Tag: world cup

I’m back, and, hey, in soccer news: we won another Women’s World Cup.

The USA — as is only proper — has won the Women’s World Cup for the second time in a row… how often do they do this soccer thing again? Every four years? Well, that seems dumb. They should have it every year. They might get more people in the USA watching it if they did.

Continue reading I’m back, and, hey, in soccer news: we won another Women’s World Cup.

USA wins Women’s World Cup. …As one would expect of Americans, of course.

Why am I noting this, given that I care nothing for soccer, barely remembered that women play it, too, and had to be told tonight that there was even a game going on, let alone a championship? …Really? I have to explain this?  OK: The USA. Beat. The rest of the world. At something.  That’s all the justification I need.  I don’t care if it’s a spitting contest; you go out there and spit farther than any of those foreign teams, Team USA. And it’s all the sweeter if my previous indifference makes anybody mad.  Maybe they should have spent less time being mad and more time winning.

Because that’s the American Way. Continue reading USA wins Women’s World Cup. …As one would expect of Americans, of course.

Tweet of the Day… Yeah. Yeah, I Guess It Would Have, At That edition.

Don’t get me wrong: gambling is a bad thing to be addicted to. I urge sufferers to seek help for it.

But Dad probably cleaned up on betting on Germany like that.

Should America be doing more to fake an interest in soccer?

This is not me mocking the game, per se – it’s just that we’re apparently doing fairly well in the World Cup, so far, and eventually we might actually win one. If and when we do, we should give serious consideration to figuring out how to pretend that America actually cares as much about this accomplishment as the rest of the planet apparently does. Because it’s going to severely annoy every other country in the world if we shrug it off; including the countries we actually like. A little judicious hypocrisy wouldn’t hurt, here.

Just a thought.

Moe Lane

PS: At the very least: if we ever do win a World Cup we should probably agree among ourselves to not needle the rest of the planet (like we do, cheerfully) by calling it ‘soccer.’  At least for a few days. A week, at the most.

Before I start rolling my eyes at the World Cup…

…do any of you actually care about it?  Generally speaking, my attitude about soccer is that we should continue to suck at it, because it’s a harmless way for countries to triumph over us in something; but if people actually like the game and care about the results I don’t want to be intentionally rude.  …Well, in this at least.

‘Psychic Octopus’ getting death threats?

I shudder at how these people would overreact if there was a real sport involved:

The eight-legged oracle picked Germany’s rival Spain to beat Germany in the quarterfinal, which he was right about, and has now chosen Spain to win the whole World Cup tournament. Germans have reacted by posting death threats and calamari recipes on Twitter and the internet, People reported.The “Psychic Octopus” has correctly predicted the winner in all 7 of Germany’s World Cup matches, including the team’s quarterfinal loss to Spain and their third-place victory of Uruguay. Paul’s powers were first noticed in the 2008 European Championship, when he picked the winner 5 out of 6 times.

Via AoSHQ.  As to the winner of today’s soccer game: who will be less obnoxious about winning? – that’s who should win it.

Moe Lane

PS: No, I recognize that it’s all in good fun.  For that matter, it’s not really a World Cup if there aren’t Americans out there blustering about the essential worthlessness of a sport that they can’t seem to put together a winning team for.  I’m providing a service, here.

Psychic soccer octopus.

We can’t really mock them for this: we do equally goofy things for sports that we consider relevant.

A “psychic” octopus is said by its aquarium owners to have predicted the country’s football team will knock England out of the World Cup.

When consulted, Paul the octopus chose a mussel from a jar with the German flag on it ahead of one in a similar jar bearing the cross of St George.

Still, there’s a video.  The Germans are wearing leis.

Moe Lane

PS: I heard that we lost to Ghana.

Well, that’s the idea.

The *real* World Cup Beer scandal.

I understand Troglopundit’s amused attitude towards provincial views on guerrilla advertising – the short version is that South Africa is arresting people and getting fairly upset over a squad of thirty or so pretty blond women suddenly wearing orange miniskirts at a soccer game, said miniskirts apparently actually being an advertisement for a brewery – but my amusement ended with this line:

…Budweiser is the official beer of the World Cup…

Budweiser.

BUDWEISER?  They’re making soccer fanatics drink BUDWEISER at this thing?  And the rest of the world hasn’t declared war on the United States yet?

And they say that the age of miracles has passed.

Moe Lane

#rsrh Depressing World Cup statistical news.

From Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports nationwide telephone survey finds that 66% of Adults correctly identify soccer, or football as it’s known outside the United States, as the sport played in the World Cup competition. However, three percent (3%) say it’s all about baseball, and one percent (1%) each think the international teams will be playing tennis, hockey or golf. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are not sure what sport will be played.

66% is far too high – and we really need to get that percentage of the population who think that it’s a golf competition up. It’s absolutely critical for our long-term national security needs; the more people in this country who don’t have a clue what the World Cup is, the fewer people who will get upset when we get our rears kicked by countries like Costa Rica or Ghana.  Dammit, just because it’s a slightly absurd geopolitical safety valve doesn’t mean that it’s not a real one…