Daily Show host Trevor Noah has expressed the novel view that France’s recent victory in the World Cup is an “African victory,” since most of the players on the team are of African descent. This didn’t go over well with the French ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud, who wrote a terse…
The tournament is great. But it could great greater.
Protesters waved Lionel Messi shirts stained with fake blood outside Argentina’s training facility in Spain recently. Fans were urged to burn pictures and jerseys of the Argentinian phenom. These were not soccer hooligans. Nor was it theatrics from Iceland, Nigeria or Croatia, the countries that…
Protesters waved Lionel Messi shirts stained with fake blood outside Argentina’s training facility in Spain recently. Fans were urged to burn pictures and jerseys of the Argentinian phenom. These were not soccer hooligans. Nor was it theatrics from Iceland, Nigeria or Croatia, the countries that…
The World Cup is well underway in Russia, and that country’s authorities have given “assurances” to visiting nations that their fans will be safe from what in Britain are termed “football hooligans.” The Russians have a “blacklist” of known hooligans, according to the BBC, and can assure foreign…
Maybe we’ll actually enjoy the tournament this year—for once
Today when Spain and Portugal meet for only the second time in World Cup competition, it will mark an epic showdown of not just the two biggest powers on the Iberian Peninsula (sorry, Andorra) but, once upon a time, the world.
It’s World Cup time again. Alan Jacobs on the logic of the world’s most popular sport.
In this latest micro episode, the Substandard discusses the Caps celebration and the upcoming World Cup. JVL expresses his true feelings about parades and hockey. Sonny reveals his love for Premier League soccer. Vic has fond memories of parades—in Germany.
The World Cup starts on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. EST (the first game will be broadcast on Fox) and the United States isn’t in it. Boo-hoo. We’ve had a good run: America is one of just thirteen teams to have qualified for six of the last seven tournaments. If we weren’t in the unusually…
C is for Crazy Children's Books. There's a new book project being hawked on Kickstarter called C is for Consent: "a board book for babies, toddlers, and thoughtful parents." Consent is important, but is this really an appropriate concept for babies and toddlers? Especially given that the term…
Three pros vs. 100 kids. Japanese television always seems to have strange innovations, so it should come as no surprise that they recorded three professional soccer players playing 100 kids. Fascinating.
On Tuesday night in the fifth and final round of World Cup Qualifiers, Omar Gonzalez, the U.S. Men’s center-back, scored an own-goal just 17 minutes into the match. Demoralizing as own-goals can be, his team’s response made it even worse: With the exception of 19-year old Christian Pulisic, the…
Paris
As reported by the Austrian daily Der Standard, some fifty Bosnian soccer fans broke into a chant of “Kill, kill the Jews!” during a pro-Palestinian rally in Vienna’s central Saint Stephan’s Square last week. The incident appears to have occurred on Tuesday, when the Bosnian national team was in…
Vice President Biden's trip to Brazil in mid-June for the USA versus Ghana World Cup game and meetings the following day with the president and vice president of Brazil required rental of vehicles for Biden and his entourage costing over $900,000. Added to the $2.2 million cost of hotels we…
Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, every four years America witnesses the reemergence of a rare and annoying creature, the soccer scold. With the onset of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, there have been numerous sightings of soccer scolds in their native habitat—that is, in the media.
After U.S. goalie Tim Howard had a record-setting 16 saves in the American team’s 2-1 World Cup knockout loss to Belgium, a wag edited Chuck Hagel’s Wikipedia entry to show Tim Howard as the true U.S. secretary of defense. The meme took off on the Internet, and by Wednesday afternoon Hagel was…
President Obama felt the need to weigh in on the U.S. national soccer team, declaring, “We’re a middle-of-the-pack team. We’re not Germany yet. Or Italy or France, but — or Argentina or Brazil — but we're now in the mix.”
President Obama said the United States soccer team isn't the worst, but it isn't the best either. "We're a middle of the pack team," the commander in chief said in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
I was on the sidelines at my daughter’s 11-and-under travel soccer game. It had been a successful season, but today they were being outmuscled by a very physical team from Warrenton. With a strong wind blowing against them and only one substitute on the bench, the Alexandria Heat were on the wrong…
Yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, President Obama talked about bringing energy and power to the continent of Africa. Today, President Obama is expected to reveal that part of his Africa energy plan involves a soccer ball that carries an electric generator inside.
The World Jewish Congress is expressing concern about an anti-Semitic and racist outburst at a recent soccer game. The concern relates to a Europa League game between Italian team S.S. Lazio and the English the Tottenham Hotspur. The match took place Thursday night in Rome.
In trying to make the case that the Spanish national soccer team (“La Roja”) is having the greatest 5-year run of any team — in any sport — in history, the Wall Street Journal dismisses Casey Stengel’s 1949-53 Yankees because those squads, which won five straight World Series, “won only 71% of…
John Merline: "The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year"
Obama from "hope and change" to "This is a big complicated messy democracy. Change is not simple.” Smells like a winning campaign slogan to me.
America’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup has fallen short. But it wasn’t for lack of trying: Eric Holder has been in Zurich, advocating for the competition to be hosted by the U.S., and the attorney general was joined by Bill Clinton and actor Morgan Freeman.
You will remember, of course, that Ronaldo is the most famous athlete on the planet--much more popular and well-known than Michael Jordan.