Racism Among European Soccer Fans? No!

I'd like to say this story about the racism Brazilian Dani Alves faces from his own team's supporters surprises me, but it's probably the least surprising thing I'll read all week. Many countries in Europe have been known for lobbing racist chants (and more serious acts of violence) towards players from Africa, South America, and the U.S. for years, so it's not exactly like racism in football/soccer is anything new. That said, it seems that it's not exactly going away, either, in spite of football associations' efforts to punish teams whose fans use racial epithets.

FIFA's Biggest Fans

The NBA!

This World Cup referring makes the NBA look really impeachable. And I love how FIFA's response to this onslaught of incompetence is to ban in-stadium replays.

Jack McCallum makes a convincing argument as to how this referring is hurting the game catching on in the U.S. 

Slight Mea Culpa

For all I've been poking fun at the World Cup and soccer in general, i.e. The Officially Acceptable Sport for Progressives (TM), the second half of that Italy-Slovenia game was about the most exciting sporting event I've seen in quite awhile.

Also, one thing I hate about soccer is the faking of injury. That is incredibly lame. Incredibly. I think that officials after the game should be able to review the injuries and provide a post-game red card for those faking injuries. You know where injuries aren't faked--the NFL. Let's see those Italian guys think so flippantly of injuries after Troy Polamalu lays them out.

Traitor

Not that I really care, but is it completely wrong to root for Algeria over the U.S. today? I mean, doesn't the U.S. deserve to lose in the World Cup. We are the imperialist power in everything else, so sucking at what really matters to much of the world seems to be fitting. Plus today's matchup has a sort of Battle of Algiers feel to it. In other news, perhaps American kids doing lame dancing in discotheques should keep a watch out today.

Update--And I guess imperialism won the day. 

World Cup Thought

Forgive me for being a heathen, but it's really hard to get behind an international sporting event that is averaging about 1.3 goals scored per game. 

Not that I'm suddenly following Jonah Goldberg or anything. But these World Cup matches have been really boring.

England's Obnoxiousness on World Cup 2014

For those who don't follow soccer, FIFA has all but announced that the 2014 World Cup will be in Brazil (as FIFA's president said yesterday, "It won't be in Brazil only if Brazil suddenly stops playing soccer"). This is huge news not just because it returns the World Cup to Latin America for the first time since the 1986 Cup. It also finally breaks the (incredibly stupid) tradition of making Europe host every other cup. Up to this point, it's always been "Europe/another of the 5 continents/Europe/a Second of the 5 continents/Europe...". Getting out of this stupid notion that Europe is the center of soccer (consider how many Africans and Latin Americans alone make up the "European" clubs) is wonderful.

However, not all in Europe are taking the news about the 2014 Cup so well. An article in England's Financial Times yesterday said that, by giving the World Cup to Brazil, FIFA was guaranteeing that 2014's cup would be absolute "chaos". It alleged that corruption and the total lack of infrastructure would completely destroy the World Cup. That would be fine, except that it pretty much doesn't know what it's talking about. It says, for example, that not one of the18 cities in Brazil vying to host some games has a stadium ready. Except that, last I checked, Maracanã stadium in Rio alone just went heavy renovations and improvements in 1950, and holds well over 100,000 people. Likewise, Engenhão stadium, built in Rio for the Pan-American games, holds over 50,000 and is brand new. And when I was in Brasília in July, they were already starting major improvements on the stadium there, turning it from a 30,000 to a 90,000 seat, state-of-the-art stadium.

And Brazil just did host the Pan-American games, which are no small feat. Were things a bit harried as the games approached? Yes. But once the federal government stepped in in February of this year, any charges of corruption practically disappeared, everything was done well, and the games went off without a hitch. And while that was basically the efforts of one city/state and the federal government, the World Cup will have all of Brazil involved.

The Times even nearly says as much, yet is convinced that it will be a disaster. There is, simply put, nothing to support this, and I suspect the English involved at the Times are simply angry that they did not even get considered for the World Cup in 2014 (nevermind that England's soccer authorities didn't submit anything to host the 2014 Cup). As I joked to my wife yesterday, this seems more like a case of soccer-envy - after all, England only won one World Cup, and it was in England, so maybe they just fear that, until it returns, it won't happen again. No matter what the reason, this is just absolutely stupid, selfish, idiotic reporting on the Times' part. No country right now is more deserving of hosting the Cup than Brazil, and I'm thrilled they've all but gotten it.