football

Mea Copa – Group B

Yesterday, I wrote about the incomprehensible moments of success amidst the drudgery of failure that make up a game of soccer (or baseball, it’s very difficult for me to separate the two games, which is its own incomprehensible moment). And, indeed, those moments make for transcendent moments, when strangers will leap from their chairs and embrace a stranger, simply because they happen to also be standing. Case in point: In October 2007, Spurs and Aston Villa played a match in which Spurs went down 4-1. It was a Wednesday afternoon match in Boston, so I was at...

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Mea Copa

I have been told that some folks (which can only mean, like, 3 people I don’t live with) miss my postings. I have been remiss — blame poor educational services in US urban areas — and plan to make this up with more than quick hit videos. Therefore, beginning this very moment, and continuing every workday (various deities permitting) through next week, you’ll get a short post on one of the groups in the upcoming World Cup.* I’ll try to talk about every team, but I’ll admit, I don’t know much about half these squads. If they...

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“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

It’s like bringin a knife to a gunfight, pen to a testYour chest in the line of fire witcha thin-ass vestYou bringin them Boyz II Men, HOW them boys gon’ win? – Jay-Z, The Takeover When I moved to Boston, I lived in East Somerville. It’s a working class neighborhood full of Brazilians and Portuguese, and in any other soccer story, any other match preview, I might write about the sounds and sights of East Somerville in June 2006. But this is a story about tomorrow’s match, the first US match of this World Cup, against England. So it’s...

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Champions and Also-Rans

The British Parliament is holding elections on Thursday, with perennial majority Labour looking certain to lose 10 Downing St. to the Tories, or perhaps the Liberal Democrats. Today, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City — the English football teams supported by Ghost of Hemingway’s Gun and Estes, respectively, square off in Manchester to potentially decide who finishes fourth in the English Premier League, reaping the financial windfall (and prestige bump) of appearing in the Champions League, in which neither has appeared for at least a decade. Estes and I are here to guide you through both of these...

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