You’re super kind and generous. I just need to get over that.
Thanks for running this. It was a nice new way to enjoy the tournament.
Croatia I suppose. In as much as I honestly never heard of their team in talks of serious competitors.
That said it’s hard to go beyond the wet the bed performance Germany put on. It only did they lose, they looked completely anemic on offense. Like there are probably high school teams with more dynamic offense than that.
Croatia had a great run in 98, but I honestly had no idea that they had that kind of caliber team again so soon. They must have a really good program in Croatia to train young athletes.
The biggest surprise is hard to pin down for me. I want to say Japan, because that Japan vs Belgium game was so amazing, and the most memorable thing about this World Cup for me.
Another part of me wants to say France. I know it sounds silly, but I kind of thought their golden generation was gone after Thierry Henry and Zidane and others from the 98 team retired. Pogba and Greitzmann were electric to watch in 2014, but I had no idea that this time they’d have someone even more exciting to watch in Mbappe. I thought of them as legitimate contenders, don’t get me wrong, but they were way better than I was expecting. It’s one of rare teams where if you’re supporting them, instead of constantly feeling nervous, you can just see the talent and let go of the nervousness, and just sit back and say “they’ve got this”. I’m sure the 2014 German team was like that for German fans that year, and I think France was like that in 2018, and that was really surprising to me.
One team that I feel really bad for in the Cup this year was Uruguay. With a healthy Cavani, perhaps they’re good enough to beat France and go all the way. Definitely a surprising team for me.
Colombia have to be wondering “What if” with regards to James Rodriguez too.
Another surprise then: two teams (Colombia and Uruguay) from a continent sometimes criticized for its…indifferent…attitude towards defending played some of the stoutest back line football of the entire tournament. Barring injury, we may see the twin tower defending of Mina and Sanchez as center backs for Colombia for three more World Cups.
And for Tottenham (fingers crossed)
I thought it was really funny when Trevor Noah on the Daily Show on Monday said that after the actual African teams were out, France was the African team left in the World Cup, and they won, so congratulations to Africa for winning the World Cup. But apparently that joke upset a lot of French people, include the French Ambassador.
Despite Noah’s ethnicity, it is a predominantly racist thing to say. It’s like saying that every time an African American wins something for the USA.
I mean, you can’t ignore the fact that he’s African though. It’s a running reminder in every episode. He makes “Africa jokes”, and constantly plays up the fact that he’s South African. So an African saying I’m taking the credit for a predominantly African American Ice Hockey team in the NHL would be pretty funny too, in a similar way. It’s a joke. It’s like Indians taking credit for Sanjay Gupta’s success on CNN, despite the fact that the guy is American. It happens all the time. People who have emigrated from certain places still instill pride in the places where they’re from when they’re successful.
True, I’ve never really watched him but if you take it as a blanket statement it sounds not good. I am Jewish and we are quick to mention when a Jew does well in their vocation.
ShivaX posted Trevor’s response to the criticism, which was interesting.
He says all there is to say in the beginning: non-racist French people find it offensive to refer to their compatriots of colour as African since that is exactly what the Front National and other racists do. That does in no way mean that people with migratory background in France have to deny their roots or give up any part of their identity. This is also in no way unique to migrants from sub saharan Africa, those from the Maghreb and Middel East used to be only referred to as “Arab” as a means of exclusion. I don’t see much substance in his argument here, which is probably why he needs to resort to snooty French voice and wheeling out the melting pot trope.
So now that it’s behind us, but still relatively fresh in your minds, what were the memorable moments for you in this World Cup?
It’s still relatively close in the rear view mirror, so I have quite a few:
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France winning over Croatia, obviously, 4-2, with Greitzmann, Pogba, and Mbappe each getting a goal, who are my favorite three players on the team. Me leaping into the air and shouting “Mbappe”, to the delight of my 15 month old who squealed in delight and laughter. I love doing that at random to him now. “Mmmmmbappe!”
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France winning over Argentina in a really tense match where I was hoping Argentina could somehow pull a miracle. When they scored at 4-2 down to make it 4-3 in injury time, I remember tearing my hair out when instead of getting on with the game, they started arguing with the referee on a call against them in mid-field. Come on guys! You’ only have precious minutes left in stoppage time, don’t waste it arguing with the Ref! Arrrrgh!
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Spain Vs Portugal - This was a great match. I don’t know how Portugal got Spain to play in a match that was so fun to watch. Ronaldo comes through in clutch moments, including a free kick goal and a penalty I believe, though I don’t remember the details anymore.
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Spain vs Russia - Oh my god Spain, stop just passing the ball around. For F***'s sake. They lost! Hahahahahaahah. You got what you deserve Spain.
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Germany losing to Mexico, prompting Mexican fans to go crazy. Germany coming back to win against Sweden at the last minute, prompting everyone to feel that in the end, Germany always wins. But then they lost to South Korea.
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So many tense moments in penalty shootouts. Russia vs Spain was my favorite, because after that match, I was rooting for underdog Russia so hard. England vs Columbia was a memorable one because England always seemed to lose on penalty kicks in the past. And the two penalty kick shootouts that Croatia won, against Denmark was crushing because Denmark was the team in my pool that was going to drag me off the bottom, and then I was happy to see Croatia beat Russia in that shootout.
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Harry Kane scoring a hatrick in the 6-1 England victory over Panama, including two penalties and a deflection, prompting me to think of him as the luckiest man to ever win the golden boot.
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And finally, the most memorable match in the tournament for me: Belgium vs Japan, goes into the pantheon for me among the greatest matches of all time. Remember that Japan goal where the slow motion replay showed the ball going into the goal with absolutely no spin, making it 2-0 in the second half? And then that weird header goal by Belgium that went over the Japanese goal-keeper, finally letting Belgium commence the scoring? And then that last minute goal in stoppage time where Lukakku unselfishly stepped over the pass and it went to his left and his teammate scored? Man, what a game.
We’re about a month away from Euro 2020. (It got delayed a year because of Covid-19). We up for another round fellas?
I might be down, yeah. I’m woefully uninformed about the state of the sport though, except that apparently everyone is very angry over that new super league :-D
James Harden plays Soccer?
. . . and became white?
My favorite NBA moment was the day westerners discovered Chinese NBA Twitter nicknames.
Most damningly, [Harden] has also been dubbed “Porcelain Mamba” for his efforts to draw fouls despite being hardly touched. In Chinese, “bumping porcelain” (碰瓷) is a euphemism for faking traffic accidents in order to fraudulently collect compensation. The expression dates to the Qing Dynasty, when scam artists would carry a fake porcelain vase and purposely bump into a rickshaw and drop the vase, causing it to shatter. They would then claim the shattered vase was a valuable antique and demand compensation. The implication here is that Harden is a master scam artist who draws fouls he doesn’t deserve.
The concept of “bumping porcelain” helps explain why NBA players who flop or otherwise try to draw fouls they don’t deserve are called “Sons of Jingdezhen” (景德镇之子), as Jingdezhen is a town in China famous as a center of porcelain production. Since Harden is the acknowledged master of this art, he has been dubbed the “Mayor of Jingdezhen” (景德镇镇长), which we might translate more freely as the “Mayor of Floptown.”
So I was curious why I was getting notifications given I don’t follow futbol, turns out we did a thing! And I forgot I joined. And I did a joke, and never checked.
So I just checked.
And lol no. My joke food list didn’t do so hot. Turns out my ‘real’ list had picked both the winner, 2nd place, and 4th place. My joke list had England.
I’m still trying to figure out what’s happening.