Spain Trounces Dutch Thugs

When did the Dutch become such thugs? They are no cute little blonde boys eager to put a finger in the dyke. They’d sooner put a finger in your eye!
I wasn’t a big Spain fan based on their other games and a bad travel experience. Hated the country ’cause the men were such horny bastards. But after watching the first minutes of the game I wanted them to knock the wind out of the Dutch with a win.
I read up on the referee criticism but nothing changes the mean and vicious attitude of their players. A lot of money is at stake for the teams, bringing out ugly tactics. It taints the game.
At least Spain won with a nice goal, no penalty kick, no accidental knock-ins or generally dubious plays.
Now World cup is over? I have nothing to look forward to. I need to get a life.

Dismal Elimination Round

Did you see that sorry final game for the Germans? I’ve never seen such a slow game, I thought I was watching sl-mo! They set back football years by such a dull game. The players were walking the ball around the field.
So now I have to root for the Dutch. I didn’t like the way Spain failed to shine in early games so I don’t want them to win.
I’m made at Brazil for making me watch these unenthusiastic players. They don’t even dance nicely when they win.

TOR!

I was so elated to see Germany absolutely slaughter the highly over-rated English team 4 goals to 1. England should have left much earlier. I watched four games to try to see what all the fuss was about with Rooney – nothing. It wasn’t only Germany that was a problem for them – everybody was. So the only conclusion is that England isn’t good.
Did you see President Bill Clinton having a good ole time with Mick Jagger during the USA – Ghana game! Did they catch a few brews afterwards along with some groupies? Jagger was also at the Germany/England game, looking very glum, mind you.
Saturday Germany faces Argentina. Gonna be a hot game. I’m hoping for Germany, hope they hold it together and don’t get flustered with an aggressive attack by Argentina. Stay tuned!

Drunken Louts

Any ethnic group is disgraceful when drunk. Today I had ample opportunity to for observing drunk US fans. My god, when Donovan got that goal in the last minutes you would have thought it was the feat of the century. They should have gotten a goal much earlier. The enthusiasm of the crowd did not match the action. And every other word seems to be fuck. So I won’t be at the pub on Saturday. I don’t need endless USA chanting. The fervor of fans can be hard to deal with but US people take it to a patriotic extreme.
I always claimed the US fetish for flags, god in government, slogans and love it or leave it attitude results from the country’s short history and feelings of inadequacy among the population.
I take back the statement about any drunk ethnic group being disgraceful. The Mexicans who were in the pub for the match last week were really quite nicely behaved. Their fevor didn’t extend beyond the bounds of commonly acceptable behavior.
All this flag waving. We do not need to fly more flags in this country. Does anyone have any doubt as to whether they strayed into Mexico so they need the security of plenty of flags? Dictators and tyrants love the decorations and slogans. Witness Hitler, Stalin, any African dictator, most Latin dictators.
Let’s emulate the Canadians more.
wonder how home prices are in Canada? But the exchange rate isn’t that great.

France Go Home

The French are out of the World Cup! Don’t see any tears shed for them. They were a sorry sight on the field. And such drama! I suspect even the French were glad to see them go.
Meanwhile, Mexico didn’t live up to the skill they showed in earlier games. And South Africa got a goal – all is not lost, but they won’t be competing any further.
And those nasty Nigerians are out. They resort to ugly play tactics when losing.
Tomorrow is an exciting day – the English have another chance to show whether or not they can play football. And U.S. goes against Algeria. I think they could be beat by Algeria, and then they don’t move on.
And in the afternoon I want to see Germany beat Ghana. They beat Australia which wasn’t a great accomplishment and then got beat by Serbia! So maybe they will get serious now.
Oh the excitement!

Detroit Free Press Fails World Cup

Coverage continues to be dismal. The papers disregard for the biggest world sporting event is reflective of attitudes in Michigan overall. This state hasn’t been able to evolve and maintains its dinosaur stance even with glaring problems of unemployment, massive business closedowns, bankruptcy of the car companies, major public school problems, and loss of population.
Oh wait! These problems result FROM years of a stick-your-head-in-the-ground attitude. They don’t need to change anything. Everything is just fine, right?
There is a large immigrant population, probably a lot of football fans among them. At the bar last week there was a table full of Mexicans cheering on their team. Potential subscribers to the Free Press if they chose to provide some decent coverage.
This rant goes back a lot of years. When I came back from Europe in the 1970′s I was eager to follow Detroit’s new team, The Detroit Wheels. these were the heady days of bringing in Franz Beckenbauer and Pele to attract interest in world football (ugh, soccer). I went to games at the Silverdome. Then I tried to keep up with my team via news media. Absolutely no coverage – not in the newspapers, not on television. I had absolutely no way to find out how they were doing. Nobody bothered to even list the scores anywhere. The promoters failed to get media to buy in if only to post the scores somewhere.
My interest waned. It had to.
So here we go again. You can’t fight globalization. Oh you can and you end up like Michigan – an industrial wasteland whose remaining college graduates increasingly leave the state for opportunity.

What’s Up with England

Why are so many people fearful of the English team prior to every World Cup? They never get thru. Look at this week’s games – dismal! They can’t even score against the Algerians. Or win against their old colonies, the Americans.
They must have one really good PR agency. Or maybe it is the fearsome reputation of British football fans that scares everyone into thinking that the Brits might actually be good.
Man I was rooting for Algeria. I wanted to see them score one. It’s not that I just dislike the English. Au contraire! The England team has so-o-o-o many near misses it was painful to watch. They are an experienced team and shouldn’t be shooting like amateurs.
And then the Germans lose to Serbia! Serbia wasn’t even playing 20 years ago.
But what I’ve learned from other world cup matches is that no matter the upsets in the early rounds, the favored few end up in the final matches. But I love the excitement of seeing an underdog score a goal in those early rounds. Just love to see their enthusiasm.
Fantasy matches – Algeria v. France. But then most the French team seems of Algerian origin. Still a good reason the match should be interesting.

Conflicted

I just realized that the World Cup semi-final is scheduled for Saturday July 10, 2:30 pm. That is when my niece is having her marriage celebration event. It is not really a reception, and I’m not invited to the wedding which I think is taking place sometime earlier that week.
She is so secretive about all wedding related plans that her family will not be giving her a shower. While she seemingly told friends and co-workers enough in advance about the upcoming event, she didn’t tell us. There isn’t enough time to plan a shower especially considering that she her calendar was too booked and she didn’t have availability for our shower.
Likely the home where she is holding her celebration will have cable. There is a possibility I won’t be interested in the teams playing – doubt it. And she has made it clear her family is not at the top of her list.
I’ll wait till a few days before and decide. Chances are I’ll just request access to a tv. It’s not like I’m gonna miss seeing the bride! It’s just a big casual outdoor gathering. At least the game will give me something to look forward to.

Customer Service Globalized

From the annals of online booking:
A few weeks back I got into an argument with a British lady (who was at an overbooked German hotel and didn’t like the alternative hotel that was provided to her, she also claimed she already paid for the hotel and the hotelier stated he didn’t charge her credit card). She wanted me to force the hotelier to book something else which he didn’t want to do. Then she wanted me to book something new for her, but she didn’t want to pay again, she wanted me to book it for her free of charge and sort it out with the hotelier afterwards. This of course it’s not the way it works. She was so darn upset that I could not understand her bloody accent, and as she didn’t like my answers she suddenly said to me “it would help if you would stop chewing gum when I talk to you”. Which was clearly an attempt to provoke the “American” customer service rep (bloody Brits!). I assured her very nicely that I don’t chew gum (and hey, I thought I am clearly not American). But I read her guest review last week – she stated “the American lady on the phone was clearly unsympathetic, blabla”. Hey, didn’t you notice my German accent? The hotelier of all people is some Spanish dude who runs a hotel in Nuremburg (and hardly speaks any German, I wonder who’s doing his legal paperwork). Isn’t globalization great?
She’s just pissed ’cause the Brits couldn’t win against the Americans in world cup!

All Tied Up

What’s with these Opening World Cup Games? Far too many tie games. And the heavy hitters (bad metaphor for futboll) are trouncing the little guys. But that’s what I love about the game. A little player like Paraguay can hold off the Italians, or even reclusive North Korea builds a defensive wall (they’re good at that) to effectively block the Brazilian superstars.
The next round of games should be good because a lot of country’s have to win games. Pressure is on!
Meanwhile, all these beers at the bar are gonna take their toll. Have to go ride some extra miles tonite. I’m at the bar so much I’m thinking my name should be Norm.