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Azteca vs the Three Lions

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Mexico’s Competent and Hardworking Footballers

It was a game for the ages. England beat Mexico by the skin of their teeth, with only ten players after Jarell Quansah was issued a red card for a studs-up challenge to Jesús Gallardo after only 54 minutes of play.

I did not think England would win because of what I saw in the earlier Mexico vs Ecuador game at the same Azteca Stadium. The 80,000+ roaring fans help propel their team to victory. Today, every Mexican fan in the stands was given a Mexican flag to wave. The sight of 70,000-some Mexican flags waving in unison must have sunk the hearts of the British footballers.

But then Jude Bellingham scored twice for the Brits within three minutes around the 30-minute mark of the first period. Six minutes later, Julián Quiñones answered with a goal, followed by a penalty kick from Harry Kane. In the second period, the only score was a Mexico penalty kick from Raúl Jiménez at 69 minutes.

With the score at 3-2 for England, Mexico took advantage of Quansah’s red card and attacked the goal from all sides. Somehow, the English held out for the win.

If the refereeing by Australian Alireza Faghani were not scrupulously honest, England might well have lost. I have seen some really dicey official calls in some of the games I’ve watched, particularly in the France-Paraguay contest.

David vs Goliath

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Cape Verde Islands Football Team Celebrating Victory Over the Saudis

Today I watched an amazing match between the football teams of Argentina and the Cape Verde Islands. Earlier, I thought the existence of the Cape Verde team in the elimination rounds of the 2026 World Cup was a fluke.

Well, it was no fluke. Argentina played well, and they scored a goal in the first half. But then Cape Verde was playing just as well, and they managed to equalize. This led to an additional thirty-minute period being added. I had to stop watching at that point, because I wanted to cook up a pot of Spanish Rice for dinner.

Toward the end of cooking, I switched on the television and saw that the score was tied 2-2. Within seconds, Argentina scored again, and the valiant Cape Verde team struggled to equalize within the last minutye bor two of the extra period. They couldn’t, and the final score was 3-2 for Argentina.

I am a fan of the Argentina club. Over the years, I have visited Argentina three times and saw large swaths of the country from Iguazu Falls across the border from Brazil in the North to Ushuaia in the South, a scant 600 miles from Antarctica.

At the end of the game, as I saw the sadness of the Cape Verdeans and the jubilation of the Argentinians, I thought I would have been equally happy if the score was the other way around. In the fight between David and Goliath, it is not surprising at the support David gets.

Unfortunately, in the elimination stages, one side wins; and the other side packs their bags and returns home. I think when the Cape Verdeans return home, they will be treated as heroes. They had an incredible run, discomfiting strong teams such as Spain and Uruguay along the way.

I think we’ll be seeing more of them.

Brazil vs the Tartan Army

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Brazil’s Vinicius Jr and Scottish Goalkeeper

As part of my broken collarbone recuperation program, I watched a great soccer football game between Brazil and Scotland. Played in Miami, the stadium was packed with Brazilian and Scots supporters.

Brazil played a great game, with the South Americans winning with a score of 3-0. The announcers seemed to be mostly supporters of the Scots. While Vinicius Junior was taking apart the Tartan defense, all the announcers seemed to talk about was the convoluted mathematics that would allow the Scots to continue after their mediocre showing in the group stage for Group C.

I can understand that the Fox TV audience would take to British announcers more easily than they would a Brazilian announcer with a thick Portuguese accent.

In the end, the announcers finally conceded that the Brazilians played a superior game in every category that they could measure, but the Scottish team was clearly the sentimental favorite. And, in my estimation, the Brazilians played with more heart. It was a pleasure to watch them.

Futbol

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Lionel Messi of Argentina at Work

Since I am still slowly recuperating from a broken collarbone, I have taken advantage of the 2026 World Cup to watch a lot of soccer football or futbol. Generally, I am not a big fan of spectator sports, but futbol is in my veins, so to speak. My father played the game in Czechoslovakia and Cleveland, where there were nationality club leagues active in the 1930s.

When I was a lad, my father took me to Moreland Park in Cleveland, at a time when there were still a lot of nationality clubs active. I was impressed that a lot of the older spectators knew the terrible Paris twins, Elek and Emil. Among the scuttlebutt was a story that my father kicked so hard that he broke the other players’ legs more than once.

Less believable was the story that Elek thumped a referee in the back as he was inhaling before whistling a foul, causing the ref to swallow his whistle, which had to be pulled out by the lanyard.

Mind you, I don’t know that much about futbol and am confused by concepts such as off sides and the rules regarding corner kicks and free kicks and such like. What I enjoy is the fact that the game is action-packed, with a minimum of time-outs and no lengthy breaks for advertising, other than halftime.

The sport today is more forgiving than in the thirties, where there weren’t so many substitutions, and injuries meant your side had to play with less than a full complement of players. And there definitely weren’t any hydration breaks.

Who am I rooting for? Of course, it would be nice to see the U.S. team do well. Unlike my father, however, I am for any team that plays with its heart in the game. And I secretly have a preference for Argentina, Brazil, and the other teams from the Americas. Whom would I like to see lose? Probably Germany. I still haven’t altogether forgiven them for two world wars.

March Madness

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One of Several Games I Watched

Normally, I’m not much of a sports fan—except for the World Cup and the Summer Olympics. Yet, every time I visit my brother in the desert, there is some orgiastic sports contest such as the World Series or March Madness. This time, it was March Madness, in which sixty-four collegiate basketball teams vie for the best in the country.

What was on view during my visit was the second round in which thirty-two teams attempt to become one of the “Sweet Sixteen.” I dunno, maybe “Sweat Sixteen” would be more appropriate.

All the games this last weekend run together in my mind, though I did watch part of the Ole Miss vs. Saint Mary’s game (illustrated above), though I have no memory of any plays made during the game. I do know that, as per usual, there were many personal fouls called and many partially successful attempts to capitalize on them via free throws.

In return for all the second round games I sampled, I will studiously avoid next weekends game. In all probability, I will probably not make any effort to find out which team survived the ordeal.

The Cleveland Indians

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Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1993

They’re no longer called the Cleveland Indians. Now they’re called the Guardians, Guardians of what, I don’t know. I guess because you’re not supposed to call your team the Indians because of cultural appropriation, whatever that is.. But they’ll always be the Indians to me. My fraught relationship with them continued from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when I left Cleveland to go to college.

The Cleveland Press, the cities Hearst-owned afternoon newspaper, got the bright idea of giving all straight-A students in the city seven pairs of baseball tickets, mostly to ill-attended afternoon games. As I could reliably get top grades every year after fourth grade, I got a lot of chances to see the Indians lose to a lot of teams. Except for 1959, when they almost won the American League pennant, but lost out to the Al Lopez’s Chicago White Sox,

On the team were such players as Rocky Colavito, Jim Piersall, Minnie Minoso, George Strickland, and Woody Held. Pitchers included Herb Score (before his career stumbled after he got hit in the face with a baseball), Jim “Mudcat” Grant, and Cal McLish.

Usually I went to the games alone or with a school friend, because my father was working as a machine tool builder at Lees-Bradner and Company. I would hop on the 56A bus at East 177th and Harvard and get off at Proispect and Ontario downtown. From there, it was a five or six block walk to Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which, as I understand it, is no more.

Just like my grade school (Saint Henry) and high school (Chanel High), which also are no more. Much of my history has been effectively wiped clean in the evil days that befell Cleveland around that time.

It was difficult as a child to follow a baseball team that usually lagged in the standings. But then, who has a 100% winning record? No one.

Doing the Kangaroo Hop

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Rachael Gunn (aka Raygun) Doing Her Break Routine

Although the 2024 Paris Olympics have faded into history, there are still some controversies swirling about. Mostly, these are because of some pigheaded bureaucratic judges. I have already written about Jordan Chiles’s bronze medal in gymnastics.

Also victimized by poor judging was Rachael Gunn of Australia’s entertaining performance in breaking. Raygun, as she is better known, received zero points from the judges for her highly individualistic routine. In addition, she has become the target of hatred from more “conservative” breakers, if there can be said to be such a thing.

Has breaking suddenly become so wrapped up in tradition that anything that smacks of innovation is pilloried by judges and social media trolls?

Hey, Australia did a great job in these Olympics, winning a disproportionate number of medals considering the size of its population.

Read the BBC’s story about the controversy, and give this talented, gutsy breaker the support she deserves.

Olympic Politics

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Simone Biles and Jotdan Chiles Bowing to Rebeca Andrade

This viral photo from the recently concluded Olympics has been spoiled by the decision of some fusty Eurocrat to deprive Jordan Chiles of her bronze medal. For the complete story, check out CNN’s coverage of the story. There was a one-minute deadline for the U.S. gymnastics coach to protest the awarding of the bronze to a Romanian contestant (whose floor exercise was, in fact, quite excellent)’ and the U.S. was four seconds late (?!) in filing the protest.

Way to go, clerical trolls!

LA28: A Modest Proposal

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Time to Introduce New Sports for the Next Olympics

The 2024 Paris Olympics were a smashing success. The Chinese continued their domination of track and field, while the Americans took medal after medal in platform diving. For the next Olympics in my home town of Los Angeles, it’s time to consider some new events to mix things up a bit:

SYNCHRONIZED PIZZA DOUGH TOSSING. Let’s face it: Pizza has become an international food and is due for some recognition by the Olympics.

THREE-LEGGED MARATHON RACE. I’ve always thought that Marathon runners had it too easy. I mean the only difficult thing about the 42.195 kilometer (26.219 mile) course is doing all the decimal math in your head while running.

FACEBOOK FACEPLANT. Let’s acknowledge the role of social media in our lives by having a race during which the participants must complete a series of responses to social media posts while running.

UNDERWATER GYMNASTICS. On one hand, you have greater buoyancy in the water; on the other hand, you don’t want to stretch out your routine too long.

CLIFF DIVING. For lemmings only. You dive off a cliff into a net. You can have a number of heights: 100 meters, 200 meters … the sky’s the limit.

Brave New World

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555827 19.07.1980 Вынос олимпийского флага на торжественной церемонии открытия Игр XXII Олимпиады. Центральный стадион имени В.И. Ленина 19 июля 1980 года. Сергей Гунеев/РИА Новости

Remember the 1980 Moscow Olympics? We weren’t represented because Jimmy Carter pulled us out after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. In 1984, the Russians got back at us by not sending anyone to the Los Angeles games.

It was a different world back then. It seems the Olympic contests were always being interpreted as Free World vs. Communists. Maybe that was mostly the news media’s doing, but not entirely. For instance, I remember the euphoria in the air when the U.S. hockey team defeated the Russians at the Lake Placid Olympics in February 1980 (that was when both Olympics were held the same year) by a score of 4-3. That despite the fact that the frantic Russians outshot the Americans 39-16.

Soviet Russian Athletes on the Award Stand

But after the fall of Communism things changed. It’s no longer just the Free World vs. the Communists. The rest of the world got better, across the board it seems. Early this afternoon, I watched three Caribbean island democracies medal: St. Lucia, Dominica, and Grenada.

Of course, Russia and Belarus are not represented because Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, with his assistance of his willing stooge Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.

Gone are the lovely Russian women gymnasts. No more “White Swan of Belarus.” A few Russian and Belarussian athletes are participating under the Olympic equivalent of the Skull and Crossbones—and probably facing the ire of Putin and Lukashenko. It’s a pity, because they have some splendid athletes there, but the Olympics is nothing if not political.

I used to always root for the Free World. Then, I just rooted for the U.S. Now I’m just happy to see the rest of the world catch up.

Of course, China is developing an impressive sports machine, but at least they haven’t invaded anybody since they got their wings clipped in 1979 in Viet Nam by Vo Nguyen Giap.