Dry your tears stateside syndicate members,
What a horrendous day! I made have earned a bit of money, but I am positively grief-stricken with the reality of going the rest of the tournament without my “Hot Asian Devils” and “Hot Yank Babes” LL We begin the Round of Sixteen on a tear-jerking note. Yet, this is what the Round of Sixteen is all about. Beloved American brothers, I have this to offer from the dailies:
“Nothing trite to say today, U.S. fans. You proved
yourselves worthy over the last two weeks. I’ll even resolve to watch a minimum
of two MLS Games this season. That goes for the nascent K-League as well. We
may have a blast poking fun at one another over the last two weeks, but when it
comes to the final heartbreak, the fraternal order of football fans must share
the tears and always be ready to join in on a kitschy rendition of ‘You’ll
never walk alone.’”
If you find yourself unaware of what “You’ll Never Walk
Alone” is, I’m happy to inform your that it is a cheesy song from Rogers and
Hammerstein initially played Merseyside for FC Liverpool circa 1965. The song
migrated toward continental Europe and landed all over the French Lige 1,
Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, and German Bundesliga. Around 1997, the song
found its way to my beloved hometown club of FC Kaiserslautern...as they were
relegated. Though chorally singing this saccharine tune may at first feel like
conducting a circle-jerk to the movie “Ghost”, I urge you to shove the
anti-sentimental side of you away and memorize the lyrics to this song. Even if
you feel yourself unprepared to sing it now, it might come in handy some day:
“When you walk…through the storm….hold your head up high!
and don’t….be
afraid…..of the dark…….
At the end….of
the storm….there’s a golden sky……and the sweet, silver song of the
Lark……….
WALK ON…..through the wind!
WALK ON…..through the rain!
Though your dreams be tossed and……blown!!
WALK ON
WALK ON
WITH HOPE….IN YOUR HEART…AND YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!
YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!!
WALK ON
WALK ON
WITH HOPE….IN YOUR HEART…AND YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!
YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE!!!!
Sounds better when 80,000 people sing it in unison J
Yes, Hitchhiker fans, this is the song that Edddy the Shipboard computer sings
to the crew of the “Heart of Gold” as they are being attacked by an ancient
missile system on Magrathea J This is also the song I’ll
probably need someone to sing to me tomorrow. LLL I kann euch
bezahlen!!!
Send offs
“Red Devils” of South Korea (4 games played, 49 hot
girls) 
This is also the name of my Kaiserslautern Club. Ergo, I
love the Koreans! I’ve simply never met a Korean I didn’t like; from my two
ex-girlfriends to the guys that took over the crawfish pot at “Country Corner”.
I had secretly hoped this team would give us something resembling its 2002 run
to the semi-finals. They certainly played hard enough today. The back-heel from
Lee-Young Soo was incredible. Don Gook showed some amazing aerial ability.
Alas, despite magnificent creative possession and pressure in the second half,
it was not to be LL
Asian teams have demonstrated their superiority on set pieces plays in the
World Cup, even cramming in extra practice time with the Jabulani. You’ve given
us some fantastic moments, none of which Youtube will allow me to link to LL
We’ll miss you, “Jaki-Yas”. Your team and your fans sob I expect to see Ji-Sung Park back in four years!
Same goes for the “Tigers of Asia” fan-club!!!
“Sam’s Army” of the United States of America (4 games
played, 45 hot girls) 
I write this much earlier than anticipated. It has been a
marvelous tournament, from Bradley’s textbook finish in the Slovenia game to
Donovan’s storybook goal one minute into stoppage time. It would be all too
easy for you to disappear now, Yanks. You can always pretend as usual that you
didn’t care about Soccer inn the first place and go back to speculating on
whether Tiger Woods’s putting is up to scratch or whatever the hell you do in
these barren months. I offer you a sincere invitation: please continue to hang
with us! Please stick around for the conclusion of this tournament and the
resumption of the MLS Season. Please come join us in August when Jozey, Clint,
Timmy, Johnny, and (hopefully) Landon kick off the season with their
Premiership clubs. Don’t go away to watch the Vince Young Strip Club
altercation on Sportscenter! Come drink with us, come play on the pitch with
us, and come play some FIFA with us. You have a great team! You are the
CONCACAF Champions! You bested England in the group stages, effectively
castrating the most arrogant football nation on earth!! Don’t remain casual
fans, merely tune in every four years. We need you to be a part of football!
Once we get you, we’ll see what the hell is wrong with the Indians and have a
TRULY global game!!
That is all…if you will allow me one last snipe at Bradley:
Why the hell were Buddle, Edu, and Gomez NOT in the starting lineup today?!?!?!
Sunday--
Germany vs. England
vs. 
I’ve scheduled the quadrennial “Last Night on Earth” Phone Call with my father for 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Against Ghana, Die Mannschaft about looked as slow and uninspiring as one of Jim Jaramausch’s later films. By contrast, it looks as if Capello’s lads are finally finding their legs and coming up with a few quality ideas. England is out for revenge after the Euro 1996 debacle. On that night, every sausage vendor in London was treated to the English version of “Krystalnacht”. The U.S. smackdown also has this team fired up to kick the crap out of their right honorable European counterparts. The night my father and I watched England flatten Rudi Voller’s Mannschaft 5-0 is seared into my memory. Absolutely no fun to see a grown man cry…..when the bar runs out of beer….and then find yourself crying.
It is of course entirely possible that a younger, more agile
bunch of Krauts will generate more chances than an ageing bunch of Limeys with
more pressure on their shoulders than I felt when trying to lift my portly
ex-girlfriend up at a concert. Still, it would appear that Defoe and Rooney are
finally hitting the grove and will finish their chances properly. Moreover, it
should be easy to find space when competing with a German side that has no
reliable defensive fullbacks beyond Mertesacker. Lahm presses forward so often
that I predict it will push at least two dozen over-clogged German arteries
over the edge. Klose and Podolski are in very poor form. LLL
Schweinsteiger is out with enough strained thigh muscles to sideline even a
Sasha Grey. However deep the shit pile we find ourselves in, there are plenty
of young guns with potential that can rise to the occasion and become the
biggest German hero since Barbarossa. Who will it be? Özil? Khedira? Kroos?
Marin? Kießling? Müller? Trochowski? Who wants to sign a 30 million Euro deal
with Bayern, spend the next four years on the bench, and return a touchless,
pathetic shell of their former playing selves?
Well, well, well. Making stupid wagers on blind faith and
doltish loyalty is part of being a fan. I’m all yours, gentlemen. Exploit and
prosper.
Ich bleibe hinter euch Jungs!
Projected Lineups:
“Die Mannschaft”
1) Manuel Neuer
2) Jerome Boateng
3) Arne Friedrich
4) Phillip Lahm
5) Per Mertesacker
6) Sami Khedira
7) Mesut Özil
8) Piotr Trochowski
9) Thomas Müller
10) Lucas Podolski
11) Miroslav Klose
“The Three Lions”
1) David James
2) Jamie Carragher
3) Ashley Cole
4) Glen Johnson
5) John Terry
6) Gareth Barry
7) Joe Cole
8) Stephen Gerrard
9) Frank Lampard
10) Jermaine Defoe
11) Wayne Rooney
Prop Bets (as always, feel free to offer your own):
Over/Under ---3 Goals
120 Minutes— straight up
Penalty Shootout— 3 to 1
Wayne Rooney brace –3 to 1
Jermaine Defoe brace—4 to 1
James Milner Substitution (60+) – 3 to 1
Shaun Wright-Phillips Substitution (85+) –2 to 1
Peter Crouch Goal –2 to 1
David James Clean Sheet--6 to 1
Wayne Rooney over 3 offsides—3 to 1
Rooney injury – 3 to 1
Rooney straight red –2 to 1
Miroslav Klose brace – 4 to 1
Podolski from outside the 18 – 3 to 1
Mario Gomez Substitution (75+) 2 to 1
Stefan Kießling Substitution (85+) 2 to 1
Holger Badstuber start – 3 to 1
Lahm goal – 2 to 1
Mertesacker booking –2 to 1
Schweinsteiger injury aggravation – 2 to 1
THE
LINE: Mannschaft + 2 Goals
Editor’s
retroactive notes:
RESULT:
Germany 4, England 1. Oh yes, we’ve yet more controversy. We can all agree on
the need for goal-line technology after this one. The argument goes that, had
Lampard’s goal actually counted, the tenor of the entire match might have been
altered. I’m not terribly sure I buy this, but the goal should have counted in
any event. Just so we’re clear: Goal-line technology. No replacing the linesman
with GPS trackers. I do not trust that technology. No instant replay. The clock
doesn’t stop in this sport. Anyone advocating instant replay will soon receive
a visit from me, during which I reserve the right to hack at your cervical
vertebrae with a used lawnmower blade. I will not, cannot allow you to turn my
sport into the travesty that American football has become.
“But,
Peter, with today’s technology we can ensure that that the instant replay
timeout will only interrupt the match for at most one minute.” SHUT THE FUCK
UP!! That’s the same thing they said about American football. The elderly refs
do about a quick and efficient job working that video booth as your grandmother
hooking up the WIFI. However
sophisticated your technology is, human beings must still implement it. Even
discounting the human error factor, enough about how flawless your technology
is. My GPS frequently sends me down streets that don’t exist towards Ferries
that haven’t been in operation for three decades. My cell phone can’t hold a
charge. My DVR records the wrong programs. Even when it records the right
programs, I get ten minutes of something I’m not interested in and ten minutes
less of what I actually wanted to watch. SHUT THE FUCK UP!
My
Internet access cuts out for no reason twice a week. The magnetic strip in my
credit card malfunctions at least twice a year. SHUT THE FUCK UP!! Computer
translations produced nothing more than useless gibberish. The most powerful
search engines help you find what you’re looking for only after three pages of
sponsored links. Half of all websites make you quit your Internet browser and
restart before the multimedia options will work. SHUT THE FUCK UP!! Every
e-mail I read is broken apart because of cross-server formatting issues. Most
video games are shoddily programmed, full of glitches that leave you off the
map. Anyone with satellite TV loses his or her signal after a few raindrops
fall. SHUT THE FUCK UP!!
The
average shelf life of a toaster is three weeks. There’s no such thing as a
coffee maker than lasts longer than a month. I burn through three keyboards a
year. I never met a fax machine, copier, scanner, digital camera, i-pod,
mainframe, blackberry, kindle, HD Radio, credit card machine, Blu-Ray player,
or Slingbox that wasn’t possessed by Satan himself. SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Technology can make our lives more interesting…it sure as hell doesn’t make it
easier. The human mind remains more capable than all of your little gadgets at
solving problems, improvising, and general life skills. A human with solid
field map-reading skills will always get you there quicker. You say robots will
be able to beat the human World Cup champions by 2050? You guessed it….SHUT THE
FUCK UP!
A
young writer working for the Wall Street Journal Sports blog thought it clever,
after this match, to label those of us who (while in favor of goal-line
technology) oppose the use of instant replay in football in the most
disparaging of fashions. He used a few 75-cent words his rich Daddy paid
$200,000 for him to learn, calling us “Ineffectual intellectuals who luxuriate
in posting pompous comments on online forums.” Touché. Responding to such an
inflated ego would still prove fun. I’d love to personally cut off what passes
for his balls, stuff them down the same throat that utters the
self-aggrandizing language that placates his worthless Id, and helicopter drop
him in front of Mommy and Daddy’s doorstep with a sign that reads ‘You paid 200
grand for this’ “
Consider
the fact that I USED to love American Football. Now we have at least four
replay timeouts per game to go along with (ever more) injury timeouts,
referee’s timeouts, television timeouts, sideline reporter timeouts, city
skyline timeouts, and team timeouts. This wholly un-watchable pageant isn’t
even a sport anymore. Sixty minutes on the clock and we’ll be lucky to get
twelve minutes of actual play over a four-hour telecast. Twelve minutes of
roided-up brutality that leads to concussions, brain trauma, punch-drunk ex-players
committing suicide. Aren’t you glad you made every effort to make your sport
“fair”? I can’t do this anymore. Too depressing. Post-traumatic brain injury. One reads about it every
day….and if I’m not careful I’ll veer us right off into the most tragic of
discussions. Let’s just say that I’d rather be an “ineffectual intellectual”
than someone who savagely enjoys watching people get hurt and then whines that
life isn’t fair when their team loses. Get you goddamned priorities straight.
See if
we can’t pull off a gear-shift here, back from fifth into first. Yikes. There
goes the transmission. Looks like it’s time for a new clutch…again. SHUT
TH…nah. That’s a cheap shot. I’m the one solely responsible for tearing through
the clutch…again. A very sound victory for the Vaterland. St. George dominated
early possession, 70-30 in the opening twenty minutes. The Mannschaft scored
against the run of play, and against the laws of sensible defending. Klose,
returning from suspension, nabbed the opener in the 20th with an
assist from Neuer. Yes you read that correctly. Neuer launched a 90-yard goal
kick from the other end directly on to Klose’s foot just outside the 18.
Klose’s first touch was more than serviceable and his pursuit of the ball
classic hustle. However, it looked as if John Terry and Mathew Upson weren’t
really paying attention as Klose cut through them. Klose and Gareth Barry then
traded first-rate opportunities before the next score.
Schweine
and Klose worked a delightful give and go in the 32nd. Klose then
found Müller scurrying forward. After a long run, Müller gave way to the
trailing Poldi, who took three touches before finishing from an acute angle.
Lampard got into gear, setting up Upson for the response five minutes later.
Poor positioning from Neuer and woeful timing from Khedira and Friedrich
allowed Upson to leap wondrously for the emphatic headed finish. Less than 60
seconds later, Lampard would have/should have/richly deserved to put the Three
Lions Level. His distance effort deflected down off the underside of the
crossbar and over the line by a clearly visible four feet. Very difficult to
fathom how a call could have been so thoroughly botched. The Uruguayan
officiating team HAD to be positioned to see it. The ref, either of the two linesmen,
the fourth official on the sideline, the fifth in the booth. One of them should
have seen what would have been bleeding obvious to an infant on LSD. Lampard
had just equalized. Even Neuer was sure of it, directly looking at every last
official before retrieving the ball.
Consistent
with their commitment to honesty and transparency, FIFA has left out the
footage of this abomination in their match highlights. At least they don’t shy
away from discussing it in the report, something that could not be said for the
disputed U.S. goal. Something resembling progress I suppose. Horrendous call or
no, England still had 30 minutes to equalizer before the Krauts pulled away.
Gerrard and Lampard came closest, the former missing by inches and the latter
striking the bar once again. As fantastic a match as Lapard played, he fucked
up royally in the 67th, quite possibly costing his team the
tournament. After one of his powerful free kicks hit the German wall, he ran
over the ref appealing for handball. Whilst he was so occupied, he didn’t even
seem remotely aware that Schweinsteiger had just swept past him and was racing
for goal with Müller in tow. James couldn’t handle both of them on his own and
the final touch belonged to Müller. The brace came three minutes later on
another counter. This time it was Özil’s turn to set up Müller with most of the
English defense scrambling to catch up. Give a team a centimeter of confidence
and they’ll take a kilometer. Hmm….yes, I believe we can concur that the
expression loses something in metric.
Argentina vs. Mexico
vs. 
End of the line, Amigos. Here we have potentially the greatest mismatch in the Round of Sixteen. “Maradona’s Muchachos” are hitting their stride at precisely the right time and are poised to run over the beaners as nonchalantly as Maradona rides over innocent pedestrians. After literally decades of disappointing flops, the Argentines are finally fortunate enough to play a WM in their own hemisphere. Never thought there was much to “The Grand Hemisphere Theory”, but I’m gradually becoming a convert. More time is obviously needed, but I can see this once disregarded conjecture eclipsing Bill Simmons’ “Ewing Theory” as the most potent crackpot idea in all of sports. I stand by my early assertions that the Argentines have, pound-for-pound, the best team in the tournament and that Maradona’s lunacy will prove altogether unimportant.
Since a blowout will preclude us from seeing the Mexican
fans after Sunday, I leave you with some aspects to enjoy tomorrow (plucked
from the dailies of course):
“We may all look forward to flamboyant costumes of the
beaners. These Mexicans know how to do it right. Mexican wrestling masks,
gigantic sombreros, and Aztec warrior attire. How can one NOT love these
people?! They are…..the most interesting fans in the world. Stay thirsty, my
friends! Plus, they do a fantastic job with the lawn and my oranges are always
tip-top. Viva Mexico!”
To this we may add the old Socialist Salute they insist on
doing during the national anthem and Javier Aguirre’s baboon teeth. Man bears a
striking resemblance to Klaus Kinski….
Projected Lineups:
“El Tri”
1) Oscar Perez
2) Hector Moreno
3) Francisco Rodriguez
4) Rafael Marquez
5) Andres Guardado
6) Gerrardo Torrado
7) C. Blanco
8) Effrain Juarez
9) Javier Hernandez
10) Guillermo Franco
11) Giovanni dos Santos
“La Albicelesta”
1) Sergio Romero
2) Walter Samuel
3) Martin Demichelis
4) Gabriel Heinze
5) Jonas Gutierrez
6) Javier Mascherano
7) Gonzalo Higuain
8) Diego Milito
9) Maxi Rodriguez
10) Carlos Tevez
11) Lionel Messi
Prop Bets (as always, feel free to offer your own):
Over/Under ---5 Goals
120 Minutes— 3 to 1
Penalty Shootout— 5 to 1
Messi brace –4 to 1
Messi hat trick—5 to 1
Mascherano on set piece – 2 to 1
Milito from outside the 18 –3 to 1
Sergio Aguero substitution (70+) –3 to 1
Over 20 shots of Maradona-- 3 to 1
Tevez draws penalty – 3 to 1
Oscar Perez goalkeeping error – 3 to 1
Mexican own goal
-- 3 to 1
Dos Santos brace
-- 5 to 1
Carlos Vela substitution (70+) – 3 to 1
THE
LINE: Argentina +3
GENTLEMEN,
ENTER YOUR WAGERS
Editor’s
retroactive notes:
RESULT:
Argentina 3, Mexico 1. Aguirre was livid after Tevez’s opening goal in the 26th,
even if replays showed he had little cause for complaint. Keeper Oscar Perez
rushed out to meet Tevez, sliding down to take on in the stomach. The ball
bounced back to Messi, cool-as-you-like, flipped it back for Tevez to head into
the empty net. Hardcore fans of El Tricolor still insist Tevez was offside when
Messi delivered, even after it appears Rafael Marquez and Francisco Rodriguez
kept him just on.
The
two central fullbacks might have done well to stay put. Ricardo Osorio might
have done well to stay home. Under pressure from Higuain in the 33rd,
he inexplicably passed the ball to his opponent right in front of his keeper.
Higuain deked-out Perez nicely before lobbing in to finish. Still, it was a
gift-wrapped howler from Osorio that put the Albiceleste up 2-0.
Seven
minutes after the restart, Tevez all but put the game out of reach for the
Hossas. A 52nd minute firecracker secured his brace, as well as
Argentina’s ticket to the next round. Maradona ordered them to stand down and
allow El Tri forty minutes to search for a meaningless consolation. Javier
Hernandez finally got it in the 71st, after squandering several
previous chances.
