Still Can’t Use Your Hands, Right?

A group of the biggest, most successful European "football" (by which they mean soccer) clubs (by which they mean teams) have banded together to form their own league (by which they mean league), separate and apart from the Champions League, which is, we deduce, where they have normally played.  Raising the deep, thought-provoking question: Do we care?

Probably not.

Not only because this is soccer, which is at best a boring and at worst an imaginary sport (see our earlier posts on the topic).  But also because we haven't been able to find anyone to explain to us what, exactly, this means.  So, the clubs that were in League A will now be in League B, but they'll still play each other.  This sounds like the equivalent of saying, for example, the baseball teams in the National League West and the American League Central will now form their own league.  Clearly, this would be a major shake-up of the Major League Baseball universe, but ultimately, you would still have baseball players playing baseball against other baseball players, right?

Right?  No, seriously, we're asking.

Presumably this is all related to money, and the players and club owners figure they can make more money by organizing themselves differently,.  From what we can tell, exactly no one other than the teams involved is happy about this move.  Indeed, the soccer governing body UEFA--

(Digression: Does one pronounce that U-E-F-A or "Youeefa"?  If the latter, that would be a good name for a pet monkey. If the former, it's not even a good name for a soccer governing body. End of Digression)

--has gone so far as to threaten the players on the breakaway teams--which include such powerhouses as Real Madrid, Juventus, and the Devonshire Woolkettles (OK, we might have made up one of those)--with being banned from participation in the World Cup.  Which will really show those players when the World Cup is held without the best players from the best teams! A ratings bonanza in the making! On the plus side, under those circumstances, the US will actually have a chance!

So bottom line, we are fully in support of this development about which we understand nothing and care less. Thank you for your kind attention.

UPDATE: All the clubs that were going to form the Super League have officially decided not to bother. We can’t help but think that our indifference was a precipitating factor in their decision. You’re welcome, World. You’re welcome.

If They Ever Discover Real Football, It's Over

Brazilians, according to a feature article in today's Times, are fanatical about soccer.  I, for one, am grateful.  Why?  Because with one of the world's fastest-growing economies, an appealing climate, and a population of beautiful people who, if popular imagery is any guide, like to run around largely naked for no good reason, Brazil is almost inconceivably awesome.  I imagine that only its people's devotion to this lamest of sports keeps the nation from floating off into some heavenly realm, inhabited only by seraphim and cherubim.  Thank you, Brazil.

Why Soccer Annoys Me

Did you know that arms and hands evolved much later than the rest of the human body?  Indeed, early humanoids used to wander the planet like so much ambulatory celery.  Many of the functions associated with arms and hands were originally handled by the appendix, which subsequently fell into disuse, good only for occasionally life-threatening inflammation.  Gradually, of course, those who suffered from strange mutations--originally known as "shoulder saggies"--became the dominant species, and arms became a regular part of human anatomy.  Did you know that?

Well, of course you didn't, because I just made it up!  But seriously it's the only logical explanation for the development of soccer as an internationally beloved sport.  Why use hands--with their capacity for precise manipulation of physical objects--to steer a ball at high speeds around opposing players, when one can rely on one's feet?  For that matter, why type with one's fingers when one could just as easily pound the keyboard with an oar?

I wonder if soccer players--when steering through a crowd of defenders or attempting to place a kick just out of the reach of a goalie--I wonder if they ever look down and think, "Wait!  What are these flapping fingery things hanging from my neck-shelf?!?  Holy Moses!  I have hands!  Oh, how I've wasted my life!"

God soccer is annoying.  Soccer is the Canada of sports!

To The Victors Go the Spoils

Did you know that the winner of the America's Cup gets to set the rules for the competition the next time it takes place?  Well, of course you didn't!  Why would you?  My guess is that no more than about, say, one percent of the population follows yachting's premiere event.  And leave it to a "sport" tailor-made for the richest of the rich to embrace a rule whereby the rich, in effect, get richer.  Still, when they heard about this, the champions in other major sports--who, let's face it, are also members of the ultra-rich--thought it was a great idea, and they have all proposed certain rules changes of their own.

The San Francisco Giants have introduced the following adjustments to the standard baseball rules for this season.  For their home games, Giants players will have the option to use either standard wood bats or bats made out of aluminum.  Visiting teams will be required to bat with whatever loose chunks of concrete and rebar may be found around AT&T Park.  Additionally, the Giants will play all 162 games at home.

The Super-Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens have required all opposing players, in the interest of safety, to encase themselves in large blocks of memory foam.  Furthermore, Raven field goals will be worth seven points, and, in order to earn seven points for a touchdown, players on visiting teams must, after reaching the end-zone, recite from memory a Shakespearean sonnet (of Joe Flacco's choosing) in Maori.

The Miami Heat have declared that, for the finals, the San Antonio Spurs must field a team composed only of native-born American citizens, thus disqualifying Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker.  Duncan may receive dispensation to play, however, if and only if he agrees to wear wooden shoes, in keeping with the traditions of the Virgin Islands' colonial history.

Speaking of beating up on the Dutch, the 2010 World Cup champions, Spain, have decided that they will just use their hands from now on, 'cause, let's face it, that was always a stupid rule anyway.

Finally, in defense of his 2012 US Open golf championship, Webb Simpson has declared that only players with stupid first names be allowed to compete.  Many commentators feel this was a flawed strategy, as either "Tiger" or "Eldrick" certainly qualify.

Out of Our Depth

Last night on "The Colbert Report" thanked the Japanese women's soccer team for saving America from having to care about soccer.  But maybe we've all been too hasty in our dismissal of "the beautiful game."  After all, international soccer has everything we American look for in a sport: athleticism, suspense, and apparently rampant corruption.

We're not just talking about the occasional steroid injection or a few grand slipped to the Belgian midfielder (did we say that right?  Midfielder?) to miss a free throw (whatever). That's kid stuff:

"Specific games that have drawn scrutiny include an under-20 matchup between Argentina and Bolivia in December in which the referee, who was from Hungary, extended the game by more than 10 minutes after gamblers had bet heavily that a goal would be scored in the last five minutes, and a Bahrain-Togo game in which the Togo team, a 3-0 loser, was later revealed to be fake."

We had to read that last part a couple of times.  The Togo team was fake?!?  How do you fake a whole team?  (Granted, people have questioned the authenticity of such teams as the New York Mets, but, hard though it is sometimes to believe, they appear to be an actual baseball team.)  Shouldn't the fact that the entire team of. . . Togans?. . . spoke only Mongolian and kept trying to whack the ball with a club carved from a yak's horn have tipped somebody off?

No wonder the US can't compete in international soccer.  Our athletes may be unscrupulous cheaters, but these guys are in a whole different league.

Solipsistography
"Game Fixing Rattles Soccer Around World"

Lowering the Bar

The Gulf Cup, a two-week soccer tournament just concluded in Yemen. The event is being hailed as a smashing success, primarily because no one was killed.

Seriously, according to the New York Times, people were so concerned about the seeming inevitability of disruptive terrorist strikes that they were literally preparing their wills before traveling to the tournament. Which raises the obvious question: If you need to prepare your will before heading to a soccer tournament, wouldn't you rather just stay home and watch the thing on TV?

We've all heard the pilot's maxim that any landing you can walk away from is a good one. We get that, but we still don't imagine that pilots brag about not crashing the plane.

Something about Pride. . . .And Falls. . . .And Their Relative Positioning . . .

A brief post. The video says it all.

Sunday Paper Recap

Today's top story informs us that Wall Street has roared back and that major firms have gone on something of a hiring spree. So, relax everyone: Manufacturing and construction continue to flag, state budget deficits necessitate slashes in all manner of public services from education to environmental protection to public safety, and even LeBron James had to accept a pay cut to relocate to South Florida--but the investment banks who brought you the great recession seem to be doing just fine.

Which may or may not come as consolation to politicians from both parties who voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) who now find themselves targeted for their largesse. Both Democratic and Republican congressional candidates are on the defensive as constituents express anger at their votes to bail out the banks. Interestingly, according to most economists, the TARP legislation did exactly what it was supposed to do: It stabilized the financial system. Furthermore, in the end, the government didn't have to spend all the money it has earmarked for the program, and the money that was disbursed has since been repaid with interest.

We had no great enthusiasm for the program. It seems, however, odd to punish politicians for taking a largely successful action, one which--since the money has been repaid--seems to have had no lasting ill effects. What troubles us is not that people are angry about the fact that fatcats received bailouts--that we can understand. We worry, though, when abstract anger is whipped into moblike frenzy. If you think the bailout was wrong on principle, then by all means, throw the bastards out--but make sure you do it for principle and not because the end result was bad. It seems like it wasn't.

How about a bailout for Haiti? Half a year has passed since a massive earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, and just a small fraction of the displaced have settled into permanent housing. A line of tents has been erected on a highway median--to reach the latrines requires dodging through traffic. But remember: Goldman Sachs is doing OK.

On the lighter side of the news, we can look forward to the day when flesh and blood teachers will be obsolete. Researchers in the field of artificial intelligence are making great strides in the realm of education. The big breakthrough has come at UC San Diego, where a teacherbot named RUBI conducts Finnish lessons for elementary school children. We don't know why the programmers opted for Finnish as the language of choice--maybe because it has a lot of 'K' sounds, and K's are funny. Still, if you hear of any jobs that might be good for technologically-displaced writing instructors, keep us in mind.

Finally, we were pleased to read that black South Africans hold no grudges when it comes to soccer. Many of those formerly subject to apartheid were willing to put aside years of racism, repression, and violence in order to root for the Dutch national team in today's World Cup final. It seems that sports can build bridges that history may have torn down. It gives us hope that Cleveland and Miami may one day be able to coexist peacefully. We can dream, can't we?

Win, Lose, or Draw. Or, Better Yet, WIN!

At Wimbledon, the match between John Isner of the US and Nicolas Mahut of France, has been suspended in the fifth set due to darkness. That's not what makes this interesting. What makes it interesting is that the first four sets were actually played yesterday: The players spent ten hours playing today and still have not finished the fifth set. As we write, the set is tied at 59 games apiece. The match has already shattered every conceivable record for longevity, and there's no telling how much longer it will continue once play resumes tomorrow.

This is one of the great things about tennis: Somebody actually has to step up and win before the game can end. It highlights what we think is one of the major flaws with today's other headline-grabbing sport, soccer. It's incomprehensible that a major sporting event like a World Cup soccer match can end in a tie. What's even more outrageous, though, is the method that the soccer gods have established for settling contests where a draw is unacceptable (e.g., in elimination rounds at major tournaments): penalty kicks.

How can any sport's governing body allow a decisive victory to be earned through methods other than just playing the game? (For the record, we have a similar objection to hockey "shootouts.") The argument, as far as we can tell, is that, since it is so difficult to score in soccer, it could take an outrageous amount of time for a game to be settled through standard game play. To which we say, "Who cares?" The fans who have paid good money to watch the game or who are following passionately from afar will presumably enjoy every extra minute. And if the players get tired, at least they're getting equally tired.

Deciding a World Cup match with a penalty-kick shootout is like deciding an NBA Finals game with free throws. Some may argue that many NBA games--close games--are effectively decided at the foul line, but that's different. When basketball players shoot free throws, they are receiving a sort of compensation for being victims of infractions by the other team. The whole notion of a penalty-kick shootout seems semantically flawed, if nothing else. What are teams being penalized for? Effective defense?

Baseball and basketball cannot end in ties. Football can, but it's extremely rare, and in the playoffs, no ties are allowed: The game continues until one team scores--legitimately. Isner and Mahut will keep slugging it out until one of them wins by two games (or until one of them drops dead of old age). The soccer gods should take notice.

(Addendum: Congratulations to the USA soccer team for its thrilling victory and World Cup advancement. If Americans are getting good at it, maybe soccer is a real sport after all.)

Tshabalala!

All right, Sloppists, after careful consideration, the Solipsist has decided that it is OK to enjoy soccer. It's not like a real sport, of course, but it provides its diversions. Yesterday, while we were effectively imprisoned in an airplane, we had little choice but to watch the opening game of the FIFA World Cup --

(Digression: As opposed to what, exactly? The Chick-Fil-A World Cup? EOD.)

--between the Republic of South Africa and Mexico. We've decided that we're rooting for South Africa. Three reasons: (A) They're apparently underdogs. (B) They wear green and gold, which makes them look rather like Brazil, which is a perennial favorite. (C) How can you root against a team with a player named Tshabalala?

In case you missed the game, here are the highlights:

In the first half, after the pomp and pageantry discussed yesterday, the match got off to a raucous start. One of the Mexican players kicked the ball to another Mexican player, who kicked the ball out of the big rectangle, which is apparently a bad thing. Then, a South African player picked up the ball (Hands!) and threw it to another South African player who kicked it to a Mexican player (which seems like faulty strategy to us, but what do we know?). Then there was rather a lot of running and kicking, which went on for some time. For one brief exciting moment, we thought someone was going to score, when the ball went into the net.

Now, we know very little about soccer, but, in our experience, in almost any sporting event, when a ball goes into a net, it results in points. In soccer, apparently, when a Mexican kicks a ball into a net but the umpire waves his flag, no points are awarded. We don't know if this is peculiar to Mexicans; we're only going by what we saw. Anyway, the heart-stopping action of half one ended in a zero-zero tie.

Nothing could prepare us, though, for the barn-burning excitement of the second half. After only about twenty minutes of running and kicking, a score! South Africa took a 1-0 lead on a goal scored by our new favorite player: Tshabalala!

We do have a new appreciation for the excitement with which goals are greeted in the world of soccer. After all, THEY NEVER HAPPEN! Put it this way: There have been more winners of "American Idol" (9) than there have been goals scored in the entire history of soccer. No wonder the South African team broke into a spontaneous (?) Macarena-like dance routine on the sideline.

So, back to the action. After several more minutes of running and kicking and balls bouncing out of bounds. . . trouble! (This might be a good time to remind our readers that we know nothing about soccer.) Somehow, the South African goalkeeper found himself essentially alone surrounded by about 19 Mexican players with the ball. We knew that this was not going to end well for him. Sure enough, before you could say "Tshabalala!" the game was tied at one. No problem, though; we were sure our boys in green and gold could pull it out.

Increasingly frenzied running and kicking ensued as the clock ticked down (well, up, really--which also confused us) to the ninety minute mark. . . .and then kept ticking! Maybe the referees had forgotten to put a stop to things? Could FIFA not afford an airhorn or pistol?

Finally, the ref signaled an end to the action. OK! Overtime! Awesome! How exciting that the opening match of the World Cup would go into hey where the hell is everybody going? Why are they taking their shirts off? Why are they shaking hands? The game's not over. . . .

But it was! What the hell? There may be no ties in baseball, but there are in soccer, apparently. After four years of worldwide anticipation, the opening game of the World Cup ended in a whole lot of nothing!

Since we have chosen to enjoy soccer, we choose to celebrate this result as an illustration of the essential equality of all peoples. And, frankly, it could have been worse. The next game, between France and Uruguay (Uruguay!) ended in a tie, too: 0-0.

(Image from Peace FM Online)

Are You Ready for Some Futbol?

In what must be a nightmare vision for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, the international multicultural lovefest that is the FIFA World Cup commenced today in that most racially enlightened of republics, South Africa. Governor Brewer, who has in fact modeled her administration on that of former South African premier P.W. Botha, could not be reached for comment. We have it on good authority, though, that the sight of all those Mexicans and black people engaging in sport and good fellowship in the tournament’s opening match sent a diarrheic chill through her nether regions.

We’ve never been great followers of the “beautiful game.” Like George Carlin, we believe that soccer cannot be considered a sport because it forbids the use of hands. We thought United States players were engaging in trash talk when they bragged about their ability to beat England with “both hands tied behind their backs.” Only later did we realize this was actually a team strategy to ensure they do not accidentally touch the ball (which, according to the official rules of soccer, would necessitate a caning). Indeed, Ukrainian soccer enthusiast Arman Talapoolhiuk had to be dissuaded from having his arms surgically removed in an effort to improve his chances of being selected for the national team: The coach pointed out that Talapoolhiuk’s legal blindness and lack of a left foot would have made him a long shot in any event.

As we write this, we are watching the match between RSA and MEX. Not much has happened yet, so we’re not prepared to provide out verdict on the World Cup. We were, nonetheless, impressed with the pre-match pageantry. Dignitaries from (we assume) Mexico and South Africa greeted each other, then shook hands with each member of the Mexican team, then with the officials, then with the members of the South African team, and finally with every spectator in Johannesburg’s Soccer City Stadium. This took approximately 19 hours. This was followed by the singing of the national anthems of Mexico and South Africa. We couldn’t help but notice (this is true) that the Mexican contingent in the stands was making a strange, semi-Fascist gesture throughout the anthem: A sort of chest-level salute that would not have looked out of place in 1936 Berlin. We’re not insinuating anything; we simply note that Mexican soccer fans appear to be crypto-Nazis.

Hey, prove us wrong, people!

OK, now that we’ve alienated the southern tier of North America, we’re ready for some futbol!