Since I’ll get criticized by the Europeans if I call it “soccer” and by the Americans if I call it “football”, I’ll use a neologism here. The important thing is that yesterday the U.S. beat a powerful German team 4-3 yesterday. Sadly, the victory, at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., can be attributed largely to […]
Well, I’ve seen cats and rabbits on baseball fields, but never a pine marten on a football pitch. The Torygraph reports on an incident last Sunday: A Swiss League match between FC Thun and Zurich was disrupted after a pine marten escaped onto the pitch on Sunday and evaded capture for over five minutes. The […]
Atlanta, Feb. 2 (Groundhog Day). The call of “God bless America,” which we in this benighted county hear so often, should really be “God help America!” But He can’t, because He’s too busy watching the Superbowl. (For you non-Americans, that’s the game that decides who’s the champion football team—as in American football—among all teams in […]
Too true! UPDATE: Judging from the first few comments, I don’t think readers quite get what is going on here. Ergo, I append the sheet music for the normal rendition: Oh, and Beyonce’s version of the Star-Spangled Banner that I liked during the Inauguration? Lip-synched! h/t: Grania
I can’t believe it: the man seemed immortal. The Donora Greyhound died yesterday at age 92, and there’s no doubt that he was my favorite baseball player of all time. I suppose part of it is that he played for the St. Louis Cardinals, my favorite team (I was born in St. Louis), but he […]
The American college football player (i.e., not soccer) Manti T’eo is all over the news in the U.S. Born in Hawaii, and of Samoan extraction, he’s now playing as a linebacker for the University of Notre Dame and is a prime candidate to go to the pros, i.e., the National Football League. Last week T’eo […]
Well, Lionel Messi broke the record for most football (i.e, soccer) goals in a calendar year—a record of 85 goals held for four decades by Gerd Muller. Today Messi scored two goals, his 85th and 86th, in a Barcelona’s victory of 2-0 over Real Betis. And the season isn’t finished yet! Watch this video of […]
You were expecting biology while I’m on a trip? Sorry, but you get food, beer and football for another week. Yes, I didn’t call it “soccer” this time because some nit-pickers (who always begin their posts by saying, “I don’t mean to nitpick but . . . “), would patiently explain to me that I […]
I’m staying with friends in Cambridge who have another visitor, too: Seamus Malin. You soccer fans might recognize the name, since Seamus was a soccer announcer for 40 years, working at ESPN, ABC, NBC, and CBS. Altogether he covered soccer in seven World Cups and three Olympic games, and watched or broadcast thousands of games, both live […]
