UNDERSTANDING SPORTS
World Cup Results- Team USA
Especially for all you Americans who did not watch or just casually observed
The Class System
First, note the heinous crime perpetrated upon the spectators at the World Cup in Qatar. Just before the first game, the Qataris rescinded the plan to sell beer in the stadiums. So all those screaming fans have only soft drinks to soothe their thirst.
Unless they happen to be lucky or connected or rich enough to be watching in the VIP lounges. There, patrons are served a number of alcoholic beverages.
And even the VIPs are not privy to the best (and religiously prohibited) that Qatar has to offer. There is another level, called “VVIP” which has more and better stuff just so the VIPs don’t think they’re top of the pops.
So to summarize, peons get no alcohol, VIPs get wine and beer, and VVIPs get anything they want. Even the teetotalers among us should appreciate that this reinforcement of class status is what royalty and oligarchy engender.
Human Rights
There were interesting developments regarding freedom in Iran. The players on the Iranian team did not sing their national anthem when it was played prior to their first game. This was “an apparent show of solidarity on the world’s biggest stage with the human rights protest movement that has swept their home country.”
It can be said of all the players on all the teams participating, but particularly considering the regime in their home country, these guys have balls.
On another human rights front, “OneLove” armbands were banned, with team captains threatened with yellow cards for wearing them. The OneLove message signifies support for Qatari LGBTQ people, who are also banned. Note that the company in the Netherlands making the armbands sold out of the armbands after the ban.
They also played football
The US Men’s National Team did not bring home the World Cup Trophy.
Everyone who believes that “Winning isn’t everything; it is the only thing,” can stop reading right now. Perhaps your lives are easier when all is black and white.
The tournament continues, with the traditional South American and European powerhouses summarily expelling the upstart pretenders. Like the US. Except for Morroco, pride of the Arab World (advancing on penalty kicks where anything can happen), the final 8 teams are all from South America and Europe. We’ll ignore how the tournament is tilted in favor of Europe on the basis of qualification slots.
The final game will be on Sunday, December 18. Tune in to join the over one billion souls watching.
But what of the US team?
The youngest starting lineup in the tournament delivered a very respectable result. They emerged from the group stage with two ties and a win and then lost to the Netherlands in the first game of the knock-out round.
In their third and last round-robin game, the US team was pitted against the Iranians, known as “Team Melli” or “Team Mullah” depending on one’s view of their solidarity with protesters back home.
In the usual stream of BS generated by the media, journalists did all they could to force the Iranian players to make politically charged statements. Like the pressure of the world’s biggest tournament isn’t enough. The same was true for the Americans. More on that later.
Both the US and Iran were strong teams. The US needed to win to move on, and Iran needed at least a tie. In an entertaining and hard-played game, the Americans scored a nice goal in the first half and spent the second hanging on against the Iranian attack. The US was fortunate to win, and though they did not, Team Melli should be proud of its effort.
In the following game, things did not work out so well for the US.
One of the US announcers said that the US was the better team. Balderdash! The US team showed that it could play with the elite, but not beat them. The US possessed the ball for more time, made more passes, and had more shots than the Netherlands. But in the only stat that counts, the Netherlands scored 3 goals to 1 for the US, and that lucky one appeared to defy the laws of physics.
Netherlands was patient, content to allow the US to hold the ball for long periods of time, and then striking swiftly when they obtained possession. They were dispassionately clinical in their attack, moving the ball from player to player until the open man put the ball into the back of the net. Three times.
In a word, mature. Another triumph for old age and treachery, if one can call late-20s “old.”
In their final game, the Americans may have been a little tired. While certainly very good, the team is not as deep with substitutes of the same ability as the starters, so with four tense games in 13 days, legs and reflexes may have been somewhat worn. Note that teams that were sure of moving on to the knockout stage after their first two games rested many players. All these teams have won their way into the quarterfinals.
Being tired and also not used to playing at the top level may also have been a factor in all of the goals against. In all three cases, the scorer was completely unmarked.
You can’t leave Steph Curry open. You can’t let Stephon Diggs run open downfield. You can’t let Connor McDavid loiter in the crease.
Hey, it is what it is. That the US squad made it to the final 16 is fabulous, considering that the USA did not even qualify four years ago. The development vector is pointed upward, and all should be proud of that.
Later
Tyler Adams, 23-year-old team captain, is a tenacious defender and skilled passer of the ball. His lineage is racially mixed, so in another holdover from the age of slavery, he is regarded as black. (Long diatribe omitted.)
In an interview, he was needled by a snotty Iranian journalist. First, he chastised Tyler for mispronouncing the name of his country. “You say you support the Iranian people, but you are pronouncing our country’s name wrong.” (It’s something like “Ur-ron,” definitely not “Eye-ran.”)
Then the reporter went on then on to the question he really wanted to ask. “Are you ok to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against Black people in its own borders?”
With grace and intelligence, this young man answered.
Tyler thanked the reporter for educating him on the correct pronunciation of his country. He went on to say,
“There’s discrimination everywhere you go. One thing that I’ve learned, especially from living abroad in the past years and having to fit in in different cultures and kind of assimilate into different cultures, is that in the U.S., we’re continuing to make progress every single day.”
No anger, no capitulation, no defensive rhetoric, no equivocation. As did Martin Luther King, Tyler Adams believes that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” and he states his belief eloquently.
Taylor Twellman, an ex-US National Team Member, said of Tyler, “Any questions on who and what a leader is?!”
Most of our celebrities and politicians could stand to learn from this young man.
Earlier opinions and prognostications:
