This blog entry is for Jesús

… the nurse who gives my children their shots.

It was Abel’s turn to get poked. He glared when Jesús came into the room.

“Children recognize me,” Jesús told Karin. “I was at Walmart, and a child saw me and ran away. His parents gave me dirty looks.”

Jesús is super nice.

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It’s old news, but … Paris Saint-Germain shredded Inter, 5–0, with the best team performance in any final in the history of the Champions League. (I’ve observed just one other comparable performance: Barcelona’s, in 2009, which caused a very good Manchester United team to chase shadows. Milan’s drubbing of Barça in 1994 is supposed to have been impressive, too, but I didn’t see that game.)

Were I forced to choose, I’d name Vitinha as PSG’s standout player:

Willian Pacho started in defense and repeatedly charged into the opponents’ half to intercept or wrest away the ball. He was astounding. They all were, the Parisians.

Pacho has returned to Ecuador to play in Thursday’s World Cup qualifier, against Marquinhos – his club-mate – the captain of Brazil and PSG.

The sports

Barcelona’s manager, Segundo Alejandro Castillo, preached while riding a bus in Guayaquil:

I guess the city buses have TV now.

The other Barça beat Madrid in the Copa del Rey final, a thrilling foulfest. Just before the game ended, angry Madrid players left the bench, ran onto the field, and pelted the referee with ice chips.

Twenty minutes of highlights:

The sports

You’ll have to enlarge this to read it.

I would choose the sushi, the ham-and-cheese pizza, the pasta salad, the Nutella sandwich, the bologna-and-chorizo sandwich, and the fruit.

(I doubt the authenticity of this. Was there no second fullback?)

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It’s time for my annual baseball peek: Dodgers vs. Yankees, World Series Game 1. No runs yet. I’ll watch until the Fox Sports app’s free preview expires. We need a TV antenna. … The celebs are out in droves. … It’s nice to see such plain uniforms on both teams. I appreciate the subtle palm trees on the Dodgers’ socks. … Shohei Ohtani sure is … tall. … I like it that so many people in Japan are watching the Dodgers at 9:00am.

Karin: “Sports ads are garbage.”

First run scored: triple, then sacrifice fly. Dude wore a mitten to slide home hand-first. I’d never seen that.

Update: First walk-off grand slam in World Series history:

He is a “sixth-generation Salvationist” (Wikipedia; cf. the source article).

R.I.P. Dick, pt. 2; body-text fonts, pt. 16: Calisto; a Father’s Day joke

The Cornell Chronicle has published the best overview so far of Dick’s life and career. I especially like what it says about Dick’s contribution to the philosophy of science, and I like the reminiscences of Cornell PhDs Koltonski and Jezzi.

I also like the word “reminiscences.”

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The screenshot of this month’s body-text font has been chosen with Dick in mind. The passage is not a quotation from one of Dick’s books or articles. Rather, it showcases his patience. It’s the most self-indulgent footnote in the dissertation I wrote for him, which I set in Calisto.

Dick’s comment: What is tackling?

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Happy Father’s Day.

Tabloids

May 6, 2023: coronation day for Charles and his Queen Consort. Mark your calendars. Who knows when another coronation will occur?

Palace insiders told the Mail on Sunday that the Duke of Norfolk … had been tasked with making it a simpler, shorter and more diverse ceremony that reflects modern Britain. “The King has stripped back a lot of the coronation in recognition that the world has changed in the past 70 years,” a source told the paper.

One change reportedly being discussed is for a more relaxed dress code, with peers possibly dressed in lounge suits rather than ceremonial robes.

… the Guardian says.

The government and royal household will be conscious of the scale of the coronation in the light of the cost of living crisis facing the country.

Such backhanded compliments are often in the news. Guardian readers do not esteem the Royals. Even so, they lap up their lives and rituals like cream. Papers like the Mail aren’t the only ones beholden to the monarchy.

The Guardian is happy to quote the King when it wishes to take shots at the Prime Minister. No one expresses withering, casual contempt better than a thorough snob does. That is one of the most serviceable functions of the aristocracy. Just as civilians need soldiers to fight invaders and police to keep criminals at bay, the people need kings and dukes to show the most exquisite disdain for the politicians they elect, for their fellow human beings.

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Barcelona and Inter contested a thrilling Champions League match yesterday.

Meanwhile, I was viewing a mediocre match between Rangers and Liverpool. I turned it off with less than half an hour to play. Liverpool had just gone up 3 goals to 1, and the benched Mo Salah was about to enter the game.

Much later, I found out that he scored thrice in six minutes. The match ended 7 to 1.

More quarterfinals

Attack, attack, attack was the theme of the first three quarterfinals, beginning with Atalanta’s.

In the second quarterfinal, RB Leipzig, which came into existence just eleven years ago, outplayed and defeated Atlético de Madrid (who’d so impressively ousted title-holders Liverpool). Leipzig sliced through Atlético’s middle for the first goal. The winning goal was fired in after a clever low cross.

Leipzig’s young center-back, Dayot Upamecano, bossed Atlético’s strikers.

The next game was one of the most breakneck-paced contests I’ve seen at this level. Both Baryern and Barça threw caution to the wind. Bayern’s high defensive line was especially shocking.

Indeed, the Catalans had early chances. They didn’t take enough of them. The Bavarians romped to a 4–1 victory in each half, improving upon their 7–2 group stage victory over the Potato Tots.

The experts are predicting that Barça will be renovated through and through.

There was less attacking in Lyon’s surprising victory over Manchester City. The Citizens possessed the ball but lacked ideas. The “signature” moment occurred when Raheem Sterling missed the tying goal just feet from the empty net.

Outcomewise there are various possibilities, but Bayern has the best team this year.

“A man should cut his own lawn”

Most quarantining in Indiana will end soon, but here’s something that may provide solace for those who remain at home:

Champions League classics on YouTube, from B/R Football.

Today’s video is of the final of 2009 between Manchester United and Barcelona.

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An adorable groundhog now resides in a tunnel under our front porch. Everyone advises that we remove it so it doesn’t dig holes in our foundation.

How does one humanely remove a groundhog?

As Karin & I consider this, we enjoy watching the beast frolic out on the lawn. It eats mouthfuls of freshly cut grass. It flees into its tunnel whenever a car drives by.

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The front lawn was cut by our pastor and church board chairman. Like Hank Hill and his Rainey Street friends, they’d do it for fun if I’d let them.

Both of these generous men offered to give me their spare mowers. I ended up accepting the church board chairman’s push mower. Sadly, his riding mower didn’t fit through the gate to our back yard, and so yesterday I had to use the push mower to cut most of that lawn.

But not all of it. This was the lawn’s first trimming of the season, and the grass was very tall. I was defeated by several especially thick clumps of well-watered stalks at the bottom of the slope. The mower would shut off if I cut more than a few square inches at a time. (I wonder if, on those obstinate sections, a reel mower would do better. Or a scythe.)

I’m sore all over, and my hands are raw, but I’m determined to head back out to finish the job. After a sustained period of rain, it seems as if every head of household on our street is out mowing.

Why the twerp Griezmann isn’t succeeding at F.C. Barcelona

This article points out what should have been obvious before Griezmann moved for €120 million from Atlético de Madrid. Griezmann is accustomed to playing directly behind another striker. At Barcelona, Messi is the only striker who is permitted to consistently drop behind another striker.

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Tonight, Karin & I celebrated three and a half years of marriage. We went to a burrito restaurant. We silently ate and admired our sleeping baby.

As November winds down, Karin dreads her return to her regular work schedule.

The good news is, I’m improving at giving Samuel the bottle.

Contrary to mystical prognostication, the missing copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock has been found (by Karin).

A week off

It’s my jobless week in between the spring semester and the first summer term. This afternoon, I’m in a lounge at Notre Dame, hoping that the strangeness of the locale will stimulate me to write.

I lunched with my dear cousin, Vickie, who’s just finished her bachelor’s work at Notre Dame. The poor thing has lost 20 lbs. during her last semester. I asked if it’s because she’s been eating phở in the cafeteria every day. No, she said, she hasn’t been doing that; she’s lost weight because of stress.

She has some jobs lined up for the next couple of years, but eventually she’ll have to decide whether to go to graduate school.

She said that in one of her sociology honors courses, the professor told the undergraduates that she expected all of them to go to grad school for sociology.

I think that’s the sort of expectation that ill serves humankind.

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The last two days, I got to watch two fantastic Champions League semifinal games.

On Tuesday, Liverpool defeated Barcelona at home by four goals to zero, gaining a decisive 4–3 lead in aggregate goals and canceling out Lionel Messi’s superb performance from the previous game.

And yesterday, the Potato Tots scored three second-half goals in Amsterdam to edge out Ajax on “away” goals. Lucas Moura, the goalscorer, prayed fervidly at the start of the half, and by the time he put in his second goal, it sure looked like he was receiving divine favor.

Still, I felt badly for Ajax: they’d outplayed the Potato Tots in three of the four halves. And I felt badly for Messi, whose teammates had failed to oblige when, in Barcelona’s home game, he’d set them up to score enough goals to put the series to bed.

The final (June 1) will be a ferocious contest. They’re two very gritty teams, Liverpool and the Potato Tots.

Trash-talking

The Champions League final will be played in two days.

Vicente del Bosque, who has won the Champions League as the coach of Real Madrid, as well as the World Cup and the Euros as the coach of Spain, believes that Real Madrid will handily defeat Liverpool. He doesn’t think there’s “even one Liverpool player who would improve Madrid, not even [Mohamed] Salah” (the quotation is from this article).

Actually, right now, Salah is better than any of Madrid’s forwards, but del Bosque has an excellent point. Player for player, Real Madrid is overwhelmingly the better team.

Then again, that is why Liverpool employs the “storming” tactic (see two entries ago). It allows a team to have a good chance, head-to-head, against an opponent whose players are more skillful. Already this year, it has allowed Liverpool to thrash Manchester City.

In other news, the legendary Xavi, formerly of Barcelona, offers this amusing analysis of Real Madrid’s defensive midfielder, Casemiro:

“Madrid break apart, seven players attack and Casemiro stays back on his own to cover the centre.”

Pretty impressive, right? Covering the center all alone? Not impressive enough for Xavi:

“He does not dominate space-time.”

Whoa. That’s a tall order. I’m not even sure if I dominate space-time.

I predict that the score will be Real Madrid 3, Liverpool 1. But I want Liverpool to win, and I think that that could very well happen.

There’s a storm coming

The final of the UEFA Champions League will take place in about one week, on Saturday, May 26. Liverpool and Real Madrid are the contestants. Neither came close to winning its respective domestic league this year.

How, then, did these teams manage to do so well against the cream of Europe?

This article by Simon Kuper explains a key tactical concept: “storming,” or relentlessly trying to steal the ball in the other team’s end of the field.

Storming is my preferred way of playing small-field soccer. Imagine playing a full-court press on a basketball court against opponents who aren’t allowed to use their hands. The odds of stealing the ball are good.

On a full-sized field, however, ball carriers have more space, and those who press must sprint farther. Storming is much harder to pull off.

Regular soccer is like stone/paper/scissors. Teams that specialize in keeping possession and passing out from the back are vulnerable against teams that specialize in storming. This is because storming creates turnovers near the goal. But teams that are good at storming suffer more against less skillful teams that settle for “parking the bus” in front of the goal with nine or ten defenders. This is because teams that storm are more vulnerable to counterattacks. They also thrive in chaos, which is what other teams avoid succumbing to when they park the bus.

This explains why F.C. Barcelona, the renowned master of keeping possession and inflicting “death by a thousand cuts,” continues to dominate in the Spanish league. Barcelona and the stormers at Atlético de Madrid both play against less skillful opponents who try to park the bus. Over the course of a lengthy round-robin tournament, this favors Barcelona over Atlético. (Real Madrid isn’t a pure representative of any of these styles. More on R.M. later.)

On the other hand, in the Champions League knockout stages, Barcelona must occasionally get past a storming team without relying on its superior record against other contestants. Barcelona faces much worse odds when it goes head-to-head against such foes. And so it has been knocked out by such stormers as Atlético, two years ago, and Roma, this year.

In its quarterfinal, Liverpool, a storming team, knocked out Manchester City, which likes to do some storming but is more of a possession outfit. Liverpool then outstormed like-minded Roma in the semifinal.

(In the English league standings, however, City left Liverpool in the dust.)

Of the three strategies, “death by a thousand cuts” and “storming” require the most specific personnel. (Just about any team can “park the bus” as long as it has one speedy forward who can retain possession long enough.) In particular, it’s hard for a team to acquire midfielders who are good possession-keepers and good stormers. The mindset required for making sustained charges into the thick of things is the opposite of the mindset for drifting into space, receiving the ball, slowing things down, and making judicious passes.

This is where Real Madrid, with its great wealth, has the advantage over everyone else. It has enough good players to try either strategy. When an opposing team parks the bus, R.M. can inflict the thousand cuts. And when R.M. comes up against a storming team, it can bring in players to switch out of its usual possession mode. Thus, at each new knockout stage, it adapts itself to its opponent.

This ability to match up well against a variety of foes is what allows R.M. to get through knockout tie after knockout tie, year after year, even in a very bad year. Of course, all it takes to be eliminated is one bad matchup. Liverpool isn’t built to win a round-robin league against good possession teams, but it is built to shred even the best opponent on a given night.

If I were coaching Real Madrid against Liverpool, I’d have my defenders simply kick the ball down the field and hope for my skilled attackers to retain possession. And if they couldn’t, I’d switch tactics and park the bus.

Whatever happens, I don’t think this game will offer much by way of midfield sophistication.

Jury duty; a rainstorm; Messi vs. Kanté; a trip

Today I performed my jury service, or I would have done, except that the trial was canceled. I was absent from work and lost a day’s wages. But it was just as well that I didn’t go to IUSB. The walk would have been miserable: out of my living room window, I saw rain pouring down, hour after hour.

In the afternoon, I watched Chelsea and Barcelona play the first leg of their UEFA Champions League home-and-away series. I was especially interested in the duel between Lionel Messi and N’Golo Kanté. Kanté defended against Messi as well as anybody I’ve seen has done. He didn’t allow Messi to dribble past him or to make penetrating passes. Once, I saw him guard Messi for a few feet, then switch off from him, and then cunningly intercept the pass that Messi gave.

I decided that Kanté is a better defender than Real Madrid’s Casemiro, who resorts to fouling Messi. Messi likes to bully Casemiro by dribbling directly at him; however, when Messi was guarded by Kanté today, he respectfully dribbled from side to side.

One other bit of news: Karin & I have bought plane tickets to Austin, Texas, to visit Ana & David during my spring break.

I am lavished with more gifts

I wish everyone a happy Carlos Muñoz Day. In South Bend, it’s seven degrees, Fahrenheit (“feels like −8°,” says the Weather Channel). There’s no way, no way, I’ll leave the house unless it’s to eat in a restaurant.

The Xmas dust has nearly all settled. Karin’s relations don’t practice the “Secret Santa” method of giving; instead, everyone gives to everyone. Karin gave to her little nephew and niece a miniature toilet that sprays water on people’s faces. This gift was hugely successful. In turn, Karin & I received a Crock-Pot, slightly better than the one we already had; a coffee maker, slightly better than what we had; and lots of candy. Karin’s dad gave me a t-shirt that says got philosophy? Karin’s mom gave me a book: Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul. One of its contributing authors was David’s teacher at Western Michigan University; I’m dismayed that his contribution, “Could Batman Have Been the Joker?,” isn’t listed on his C.V. The last gift from Karin’s mom is yet to be delivered: David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament.

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On Saturday morning, I awoke at 7:00 to watch the Spanish clásico. It was worth the early rising. Messi was brilliant. The two goalkeepers, Navas and ter Stegen, were brilliant. But the game’s best play was by Sergio Busquets, who set up the first goal with a few calm turns and a short pass to Ivan Rakitić deep in Barcelona’s half of the field. As soon as Rakitić touched the ball, I could see that everything would “break” for Barcelona, that Real’s defenders would be drawn out of position and Barcelona would “run the table” and score. It was one of the best goals I’d seen all year.

After the game, some commentators talked about how this clásico lacked luster, how Barcelona and Real Madrid are in dynastic twilight. Nonsense. As long as Messi and Busquets are playing, Barcelona will be a special team.

Real Madrid vs. Barcelona

The clásico played today in Spain was the best match I’d seen all year – maybe in the last two or three years – in any sport.

A detailed summary is here. It includes videos. They’re all good.

The best video, of course, is the one with Messi’s last-minute goal. The goal is good. The madridistas’ reactions are good. Messi’s celebration is superb.

Take that, Real Madrid.

UPDATE (Monday): Here is a video of the full game.

UPDATE (Tuesday): The video is gone.

Quarterfinals

In the quarterfinals of the Champions League, a rather poor FC Barcelona team was ousted by Juventus, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored two offside goals to nudge Real Madrid past Bayern Munich. Real’s patsy, Atlético, also made it through, defending fiercely against Leicester.

Of the victors, only the Monacans don’t seem stale. They’ve scored, what, three goals in each of their last four knockout games? (They dispatched Dortmund in their quarterfinal.) They played in the final as recently as 2004, but in 2011–2013 they languished in Ligue 2. An influx of Russian cash restored their loftier standing.

I didn’t watch any of these games.

Independiente vs. River; Atlético vs. Barcelona; Atlético vs. Bayern

I don’t know if Independiente del Valle even have 30,000 supporters; but last night the Estadio Atahualpa was full, and its crowd wore blue and black. The game itself lacked luster. Though Independiente hardly were breathtaking, River Plate, the defending champions, were cautious in the altitude.

Independiente’s goals came in the last half-hour.

Two goals to zero is a good home-leg result. In the second leg, River must again be cautious: receiving just one goal obliges them to tally four.

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Atlético de Madrid must surely be the world’s toughest team to play against. Every touch of the ball is, for them, a matter of life or death. And not only are they gritty; not only do they close up shop in front of the goal; they can be rather brilliant, too.

Lately, their astounding player has been the midfielder Saúl Ñíguez. See his outer-footed cross, to Antoine Griezmann, versus Barcelona; see his personal wonder-goal versus Bayern Munich.

See also Fernando Torres’s near miss.

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.

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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.

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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.

Romaniacs, pt. 862: The twins (and their father)

This was how they looked in 2006:

And in 2012 the twins are in middle school, more bashful, more aware of boys. Their openness is gone. Now they stare downward, hair veiling their eyes.

As usual, I give them unsolicited advice:

“When a boy likes you, be nice to him.”

They look up shyly and smile.

(The advice is from the heart, but upon reflection seems incomplete. Perhaps I should have said: “Be nice to the boy — provided he’s not deluded, or narcissistic, or a non-Christian …”)

(Or maybe such provisos are too complicated, or beside the point. Maybe the most effective principle really is, simply, Be Nice.)

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I’ve known these friends since they were infants. They used to be wild but submissive; now they’re quiet but rebellious. Their father suffers constant rejection from them. He bears it cheerfully enough. What could he still teach to such full-minded creatures? They will no longer listen to him: in writing they inform him, “Your pounts are erelivent, your judgmints are too.” What a handicap for a philosopher, to be disarmed of his points and judgments! It would appear that his only recourse is to love.

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We go into a green-carpeted warehouse. This is where the Hispanic girls have their soccer league; the twins (Romaniacs) play for one of the teams. The style of play is pinball. The league’s purpose is to teach girls not to fear the ball, not to shirk from getting blasted in the face. (This happens again and again.)

I am unimpressed. As the twins’ father and I recline in our chairs and watch the bloodbath, I mention girls’ concussion rates. I mention the superior youth training at F.C. Barcelona. He shrugs it all off. Are my points irrelevant? And are my judgments, too?

Better to discuss my friend’s research on forgiveness. Forgiveness is what he thinks about now. This, finally, is worth prioritizing: what forgiveness is, what a forgiving person is. Not what dating is, or debating: those pursuits may have some value, but the fact is, people are alienated from each other more than they realize. Forgiveness must be cultivated first.