Closing credits (2018)

A rainy New Year’s Eve. Still, 2018 ends with more warmth than 2017 did.

This is my 120th entry of the year. I’ve written ten entries each month.

For providing material to discuss, I again thank Karin, Jasper, and Ziva; my tutees; my blood relations; and Brianna and other in-laws.

Additionally, this year, I acknowledge:

The poets.

Boca Juniors and River Plate.

The Mormons, who, until mid-October, were very friendly to Karin & me. They must have then given up trying to convert us.

Brett Kavanaugh.

My dissertation adviser for – so far – allowing various prolongments.

The St. Joseph River for declining to flood our apartment complex.

The city of Austin.

Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö for authoring the Martin Beck mysteries.

Aimee-Ffion Edwards for acting in four of the best screenworks I viewed this year:

• Skins (a lewd TV soap opera about Bristol’s teens; not for the faint of heart);
• Detectorists (a gentle sitcom – featuring the excellent Toby Jones – about rural, amateur metal detectorists; quite suitable for the faint of heart);
• Luther (a quasi-fantastical crime show starring Idris Elba; for the great of heart); and
• Queen & Country (the long-overdue, surprisingly un-cynical, cinematic continuation of John Boorman’s Hope and Glory).

I also thank the moviemakers of 1996.

And I thank our new church, which welcomed Karin & me during a rather turbulent period. We watched over the two- and three-year-olds during many services. Starting in the spring, we also wrote, printed out, and folded each week’s bulletin. (Mercifully, that task will soon be performed by a new secretary.) The most rewarding event each week was the adults’ Sunday School class. For authoring that class’s discussion guides, I heartily thank the late John Stott.

Finally: thanks to everyone who offered money and prayers on our behalf. Please pray for me to complete my degree soon. Karin & I long to get out of this rut in which we’ve been living.

La final del mundo, pt. 3

Today in Madrid, Boca Juniors and River Plate finished playing the Copa Libertadores. I watched the game with Stephen, on Telemundo.

It was a great contest. The two teams scored four golazos.

These were some of the highlights.

La final del mundo, pt. 2

Today, CONMEBOL ruled that the game between Boca Juniors and River Plate should be played on December 8 or 9 – and not in Argentina.

And so, one year early, CONMEBOL is achieving its goal of staging the Copa Libertadores final in a neutral venue.

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It’s now publicly established that Boca’s president has been lobbying for River to be disqualified and for the title to be awarded to Boca by default.

In response, River’s president has expressed shock at this betrayal.

So much for collegiality.

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Of course, a few years ago, Boca was disqualified from the Copa Libertadores because its fans misbehaved against River. But on that occasion, the misbehavior occurred (1) during an earlier round rather than during the final, and (2) inside Boca’s stadium rather than on a public highway.

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I, personally, would welcome River’s disqualification.

Not as eye-for-an-eye retribution. The earlier incident and this year’s are too dissimilar.

And not as a deterrent against future fan violence, either. It’s doubtful whether previous deterrent measures in Argentina have been very effective.

No, in this case, I think the expressivist or reprobative justification of punishment holds the greatest promise. The punishment would be justifiable as an expression of society’s disapproval of the fans’ misdeeds.

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This theory of punishment also would be compatible with the imposition of some lesser (but still significant) penalty against River. For example, River’s home game might be played in an empty stadium.

I don’t think that staging the game in front of spectators in a neutral stadium would adequately express reprobation, however.

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Update, Thursday: CONMEBOL has decided that the game will be played on December 9 – in Madrid.

Madrid.

MADRID.

Madrid, Spain. The one in Europe.

First, CONMEBOL plotted to remove South America’s nations tournament (the Copa América) from South America, and now it’s doing the same thing with South America’s main club tournament.

Stephen says: “The Copa LIBERTADORES final will be in … Spain?”

(Shakes head.)

“Back to the colonizadores.”

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Update, Friday: River Plate and Boca Juniors have both rejected CONMEBOL’s ruling.

River will appeal its stadium ban. The current ruling moves this year’s final game away from River’s stadium. It also bans the stadium from hosting spectators during its next two CONMEBOL tournament games.

I’m not sure to whom River will direct its appeal – perhaps to the dreaded Tribunal arbitral du sport (TAS).

Boca has announced that it plans to appeal to the TAS after its initial appeal to CONMEBOL is rejected. Boca will argue that River should be expulsed from this year’s Copa Libertadores.

My previous discussion of this case was philosophic and casuistic. Boca, helpfully, has now communicated which of CONMEBOL’s disciplinary regulations it will cite in its appeal.

I think that much will hinge upon article 8.2:

Las Asociaciones Miembro y clubes son responsables de la seguridad y del orden tanto en el interior como en las inmediaciones del estadio, antes, durante y después del partido del cual sean anfitriones u organizadores. Esta responsabilidad se extiende a todos los incidentes que de cualquier naturaleza pudieran suceder, encontrándose por ello expuestos a la imposición de las sanciones disciplinarias y cumplimiento de las órdenes e instrucciones que pudieran adoptarse por los órganos judiciales.

[Translation, with key phrases italicized:] Member associations and clubs are responsible for security and order – inside and in the immediate vicinity of the stadium – before, during, and after the game which they host or organize. This responsibility extends itself to all incidents that might occur, of whatever nature. Member associations and clubs thereby find themselves exposed to the imposition of disciplinary sanctions and to compliance with the orders and instructions adopted by judicial organs.

Why does this rule refer to “member associations?” In this case, the pertinent association is the Argentine Football Association (AFA). Should the rule be interpreted as implying that the AFA and River are jointly responsible for what occurred? Probably not. The rule probably means that member associations are responsible for the security and order of the games that they host that don’t involve club teams.

More contentious will be what counts as the “immediate vicinity” of the stadium. The expression is vague. Over how many streets did River’s responsibility extend? Did the misbehavior occur inside or outside the club’s geographic area of responsibility? These questions reinvite casuistic interpretation, which isn’t especially likely to favor Boca, since, in the earlier case in which Boca was disqualified and River benefited, the misdeeds were performed inside the stadium.

The same interpretive problem arises with respect to article 13.2.f, which refers to “the stadium and its surroundings.”

Article 18.1 details the various penalties that may be imposed. However, it leaves the choice of penalty up to CONMEBOL. Here, too, Boca must make a casuistic argument for the imposition of a severe penalty. And in fact, in the last paragraph of its communiqué, Boca does insist that CONMEBOL’s rules should “be applied to all clubs equally.” Presumably, the club has in mind the ruling that was brought against it a few years ago which disqualified it from that edition of the Copa Libertadores.

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No matter how the dispute between the clubs should turn out, it’s sad that they aren’t uniting to protest the tourney’s removal to Spain, though they both oppose it.

La final del mundo

Today, I went to Stephen’s apartment to watch the last game of the Copa Libertadores – which, this year, is called “La final del mundo” by the Argentinian press, since the participants are the two most popular Argentinian clubs, River Plate and Boca Juniors. Stephen & Edoarda arrived at the apartment exactly when I did, just before the scheduled kickoff time. They’d rushed over from Chicago, into which they’d flown from Austin, where they’d spent Thanksgiving.

Well, they needn’t have hurried. Like the previous game, this one was postponed. Some fans of River Plate had thrown rocks at Boca Juniors’s team bus, breaking a window. Allegedly, the glass had cut one of Boca’s players in the eye, and his injury had been aggravated by teargas that the police had discharged.

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And so we watched for two and half hours while the Argentinian broadcasters speculated whether the game would be played today or postponed until tomorrow.

The fans remained inside the stadium.

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The air was thick with rumor. At first, Boca’s players were said to be eating steak sandwiches in their locker room, which suggested that they didn’t expect to play.

But then the kickoff was rescheduled for a slightly later hour. Fernando Gago and Carlos Tévez – Boca’s two most famous players – came out of the locker room to plead for a longer postponement.

The clubs’ presidents were said to be holding meetings with the presidents of FIFA and CONMEBOL (the South American footballing confederation). If they intended to postpone the game until the next day, why were they waiting so long to do so? Why were they allowing the fans to continue suffering inside the stadium?

Was Boca’s president urging River’s disqualification? Was he holding out for some lesser penalty, at least, such as a ban against River’s spectators?

It was suggested that the Boca player’s injury was less severe than the team was claiming. Yes, he’d been transferred to a clinic; yes, photos had been released of him wearing a gigantic bandage over one eye. Still, it was possible that he was feigning, as other players notoriously had done.

Moreover – and what was considered to be most ominous – CONMEBOL’s officiating doctor had refused to confirm the severity of the injury. (It was noted, however, that this doctor wasn’t an ophthalmologist.)

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Finally, the presidents agreed to hold the game the next afternoon. The fans left the stadium.

The president of CONMEBOL praised the collegiality of the two club presidents. He disavowed knowledge of the injured player’s precise medical state.

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It must be said that the main beneficiary of this scandal is CONMEBOL, which hopes to move the tourney’s final round away from the participants’ home stadiums and into neutral cities that would submit hosting bids.

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Update, Sunday: The game has been postponed again. The presidents are to meet on Tuesday, at CONMEBOL’s headquarters in Paraguay, to negotiate further.

Ubaldo Aquino

… has received his dream assignment.

A Paraguayan referee, Aquino oversaw many high-profile South American contests in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1999, I watched him give out two penalty kicks and two red cards in the final game of the Copa Libertadores, as well as five penalty kicks in a single Copa América game.

All these years later, he’s in charge of the video refereeing system (VAR) for the final round of the Copa Libertadores.

Stephen and I watched the first leg today. (It was postponed from yesterday because of heavy rain in Buenos Aires.) Boca Juniors and River Plate drew 2–2 in the Bombonera. There were no expulsions or penalty kicks. One player tumbled in the box and drew the “VAR” sign in the air with his hands, but Aquino withheld his counsel, and the field referee gave the player a yellow card.

The concluding leg will be played two weekends from now in River Plate’s stadium.

India

I had to buy a certain cheap-looking DVD for the high school Social Studies Dept. The back cover says:

Discover the enchanting and vibrant land of India and its people. INDIA – ONE COUNTRY, A MILLION WORLDS lets you explore ancient civilizations, phenomenal architecture and brings you up-close to India’s dynamic and diverse culture. Learn of India’s past and present, including Mahatma Ghandi’s struggle for India’s freedom and present day city life including customs and religious ceremonies. Everything from India’s geography and climate to present political formation is all here in INDIA – ONE COUNTRY, A MILLION WORLDS.
Running Time: 24 Minutes.

My Juan Bosch paper, which was due last Sunday, is nearly, but not completely, written. (I have excuses, but surely no one wants to hear them.) The teacher is breathing down my neck just a little. My loved ones are breathing down it quite a lot more. I want to curl up in a dark, small room so that I can watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in peace.

I do allow myself to check the soccer scores. Leicester City have won the English Premier League title, shocking the world. Atlético de Madrid have eliminated Bayern Munich from the Champions League. Independiente del Valle have eliminated River Plate from the Copa Libertadores.

Rumor has it, David has arrived from Houston, two weeks before the wedding.

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.

National unity

Aftershocks, 6.0 on the Richter Scale, several days following the first quake.

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Solidarity among Ecuadorians, regarding the Copa Libertadores. Emelec are out; Liga de Quito are out; only Independiente del Valle remain to play the eighthfinals. Their opponents will be River Plate.

The home leg will be held on Thursday in the Estadio Atahualpa (the Rumiñahui, Independiente’s usual venue, seats just 8,000). Entrance fees: $5, $10, or $20. All proceeds, to the quake victims.

Non-Independiente fans are welcome.

“Come with the Ecuador shirt,” announces Independiente’s president. “Or come with the shirt of your own team.”

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In the U.S., the good news is, Andrew Jackson is getting banished from the $20 bill. His replacement will be Harriet Tubman.

What image will be used? Maybe one of these. Probably not this one –

– though these freedom lovers make a fine point:

Who would have thought that after more than a year of debate, speculation, and politically correct public demand, America would learn that a God-loving, gun-toting Republican woman would earn a spot on our nation’s currency?

Yes, this change is something that even Republicans can believe in. E pluribus unum. There is an overlapping consensus on the honoring of Harriet Tubman.