An ill wife; la sub-20; Premier League strikers; N’Golo Kanté
Karin’s been ill. Today I finally persuaded her to stay at home. She works six days each week, and, during her days off, she goes to church and either counts the offering money or teaches Sunday school.
Right now, she appears to be sleeping comfortably, which makes me happy.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Ecuador’s sub-20 lads finished second in the continental tourney, two places higher than they needed to. The Uruguayans finished first. Their team easily was the best.
The Brazilians, runners-up two years ago in the under-20 World Cup, finished fifth in South America and failed to qualify for this year’s global tourney. In the matches that I watched, they looked simply awful.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I wonder how the Brazilians would’ve fared if they’d called up their latest national hope, the 19-year-old striker, Gabriel Jesus, who’s been starting for Man City. This young man is quite the sensation. After just a few of his performances in the Premier League, the soap opera has become: What’ll happen to Sergio Agüero? (Agüero is the team’s established goalscorer. For several years, he’s been quite deadly with Man City, though not so much with Argentina.)
Ship him out, says one Yahoo! columnist. Maybe swap him for Alexis Sánchez.
Such drama. In this league, it appears that any given striker is disposable. (Luis Suárez was the last striker who definitely wasn’t.)
There was talk earlier this season of the transcendence of Diego Costa. Then he pouted and got benched a little, and his team performed just as well without him.
Now people are talking about his teammate, Eden Hazard. Hazard is good, but if he were to play for Leicester City, he’d be a shadow of his precocious self (as, last season, he was a shadow; as, this season, all the Leicester players are mere shadows).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Meanwhile, N’Golo Kanté makes a humble living chewing up the league. He’s like a buzzsaw perched upon a Roomba. Last season, Sir Alex Ferguson said that Kanté was the league’s best player by far. But Kanté’s goalscoring teammates got the accolades.
This season, playing with even more illustrious teammates, Kanté might be named the Player of the Year.
Kanté’s is an up-close style. His long passing is not remarkable. His best passes are like dribbles: they’re short touches. His specialty is arriving early to where the ball is traveling and then shoving himself between the ball and the opponent carrying it.
He excels at this because he’s tiny. He’ll run into a thicket of players and come out with the ball. He likes thickets; he seeks them out; he foresees better than the other players how the ball will carom off the others’ legs.
(Today I added a footnote about N’Golo Kanté to my dissertation.)
Right now, she appears to be sleeping comfortably, which makes me happy.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Ecuador’s sub-20 lads finished second in the continental tourney, two places higher than they needed to. The Uruguayans finished first. Their team easily was the best.
The Brazilians, runners-up two years ago in the under-20 World Cup, finished fifth in South America and failed to qualify for this year’s global tourney. In the matches that I watched, they looked simply awful.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I wonder how the Brazilians would’ve fared if they’d called up their latest national hope, the 19-year-old striker, Gabriel Jesus, who’s been starting for Man City. This young man is quite the sensation. After just a few of his performances in the Premier League, the soap opera has become: What’ll happen to Sergio Agüero? (Agüero is the team’s established goalscorer. For several years, he’s been quite deadly with Man City, though not so much with Argentina.)
Ship him out, says one Yahoo! columnist. Maybe swap him for Alexis Sánchez.
Such drama. In this league, it appears that any given striker is disposable. (Luis Suárez was the last striker who definitely wasn’t.)
There was talk earlier this season of the transcendence of Diego Costa. Then he pouted and got benched a little, and his team performed just as well without him.
Now people are talking about his teammate, Eden Hazard. Hazard is good, but if he were to play for Leicester City, he’d be a shadow of his precocious self (as, last season, he was a shadow; as, this season, all the Leicester players are mere shadows).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Meanwhile, N’Golo Kanté makes a humble living chewing up the league. He’s like a buzzsaw perched upon a Roomba. Last season, Sir Alex Ferguson said that Kanté was the league’s best player by far. But Kanté’s goalscoring teammates got the accolades.
This season, playing with even more illustrious teammates, Kanté might be named the Player of the Year.
Kanté’s is an up-close style. His long passing is not remarkable. His best passes are like dribbles: they’re short touches. His specialty is arriving early to where the ball is traveling and then shoving himself between the ball and the opponent carrying it.
He excels at this because he’s tiny. He’ll run into a thicket of players and come out with the ball. He likes thickets; he seeks them out; he foresees better than the other players how the ball will carom off the others’ legs.
(Today I added a footnote about N’Golo Kanté to my dissertation.)