Body-text fonts, pt. 49: ITC Garamond

The Iranians are trying to have their World Cup games moved from the U.S. to Mexico.

Good. Luck.

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Six-year-old Samuel, whom we don’t allow to use social media, has been talking about giving up social media for a week. 🙄

Not for Lent’s sake. For a Klondike bar. (“What would you do for a Klondike bar?”)

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Chubby ITC Garamond is this month’s typeface. (This link is to the darker version, and this link is to the lighter version.)

My children are less “Charlie Bucket,” more “Mike Teavee.”

More trouble for the World Cup

Some dozens of recent killings in Mexico have stirred up anxiety about that country’s ability to safely co-host the World Cup.

The U.S. has safety worries, too. E.g., who will pay for the extra stadium guards and police in little Foxborough, Mass.? Not the 18,000 townspeople, who are threatening to deny FIFA the use of their locality.

Good for them.

See this New York Times article.

“We may get a little more [than usual] in meals tax and hotel tax,” a local official explains:

But this is not a moneymaker for this town. In fact, it’s probably more of a headache than it’s worth.

This is nothing more than seven events up there. If [the] World Cup wasn’t coming, we’d probably have seven concerts in that time. We’re not gaining much of anything by hosting this event.

So it goes when a country that doesn’t really care about soccer – or about, you know, the world – is awarded World Cup hosting rights. You run up against locals who refuse to sacrifice. Which is what hosting these games is. FIFA always has made money for the rich and compensated the masses with an experiential high. But these particular masses don’t care about soccer or foreign visitors, so they aren’t going to get that high.

FIFA should give more games – or all of the games – to Canada. I’m curious what the people of, e.g., Edmonton or Regina would say. Those cities have pretty stadiums; I’ve looked at them on Wikipedia.

My (cat) lady love

Happy birthday to Karin. I found an age-appropriate gift at Goodwill: a volume of James Herriot’s Cat Stories (large-print).

We celebrated at a Mexican ice-cream shop. Nachos, jalapeños, elotes, tortas, paletas, and ice-cream, washed down with mineral water: What could be better?

The shop’s Instagram page has a photo of ice-cream with spicy Cheetos in it.

Argentina 1, Ecuador 0

I viewed the second half of Ecuador’s “friendly” match vs. Argentina, preparatory to this summer’s Copa América (which, for reasons of greed, is being held in the United States). It was played in Chicago. Ecuador lost; our coach is still clueless; we are devoid of strikers; Argentina is a cut above. Even so, I enjoyed the game. Such players as Moisés Caicedo and Willian Pacho give pleasure no matter what the rest of the team is doing. And by now I have a great liking for these Argentinians. They may not always win, but everything they do is purposeful; and the goal Di María scored tonight was pure artistry. “They teach you not to toe-poke,” the commentator said, “but this is when you toe-poke.” (Right, but who are these morons teaching children not to toe-poke?) De Paul’s pass was lovely, too, and Romero should be credited for moving to an unusual position to receive it.

I also liked that the Ecuadorians and Argentinians kicked each other hard but still joked with each other on the field. (They might not have been so friendly in, well, a non-“friendly.”)

Also gratifying (more so, result-wise): Colombia beat the USA, 5–1; and Uruguay beat Mexico, 4–0. David and I noted that the Uruguayans barely seemed to try, except for their poor wingers who had to keep running into empty space, and poor Darwin Núñez who had to stay with them to convert his tap-ins.

How the sausage is made

(The sausage being flan.)

Look at all that sugar!

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Old Ecuadorian friends came to town. I went to my parents’ and grandparents’ houses and listened to several hours of esmeraldeño Spanish – the best kind of Spanish.

One of these friends recently married a Mexican. This led to many jokes because Ecuador and Mexico aren’t getting along right now.

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Samuel asked me to draw Africa. He then surprised me by adding a very decent Eurasia to it.

He marked out China, India, the Republic of Georgia, Madagascar … and Japan, which isn’t where you’d think; it seems to have joined Russia’s Arctic islands. I asked him if he was sure. He was. “This is Honshu, this is Hokkaido. …” “Japan seems to have migrated,” I said. He thought this hilarious. “Japan migrated! Japan migrated!” he went around shouting.

Unfortunately, he left his map and his pens lying around, and Daniel came along and scribbled over the drawing. Samuel was very sad until I showed him the photo I’d taken. Now he gets such a kick, looking at his map on the computer screen.

Mexico 0, Ecuador 0

It was a good night in Chicago, but this morning I worry about COVID.

Martin took this photo of Stephen, my dad, and me.

You can see many more green shirts, but there were plenty of Ecuadorians: twenty or thirty percent of the crowd, I’d guess.

We took our masks into the stadium and then didn’t think to put them on. No one was near us at first. The stadium didn’t fill up until the game was well underway. (Final headcount: about 61,000.)

And I didn’t notice any mask-wearers until people began to leave. I’m not referring to the Mexicans with lucha libre masks.

My dad and I weren’t allowed to bring our drawstring bags into the stadium. “Go hide them in the trees,” advised the guard. After the game, quite a few people were creeping among the trees, in the dark, like perverts, searching for their belongings. Maybe this happens after every game at Soldier Field.

The fans behaved beautifully. No one fought, that I saw. Everyone just seemed happy to be there. We had Mexicans to our left and lively, friendly cuencanos to our right. The Mexicans sang Cielito lindo. Near the end of the game, they did their infamous taunt of Puto. Alexander Domínguez complained; the ref temporarily halted play.

This notice appeared on the scoreboard:

The Ecuadorians all laughed.

It was a good move by Domínguez, that savvy game-freezer, because the Mexicans had been been playing their best soccer; afterward, they did nothing. Ecuador was the much better team throughout the match.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 48: Lone star

Before there was No Country for Old Men … before there was Hell or High Water … there was Lone Star, in which a thoughtful Texan sheriff goes around asking questions. Not philosophical questions about death or evil or moral responsibility – though there’s some of that, too – but about relationships that are more comfortably left unscrutinized.

The movie isn’t very interested in its bad guy. He is a corrupt, sadistic former sheriff (Kris Kristofferson) whose bones and badge are found during the opening scene, in the desert, by a couple of clownish metal scavengers who are not so unlike the gravediggers in Hamlet. And the movie is only slightly more interested in who killed the bad guy. Mostly it just shows what life is like for the ordinary people who live in fictional Rio County just north of the Mexico-U.S. border. (Supposedly, Del Rio, Texas, is in the vicinity.) These people include Hispanic and Anglo Texans, illegal and legal Mexican immigrants, and a few Indians. Also, due to the presence of an Army base, more Blacks reside in Rio County than is typical in this part of the state.

These groups all keep their identities strictly separate, at least in theory; in practice, the locals are intermixed and interdependent. Flashbacks show how the bad old Anglo police used to frequent the Mexican restaurants … while loudly complaining about Mexican food … while happily scarfing it down … while collecting extortion payments and bribes packed in with the tortillas. In the movie’s present day, the Anglo–Hispanic dealings are more polite but just as clandestine. Hispanic businessmen handpick Anglo officials for the public to employ: preferably, ones who’ll support a bid to build a lucrative new prison. More overtly, Anglos and Hispanics on the school board squabble over how to teach Texas history. One of the most likable characters – a high school teacher (Elizabeth Peña) – is criticized by all parties because she wants to tell a complicated story about the past. By the movie’s end, the complications of the past will have made her own happiness impossible. “Forget the Alamo,” she says, bitterly. “Forget them all.”

So, this movie is all social commentary, and it’s pretty straightforward and unadorned, unlike, e.g., Robert Altman’s Nashville. There’s nothing visually or rhythmically distinctive about Lone Star. Just lots of characters and conversations. These, often, are wryly insightful. The two “clowns” I mentioned earlier perform this exchange:

I never thought I’d see that a buddy of mine would be dating a woman with three bars on her shoulder. [The woman in question works for the Army.]

I think it’s beyond what you’d call dating.

You’re gonna get married?

Maybe.

You met her family? Think her family’s gonna be OK that you’re a white guy? [She is Black.]

They think any woman over thirty who isn’t married is a lesbian. She figures, they’ll be so relieved that I’m a man …

Yeah, it’s always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.

And there’s a brilliant little discussion, which I won’t quote, between two Black soldiers – a colonel and a private – about why a poor, young, Black woman would wish to join and remain in the Army.

A lot of this is interesting; and yet, arguably, it’s lamentable that for all the emphasis on locality, the insights aren’t specific to South Texas. John Sayles, the writer-director, sets his movies all over the map (New York City, New Jersey, Florida, Louisiana, Chicago, Ireland, etc.). Lone Star isn’t alone in inhabiting a regionally realistic place that isn’t a real place; most conspicuously, City of Hope, filmed in Cincinatti, is set in an unspecified city in New Jersey. Contrast this with one of Sayles’s first movies, The Brother From Another Planet, in which it actually matters that a particular scene is set on a particular New York subway line. Brother is less tightly constructed than Lone Star but, scene-by-scene, more compelling. Or so I recall. One might also criticize Lone Star’s casting. The main Anglo characters are played by Texans (Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey) or by people with Texan heritage (Chris Cooper); but the main Mexican-American roles are filled by a Cuban-American (Peña) and a puertorriqueña (Míriam Colón). Good as they are, their un-Mexicanness would be distracting to some viewers. The movie’s “authenticity” extends only so far, and it is racially unequal. But maybe I’m judging too harshly, especially considering how movies were cast in the 1990s.

Besides, to dwell very closely on the actors’ appearance, speech, etc., is to miss one of the movie’s main points, which is that in Texas – and, more generally, in the USA – Anglos and Hispanics are more interconnected, in all sorts of ways, than most observers can tell just by looking. I was reminded of this classic commercial by Aeroméxico:

See also: Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States; and Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States.

Football in español and inglés

Yesterday, Karin & I got COVID-19 booster shots, and I got a flu shot. I feel ill. I slept poorly last night. Both of my shoulders are sore, and it hurts to lie in bed.

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I turned on NBC to watch the Chiefs-Steelers game. The commercials’ sound and picture were unsynched, and when the game appeared the commentary was in Spanish. What was going on? Was this broadcast meant for Telemundo?

Not that I minded. I’ve listened to Spanish NFL commentary plenty of times. I’m always delighted by the subtle terminological differences: for example, the term for a false start is falsa salida.

I also enjoy the cultural differences, which are rather more conspicuous. The Chiefs fans were doing “The Chop,” and the commentators were (unironically) like, Qué lindo ambiente, what a lovely atmosphere.

Sometimes the TV would show Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels of NBC speaking on mute while the Mexicans talked over them. I think the Mexican play-by-play guy might actually be better than Michaels.

The best commentators had just finished calling the 49ers-Cowboys game on CBS. Tony Romo knows what he’s talking about, and he says it promptly and without fussing; and because he’s so quick, he says a lot. It spills out of him good-naturedly. He wears his learning lightly, as the late John Madden did (besides, he sounds like my friend Andrew). And Jim Nantz, Romo’s play-by-play man, is appropriately artless, not as incisive as the late Pat Summerall but pleasingly self-effacing.

Nantz, before a fourth-quarter, third-down play: “Is this the play of the game, Tony?”

Romo: “Yeah. It is. But there will be, like, four more of them after this one.”

Turns out, he was right; his feel for the pace is dead-on. It’s as if he were still quarterbacking. His precision is a joy to listen to; no other commentator is nearly as good in this way.

TNF

Thursday Night Football just broadcast its last game of the season. The show became more tolerable a few weeks ago when I realized I didn’t have to listen to Troy Aikman and Joe Buck: Amazon Prime offered channels with nontraditional commentary. I liked the Mexican commentators pretty well, but my favorites, on the “UK” stream, were the Irishman and the Scot. They described the plays accurately, told nice jokes, and didn’t murder the language.

Nor did they overstate the obvious. Aikman and Buck usurped tonight’s broadcast at the beginning of the second half, opining that “It’s of PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE that the Jets score touchdowns,” before the audio switched back to the UK commentary and I was able, again, to breathe calmly in my armchair and enjoy my tea and kippers. The Irishman recited a line of poetry: “Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

The Jets got some touchdowns, all right, but the Ravens still destroyed the Jets, 42 to 21. The Ravens looked very, very good. The Jets also looked good, uniform-wise. This season they’ve switched from their traditional white and forest-green garments to an ensemble that’s closer to what they wore in the Eighties and Nineties, with a color between forest green and kelly green. (Officially, it’s called “Gotham green.”) The Jets’ helmets are solid green now, not white or striped, and they look like solid-patterned billiard balls. I do miss the simple piping that used to run all the way up and down the sides of the pants. The team itself is awful.

Three soccer finals

On Sunday, the final matches were held for three major tournaments.

The Women’s World Cup final

I watched much of this – but not all of it (there were competing obligations of church and lunch).

The gringas appeared to be as dominant as they ever have been in history.

The Dutch weren’t bad, exactly, but their plan was too timid: they defended near their own goal and tried to counterattack with just one or two players. Their goose was cooked when they committed a ridiculous penalty foul which gave the USA the lead.

On the gringas’ second goal, the Dutch backpedaled down the middle of the field until the opposing ball carrier was close enough to shoot.

Here are scenes of the gringas partying in their locker room.

The Copa América final

This was a good, old-fashioned Southern Cone-style brawl. Don’t let Brazil’s glamorous reputation fool you. This team is basically another Uruguay – very tough on defense, organized without the ball, slick in attack at the most devastating moments.

The referee called two controversial penalties – one for each side, which I thought good – and had the guts to eject the diaper boy Gabriel Jesus.

Let me forestall misunderstanding: I like Gabriel Jesus, despite his rather sordid tastes (according to Wikipedia, he “reportedly chose to wear number 33” for his club team, Manchester City, “in tribute to the age at which Jesus Christ is believed to have been crucified,” and he and fellow diaper boy Neymar “got matching tattoos … depicting a boy overlooking a favela”). On the field, everything Gabriel Jesus does is productive – which distinguishes him from Neymar.

If Neymar had been playing, I doubt Brazil would’ve been able to control the game so well without the ball. Neymar would’ve insisted on dribbling everywhere.

Instead, he watched from the stands. (The next day, he would miss a training session for his club team, Paris Saint-Germain, triggering much speculation in the press.) He’d been left off Brazil’s roster because of an ankle injury. He’d also been accused of rape.

His replacement, Everton, won the tourney’s Golden Ball award and, in the final match, scored a goal and drew a penalty foul.

Of the Peruvians, we can say that they played well but were unable to break down the Brazilian defense.

The Gold Cup final

I only saw the highlights of this final, which appears to have been a closer contest than I expected.

Some of my friends here in South Bend are diehard USA fans. I wonder: did any of them make the trip to Soldier Field in Chicago?

If so, what was it like in that cauldron, 75% of which was occupied by fans of Mexico?

Teenagers

Ecuador 2, USA 1 (U-20 World Cup). These are some highlights:

Alas, they don’t convey how dominant the Ecuadorians were. The defensive midfielders, especially, chewed up the U.S. dribblers.

It’s a proud moment for the country: we’ve qualified for our first World Cup semifinal. (Our opponents will be the South Koreans.)

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Meanwhile, other athletes have been doing Ecuador proud. The most impressive is the teenaged race walker Glenda Morejón, daughter of greengrocers. Though she enjoys very little financial sponsorship, she recently defeated a world record holder, an Olympic medalist, a world champion, and the like in a major race, her 20 km debut.

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Very unpopular right now is the men’s senior soccer team. Tonight, Ecuador lost a “friendly” against Mexico. I watched a few uninspired minutes.

David and Stephen and I use the same streaming account, but the company doesn’t allow us all to stream at once, so I watched on a YouTube channel whose broadcast looked like this:

Actors in at least two movies that won the Best Picture Oscar

The Oscars cometh (tomorrow).

Here’s an interesting Wikipedia list:

Actors Who Have Appeared in Multiple Best Picture Academy Award Winners

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Three observations:

(1) The actors with the most appearances all worked in the first half of the twentieth century …

… when there were fewer movies and fewer actors and the top people all knew each other and voted for each other’s movies to win Best Picture.

Franklyn Farnum had seven Best Picture appearances. Wallis Clark and Bess Flowers each had five appearances. Three other actors had four appearances.

Quite a lot of actors have had two or three appearances. The important boundary is between those who’ve had three and those who’ve had four or more.

The last Best Picture winner with any of the “four or more” appearers was Around the World in 80 Days (1956). It featured a staggering number of A and B list actors, and, consequently, received the most votes for Best Picture that year – even though it wasn’t very good.

(I will say this for Around the World in 80 Days. Except for David Niven, all those top people were billed behind Cantinflas. I don’t think another Mexican actor has been so prominent in any other Best Picture winner – though that will change if Roma wins this year.)

In what follows, I’ll focus on the period after 1950.

(2) You have to be a pretty darned good actor to make it onto the list.

Sofia Coppola is the exception who proves the rule. Widely disparaged as an actress, she’s listed by virtue of having performed in the Godfather movies, which her father directed. But even she has subsequently distinguished herself by directing a few very good movies.

On the other hand, M. Emmet Walsh typifies the rule. He’s played small roles in two Best Picture winners, Midnight Cowboy and Ordinary People.

In Ordinary People, Walsh’s part is small enough that just about any middle-aged male could play it. But then, the movie is populated from top to bottom by top-notch performers. That’s just the kind of movie it is: an “actor’s movie” first and foremost, directed by an actor (Robert Redford).

Walsh is the kind of actor who makes an impression in just a few seconds on the screen. Because he’s an actor’s actor, he earns this minor credit, which vaults him onto the list.

The list is full of actors like that.

Ordinary People has three actors on the list. None of them is Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, or Elizabeth McGovern, each of whom is much more famous than any of the three on the list. (Nor is Timothy Hutton, who won an acting Oscar for this movie, on the list.)

Which leads to my last observation:

(3) Being the star – even a star of the “Oscar bait” variety – doesn’t get you onto the list; if getting on the list is your goal, it’s better to act in movies that have many other good actors.

Humphrey Bogart and Steve McQueen aren’t on the list. Tom Cruise isn’t on the list, though he’s appeared in quite a few Best Picture nominees.

Paul Newman isn’t on the list, and he won an Oscar all by himself for a sequel (almost unheard of) and was also in a lot of movies with Robert Redford (including The Sting, which won Best Picture). Jack Lemmon isn’t on the list, and he also has his own Oscar, as well as an appearance in The Apartment with Shirley MacLaine. The legendary John Wayne, another Oscar winner, isn’t on the list. Nor is Spencer Tracy, a legend who won twice. More recently, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Sean Connery, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, and Denzel Washington have all failed to make the list, even though they’ve won Oscars for themselves (some more than once).

Some stars specialize in “Oscar bait.” Even they find it hard to rack up Best Picture appearances. With all her nominations, Meryl Streep has the same number of acting Oscars as Best Picture appearances – three (a quite decent number, to be sure). Jack Nicholson also has three of each kind of achievement. Two movies for which he won an acting Oscar, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Terms of Endearment, also won Best Picture. Both had large casts with great actors from top to bottom.

Shirley MacLaine won two acting Oscars and appeared in three Best Picture winners. Those Best Picture winners have already been mentioned for the other good actors in them: Around the World in 80 Days, The Apartment, and Terms of Endearment.

Daniel Day-Lewis won three acting Oscars without appearing in any Best Picture winners. He isn’t on the list.

It’s the movies with great ensembles that seem likeliest to win Best Picture:

The ones in which the excellent Simon Callow (Amadeus and Shakespeare in Love) and Michael Peña (Crash and The Hurt Locker) hardly stand out.

The ones with M. Emmet Walsh or Beth Grant or John Gielgud, in just one or two scenes, playing the swimming coach or the mother-in-law or the old university don.

The ones with Diane Keaton or Talia Shire playing the leading man’s girlfriend or sister.

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Winning the Oscar for Best Editing is thought to be the strongest statistical predictor of winning the Oscar for Best Picture. And that may well be true.

But consider that there is no Oscar for Best Cast.

I see that two of this year’s Best Picture nominees have actors who are nominated for individual awards and who previously appeared in Best Picture winners.

The Favourite has Emma Stone, who was in Birdman.

Green Book has Mahershala Ali, who was in Moonlight, as well as Viggo Mortenson, who was in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

I’d wager that the Best Picture Oscar will go to one of these two nominees.

The first knockout stage

… has been played out.

I just finished watching England defeat Colombia in a penalty shootout. This game had a villain: U.S. referee Mark Geiger. He called a very dubious penalty against Colombia, forfeited his credibility with the players, and was generally incompetent. In fact, he was a jackass. Given his history, he shouldn’t have been assigned to the World Cup in the first place.

With Colombia’s disqualification, one half of the playoff bracket looks utterly dismal. One of these sorry teams will reach the final game:

• Russia (KO’d Spain in a penalty shootout after playing bunker defense)
• Croatia (KO’d Denmark in a shootout after an utter snoozefest)
• Sweden (KO’d Switzerland with a goal from a deflected shot, mercifully ending an utter snoozefest so that extra time wouldn’t have to be played)
• England (toothless)

So far, all knockout games between two European teams have been deadly dull. We can expect more of the same for the quarterfinal and semifinal games in this half of the bracket.

The other half is much better. These are its surviving teams:

• France (scored four goals against Argentina)
• Uruguay (scored twice, and at will, against Portugal – seven minutes after beginning to play, and seven minutes after having been scored upon – and with breathtaking technique; dominated play without possessing the ball)
• Brazil (broke down Mexican resistance with two well-crafted goals)
• Belgium (showed attacking prowess by surmounting a two-goal deficit vs. Japan)

Even if France and Belgium should defeat the South Americans in the quarterfinals, we can expect them to give us a rousing semifinal game.

In Group F, South Korea flogs Germany, two goals to zero

… KO’ing Die Mannschaft from the World Cup.

This is a happy day, except in Germany.

The one sad thing is that the Germans were KO’d while wearing their classic green “away” uniforms. I’d waited well over a decade for the Germans to bring back those uniforms. I hope that the color doesn’t fall out of favor with them again.

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The result developed as follows:

Sweden and Mexico weren’t scoring (their game was being played at the same time as Germany vs. South Korea).

Germany and South Korea weren’t scoring.

Up until that point, the Germans were on course to qualify for the second round at Sweden’s expense.

Then, the Swedes scored, leapfrogging the Germans and Mexicans in Group F and obliging the Germans to defeat South Korea.

Then, the Swedes scored again, for insurance, with a penalty kick.

Then, the Mexicans scored against themselves.

The Germans needed just one goal to go ahead of the Mexicans (they still would’ve trailed the Swedes).

The Koreans defended tenaciously.

The Germans became desperate.

The Koreans scored.

The Germans sent all their players, including their goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer, down the field to chase the victory they needed. The Koreans stole the ball from Neuer and launched it into the space he’d vacated. South Korea’s star forward, Son Heung-min, reached the ball first and tapped it in.

This lifted South Korea above Germany in Group F. Germany finished butt-naked last.

The Mexicans wept all over the field, grateful that the Koreans’ defeat of Germany had allowed them to qualify for the next round (in which they surely will be KO’d by Brazil).

The Germans tried hard not to weep, but some of them did.

The Swedes looked about the same as ever.

The Koreans celebrated as if they’d won the World Cup, even though Mexico’s failure to defeat Sweden ensured that they, too, were eliminated.

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At the beginning of the tournament, it was understood that Son Heung-min, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur, would have to leave that club to complete his military service – unless the Korean team performed especially well, in which case he would be granted an exemption.

Well, the Koreans are now disqualified. But they’ve performed a service to their country – and to the globe – by KO’ing the Germans.

I hope that the Korean government recognizes Son’s contribution and lets him off the hook.

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The Germans may have been KO’d, but the Argentinians raised themselves from the dead against Nigeria. Messi scored a wondergoal. Then, when the game had nearly expired, Argentina scored again to stave off elimination. (In the stands, Maradona celebrated both goals very strangely.)

When Argentina shows more grit than Germany, you know there’s something in the water.

Some frightening teams

Leave it to Alejandro Moreno, the worst commentator I’ve ever listened to, to defend Neymar for weeping out on the field … like a spoiled child … after scoring a tap-in against Costa Rica.

If the Brazilians win this World Cup – and, with all of their talent, they’re poised to do so – I hope they win with Neymar on the bench.

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The Colombians may have lost their first game, but yesterday they showed that they’re one of the planet’s scariest teams. They turned on the style in their rout of Poland.

The Colombians also have enough talent to win this World Cup.

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The Uruguayans have enough talent and more than enough grit. They won’t fear anyone. They’re used to grinding out results, which bodes well for their fate in the later rounds.

They ground out results against Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Then, this morning, they decided not only to clinch the first place in Group A, but to emphasize how dangerous they are. And so they casually routed the host nation.

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Another frightening team is Germany – not for having played well, but for having come back from the dead against the Swedes.

Before Toni Kroos scored his last-minute goal, the citizens of all the other countries had been licking their chops. The Mexicans, especially: their team would’ve qualified for the next round if Sweden had held Germany to a draw.

Instead, Group F remains unsettled. Germany, Mexico, and Sweden all will be excellently positioned if they win their respective upcoming games. Theoretically, even the Koreans could advance.

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Also frightening – but still unproven – are the Croatians, the Belgians, and the English, all of whom have easily qualified for the knockout stage. They all looked quite good against their group opponents, but I wonder how they’d fare against Colombia or Germany, or even Mexico.

A sputtering start

Who will seize control in this World Cup? So far, none of the “powers” has seemed capable. Germany has lost to Mexico; Portugal and Spain have drawn against each other (these teams have shown perhaps the best potential); Argentina and Brazil have drawn against Iceland and Switzerland, respectively. Only France has won – against Australia – but hardly in a convincing fashion.

Russia, the host nation, scored five times against the dismal Saudis without playing especially well. I expect the Russians to qualify for the next round, and then to get knocked out.

Only Uruguay – not a “power,” but still a team to be reckoned with – defeated its opponent, Egypt, in its usual manner. It eked out a 1–0 victory in added time, with a goal by a central defender. Uruguay will be very comfortable in games like those that have occurred so far.

Belgium, England, Colombia, and Poland have yet to play any games. It’s too early to say how they will do.

A prank; a vote; a forthcoming event; a new tutee; Zlatan

We’re well into June. The high schools have had their graduations.

At the school where I used to work, the seniors did an especially good prank. They put LimeBikes everywhere inside the building.

It was effective because whenever a janitor would try to remove a bike from the school, the bike would play a recorded message, threatening to call the police.

Eventually, though, the bikes were brought out into the parking lot.

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Today, FIFA’s members voted to select the hosts of the 2026 World Cup.

They chose Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Morocco was the losing candidate.

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David will arrive in South Bend tomorrow night. He plans to watch the first week or so of this year’s World Cup with his family.

The first game, Russia vs. Saudi Arabia, will be played tomorrow morning.

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At IUSB, my newest tutee is a middle-aged woman from Mexico. We held our first session today. Afterward, we tried to schedule our next appointment.

“Let me view my calendar,” I said, and I brought out the schedule of World Cup games.

My tutee immediately understood.

“Such-and-such hour is no good,” she said. “Two of Mexico’s group opponents play at that time.”

We agreed to meet at 10:00am, the hour of inactivity between the 8:00am–10:00am game and the 11:00am–1:00pm game.

She told me that two years ago, during the Euros, she’d been in the stadium when Zlatan played his last official match for his national team.

“I don’t have much regard for Zlatan,” she said. “I think Sweden has more success without him.”

I told her I thought Sweden’s success was beside the point.

“Well, my husband likes Zlatan,” she said. “I suppose you like Zlatan?”

“Zlatan is incredible. You should read his book.”

Apart from our disagreement about Zlatan, we had an excellent tutorial. I think she’ll be a very good student to work with.

More results

Well, Paraguay lost to Venezuela, 1 to 0. So much for Paraguay.

Argentina defeated Ecuador, leaped over several teams, and qualified for the World Cup. Ecuador didn’t field any of the players who defeated Argentina in the first game of the tourney. That, perhaps, is the most surprising fact of Ecuador’s World Cup cycle.

In Lima, Peru and Colombia each scored one goal. Peru’s was a golazo by its talisman, the excellent Paolo Guerrero. He scored with an indirect free kick that was touched by the Colombian goalkeeper. Now, to reach the World Cup, Peru must defeat New Zealand in a two-game playoff. Colombia finished above Peru and reached the World Cup directly.

The Uruguayans scored twice against themselves but still defeated Bolivia, 4 to 2. They also qualified for the World Cup.

These results helped to eliminate the Chileans, whom the group-winning Brazilians defeated, 3 to 0.

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Ironically, the Chileans would’ve qualified for the playoff at Peru’s expense had they not won an earlier judgment in court. Due to Bolivian impropriety, Chile and Peru had sued against that nation. Chile’s 0–0 draw against Bolivia was converted into a 3–0 Chilean victory, and a 2–0 victory for Bolivia became a 3–0 victory for the Peruvians. On the whole, then, the judgment benefited Peru more than Chile. The difference was enough to switch these nations’ respective, final positions (click to enlarge):

(The chart on the left gives the official, post-judgment standings. The chart on the right shows what would’ve resulted without the court judgment.)

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All of this was dramatic enough. But it paled in comparison to what happened in North America.

The Hondurans, obliged to defeat Mexico, narrowly managed to do so. One of their goals came from a shot that hit the crossbar and bounced off the Mexican goalkeeper’s head.

The Panamanians were similarly obliged to defeat Costa Rica. Their winning goal came at the end of the game. I celebrated it with great passion. Their earlier goal was even more dramatic. It was un gol fantasma: the ball never crossed the goal line. But the shooter, Blas Pérez – my old Panamanian favorite – was fouled and should’ve been awarded a penalty kick.

Here’s a video that shows all of this in clear detail. It also shows the Hondurans’ lucky goal.

Why do I care about these North American games? Because they made possible the elimination of the United States, that hollow team, which lost against Trinidad and Tobago. And so one of my dreams, that the U.S. should fail to qualify for a World Cup, has finally come true.

¡¡¡ Patada criminal !!!

My Facebook feed gives me all the minutest updates about the Ecuadorian national soccer team. As it should. … What’s remarkable is how these updates are titled. I’m reminded of the headlines of El Extra.

For example, Gabriel Achilier recently earned a red card in the Mexican league. The headline:

#LoÚltimo ¡¡QUÉ IMPRUDENCIA!!

¡¡PATADA CRIMINAL DE ACHILIER A UN RIVAL!! LO MANDARON A LAS DUCHAS … PERO QUÉ PATAZO …

MIRA EL VIDEO …

(In fact, it wasn’t a very serious foul.)

Of course, these days, most of the updates are concerned with the preparations for Ecuador’s last two World Cup qualifiers. (More precisely: these will be our last two qualifiers if we don’t finish in fifth place in South America; should we finish fifth, there would follow a two-game series against New Zealand.) Gustavo Quinteros, our manager, has been sacked. His replacement, Jorge Célico, has abandoned several regular players (e.g., Christian Noboa) and seen others abruptly retire (e.g., Felipe Caicedo). In their stead, he’s convoking rookies. I’m not necessarily in favor of dropping Noboa, but I welcome the influx of new talent. The old team had gotten far too predictable. The new players won’t have been scouted very thoroughly by our opponents.

Our next game, away to Chile, is on October 5 – Karin’s birthday. Karin isn’t very eager about this. I’ve tended to be sad on game days, lately.

UPDATE: Karin’s birthday is October 3, not October 5.

I knew that.

Delfín 4, Liga de Quito 1; Portugal 2, Mexico 1; Germany 1, Chile 0; a futile exercise in pickup soccer

The important news is that Delfín S.C. clinched the top spot in the first semester of the Ecuadorian tournament. In so doing, the “Cetaceans” qualified to play in December’s grand finale – and in the group stage of next year’s Copa Libertadores.

This is historic. Delfín will be the first-ever Copa Libertadores team from the longsuffering province of Manabí.

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In the Confederations Cup, in the game for third place, the Portuguese scored a couple of late goals to defeat the Mexicans. Then, in the final game, the Germans tapped the ball into the net after stealing it from one of the Chilean defenders. After that, the Germans simply waited for the game to end.

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I missed the second half of that game because I was playing pickup soccer. It was not one of my best experiences playing soccer.

It was dismal to play as a fatty. I had the strength for just one sprint, and I didn’t want to expend it right away, so I let the opposing players dribble past me. Then, after an old man dribbled past me, I was like, “No more of this.” So when he tried again I got in his way and kicked the ball out of bounds. I did this several times.

I tried to stay on the wing, a region of the field from which the other team would never score any goals. Alas, my teammates failed to occupy the fullback’s area just behind me. (Perhaps they assumed that I was the fullback.) Since I didn’t run back to cover that area – and since I couldn’t have guarded anyone even if I had run back – this was fatal.

After a while, my friend Brandon – another fatty, who was playing for the other team – came over to my side of the field to guard me. I decided to perform my only sprint. I ran into the open space behind Brandon. I called for the ball. It was passed elsewhere.

A little later I decided that it was time for me to go home.