Good morning all from Brazil, where Zika is not ravaging us. Can’t say the same for my old hometown, Miami or Puerto Rico.
I hope to start posting on a weekly basis about the sport. Please feel free to add your suggestions, thoughts, etc.
Hope Solo, ffs, stop digging.
From my buddy, Kevin Raub: Neymar? No, Marta!
The English Premier League starts today. The two teams from Manchester have a new coach. Will it make a difference?
dedc79
Down goes Leicester!
COYS!
Hildebrand
Leicester looked more than a bit sluggish and sloppy.
dedc79
@Hildebrand: as do Spurs
Hildebrand
I need a new rooting interest in the Premier League, as my long-time favorite, Newcastle, was relegated. I will follow them, but not many Championship league games on American television, and I love watching the league.
Baud
I was concerned about the games, but so far, so good.
gex
Facebook reminded me that on this day in 2009 I complained about David Frum legitimizing the idea of shooting the president. The article is conveniently no longer available, but good old BJ has a post about it.
David Frum hypothesizes on justifications for shooting the president.
Trump is unique in his way. But the horrible hatefulness, violence, and disrespect for the democratic process if they don’t get their way is not.
ETA: this was the year they called the mandate fascism and started talking about Second Amendment remedies.
MJS
Oh, “that” football. Carry on.
NorthLeft12
Apparently, in a first for high level soccer, the most talented team lost the game. To make this game even more of an outlier, the team that played the game more openly and offensively also lost!! ZOUNDS!
I will check if this has happened in any other sport and report back.
BTW, not sure that Grant Wahl or Hope Solo know what an apology is.
Hal
A Facebook friend commented the other day how she noticed her black friends on Facebook were posting about black athletes only at the Olympic games, where her white friends were posting about everyone. Just an observation!
I really don’t get her point. One, how many black friends does she have in the first place, and how many of those friends are posting about the Olympics? Two, I can’t tell if this is a pat on the back to her and her white friends or a reference to what she thinks is another sign of racial division in this country. It just struck as a weird take away and just a really annoying use of small sample size of something like your Facebook friends list to extrapolate to the black community as a whole.
Amir Khalid
@Hildebrand:
How about Hull? They’re top of the table at the moment.
Shalimar
@Hal: that sounds like the kind of comment someone who doesn’t actually have a black friend would make. If you do have black friends, why not ask them directly instead of calling them out in public as being somewhat racist?
Hildebrand
@Amir Khalid: Not sure I want to be a bandwagon jumper. (lol)
BillCinSD
well spurs take out one of their dmids, add a striker and score
Amir Khalid
Spurs equalise at Goodison park. They’re at 1-1 with Everton.
Mike E
Solo had a lackluster tourney and her side never hit that higher gear…I can now hopefully watch the medal matches without feeling like a homer–go Brasil!
M.C. Simon Milligan
@ Hildebrand; Just watch good football as a neutral. It’s been yonks since my Owls were up so I kinda root for whoever strikes my fancy (so close last season for The Wednesday… so close!). Lately it’s been Arsenal since Wenger cracks me so consistently up. This season we get the hated bandwagon that is ManU married to the so easy to loathe its not even funny Jose Mourinho so I’m going to watch them a lot just for the laughs and schadenfreude.
In Germany it’s different for me this year. I’ll never not be a Schalke fan, but I just accepted a permanent position with Volkswagen (ye gods you should see the benefits package!) so I’s gots to pull for Die Wolfe too.
Speaking of parking the bus (that bus belongs to Jose! And he’s driving it to Manchester right now!) the Toffees are bunkered way back holding on to this draw…
OGLiberal
Yes, can somebody tell Hope Solo to shut up before she ruins her and USA soccer’s brand further? Hope, you want to win then block more goals than the other team’s goalie….this is on you. Deal with it.
raven
been lookin for ya!
SRW1
Haven’t seen that many games of the women soccer competition at the Olympics, but my impression is that the level has dropped somewhat compared to last years WC. The Germans don’t seem to be able to organize an effective attack and had two horrible defensive lapses against the Canadians, the French relied almost exclusively and pretty ineffectively on high balls into the box in their quarterfinal loss, and the Canadians, while defensively very solid, appear to rely a lot on their opponents messing up for their goals.
burnspbesq
If that’s what life without Lukaku looks like, sell his ass and pocket the cash. I’m perfectly happy to throw the speed of Deulofeu, Mirallas, and Lennon at people.
John who? Timmeh wha?
burnspbesq
If Brad Guzan went off like that after a USA men’s loss, would there be a similar shit-storm? I think we all know the answer.
Hildebrand
@M.C. Simon Milligan: Thinking that may be the best bet, just sit back and watch good football – and hope that Newcastle can get their bloody acts together (not a good start this year).
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@MJS:
I thought that was “fut.”
cmorenc
Not the first time Solo has gone off on a class-less rant: years ago, she got reprimanded by her USWNT teammates and temporarily kicked off the team by its then-coach for dissing the decision to let Brianna Scurry start as GK in the 2007 WWC. Solo may still be the best talent the US women have available at GK, but she’s a prima dona piece of work to deal with.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@shomi:
Says the guy tapping angry and misinformed missives on the net.
philadelphialawyer
@cmorenc: Solo was right to go ballistic on the decision to sit her for the last game of that tournament. The whole defense was screwed up in that match, because of the flat out stupid decision to change horses in midstream at goal.
As for this deal, not seeing the BFD. She was criticizing the Swedish team (and, more particularly, its coach, who was the one to make the decision and who has history with Solo) for its cowardly style of play. Defensive and negating. Hope was NOT even implying that Sweden was guilty of any sort of moral or even merely physical cowardice. Anyone who watched the game knows exactly what she meant, and that she has a point.
And, she saved one of the PK attempts too. One of her teammates just flat out missed a PK, and that was the margin of error. Its not like the loss is Solo’s fault.
Oh, and shut up Alexi Lawless. You were the worst international player in the world. Ever. And now you are a shameless hack, pretending, for example, that you thought the USA was going to beat Argentina in the Copa semifinals.
@burnspbesq: Exactly. A player criticizes the other team for their style of play. Yeah, and? What else is new? Seems like a woman athlete has to be the perfect embodiment of sportsmanship at all times, or else she is the devil. If a guy said this, the reaction would be either a big yawn, or people would be cheering him on for his “feistiness” and his “passion.”
Amir Khalid
City 2-1 Sundlund. A late winner for Pep’s boys?
Amir Khalid
@philadelphialawyer:
Calling the other team “cowards”, whatever the reason, is unsporting and graceless. Whatever you may think of parking the bus as a match tactic, the rules do allow it; it’s up to an opponent to find a way around the bus.
philadelphialawyer
@Amir Khalid: I agree. It was unsporting. But that hardly justifies the worldwide shitstorm it provoked. A player makes an intemperate, mildly objectionable comment, in the heat of the moment, right after a tough loss. That’s it. Nothing personal. And about match tactics, not anything else (like race, or ethnicity, religion, orientation, etc). “Your match tactics were scared-y cat.” True, and, even if graceless, not particularly outrageous.
“Whatever you may think of parking the bus as a match tactic, the rules do allow it; it’s up to an opponent to find a way around the bus.”
I don’t see Solo as contesting any of that. She’s saying its chicken shit, not that its against the rules.
Thor Heyerdahl
Hope’s comments wouldn’t have even happened if the correct call had been made on the Swedish goal that was called offside.
Anyway…karma for the “interesting” calls that went for the USWNT in London versus Canada.
Amir Khalid
@philadelphialawyer:
Denigrating the other team’s choice of match tactic as cowardly is precisely what’s beyond the pale here. The Swedes made a valid tactical choice against faster and more skillful opponents, and it won them the match. There’s no cowardice at all in that.
philadelphialawyer
@Amir Khalid: I just don’t see it as “beyond the pale.” Again, “cowardly,” in the context of match tactics “denigration” (as opposed to some more inherently suspect context), is not such a big deal. To me.
YMMV
humboldtblue
@Hildebrand: If you are unfamiliar with reddit, I use it each week to get live streams of PL matches and they will feature Championship games as well. You’ll be able to watch Sheffield Wednesday (after Plymouth Argyle and tied with West Bromwich Albion for the best name in all of sports) along with a full slate of games from the Euro leagues.
The backlash against Solo isn’t just for her being an asshole again, it’s because she’s an asshole in real life as well and for whomever asked if Guzan would have wrought a shitstorm for comments like that we sure as shit know he would have been taken down viciously for being involved in a terrible domestic violence incident, not once but three different times.
Fuck Solo, she’s an asshole.
Tripod
The soccer stuff is the least of her sins – including a number of domestic punch ups with her family, and stealing a van from the USSF for a late night drunken joyride with her husband, which ended with his DUI bust.
She’s bad news, a formerly great player boozing away the backside of her career.
philadelphialawyer
Solo being an asshole for DV and other reasons doesn’t make her no big deal comment into a big deal.
Tripod
The Honduran men’s team ceded possession to South Korea. The Koreans looked dangerous, but couldn’t convert, and the Hondurans got them on a counter.
Then there’s the whole history of Catenaccio….