Today’s qualifier

… is against Colombia, in Barranquilla, at 4:30 U.S. Eastern Time. The “Hormiga” is in the lineup. So is last week’s hero, Ángel Mena (not usually a starter).

Please pray for Ecuador to win.

UPDATE: Well, we took the day off. Colombia 3, Ecuador 1.

A hard-fought draw

I was a little frightened to see Néstor “The Fatty” Ortigoza on the field. I hoped he’d tire out quickly in the altitude. But he didn’t. He played with supreme efficiency, pushing the ball into the safest spaces, away from the Ecuadorians. He gave the pass that set up the Paraguayans’ tying goal.

If Ortigoza was efficient, his Ecuadorian counterpart, Christian Noboa, was spectacular.

Noboa hit three hard shots off of the post – one of which Énner Valencia pounced on for the first goal. Then, in the dying minutes, he gave a chip-pass to Ángel Mena for the definitive 2–2.

Should this goal have counted? When it occurred, I thought Mena was offside; but later I saw how well he timed his movement. Here are some screenshots, in reversed order.

This article gives the clearest image.

I believe the goal was licit. In any case, we can applaud the linesman for giving the attacker the benefit of the doubt.

This was but one moment of Ecuadorian brilliance; there were others. Alas, one brilliant player, Jeff Montero, was stonewalled by the defender Bruno Valdez. Only after Valdez’s injury, when Iván Piris came in, did Montero have his way.

On the whole, though, the injuries were worse for Ecuador.

We sorely missed the “Hormiga.” Due to his absence, Antonio Valencia rarely ventured to attack (though when he did, he was a menace).

Miller Bolaños was missed; Felipe Caicedo was missed. Gabo Achilier was on the field, but he shouldn’t have been.

R.I.P. Cruyff

The high school has installed a new computer in my office (the old one was put in in the ’90s). I was so delighted, I stayed at work even after I clocked out, to view the fonts.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

R.I.P. Johan Cruyff – arguably, the greatest soccer figure, ever. He was a patriarch of the Netherlands, of Ajax, and of Barcelona; a prescient strategist; a brilliant dribbler; and a Beatle-head.

He died of lung cancer.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

World Cup qualifier this afternoon. Ecuador vs. Paraguay, in Quito. Five o’clock U.S. Eastern Time.

On the one hand, we usually win this fixture, and lately the Paraguayans haven’t been very good.

On the other, we have a slew of injuries. Our front line is especially weak. Felipe Caicedo hurt himself recently in Catalonia. Miller Bolaños suffered a jaw-break in Brazil.

Énner Valencia returns after a long absence. But, everyone worries, is he truly fit?

Pray for Ecuador to win.

A dinner party

Yesterday was my first day in the new IUSB tutoring office. The office is on the fourth floor of the library. I sit right up against the stacks, in the “philosophy of social science” section (this isn’t as titillating as it sounds).

The chairs are padded better than in the old office, but they don’t recline as nicely.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I & Karin and Martin & Mary went to a dinner party given by H., a Korean – or, rather, it was given by his gringa mother-in-law, who is my boss in the high school English Dept. The food was cooked by H.’s wife, K. (my boss’s daughter). It was the Babette’s Feast of Korean food.

I was able to reminisce with H., K., and K.’s mother about Korea.

Didn’t you just love the train?, said K.’s mother (my boss).

It was a very good train, I said, but I didn’t love riding it to and from Seoul three hours every day. (H. and K. agreed about this.)

I told them that I mostly rode the Bundang Line. Ah, the Bundang Line, H. nodded vigorously. I hated the Bundang Line, put in K.

I also mentioned the protests against the American beef, and I said that my favorite thing about Korea was its DVD rooms.

You remember so much about Korea, they said.

Then, at M&M’s and Karin’s and my request, they brought out their dog, a Japanese Spitz, a little breed that is nonetheless a giant compared to most dogs in Korea. The dog’s name was “White Bear.” He yapped incessantly. A short while later, H. and K. put him away.

We ate two flavors of Korean ice-cream: Green Tea and Honeydew Melon. The dinner party was a great success.

A regrettable law

Wed. afternoon I watched Bayern Munich vs. Juventus. Their prior encounter, in Turin, had ended 2–2. So in Munich all that Bayern needed to do was to keep from getting scored upon.

But Juve quickly went up 2–0. Juan Cuadrado made a golazo, assisted brilliantly by Álvaro Morata. The quality of that goal had me cheering for Juve.

Bayern clawed their way back into the contest. They got the tying goal around minute 90.

Extra time suddenly immanent, Guardiola spoke some encouraging words to his players.

However, to my mind, that wasn’t what made the difference. Once the score was leveled, it always looked pretty grim for Juventus.

The game would unfold according to “John-Paul’s Law,” which says that when a team plays to win in 90 minutes, as it should, and then has the misfortune at the end to let in the tying goal, the other team, which has been playing for a regulation-time draw, will win in extra time; there will be no penalty shootout. This is one of the great unfairnesses of soccer. One notorious instance was the Champions League final of 2013, in which Real Madrid beat Atlético de Madrid. (An exception was the final of 2012, which went to penalties; but that was an odd case, because both teams’ goals came at the end of the regular period.)

Bayern would end up beating Juve 4 to 2. On the whole, what happened was entertaining – but regrettable.

Whales, cont.

After a hiatus, I’ve gone back to Moby Dick.

Readers, you’ve had a narrow escape. This entry was going to be a long quotation from Chapter XXXII, about how Ishmael classifies the whale as a fish.

I read that quotation again and again, and I asked myself: “Would it improve the world to post this?” I decided it wouldn’t. Delete, delete.

Thinking about the general state of the world is a symptom of depression.

I’m much happier than I was some years ago. But melancholy still afflicts me – especially when my physical health is lousy. At present I’m not suffering too terribly. My throat is sore, and my body aches; but I’ve been able to go to work, and I’m not always wracked by pain.

Karin also is sick and sad. One of us gave it to the other.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Having just finished reading a good book about El Salvador, I’m revisiting some classics: Huckleberry Finn and The Sun Also Rises. The Twain book is about as enjoyable as it was 23 or 24 years ago. The Hemingway book, I’m reading for the third time. I understand it better than I used to. In high school, there were some things I didn’t pick up on, like that the narrator had had his penis injured during the war. And this time I noticed right away that Georgette is a prostitute; before, I’d taken it for granted that the narrator wanted to buy her her dinner.

Trumpie

A lot of people are rattled by Donald Trump’s campaign. They’ve never seen a candidate in the fashion of Trump enjoy this level of success. But I’ve seen it. Trump reminds me of Abdalá Bucaram, what with his wit; his uncouthness; his recklessness with the facts; and what with the fervor of his fans.

(Clinton, then, must be the analog of the “establishment” candidate, Jaime Nebot.)

What happened in Ecuador was, Bucaram won the 1996 election. He recorded some pop songs. He stole some money. And, after six months, he got booted out of office, basically because the “establishment” people hated him. (That booting out wouldn’t be so easy to achieve in the USA. The people wouldn’t be so handy at doing a coup.)