I didn't expect this Euro 2012 final

What I expected to see today in Kiev:

What I actually saw on the field:

---

By the time La Fúria Roja scored its second goal, I think Ian Darke had described its standard passing tactic as series of "little triangles" about 137 times.  That wasn't quite as often as this Spanish team actually passed the ball every 20 minutes, but it was enough to put a character from Angry Birds into my mind.  Indeed, in the first half, the Spaniards shredded Italy's normally stout defense the way Yellow Bird tears through wooden structures.  A hearty congratulations to Spain for its amazing feat!

ESPN is swearing up and down that the just-repeated European champions are the best national team ever.  To support that claim, the network claimed that Spain just became the first nation to win three major soccer titles in a row.  Far be it for me to point out that (a) Copa América, the South American continental tournament, also qualifies as "major," and (b) Brazil wrapped two Copa América titles around its 2006 World Cup victory.

In any event, there's still a case to be made that the 1970 Seleçao is still better.  With the 4-0 win today, though, Spain made the comparison a lot tighter.  I'm going to have to start tracking down video from Mexico '70.

Italy also deserves congratulations, especially coach Cesare Prandelli and Andrea Pirlo.  Keeping the team together despite yet another match-fixing scandal at home (and the presence of notorious bad-boy Mario Balotelli) was impressive by itself, but even reaching the finals constituted an incredible feat.

This just wasn't the Azurri's night.  As they fell behind 2-0, they were also losing players to serious injuries.  Giorgio Chiellini went down 21 minutes into the action, then Thiago Motta's hamstring pull forced him out of the game at the hour -- only minutes after he was inserted as Italy's final substitute.

At that point, down to ten men, the Azurri was no longer a contender; it was Wile E. Coyote, passing a massive rock as he plummets to a canyon floor after yet another botched attempt to catch the Road Runner.  The Italians hit the ground first, then, in the form of two late Spanish goals, the boulder landed on top.

Not. Italy's. Night.

---

Friday Double: (12) Odd notes from Euro 2012

It's been interesting to watch the amazing amount of influence that the English-speaking world has wielded at the Euro 2012 tournament.  Stadium announcements in English have been a FIFA standard for several World Cup cycles, so hearing those again in Poland and Ukraine came as no surprise. On the other hand, as the Russian national anthem played before the Russia-Poland match, there was this:

'Cause racist taunts and marches on Warsaw weren't provocative enough.
[Reuters/Pascal Lauener]

Never mind the 45th-level D&D warlord, who, Russian state network RT tells us, is a heroic figure from Russian history. The important part here is the caption. I can understand why PA announcers are using English, but why would a group of Russian fans use English on that banner? Why not regular Russian, or even Russian transliterated into Latin characters? Are that many Americans blowing off Miami-Oklahoma City for this?

---

And how about the music?

You may have not heard "Kernkraft 400" referenced by name, but if you've watched East Coast college football at any time during the Obama administration, you've probably heard fans singing caterwauling along with it.

Alas, it's made its way to the PA systems at Euro 2012, and through to the fans. "Kernkraft 400" isn't just about the worst fight song ever, it's one of the worst techno tracks I've ever heard.  Heck, it's not even original; the appropriately named Zombie Nation, a German group, stole it from a Commodore 64 game.  How Canadian hockey fans (yes, Canadians) managed to turn this German annoyance into a global one is beyond me.

Anyhow, here's a sports mix, because my alternative today was the was the Hymn of the Russian Federation.  Feel free to gong this at any time.

---

Even more interesting than chants imported from eastern North America is what plays when the contestants enter the field for the first time. The first time I paid attention to the background music, before the Germany-Portugal match, I thought immediately of Mass Effect 2, perhaps the first video game to ever run a Super Bowl ad. A little digging confirmed my suspicion: the score for that trailer was original to that ad, and it's what the Euro 2012 honchos are using to introduce teams to the playing field:



"Heart of Courage" is a nice, simple tune that does exactly as composer Two Steps from Hell intended: it builds dramatic tension just quickly enough to create an appetite. It works the same for Euro 2012 games as it did for that video game. And like the English-captioned Russian banner and the ridiculous fight tune, it points to increasing American influence on non-American events.

---

Move over, Maru. Hello, Anfield Cat.

Maru, King of the Kittehs, the adorable Scottish fold with the doting Japanese owner, got upstaged by a cat in England.

This guy wandered onto the pitch at Anfield, 11 minutes into a match between homestanding Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspur.  "You'll Never Walk Alone" certainly applied to "Anfield Cat," who ended up providing the sole highlight of a goal-free draw.



This isn't the first small, furry creature to wander onto a soccer pitch during a match, but he may be the tamest.  I'm not sure what scared Anfield Cat more, U.S. keeper Brad Friedel's attempt to shepherd him, or the 45,000 fans who decided to serenade him.  He was only too happy to end up in the arms of the steward who escorted him to safety.

If his behavior doesn't convince you that he's no feral cat, perhaps his "official" Twitter feed will.  Or maybe one of its emulators.  My guess is that Anfield Cat is a community cat, someone who lives outdoors but gets fed, petted and possibly sheltered by people who live near Anfield.  At least one of his daily handlers has stepped forward.

Oh, and here's a better call of the same event from Ian Darke.  Who said Darke couldn't call games?

---

Tuesday Football: Well, it's a start

It's been interesting to see which NFL clubs have been issuing pink slips this week.

Some gridiron pundits have expressed surprise at the Indianapolis Colts' firing of the Polian lads, but evidently, they stopped paying attention when the Colts won the Super Bowl five years ago.  Peyton Manning had covered up so many of the Colts' problems by himself, a disaster like their 8-Strength (2-14) season this year was inevitable.  All it took was an injury through which even Manning couldn't possibly play.

Here's an interesting, little noted aspect of Monday's management purges in Tampa Bay (16 Strength, 4-12) and Saint Louis (9 Strength, 2-14)  the Buccaneers, Rams are related by ownership to English soccer teams.  By that, I don't mean little third-division outfits -- I mean Manchester United and Arsenal.  The Cleveland Browns (17 Strength, 4-12) are similarly tied to a third Premier League side, Aston Villa.  It's probably a nasty coincidence, but all three NFL teams just finished horrible seasons.

As for the Chicago Bears, whose collapse lef them to fire general manager go and lose vaunted OC Mike Martz, Yahoo!'s "Shutdown Corner" column pretty well encapsulated their problem:

Maybe Martz wanted capable, productive wide receivers, while the Bears organization wanted Roy Williams. [Or Sam Hurd, who turned out to be as incompetent at dealing drugs as catching Jay Cutler passes.]

Trust me, Chicago and its environs are celebrating.  I'm celebrating, too, as evidenced by the haiku now gracing this blog's title bar.

---

Victory Weighting update: With two big exceptions, this year's Victory Weighting tracked the official standings exceptionally well.  11 of the 12 playoff teams showed up in the correct order, as did the top six draft picks.  Overall, Victory Weighting needed only five tiebreakers, including three for draft order.  The exceptions are two teams I've already covered at length:

• Denver would miss the playoffs.  San Diego would host the Steelers in their place.  It's too bad, really; I'd like to have seen a stake put through Tebowmania™ a year early.
• Despite a better winning percentage than Seattle, Arizona would finish third in the NFC West behind the Seahawks, because the Cardinals have a lower Strength.

---

Tuesday football: Potpourri

Caleb Hanie, the (unknown) future of the Bears.

Something I never thought I'd say:  "I miss Jay Cutler."

And, "We shouldn't have wished so hard for that."

To be fair, when we were booing, flaming, and otherwise disrespecting him, Jay Cutler hadn't been playing well.  We couldn't tell which was worse, Cutler or the linemen who were supposed to protect him.  After some nice preseason performances and a near-miracle in last year's Super Bowl semifinal, Caleb Hanie looked like a great alternative.

But then offensive coordinator Mike Martz finally justified the salary the Bears are giving him.  Finally abandoning his dream of recreating The Greatest Show on Turf, Martz shifted his emphasis onto workhorse running back Matt Forte, while convincing Cutler and his line to work much more closely.  It wasn't the machine Aaron Rodgers is running in Green Bay, but the Bears had finally generated an efficient offense.  For the first time, Bear fans could admit to actually liking Cutler.

Now that Cutler is out through the winter solstice, the Bears now depend on Hanie to see their run through to the playoffs.  Yes, he looked good when Cutler didn't, but he hadn't had to run an offense for two games that counted.  That changes this Sunday in Oakland.  Fingers are crossed from the Indiana exurbs of Merrillville and Michigan City all the way around to the Wisconsin line.  Brrrrr.

---

Outlook not so bad:  Congratulations to the Los Angeles Galaxy on their latest Major League Soccer crown.  The latest question for the league comes from the status of David Beckham:  will he stay, or is it back to Europe for him?  Some columnists think that MLS still needs Beckham, but I disagree.

The problem with arguments like this one made by NBC Sports' Michael Ventre is that it assumes that the sport hasn't made any advances in the U.S. since Beckham joined the Galaxy five years ago.  Both the U.S. men's and women's teams made nice runs in their respective World Cup tournaments.  Well known (if aging) stars like Thierry Henry, Freddy Ljungburg, Rafael Márquez and Roy Keane have made real contributions in their new MLS homes.  Most importantly, expansion franchises have succeeded spectacularly in Philadelphia, Portland, Vancouver and especially Seattle.  All of that isn't going to suddenly disappear just because one particularly glamourous Englishman left his club in Los Angeles.

---

Attention, SEC West woofers:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know that LSU, Alabama and Arkansas are 1-2-3 in the BCS standings.  I can understand why you SEC West fans are whooping it up, trying to mock the rest of us.

And I hope this makes up for the fact that, in men's basketball, your little division completely missed March Madness last year.  Not a single SEC West team made the field of 68.

No, you can't count Texas A&M or Missouri.  Try again next year.

---

Friday Double: (10) They might be edifying

Sorry I'm late.  This year's last two World Series games made me care about baseball (beyond the Giants and Athletics) again.  Congratulations to both the Cardinals and the Rangers for two determined, resilient efforts.  Anyway, here's a roundabout way to introduce this week's selections.

---

I really like soccer commentator Jorge Ramos's* English-language work.  He knows both North American and South American fútbol really well, and ESPN's coverage since August (when he crossed over from ESPN Deportes) has improved as a result.  As an English speaker, he can easily hold conversations, and his diction has improved dramatically, but his phrasing style makes it clear that (a) Spanish is his native language and (b) he didn't grow up in North America.  [He's Uruguayan.]

That little annoyance reminded me that English, especially its American dialects, has a lot of weird rules that don't occur in other languages.  For example, in English, several words can be used as both nouns and verbs.  That rule even applies to really popular brand names, like "Xerox" and "Google."

While I doubt that Pete Townshend ever intended to create a song just for ESL students, "Face the Face" would be a great song to hear for someone who's learning English as an adult.  Besides its snazzy music and lush instrumentation, its lyrics are full of words being used as both nouns and verbs.  Here's part of a verse:

We've got to judge the judge
We got to find the finds
We've got to scheme the schemes
We got to line the lines
We got to fight the fight
We got to fall the falls
We got to light the light
We got to call the calls
Try to place the place
Where we can face the face.

Educational and fun!  Here's the whole of "Face the Face," including the preamble that didn't get much radio play. 



* Not to be confused with Jorge Ramos Ávalos, the Univisión news anchor.

---

On the other hand, we have They Might Be Giants, who've made whimsical songs about school subjects a habit.  I like their work, too, but "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is still my favorite from them after all these years.  Something about "nobody's business but the Turks'" just appeals to my inner pedant.  Cheers!

---

Tuesday Football: FOX Sports' oddly sensible programming trick

Last Sunday, FOX Sports used its NFL telecasts to pitch next week's Manchester United-Chelsea match, which it plans to show on tape delay.

Wait.  Back up.  Scratch that needle back across the vinyl.  FOX ran ads promoting a taped soccer game on its flagship network, and nobody's head rolled?  Apparently, everyone got out without so much as a paper cut.  In all seriousness, though, this coming weekend is already a major milestone in U.S. soccer history.  Think about it a bit:  One of the U.S.'s major English-language broadcast networks now feels comfortable not merely counter-programming live NFL games with a foreign soccer match, but proudly announcing the move to the general public.

FOX Sports has made the correct calculation:  American sports fans may not be watching American soccer clubs, but they are watching soccer.  ESPN2 has been airing live English Premier League matches for years, and it appears that this season, one will air on that channel every week the EPL is playing.  Both the News Corp and DIsney syndicates are showing live Champions League games.  Last season, either ESPN or ESPN2 broadcast live matches from Spain, sometimes directly opposite NFL games.  [All that is before we even get to the big Spanish-language channels.]

Mind you, it's only five games, and the first four are on tape.  What's interesting is the timing:  FOX will air the taped EPL games on those weekends when CBS is running NFL doubleheaders.  Where I live, the Chicago Bears will play at New Orleans at 12:00 on FOX, then the MUFC-Chelsea tape will run at about 3:15, after the Bears' game has finished.  [The same goes for Saints fans.]  In the Metroplex, the situation will be the opposite.  Since the Cowboys are away to San Fransico, the soccer match will show up at 12:00, while the 'Pokes-49ers game starts at 3:15.  Either way, viewers will choose between the MUFC-Chelsea match on FOX and an NFL game on CBS.  The honchos at FOX Sports think that fans will blow off the CBS game for the taped soccer -- and in a sizable minority of cases, they will be right.

FOX Sports will air three more EPL matches this way.  Then, on Super Bowl Sunday, it will air the return Chelsea-Manchester United match live from London.  That will probably get impressive numbers, too.

While this development doesn't suddenly make soccer America's Number One Sport™, it should put to a permanent rest the notion that soccer is not a major spectator sport in the United States.

---

Slow starts win races, anyway:  Both my fantasy football teams lost Nate Kaeding, their shared kicker, on his opening kickoff, but both muddled through to win their openers.

Tom Brady blew open a tight opener against Flying Hawai'ian, handing the Horde a 106-92 win, but there will be serious changes, as Darren Sproles has run past Ryan Grant for the RB2 spot.  Danny Amendola may or may not return this season, but fortunately, I have kick-return emperor Devin Hester handy to take his WR3 position.  Finally, Robbie Gould becomes the third Chicago Bear to join the Horde, replacing Kaeding.

Meanwhile, the Ghost-Grey Cats saw Patriot RB Danny Woodhead provide adequate relief for the injured Arian Foster.  The Cats struggled without Kaeding, but their opponents were just bad.  Kittehs 88, Super Steeler Fan 77.

---

Friday Double: (6) The intransigent black hole

First, a quick observation on media coverage of the debt-ceiling hostage situation:  the word "intransigent" describes a driver who crawls down the road at 20 mph below the speed limit and then refuses to let anyone else pass.  Technicaly, it's possible to use "intransigent" to describe the Osama bin Ladens, Agosto Pinchets and Anders Breviks of the world -- but that seems woefully inadequate, doesn't it?  Given their grim determination to shove the United States through an event horizon, House Republicans shouldn't be described as "intransigent," either.

---

Event horizons, as suggested by the teabaggers, were my initial excuse for this week's Friday Double picks.  These are the parts of black holes from which neither matter nor light can escape.  My original plan for today was to just post a couple of pieces of music with black-hole motifs.

Leave it to U.S. Soccer hand me a new excuse to pile on top of the first.  Men's national team coach Bob Bradley, whose firing I had been hoping to see following last month's Gold Cup debacle, got the sack yesterday.  No word on whether Bradley chose paper or plastic.

Click to hear how I feel about this development.

This pretty overture is exactly that -- the overture to The Black Hole (1979).  For a barely watchable piece of unintentionally funny science fiction, it's an enormous part of Hollywood film history.

• It was the first movie Disney ever produced for an audience that didn't include younger children.  The movie succeeded well enough to eventually spawn the Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures studios, and, from there, the Disney empire we know and love.
• Its John Barry score was the first to ever be digitally recorded.
• After this and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, no mainstream Hollywood movie ever includes an overture.

---

Jürgen Klinsmann (Wikipedia)

Back to U.S. Soccer.  Today, the federation named former German head coach Jürgen Klinsmann to succeed Bradley.  If the deal leaves Klinsmann the control over the men's program he wanted five years ago, this could be a good thing.  But his actual coaching resume is mixed.  He did take the Germans into the 2006 World Cup semifinals at home, and he did lead Bayern Munich deep into the UEFA Champions League.  But both terms were short, and Bayern didn't do so well in the Bundesliga under his reign.

As it turns out, the main title to John Barry's Black Hole score expresses my feelings about Klinsmann's hiring.  Bradley left the men's program in worse shape than many of my fellow U.S. soccer fans seem to think, so I'm only willing to give him a 2-in-3 chance of success.  If he fails, it won't be all his fault.

Either way, click and enjoy the main title.

---

Early Tuesday Football: Easy Comfort

Golden Ball winner Homare Sawa lifts the
Women's World Cup trophy for victorious Japan. 
(Frank Augstein, Associated Press)

Well, I could complain about all those missed first-half opportunities, or the defensive lapses towards the end, or the shocking penalty-kick misses in the shootout.  It certainly was a disappointment to see the U.S. lose the Women's World Cup final Sunday night in Frankurt.  Still, there's plenty of comfort to be had.

The Japanese needed the Cup a lot more than the U.S. did -- a lot more.  That would be the Japanese nation, still in the early stages of its long recovery from the March earthquake that devastated it.  I'd hate to think about the reaction in Japan had the Americans held on, but that didn't happen.  For now, the Rising Sun is a little brighter; and that's a good thing, indeed.

This was an American letdown, not a fiasco.  Over at the New York Daily News, Frank Isola completely missed this question.  Not only wasn't this "simply the worst loss in the history of the national team," it wasn't really even a loss.  The correct answer to that question is (b) that 4-0 thrashing Brazil gave the U.S. four years ago in China.  You know, the one that got Hope Solo thrown off the team, led to the furious dismissal of coach Greg Ryan, and might have destroyed the U.S. program had his successor, Pia Sundhage, not stepped in to rescue it.

Japan spent the first half Sunday dodging more bullets than Ghost in the Shell's Section 9.  In non-anime terms, the Japanese had the luck to survive a deadly barrage that should have finished them -- and then, they had the skill and persistence to take advantage of that break.  The U.S. didn't lose the World Cup; Japan won it.

Disappointed, but not grieving:  U.S. keeper Hope Solo chats
with Japan's Ana Miyama after the match.
(Kevin C. Cox/FIFA via Getty Images)

This was an amazing World Cup tournament.  Japan won with brilliant passing and incredible discipline.  The Americans and the Swedes also looked very good when they didn't have to deal with Japan (or each other).  France turned out to be for real.  Down the ladder a rung or two, Australia, England and Mexico all provided pleasant surprises.  Finally, as Germany and Brazil learned to their sorrow, the era of a free pass to the semifinals has ended.

9-0 and 7-1 blowouts didn't happen this time.  Alas, they may return in four years, as the Canadians  host an expanded field of 24 teams.  On the other hand, some traditional powers that missed out (most notably China and Denmark) should easily find room to return to the field.

It's one of the greatest tournament upsets in sporting history.  No World Cup has produced such as massive upset winner as this edition of Nadeshiko Japan.  Outside soccer, and in the U.S., there are  few examples:  the Super Bowl III champion New York Jets; the North Carolina State squad that stunned the 1983 Men's Final Four¹; and, of course, the U.S. hockey team that famously beat the Soviets en route to Olympic gold in 1980.  There's also a case to include the 1966 Texas Western hoops team in this list.  Japan's win this week is notable because, like those other teams, no one took them seriously at the start of the campaign.  Just the road win at Germany in the quarterfinal was a monumental upset, yet the Japanese improved on that.

Hey, at least we're not Brazil.  Last Sunday in the quarterfinals, Abby Wambach put paid to the Samba Queens' embarrassing, cynical, overly theatrical performance, then Hope Solo blocked their World Cup hopes away in the penalty-kick shootout.  This Sunday, the Brazilian men matched that "historical imcompetence²," missing all four penalty kicks in their Copa América quarterfinal exit at the hands of the Tholians Paraguay.  At last report, Seleçao coach Mano Menezes was pleading for his nation not to panic.  Considering how badly the Brazilian men played in this Copa, that might take a little effort.

Anyway, congratulations to Nadeshiko Japan, Champions of the World!

1.  In a sad update that only came to mind now, Lorenzo Charles, whose buzzer-beating dunk propelled the Wolfpack past prohibitive favorite Houston, perished in a car accident just three weeks ago.  Belated condolences to his family, his friends and the North Carolina State community.
2.  Thanks for that hyperbolic description of Coach Menezes, O Globo.

---

Behold! the Black Widows

There's really not much more to say about the American women's magnificent comeback win over Brazil last Sunday in Dresden.  It only had a few things going for it:

• A referee who gave both teams so much cause to complain, she booked eight players and ejected a ninth to cover her officiating crimes;
• One team dominating play despite spending 52 minutes one player down;
• The other team scoring both goals on bad calls;
• Brazilian star Marta getting constantly jeered despite doing nothing especially wrong; and
• Oh, yeah, this immaculate little reception:

Apart from all that, it was a pretty ordinary game.  Check that: today's 3-1 win over France in the Women's World Cup semifinal was ordinary.  Les Bleus certainly belong at this level, but I felt as though I were watching another NCAA basketball tournament game in which a high seed struggles for 30 minutes before putting away the mid-major upstart.

And there was another fault Sunday besides the officiating:  those black kits the U.S. women were wearing.  I've made my ill feelings about the overuse of black in sports uniforms known as recently as two posts ago, and this would seem to fit that depressing pattern.  The thing is, in international soccer, a national team's uniform doesn't always match the national flag.  Italy (blue) and the Netherlands (orange) and Spain (dark blue) all break that rule, and their men's soccer traditions have hardly suffered.  Japan (blue), whose ladies have earned the right to face the U.S. in the World Cup Final next Sunday, is the latest success story.  Slovenia (green) and Venezuela (crimson) haven't become world powers as a result, but they're both doing just fine these days.

In that light, maybe I won't have a problem if the U.S. women decide to go with black road kits on a permanent basis.  For one thing, they're winning.  For another, the kits themselves already have a name:  "Black Widows."  That sounds like it could double as a suitable nickname for a U.S. program that's proven itself to be as dangerous as ever.

My prediction for Sunday:  the Black Widows beat Japan, 2-1, but they'll need the extra half-hour.

---

A few remarks about the Gold Cup final

Mexico midfielder Giovani Dos Santos.
That's with one 'n,' spell checkers.
(Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Hats off to the Mexican soccer team for their 4-2 comeback win over the U.S. tonight.  El Tri has had its share of controversy during this Gold Cup, but coach José María de la Torre has done a great job healing a squad Howard Cosell* would have called "a team in disarray."  The emergence of Gio Dos Santos (Tottenham) and Javier "Chicarito" Hernadez (Manchester Utd.) as English Premier League superstars has helped, but I'd bet Javier Aguirre wouldn't have done as well with this talent.

U.S. keeper Tim Howard.  (AP)

It's the Stars and Stripes who are experiencing disarray now.  The defense has taken a couple of giant steps backward in the past year.  Tim Howard's play in goal has seriously slipped.  He needs to stop worrying so much about his sucky defenders and start worrying about himself.  Carlos Bocanegra -- the U.S. captain -- was just awful tonight, losing track of Pablo Barrera on the go-ahead goal at 50', then setting up Dos Santos's spectacular goal with a poor clearance in the 76th minute.  As often as they overran the U.S. defensive midfield, I started wondering whether the Mexicans would get tired.  [They didn't.]

Oh, yeah:  does Bob Bradley want to explain the logic to me again?  He sat his best players for the first half against Spain, and ended up losing 4-0 at home... so his team could then lose at home to Panama?  I understood his need to build the bench, but that was ridiculous.  More generally, Freddy Adu's emergence notwithstanding, I'm seeing way too much backsliding on the team as a whole.  Qualification for Brazil three years hence is now looking much harder.  The 2009 Confederations Cup helped the U.S. tremendously as it prepared for the World Cup, but Bradley won't have that aid this time.

I'd call for Bradley's dismissal, but then I'd have to suggest a replacement -- and I can't think of one.  Part of the trouble is that coaching the U.S. men isn't exactly a plum position.  It's like being the gridiron coach at Kentucky:  you'd be working in the glamorous SEC, but at a place where your sport isn't king.  [Text me when UK wins a BCS bowl game.]

Back to the CONCACAF champions.  Mexico has looked great, but frankly, Honduras and the fading U.S. are the strongest teams they've seen in a long while.  El Tri does have a guest appearance in the Copa América, the South American championship, coming up, so more serious tests are coming in a hurry.

And would it be too much to ask el Tri to leave the black kits in North America?  The only teams that should be wearing black uniforms are the ones that actually have black as a team color.  Like the basketball teams at Duke, Gonzaga and Butler, and almost any team at Oregon, the Mexican soccer team doesn't qualify.  They all should dump the all-black kits, because they're wrong, wrong, wrong.  On top of that, they're wrong.

On second thought, this kit actually looks decent.  Since it doesn't have any green on it, maybe the FMF could license it to a side that could really use it, like Germany.


* Not aging yourself much, are you, Abu?

---

Wearing number two for New York: Anthony Weiner

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

Colombian defender Andrés Escobar

It's weird how the human mind works sometimes.  Or maybe it's just my mind.  ¿Quién sabe?

I've been trying to figure out exactly what to make of the case of Anthony Weiner.  At first, I dismissed Andrew Breitbart's charges that the New York City congressman had sent pictures of his crotch to complete strangers.  I figured that it was another sleazy Breitbart mind trick.  Rep. Weiner first claimed that someone hacked his Twitter account and sent the offending picture.  Since I don't use Twitter enough to know much about it, that claim seemed reasonable.  When Weiner later refused to deny that the picture was of his crotch, well, I stopped believing him.

What we have, then, is a congressman who sent a picture of his own genitals to women who may or may not have wanted to see it and lied about it.  In the process, Rep. Weiner didn't prance like a chihuahua puppy into Nancy Pelosi's doghouse.  He didn't just jepoardize own career and possibly his marriage.  He has probably deprived the progressive movement of a voice -- his -- that it could really use in the House of Representatives.

And of what other spectacle did this sorry episode remind me today?  An own goal in soccer.  Check that:  a specific own goal, scored almost 17 years ago.

SB Nation's World Cup Blog has an excellent overview of the tragedy of Andrés Escobar, but here's a short version.  Colombia came to the U.S. as a dark-horse favorite to win the 1994 World Cup, only to open with a shocking 3-1 loss to Romania.  Needing to defeat the host Americans to keep their hopes alive, Colombia instead allowed an overwhelming U.S. counterattack at minute 35.  Escobar, an emerging superstar as a defender, tried to deflect John Harkes's pass out of danger -- only to do this instead:



The ensuing 2-1 loss to the Americans eliminated Colombia, and Escobar got the blame.  [Not fair! The U.S. would have found some other way to win that day.]  Ten days later, some angry Colombian shot him dead outside Medellín.

Colombian football has yet to recover.

The more I think about, the more eerie the parallel appears.  Like Andrés Escobar, Anthony Weiner was a rising star in his field.  Like Escobar's mistake in Pasadena, Weiner's miscues may end in severe damage to his cause.  I just hope some crazy person doesn't decide to make the comparison complete.

It will be bad enough for the progressive movement if Anthony Weiner's career (or his marriage) is all that dies.

---

Tuesday Football: Administrivia edition #1

Just going all over the place on football matters.

Playoffs, playoffs everywhere:  It sucks to be Schalke 04 tonight.  Die Knappen lost 2-0 at home in the first leg of its UEFA Champions League semifinal round.  Now they have to win by two goals at Old Trafford next week.  Manchester United can wrap this up with just one goal at home.  Ouch.

In the other semifinal, Real Madrid and Barcelona meet yet again.  Coaches Pep Guardiola (Barça) and Jose Mourinho (Real) have resorted to trash talking, probably because they're both getting bored with playing each other so many times in the same month.

As if I'll ever play Madden 12:  I voted for Cleveland RB Peyton Hillis over Philadelphia QB Michael Vick, all right, but I waited until the last day of voting to do it.  I stopped playing video games shortly after Marble Madness, so I'm unlikely to ever play Madden 2012.  Still, the choice, determined in a single-elimination tournament whose winners were decided by Internet polling, doesn't speak so well of the NFL fan base.  What we have here is a contest between a star player with a troubled past and a promising rusher who has yet to prove himself over a full season.  It's an odd choice.

Administrivia:  I've posted the 2011 NFL draft order, as Victory Weighting would have determined it.  It's the rightmost button on the the bar at the top of the blog.  Also, it's out with the yellow links and in with the softer blues and grays, plus some orange.  I finally got a chance to look at this blog on someone else's monitor, and the old scheme was just too harsh.

---

Scooter Blogging: (2) Wednesday Football

Watch.  Glare.  Watch.

My father and two sisters went to Texas for a family event, and (partly to care for Scooter) I decided to stay and house sit. I finished tilling the backyard garden today, and a few more small outdoor tasks remain ahead of the first winter snows. Last week, we were in shirt sleeves, but the cooling has finally begun for good.

As you can see from these pictures taken today, Scooter is just fine.  She's engaged in that favorite afternoon activity, sleeping on her blanket.  Here, little naps alternate with bits of today's South Africa-United States men's soccer match.  The thunderous din of 51,000 vuvuzelas didn't bother her nearly as much as her dad's presence with a camera.

Likewise, Ian Darke's voice on ESPN didn't perturb The Cat of May Colors™.  On the other hand, Darke has annoyed me in the past; but apparently, he's secured the post of voice of the American men's national team on U.S. TV.  He didn't say anything obviously colonialist on today's ESPN broadcast, so I might actually get used to him.

The game itself ended in a 1-0 win for the U.S., but both sides were trying out new players.  It felt less like an international friendly than the second half of an NFL exhibition game.

---

Fantasy update:   Real life, abetted by schedule confusion on my part, hurt my teams this week.  With the family trip coming in two days, I spent a good chunk of last Thursday helping my father get ready.  By the time we were done and I had taken a nap, the Ravens-Falcons game had kicked off.

Oops.  I'd forgotten about that early game.

The Fluttering Horde was to have dropped Atlanta kicker Matt Bryant, as Horde regular Rob Bironas was back from his bye week.  On top of that, with no one to pass to, Peyton Manning was headed to the Horde bench in favor of Bryant's teammate, Matt Ryan.

Meanwhile, no one in the public league cared to trade for Michael Vick, so maybe he'd start for the Middlemen this week.  Why not?  Vick was up against Washington, while Middlemen regular Joe Flacco faced the Falcons.

Neither substitution went through.  Thursday night was too late.

The Horde did just fine.  My permanent receiver corps racked up 60 points, including Mike Thomas's hail-Mary touchdown, and despite missing Ryan's best performance of the year, the Horde defeated the Southside Hitmen, 121-106.  At 6-4 in a two-division league, the Horde is likely headed to the playoffs.

The Middlemen?  Not so much.  Vick was the 'I win' card, breaking fantasy-football records, but he was still on my bench.  In a bizarre match that also saw both sides reduced to eight men, the Middlemen fell 110-100 to the Dallas Drunks.  Their 6-4 record is still good for a playoff spot, but it's the last one.  Aaarrrrrgh.

---

Tuesday Football: All over the map

Football related thoughts abound this week.

You shouldn't do that on television:  I can understand why, as Comcast does here in Chicagoland, a local cable channel shows games involving area schools.  The same channel also has programs for local politics and the local arts scenes, so these games clearly qualify as local-interest programs.  I can see myself caring about a football game between, say, Geneva and Batavia, partly because those two schools are close to my home.  I could easily understand why a football fan in Sacramento would watch a televised game between Grant and Folsom, two Sacramento-area high schools.

But could someone at Disney please explain to me why, in the name of all that is unholy, a resident of exurban Chicago could possibly care about that Grant-Folsom game?  I don't care how highly ranked those two teams are, they're both 3300 kilometers and two hours west of me.  Why should I care how highly regarded individual players on either side are, when some -- if not all -- of them will crash and burn once they start playing college football?  [For what it's worth, I graduated from my school two years after a high-school All-America running back who fizzled in the then-Big 8, and a year ahead of an eventual NBA player who starred in the Big Ten.]

Apparently, people who have better things to do care that much about high-school sports.  At least the ESPN channels think so.  That's why, besides the Grant-Folsom game, I had to click away from at least four other nationally televised high-school games this weekend.  This is just more attention and adulation for athletic young people who already have too much of both.

He's staying?  Okay, fine:  To my surprise, Bob Bradley is staying on as coach of the U.S. men's soccer team.  During the World Cup, I opined that he should be replaced.  The team started quickly enough in its 2-0 loss to Brazil a month ago, but that needs to become the rule instead of the exception.  I'm not convinced that he's the man to make that change.  On the other hand, a 2-0 blowout of Spain, a Confederations Cup final and (at long last) a group win at the World Cup itself are real results; and Bradley also deserves credit for those.  I would've replaced him with Jurgen Klinsmann, and let him move on to Aston Villa.  (That would've been worth tracking.)  Besides those two men, though, I couldn't imagine an alternative as the U.S. skiper; so keeping Bradley makes some sense.

Twice the fantasy fun:  I wasn't sure that my fantasy-football league was going to convene this year, so I went ahead and joined a public league at Yahoo!.  That league auto-drafted last Friday, and I ended up with RB Chris Johnson, WR Miles Austin and TE Antonio Gates.  I've decided to call this team The Middlemen.

As it turns out, my old league is playing.  The draft is this Sunday night, and (as you may gather from my new tag line) I do not plan on having Brett Favre on my team this time.  Given his latest ankle issues, maybe the Vikings won't, either.  My team has a new name and its own helmet, which I'll reveal next week.

---

A picture of justice

You know what the best thing about the World Cup is? The best team usually wins the final!

In the NBC photo above, Andres Iniesta is the man in navy blue, celebrating the game-winning goal in extra time of the 2010 World Cup Final.  I don't know who the flustered Dutchman is, and frankly, I don't care.  At the end of 120 minutes, Spain prevailed, 1-0, over the Netherlands.  ¡Viva la Fúria Roja!  All hail Spain!

Much will be made of the lack of scoring from the new champions.  La Fúria only scored eight goals in their seven matches, and they even opened with a 1-0 loss to the Swiss.  They didn't have the best defense in South Africa (that would be Paraguay, Spain's quarterfinal victim), but it was more than good enough to frustrate the field.

As for the Oranje:  they have turned out to be world soccer's answer to the Pat Riley Knicks.  Let me explain.  Back in the 1990s, having taken over the ailing NBA team in New York City, Riley realized that (a) while he had talent, he didn't have enough to overcome the Jordan-Jackson Bulls and (b) Knicks management would never give him enough.  His answer?  Turn the Knicks into a team so physical, it could just bully its way into the NBA Finals.  At that, he succeeded -- but in the process, he literally set the entire Eastern Conference back a decade.

I think that's what happened to Holland this weekend.  Seeing no hope of overcoming Spain's superior personnel, Dutch coach Dirk van Marwijk had his players turn violent, collecting yellow cards and pulling crap like the assault at the right.  In this picture from ABC, Nigel de Jong delivers a flying kick to the chest of Spain's Xabi Alonso.  (I'm not exaggerating; it was a flying kick straight from a martial-arts movie.)  For that crime, de Jong got only a yellow card instead of the red that should've been handed him.

The word "crime" pretty much describes the Dutch effort today, including their complaints about the officiating.  Excuse me?  You guys turn the World Cup final into a bad MMA fight, and then turn around cry about anything?  Here's hoping that doesn't fly any higher in the Netherlands that it is anywhere else.

Ian Darke, I take back some of my screed against you yesterday.  The real disgrace was the Oranje today.  I'm so glad they lost, Scooter can hear me purr.

---

Can we deport Ian Darke already?

Presented for your approval: Luis Suárez, Uruguayan striker and, as of this World Cup, The Most Despised Man in Africa.  Commentators have rightly noted that, unseemly as it was, the hand ball against Ghana was perfectly legal.  No right-thinking field player in Suárez's impossible position (not even in Africa) would have hesitated to at least attempt what he did.  As it was, the red card he earned, also rightly, will go down as one of the greatest personal sacrifices in soccer history.

At the same time, though, I saw was nothing wrong with African fans constantly showering him with boos, as they did in Satuday's third-place match against Germany.  It wasn't as though in the first round, prior to That Hand Ball, a despicable Suárez dive hadn't tricked the referee into ejecting South Africa keeper Itumelng Khune.  Hell, that flop would have embarrassed Vlade Divac.

Which brings me to Ian Darke, who covered, among others, the USA World Cup matches for American TV.  I found him tolerable to watch until he went off on the South African fans for booing Súarez.  "Disgreaceful"?  "A lack of understanding of the game"?  He meant to insult Africans with teabagger-worthy phrases like those, but all Darke really did was describe himself.  Perhaps he should get out of England more.  In the rest of the world, singling specific players out for jeering is a time-honored tradition.  It's reserved for players who've committed egregious offenses against the home team.  (That means you, Chris Pronger, bane of all right-thinking NHL fans.)  Whatever else he did, Luis Suárez surely fit that profile.  The other fact Darke missed with his proto-colonialist missives was the fact that no human can simultaneously (a) boo Suárez and (b) blow on a damned vuvuzela.  That, of course, was a favor for everyone but Darke.

ESPN dramatically improved its World Cup coverage, finally giving the event the respect it deserves.  Heck, apart from Darke, it even made it safe to watch English-language soccer telecasts in North America.  But while they're washing off all the Gulf Coast oil from the punking they took from LeBron (the Impostor) James this week, perhaps ESPN executives can take a little time to hand Ian Darke a red card.

---

Obligatory comment on the games:  There wasn't a lot to say about the semifinals. The Netherlands' win over Uruguay was no surprise, nor Spain's victory over a German squad that definitely missed Thomas Müller.  The real surprise was that, though shut down on Wednesday night, it was der Mannschaft, not the Brazilians, who played the prettiest football of the tournament.  (Sure, England and Argentina helped, but still... .)

Regarding tomorrow's final:  as the U.S. team constantly allowed fatal early goals, the Netherlands have allowed silly goals late.  Spain will see to it that that will undo the Dutch, probably in the 84th minute or so.

---

World Cup quarterfinal purring

So Germany blows Argentina halfway back across the Atlantic.

For once, loudmouthed Diego Maradona is at a loss for words.

 Purr, purr, purr!

And what'll you know?  Spain actually gets out of a quarterfinal stage!

The Tholians Paraguayans made them work, and there was that penalty-kick wackiness.

But finally, La Fúria are through to a luscious semifinal with der Mannschaft.

 Purr, purr, purr!

---

Shoo, birds! This World Cup is for the kittens!

What? Brazil blew a halftime lead?

Yeah, thanks for nothing, Felipe Melo!

 Ghana missed a stoppage-time penalty kick?

Yeah, thanks for nothing, Asemoah Gyan!

(Though you did make up for it in the tiebreaker.)

---

Well, it was a road game

This is the goal that sunk the U.S. team today.  Asamoah Gyan, the guy in the red and yellow stripes, got one past Tim Howard in the third minute of overtime.  From then until the 120' mark, all Ghana had to do was play keep-away.  Final score:  United States 1-2 Ghana.  With the neutrals cheering on the last surviving African side, we were as screwed as I thought the last time I posted.

The sad part is that, hostile crowd aside, this was a game the Americans could've won -- if only they'd shown up on time.  Much has been made of coach Bob Bradley's ill-advised decision to start Ricardo Clark, but it really didn't matter who started in midfield.  For the third and fourth times in the tournament, the U.S. defense conceded a goal less than 15 minutes after kickoff.  That was okay once, and the Yanks got away with it twice.  Three times, though, make a nasty habit -- one the Americans have had since at least 2006.  Four times, as of the Gyan goal?  Time to book that flight back to O'Hare.

It's not too early for U.S. fans to look ahead to the 2014 Cup in Brazil.  Make no mistake:  the U.S. team performed well in South Africa, and it may have finally generated permanent interest here in soccer.  But there's definitely room for improvement:

• Coaching:  If someone can attribute the U.S. penchant for falling behind to someone other than Bob Bradley, I'd be thrilled to hear the argument.  Bradley's substitution patterns proved too cute for his own good, and that alone should seal his fate as head coach.  To be fair, though, he did take the team much further than I dared hope he would; and I couldn't imagine him staying on even had the U.S. won the whole thing.
• Strikers:  It would be nice if the Americans had one.  Because they didn't, scoring responsibility fell to midfielders Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey.  As a result, potentially decisive wins over Slovenia and Algeria turned into a draw and a narrow win.  The good news is that a few may be on the way.  The forwards we fielded this time are promising, but still inexperienced at the World Cup level.  If he can recover fully from his near-fatal car crash, Charlie Davis will provide a huge boost.
• Donovan and Dempsey were great, but they're both in their late twenties.  The campaign for Brazil '14 will be the fourth for both men.  The next U.S. coach will have to consider the possibility that one, the other or both will not make it to Brazil.  Benny Feilhaber, the American super-sub this time around, could replace one of them; but he'll need help.

---