Yesterday, good friend and former V+V contributor Jack Burden took to The Social Network™ and shared wahurd’s outstanding World Cup coverage with a note “World Cup discussion for Americans beyond the “5 things to know about the World Cup\” garbage.” Challenge accepted, B. 1. There are a bunch of countries playing in the World Cup Like, seriously, a whole bunch. Like, more than 10. That’s a lot! Did you see yesterday that they even let Iran play? That’s crazy! Okay, so it isn’t “countries” that “play” in the World Cup (that would be insane!) , but teams...
Continue reading...Whomp, You Do Not Sleep on the Fennec Fox – World Cup Day Six Recap and Day Seven Preview
Some quick hits today, since I actually have things to do. Day 6 Recap: Group H: Algeria actually showed some real determination and ability in the first half against a Belgium team that seemed to think a little too highly of itself. The first half demonstrated the two kinds of believing in yourself. Algeria came out with confidence and energy, convinced that they could fend off the Belgian attack and hit on the counter, which they may or may not have a history of doing. The Belgians, meanwhile, appeared to think the contest was a foregone conclusion and putting forth any effort was...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the three people who reads this here premier “web log ,” you may once in a blue moon have checked out the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is from Thomas Friedman, who in his column today \”What to do with the Twin?\” writes: The post-Saddam generation of...
Continue reading...Pepe Has a Case of the Mondays: Day Five Review/ Day Six Preview
An eventful Monday began just 10 minutes after noon, when João Pereira brought down Mario Götze in the Portuguese 18 yard box, conceding a penalty and drawing a yellow card for his troubles. A little over fifteen minutes later, Portugal’s striker Hugo Almeida grabbed his hamstring and exited the match, swiftly followed by another German goal — this tally from Mats Hummels — and then, well, Pop covered this yesterday: What you can’t see from that angle is the referee staring directly at them as it occurs, nor the incident that preceded it, for which this was...
Continue reading...Quick Take: Portugal’s Pepe Gets Himself Red Carded for Being Stupid
Portguese midfielder Pepe just got himself red-carded for head-butting German attacking midfielder Thomas Muller. https://vine.co/v/MIdTOXbzzTe DID PORTUGAL\’S PEPE HEADBUTT THOMAS MÜLLER OR FORCE HIM TO JOIN THE ILLUMINATI? #WorldCup2014 pic.twitter.com/3Lnh2Io5Lz — STOP THE ILLUMINATI (@Illuminati_Stop) June 16, 2014 That makes three remarkably stupid red cards so far in this tournament, but this one might be the dumbest. That said, this is good for Team USA, as Portugal were favorites before, but no longer.
Continue reading...Anatomy of a Goal (and Day Five Previews)
Before we get to anything else, we need to talk about this: [this space used to be filled with a gif of a goal but sadly has fallen to internet rot] I know, it happened on Friday and there have been eleventy billion matches between then and now. But try to remember. Try to remember when Spain and the Netherlands were playing one another in a tense and competitive soccer match, rather than Iker Casillas’ nightmare and a “performance that sang of the glue factory.” Before this moment, it looked as if Spain was going to head...
Continue reading...We Start … From Here
Seventy years ago, the United States became a world superpower. Historians can point to any number of events that brought the US to that point, and its ascendancy was, if not inevitable, at least likely, long before thousands of its men washed upon the shores of Normandy. The war would devastate Europe in a way that it would not the US. China and Japan would take years to recover. The rest of Asia, Africa and much of South America would spend decades emerging from the colonial yokes under which they labored. Only the US, across a sea,...
Continue reading...World Cup, Bro …
So that happened. The action kicked off yesterday and in the 11th minute, there was the calamity brought about by players who aren’t used to one another. A cross through the Brazil penalty box (and it was a very dangerous cross that could have gotten results in any league against any team) whistled past a Croatian player and two Brazilians before Marcelo deftly flicked it in … to his own net. He hadn’t expected the ball to get to him, what with the ball having to skitter past two teammates to get there. It appeared that both...
Continue reading...V+V 2014 Summer Jams Party in the Back Time Chapter V is for Victory
Welcome back to the V+V 2014 Summer Jams party. It has not gone unnoticed that this years’ contenders have been, for a lack of a better term, not as bad-ass as they could be. Sure, there’s some good tracks, performed by some talented musicians, and sure, some of them have been bad-ass to an extent. But, let’s throw one out there especially rocks. I’ve always said that if you like guitars you like Mastadon, so here’s one that just came out (off their upcoming album “Once More Around the Sun,” dropping 6/24), and I’ll even say, it’s for the nerds...
Continue reading...The World Cup Trophy Is Not a Cup, and Many Other Words
Hi everybody! (Stranger danger!) I’m the writer formerly known as Ghost. In the first iteration of this here blog, I mostly stuck to sports and booze, dabbling in the religion and politics beats — which is essentially how I spend my real life as well. There’s a really big sports event about to start in a few hours, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to make the first of possibly many infrequent contributions. I am not good at “blogging” both because I do not post regularly and because when I do,...
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