? Fucking
brilliant).
After today they look capable of sending Brazil home to their lovely
beaches
and more lovely women. But I fear I’m just being sentimental, ‘98
brings
back fond memories, and I would love to have Les Bleus make another
run.
2. Brazil. If after all this we end up with another Brazil-Germany
final,
I’m going to throw up all over myself. I’ve made my peace with
Germany,
can’t root for them, but at least they are exiting to watch, and
deserving
of all their wins thus far. But Brazil looks completely uninspired,
disinterested, and, worst of all, they are no fun to watch anymore. I
was
sad to see Ghana go, especially the way they did. They got jobbed,
they
were outplaying Brazil and then Adriano’s offside goal broke their
backs.
If I have one complaint about world cup soccer, it is that for all the
group
play excitement, we seem to always end up with the same handful of
teams by
this point. I suppose there are good reasons for this, but just once
I’d
love to see a team like Ghana make a good, long run to the finals.
From Dan Greenspan:
Am I the only one sick of being told that losing teams are actually playing much better than the teams who beat them? If I’ve learned one thing from my recent foray into the world of international soccer, it’s this: brilliant moments trump solid team play every time. The key to being good in soccer is not to be consistent, but temporarily amazing. England is the case-in-point. Jesse’s comments were well taken on that front. Somehow the baddest news bears in the history of the world cup (and possibly the worst team ever to play any sport if you listen to the critics) have managed to glide into the quarter finals. According to the brain trust at ESPN, this should never have happened. They haven’t tried hard enough and and they’re out of sync and playing with 1 striker is rediculous and David Beckham is a liability. Here’s the problem with this conventional reality: it’s only real so long as the English don’t manage to come up with 4 of the five best plays in the tournament, all of which turn the tide of their respective matches (see goals by J. Cole and Beckham and defensive miracles by A. Cole and Terry). Beckham’s goal was the real capper in this delusional D and D soccer fantasy bullshit. The retard calling the match still went on about how they shouldn’t have played Mr. Spice, long after he managed to score the one goal in the entire match. And don’t get me started on Brazil/Ghana, where the ghanaians (sp?) managed to dominate the Brazillians to the tune of 0-3.
Scoring in Soccer is like trying to land a space pod on Venus. If you’re calculations are off by a nonometer, you head straight into an astroid belt. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a team full of well-trained scientists who are all pretty good at it and work well together. What you need is one Einstein motherfucker who can do it every time. And, if you’re Brazil and have 5 of them, it doesn’t matter what ESPN has to say about your on-the-field body language: the Venutian colonies will still be speaking Porteguese. -
From Richard Froude:
Seven of the eight seeded teams have made it to the quarter finals, and
although FIFA’s seeding system is as ropey as their world rankings
(see:
credibility of Wilhelmson’s barber) these teams must have done
something to
achieve that status. I would venture that that something is grinding
out
results when they matter. It is a football cliché to say that the mark
of a
good team is winning when they play badly, but really, with only a
couple of
exceptions, nobody remembers who played the more attractive football,
who
had the most shots, who “should†have won – only the result.
The only one of these seeded teams to have fallen is Spain - heavily
fancied
against an underperforming France side after steamrolling through a
rather
unchallenging group. Don’t Spain always do this? I recall an ESPN
statistic
that they had scored at least three goals in their last 8,9,10(?) group
matches. Although that run came to an end with the 1-0 victory over the
out-of-their depth Saudis, Spain have indeed done it again. When it
really
mattered, they lost.
Tags: World Cup 2006 by dhadbawnik
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