Football ("soccer") is a sign of U.S.A.’s moral decay

Yer gettin close to lacrosse.
Not quite there yet.

What Farmerman wants is called hurling--it's soccer with a baseball, fifteen men on a side, and everyone carries a bat. They've gone all wimpy on us now with helmets.



Hurlers usually don't have all their teeth . . .

My country has laws allowing cops to check one's citizenship, yet ethnic minorities are eager to play for it, and not only football but any sport. Primarily because you may get rich and famous of course, but also because it builds up a sense of equality, belonging, integration. I am no big fan of sport myself but recognise that it's good for nation/citizenship building. The same applies at the continental and global levels, if the teams stick to good sportsmanship. i believe this cup in particular is drawing nations closer together, rather than further apart.

Thirty Micks with shillelaghs.
Not a pretty picture.

Note: I know the difference between a hurley and a shillelagh.

Americans will become a true part of World Football when they react to their elimination like everybody else.
To my knowledge no one has proposed to burn Klinsi at the stake for calling useless Wonchaldowski, who failed miserably at key moments, instead of Landon Donovan, who has scored more goals in the World Cup than Rooney and Ronaldo put together.
Play the blame game. Ask for Klinsman's head, for the Gods of Football sake!

I thought of it..
starting with his pre-match complaining about the ref's possibility of being unfair to the US, about a guy he admitted had been a good ref so far. Alas, I don't understand well enough yet to get a good rant going re other matters during the match, the matters of attacking and defense, and slowness to substitute at the end. Those are just impressions as a read-along person.

That is classic mind games, osso. Alex Ferguson did it all the time at Man Utd. All top flight managers have this knack for planting something in minds just before a game.
Klinsmann was inferring that as the Belgian team and the ref spoke the same language, USA would be at some sort of disadvantage.
The ref was bound to have heard those remarks, and although he would never admit it, chances are that he would go out of his way to be totally fair during the match, even if it meant ovelooking something that USA did, if it was minor.
Any advatage can make the difference.

I remember Alex Ferguson saying just before a match that the ref in question hadn't protected his players from being badly fouled last time he presided.
That match saw the ref book the opponents for even the slightest offence.



Jose Mourinho (Chelsea) is a past master at mind games. One can read the sports page and see Mourinho moaning about something, and you can guess straight away that there will be a connection with the team his lads face at the weekend.

It's always the referee for any losing team ...

That's also a taken:



Day 4
It was not a penalty!

I'm always saying (since 1966) that it wasn't a goal

Most Popular Spectator Sports in the World

Every human who is not a very loyal British subject knows it.
It was not a goal!

(Let's hope a similar thing doesn't happen in Brazil to help the hosts, but it may).

Ummm. Errr.
I think handball is the most popular sport in Greenland.

But it's called football there, too

Correction: Very loyal Scottish, Irish and Welsh British subjects know it was not a goal.
Only the English have stayed on denial for almost half a century.

Sez you, can't dispute the next one though.

I'm just surprised to find cricket so popular in Guyana.

Phil Jackson was noted for doing that when he coached the Lakers in the playoffs.

Speakimg about being in denial for half a century, did you ever hear about the unofficial Jules Rimet trophy that was made in England, after the fiasco of us losing the original for a while?

There is a lot of detail in the Wiki piece that is incorrect, and a hell of a lot more I could tell you. A very interesting story, all the same.


From Wiki.....


"On 20 March 1966, four months before the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall.[4] The trophy was found just seven days later wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of a suburban garden hedge in Upper Norwood, South London, by a dog named Pickles.[5]

As a security measure, The Football Association secretly manufactured a replica of the trophy for use in exhibitions rather than the original. This replica was used on subsequent occasions up until 1970 when the original trophy had to be handed back to FIFA. Since FIFA had explicitly denied the FA permission to create a replica, the replica had to also disappear from public view and was for many years kept under its creator's bed. This replica was eventually sold at an auction in 1997 for £254,500, when it was purchased by FIFA. The high auction price, ten times the reserve price of £20,000–£30,000, was led by speculation that the auctioned trophy was not the replica trophy but the original itself. Subsequent testing by FIFA, however, confirmed the auctioned trophy was indeed a replica[6] and FIFA soon afterwards arranged for the replica to be lent for display at the English National Football Museum, which was then based in Preston but is now in Manchester......."



Djalma Santos, Brazilian World Cup winner in 1958, with the replica of the stolen trophy.


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_Trophy