![]() I was so intrigued with England’s reaching the semifinals of the Women's World Cup, wondering if the Lionesses could really make up for the red cards of idiot boys like Beckham and Rooney? The sin and the splendor of Maradona? The missed PKs and the fumbled shots? Does women’s soccer have anything to do with men’s soccer? Not sure. Now the Lionesses have contributed their own bit to England's soccer history, giving up an own goal in stoppage time in the semifinal against Japan Wednesday night. I’m an American with an Irish passport, and me mum was born in Liverpool -- and I have loved the Azzurri since 1982 -- but this had nothing to do with nationalism or patriotism. Caring just a little bit about England in footy seemed akin to a baseball fan rooting for the Red Sox for decades, or rooting for Cleveland in anything. Just get it over with. Now it goes on and on. The start of Wimbledon reminded me of national complexes I have known – going to London in June and seeing head-hanging in cricket, rugby,tennis and particularly in soccer. Ah, yes, England once won a World Cup. The best sports documentary I have ever seen was about the 1966 World Cup – England beats West Germany! At Wembley! Every four years, the “green and pleasant land” goes through agonies I remember from my tormented childhood as a Brooklyn Dodger fan. I thought about English football disasters I had witnessed: On June 30, 1998 David Beckham petulantly kicked Diego Simeone of Argentina and got himself kicked out of a round-of-16 match. England lost the shootout. (Of course, Simeone developed the staggers from the minimal contact, but what was he supposed to do, man up?) On July 1, 2006, Wayne Rooney stomped on Ricardo Carvalho of Portugal for a red card and then stupidly shoved his Man U teammate Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal in a quarter-final match. (Of course, Ronaldo took a dive, but who wouldn’t?) England lost the shootout. Any England fan can supply dozens of other gaffes in major internationals. I was hoping the Lionesses would be unencumbered by past horrors of the male variety and could overcome the spirit and deft passing of Japan. Instead, Laura Bassett stuck out her foot to try to stop another Japan fast break, and she deflected the ball to the underside of the crossbar. I'm thinking of own goals -- poor Andres Escobar of Colombia against the USA in 1994, the immortal Nicola Caricola, formerly of Juventus, poking in an own goal in the very first match for the MetroStars, thereby setting up a Ruthian Curse for that franchise. John McDermott, in the Comments below, recalls being there when Franco Baresi, my favorite defender of all time, made an own goal for AC Milan. Occupational hazard for defenders. But in stoppage time -- of a World Cup semifinal? Your thoughts?
Brian Savin
6/29/2015 01:03:09 pm
Very, very funny, GV. But you're also right on. They are an intriguing and enjoyable team of sporting athletes. Although fully expecting to be partial to our Canadian neighbors, as the game wore on, and even though England was ahead early, I found myself rooting for these "Limeys" (sorry, my Irish is showing). They are pretty damn interesting and I will cheer for them...until the final. The semifinal with Japan, an excellent team, will be fascinating. I'll take the points and England.
As luck would have it, there was a team from the BBC on the cruise that we took around Montreal harbor the day after we were at the German-France quarter final. They were there for the entire tournament, expense paid.
Hansen Alexander
7/1/2015 05:09:41 am
No, the USA has come too far this time and has too much punch near the goal.This is the game Alex Morgan finally scores.
George Vecsey
7/1/2015 05:17:28 am
She did very well with that collision last night. I think she ran into the German defender -- any attacking player would, inside the 18.
Hansen Alexander
7/1/2015 06:17:36 am
I'm not going to pretend to be objective about a swimsuit model, so I'm going to disagree with all you experts and claim it was a collision and Alex "was carried by the German player" and was essentially "flipped over" which is why Morgan appeared to run over the other woman. Therefore I conclude the referee (is that the right term?) made the right call in giving the US team the penalty shot and leading to the impressively focused goal by Lloyd. To my inexpert eyes the USA gets more focused every game. These women are in attack mode and I don't think even Japan's disciplined defense can frustrate them if that's the matchup. Okay, maybe wishful thinking but Saturday is the 4th of July.
George Vecsey
7/1/2015 11:15:15 am
Hansen, true, Saturday is the Fourth of July.
Brian Savin
7/1/2015 12:49:05 pm
Writing in first half England-Japan. Tied 1-1. It appears to me that the English team doesn't have the legs of Japan. It shows in attacking. Japan swarms and England lags in getting up field. Others?
Brian Savin
7/1/2015 02:09:43 pm
Oh my goodness. They weren't beaten. They were tragic. 7/1/2015 02:48:26 pm
England has come a long way, but they still have work to do.
John McDermott
7/1/2015 03:28:52 pm
It would probably be of little consolation to poor Bassett now, but I once saw Franco Baresi-only one of the greatest central defenders to ever play the game-do the same thing in an AC Milan match. 7/2/2015 06:08:50 am
I did not know when I posted about England having reached their WWC goal that their 2-1 loss resulted from a stoppage time own-goal.
George Vecsey
7/2/2015 08:00:57 am
Alan, I think it would have been tough under any circumstance. But consolation games are dodgy I can only say that German teams almost never give less than 100%. GV 7/2/2015 08:12:06 am
George,
bruce
7/7/2015 06:19:37 am
George, Comments are closed.
|
QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html Categories
All
|