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:

A victory

Messi didn’t play. The rest of Argentina barely showed up. I don’t mean the team; I mean the country. How empty the stadium looked!

The other big names were on the field. At the beginning I was a little worried about el Fideo Di María, but after the first few minutes, he hardly touched the ball. We defended high up on Argentina’s half, all game long. It was as if we were the home team.

Special credit to Christian Noboa and Pedro Quiñónez – and, later, Segundo Castillo – our defensive midfielders. Antonio Valencia made some freakish runs, one of which you’ll see below.

Ecuadorians in Buenos Aires.

A clearer view of the goals.

In Ecuador: a news anchor with one eye on the game.

I wonder if the Argentinians will keep their #1 world ranking.

Costa Rica 1, Italy 0; France 5, Switzerland 2; Ecuador 2, Honduras 1

The Costa Ricans are for real.

The Swiss’s collapse was sorrier than Spain’s. Some of the French goals were as soft as cotton.

Victory for Ecuador. … We looked awful. We looked like we were in the 2002 World Cup: tentative, nervy. Without Castillo, we couldn’t dominate the midfield. It wasn’t pleasing to behold.

A few other notes:

(1) The Hondurans have such dirty players. They tackle viciously; they handle deliberately. Playing beautifully against them is impossible. A cynical, cynical team.

(2) Our second goal against Honduras was a carbon copy of our goal against the Swiss — and of several earlier goals (here and here). A foul against Jefferson Montero on the left side of the box; a bullet cross by Walter Ayoví; a close-range header. This trick may be unstoppable.

It begins

And now Castillo isn’t going to the World Cup; his injury won’t heal quickly enough. Oswaldo Minda is going in his place.

Today the tournament begins. I’ll try to comment regularly.

Gatsby

The nation rejoices: Castillo’s ligament isn’t torn. Though he won’t play for a couple of weeks, he’ll be included in our World Cup roster.

The score of our last warm-up, against England: 2 to 2.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Martin and I watch the new Gatsby movie. (He might show it to his highschoolers.) We take turns cringing. … Though I’ve read the book twice, and seen an opera of it, I hardly remember the story. What I notice this time is how Gatsby keeps on repeating the phrase “old sport.” (I recall a similar faux pas by a character in From Russia with Love, the Bond novel. Is Fleming spoofing Fitzgerald?) … Downtown, Sabby (the male) says of a pedestrian: “There goes the Gatsby of South Bend.” What a sad description to be known by! And how ridiculous that I, so removed from the local “scene,” should know exactly who that person is. … Reputation is a horrid thing. When I’m introduced to new people, they look startled — and then they say they know my reputation. Those are the words they use. Nothing makes me queasier.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

“Come, meet Bianca,” I say to Cristian. The little beast is resting on a chair. She raises her chin, and Cristian strokes it. “You are beautiful,” he tells her. “At last I meet this cat — the Internet sensation.”

(This photo is nothing special; but with a laptop camera it’s the best I can do to show Bianca sleeping in her box.)

Injuries

World Cup warm-ups. … We played one a few weeks ago, against the Netherlands in Amsterdam (1 to 1); and this afternoon, in Arlington, TX, Mexico defeated us, 3 to 1. … It was among the most unsettling games I’ve watched. Segundo Castillo and Mexico’s Luis Montes badly collided; Montes’s leg was broken, and Castillo may have hurt his ACL. … Later, Mexico’s Rafael Márquez also was taken to the hospital. …

A few tactical notes. … We didn’t use our regular forwards, and we didn’t try to pressure our opponents on their side of the field, as we usually do. A very odd experiment. … All that carnage, to no clear purpose.

The game against Australia

At halftime, having fallen behind 0–3, having failed to maintain possession of the ball — having played horribly — we Ecuadorians were calm.

Some of us were chipper. Segundo Castillo walked off embracing Australia’s Tim Cahill, his Everton ex-teammate.

Coach Rueda decided he’d experimented enough. For the next period, he restored four of his regulars to the field.

Suddenly, Australia seemed very poor.

Final score: Ecuador 4, Australia 3. Also, Énner Valencia missed a tap-in. Also, we were refused some penalty kicks. (The bashful ref already had awarded one to each team.) The winning goal was by our super-sub, Old Man Méndez.

At IUSB this morning, jersey-wearers strutted. I greeted some of them in Spanish. They looked at me like, “What the hell.”