by liberal japonicus
For me, it's with a sigh of relief that not only Japan and the US, but the UK and Korea as well have been eliminated from the World Cup. It's not that I was rooting against them, it is just that this whole World Cup seems like a totally tawdry affair that having to deal with people who might be all rah rah about it would have been painful. A Croatia-Morrocco final, decided by interminable penalties after a 0-0 game where bookings after cynical tackles and brawls would resuld in each team playing 8 a side would be a great outcome for me, hopefully having all the multinational companies that sunk millions into it lose their shirt on the investment. A guy can dream...
We don't do sports much here, even though I'm pretty sure we have some real sports fanatics/connoisseurs. It might be (and I may be wrong) because I think I'm the only front pager to suffer from the condition of sportis fanatiphilia. But I think that there are other reasons and I thought it might be interesting to list them here
1. The World Cup, held in a country with a such long and distinguished history of football/soccer (ha!), is only a cherry on the top of an increasingly fraught relationship I have with sports. I don't really have a specific incident, but Kaepernick's blacklisting, team naming issues, Astros cheating, owner behavior, steroid and PED usage just serve to drive me away from discussion. So too has been the effect of the pandemic on international sports. Put that all in a blender and you end up with a concoction that I have a hard time swallowing. It would have been a laugh if the Women's WC were like the current Paralympics, which follows the Olympics using the same facilities, though if that were the proviso, I can't imagine the Quatari wanting it.
2. I'm also coming to the conclusion that sports talk is really a covert way of expressing male toxicity. Debates about who is the GOAT, who are the 25 greatest in the sport, lends itself to the expression of opinion that is fraught with aggressive, take no prisoners posturing. One way to mitigate this might seem like following women's sports, but that can end up as rooting to see women behave as badly as men.
3. I'd say the blog trends towards the older side of the spectrum and for people of a certain vintage, I wonder if people feel like I do that rules don't seem fixed anymore and when they are, it encourages people to try and take advantage of them. I know that there have always been mind games throughout the history of sports. I also know rules change, and perhaps I'm just getting old, but it seems worse than it was.
Anyway, something to get things started, feel free to talk about anything vaguely sports related here.
Recent Comments