Tag: sports

It’s Just Different

You can see why the SEC really didn’t want that 9th intra-conference game.

Other than LSU clubbing the hollowed-out husk of a Clemson powerhouse and Auburn stumbling past a mediocre Baylor team, this is who the SEC beat in Week 1: Arkansas-Pine Bluff, UTEP, Tennessee State, Texas State, Missouri State, East Carolina, Furman, Kent State, Youngstown State, North Alabama, Austin Peay, Louisiana-Monroe and Florida Atlantic. Average margin of victory against those 13 opponents: 46.7 points.

East Carolina. I remember East Carolina. I ran track against them once. I always enjoyed their name. Anyhow, it’s been fascinating to see how the other conferences can suddenly keep pace with the SEC now that everyone is openly paying their players.

Big Ten looks less dominant than SEC out of the gate

I wonder why…

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The NFL and CTE

It’s not looking great for ex-football players:

A new study from The BMJ finds that at least 24.5 percent of all former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had CTE. Of the 878 who died during that period, at least 215 had CTE. Of the remaining 663, 643 of the players’ brains were not studied for the presence of CTE. Which means that the real percentage could be much higher.

It almost certainly is. A friend of mine married, and eventually divorced, a former college football player whose personality and behavior changed drastically over time. She suspects that he’s got CTE, but of course there is no way of knowing for sure until he dies. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out that more than half of the former NFL players had it.

It’s a violent game. And the players should be given every opportunity to know what they’re getting into.

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An Apology

Stephen A. Smith publicly apologized to Kyrie Irving yesterday.

“When it comes to Kyrie Irving, I can’t apologize strongly enough,” Smith said.

The ESPN star admitted he didn’t want to take the vaccine either but did because his job and livelihood could have been threatened. Athletes like Irving, Aaron Rodgers, and Novak Djokovic were ridiculed for refusing.

“I looked at it as being selfish,” Smith said on his show. “And I watched Dr. Fauci on Capitol Hill yesterday. And the person I thought about most was Kyrie Irving.”

Irving refused vaccination at the time and missed 53 games as a member of the Brooklyn Nets under New York City’s vaccine mandate. The Nets banned him for 35 home games before eventually allowing Irving to play on the road. Since Irving missed so many games, the Nets revoked an extension offer valued at over $100 million. Reports suggest that Irving missed out on $300k per game he sat out.

Smith then brought up his own battle with COVID-19 and shared that the virus nearly killed him. The ESPN personality was in the emergency room before New Year’s 2022 with double pneumonia. Smith not only flipped his opinion on Irving but also called him brave for his stance.

“It didn’t make him stubborn or selfish,” Smith said. “It made him brave. “It turns out that no matter what the truth is behind all of this, Kyrie Irving did nobody wrong. We did him wrong. I did him wrong. And for that, I’m sincerely sorry.”

There are a lot of people who are owed apologies. Not me, because I was fortunate in that my immediate family was 100 percent in accord with my absolute rejection of the vaxx and even my friends who got vaxxed were entirely respectful of my

But for all of you who suffered for your refusal to submit to the global psyop, go ahead and take a private mental victory lap. You have been vindicated. You were right all along. You did the right thing. And never again will you feel the same sort of social pressure on you, even when Clown World tries something similar again, because now you know that you not only can stand against it, but you must do so in order to show others that they can too.

And full credit to Stephen A. Smith for being brave enough to do what very, very few public figures are willing to do, and admit in front of everyone that he was wrong.

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The Revenge of Aaron Rodgers

Steelers’ fans have to love seeing this side of Aaron Rodgers come out on camera. The man hasn’t forgiven, he hasn’t forgotten, and he’s not afraid to take shots at Fauci aka “The Science”.

“Can you tell us about your mindset coming into your last season?” McAfee asked.

The ESPN personality couldn’t have guessed where the four-time NFL MVP was about to take this.

“I’m gonna plead the Fifth,” Rodgers said, as McAfee and the Steelers fans watching at training camp laughed in unison, “like that absolute coward Tony Fauci. Absolute coward. Are you kidding me? You get a pardon and you’re and you pleaded over 100 times at the White House? What are you scared of, Tony? I thought you were the science. ‘I am science,’ and you get up there and can’t answer a question? What are we doing?”

Rodgers is referencing an infamous remark by Fauci during a 2021 interview, where he defended his public health policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying “I am the science.”

Fauci pled the Fifth 111 times during a Senate hearing, on the advice of his attorneys, to answer questions from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. He was questioned over his response to the pandemic and his policy decisions, where the former White House COVID advisor was accused of funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.

Paul argued Fauci using the Fifth Amendment was unsupported because former President Joe Biden, whom Fauci advised during the pandemic, pardoned him. Paul said the committee will vote this week on a resolution to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.

“Spending the entire time writing in his diary about how fun it is to be famous. You gotta be kidding me,” Rodgers’ diatribe continued. “What are you going to say about me now? Seriously, what are they going to say about me now? Now, you can’t talk about the COVID stuff because obviously it was made in a lab in China. That’s like not even questionable anymore. Tony Fauci is an absolute criminal. It’s been a great life and a great career, and it’s nice to be sitting on this side now especially after that coward pled the Fifth over 100 times. I thought you had a pardon there, Tony. Why couldn’t you answer one question the entire time?”

But Rodgers wasn’t just airing out his grievances with Fauci, which he’s had many since the days of the pandemic. He pointed the finger directly at the network he was being interviewed on. No matter how McAfee and his supporting cast tried to get the conversation back on track, Rodgers took aim at ESPN, the sports network giant which airs “The Pat McAfee Show” daily.

Rodgers was vilified for his own 2021 COVID saga, where his “immunized” remark in August, months prior to testing positive for COVID-19 in November of that season, led to immediate backlash in the media.

“How much time did the network spend on that? How much time did they spend on my responses every week? On my vaccination status? On Taylor’s [Swift] and Travis’ [Kelce] wedding? Did they do even a minute on Tony Fauci? No, I bet they didn’t,” Rodgers said on Monday.

Rodgers even brought up the Dianna Russini scandal and the lack of coverage from ESPN with it. Russini, who worked for ESPN before joining The Athletic, was entrenched in a scandal as an inappropriate relationship with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel was exposed this offseason, ultimately leading to her exit from The Athletic and Vrabel leaving the Patriots during the NFL Draft to enter counseling.

There are a lot of people who would like to sweep their words and actions during the fake Covid crisis under the carpet. No one should permit them to do so. Rodgers clearly throws rhetorical bombs with the same degree of accuracy he throws the football.

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UEFA Rejects Privatization

UEFA and its 55 member associations stand as one. We unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors.

The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product. It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and supporters across every continent. No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.

It is both irresponsible and indefensible that a proposal of such significance for football was conceived in secret and brought to the brink of approval without any meaningful consultation with those entrusted with stewarding the game. This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdication of FIFA’s duty as the custodian of world football.

National associations around the world are now presented with an ultimatum: accept the irreversible capture of football’s greatest competitions or bear the consequences. This is not a “democratic decision”, but governance by intimidation – an act of coercion unworthy of an institution entrusted with the stewardship of the global game.

Europe’s position is clear. We will never lend this model our legitimacy. No one has the moral authority to sell what they merely hold in trust for the next generation.

As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will participate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership.

The proposal is absolutely absurd. FIFA is astonishingly corrupt, but this is hitting new heights of corruption. UEFA and the other Football Associations are correct to reject it completely.

In other international football news, the Milan family is in mourning. Riposa in pace.

The former Milan and Italy defender Franco Baresi, one of the most recognisable players of the ⁠golden era of Italian football in the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 66. “The entire history of ⁠AC Milan is in ⁠tears following the ​passing of Franco Baresi,” his former club said on Friday. “His example and integrity will be forever etched into the club’s DNA.”

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Che Cavalo!

In further confirmation that Italy remains Italian.

  • Paolo Maldini and Leonardo have resigned from their FIGC positions following disagreements regarding the selection of Italy’s new head coach
  • The duo’s tenure lasted just 16 days, having been officially appointed on July 11

I’m not going to lie. I was genuinely excited about the possibility of Maldini and Guardiola joining forces to return gli Azzurri to international prominence.

Efforts to name the next head coach encountered difficulties when Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola, both leading candidates, declined the opportunity. Andrea Pirlo emerged as a subsequent option; however, his candidacy was swiftly dismissed due to his role as a global brand ambassador for Russian betting company Fonbet. This connection posed both moral concerns and legal complications, since advertising gambling is outlawed in Italy. Reports indicate that Giovanni Malagò intervened to veto Pirlo’s appointment, despite opposition from Maldini and Leonardo. The ongoing disagreements on coach selection reportedly intensified strain within the leadership group.

(makes Italianate hand gestures)

Meanwhile, in France…

Zinedine Zidane Announced As France Men’s National Team Manager

This juxtaposition suffices to explain a disturbing amount of European history.

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The Thumb on the Scale

Come on boys, stay calm. Everyone stay calm. The principle, the main thing, let’s stay calm boys, stay calm, composure. Let’s just think about playing, stay calm. Let’s forget about everything, eh? Let’s just play, let’s just focus on playing, stay calm. Come on.

Those words from Messi show how it appears that he and the rest of the Argentina squad learned right before the game that the wind at their backs they’d been enjoying was going to be benefiting Spain. It also explains why they turned their backs on the trophy presentation ceremony; most of the squad are serious Catholics. Why? Well, as one man has demonstrated, it appears the game itself, indeed, the entire tournament, was a Clown World ritual that was set up more than two decades ago.

There is a lot more than that; the Economist cover is not proof of anything, but it is consistent with the theme, and, of course, we know that FIFA is wholly owned by Clown World, as is most of the so-called “entertainment” industry. And the humiliation ritual of Donald Trump at the end would also appear to have been staged as part of the whole act. Whatever was going on, it was almost certainly a little darker than WWE-style scripting.

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Spain 1, Argentina 0

Great game. Spain showed the weakness that I observed, being unable to punch it in despite a 65-35 edge in possession and a 12-0 edge in shots on target, but despite that, their midfield and defense almost entirely shut down the Argentine attack. Argentina threw in everything, up to and including the kitchen sink, but all of that plus Messi wasn’t enough to balance the Spanish dominance.

Spain should have scored at least one more goal, and I didn’t like the way they stopped pressing the last 10 minutes of extra time, but it did make the end of the game a little more exciting. But the better team deservedly won, and the fact that they only allowed 10 shots on target all tournament underlines that they were the best team of the entire tournament.

The scary thing is that most of this very young team will be back for the next World Cup, and if they can find a world-class striker somewhere in their developmental system, they can get even better.

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Argentina 2 Spain 1

That’s my prediction for tomorrow. I think Spain are, with one exception, the better team. And unlike England or Norway or even France, they are a very good team. But they lack firepower, and as much as I like Yamal and Nico Williams with their speed on the side, they haven’t had a very good tournament and I suspect Argentina’s street gang tactics will manage to disrupt them.

Argentina reminds me a lot of the 2001 Patriots. They have a spirit and a drive that appears to be only matched by FIFA’s desire to send Messi out with a second World Cup trophy. When every attention-seeking Instagram influencer who can find an Argentina jersey is dancing to RESPETENS LOS RANGOS and the team reacts to every foul on Messi like a rabid pack of outraged wolves, it’s pretty clear that something unusual is in the air.

The contrast between the total indifference of the Portuguese team to Ronaldo and the teary-eyed reverence of the Argentine players for their longtime captain isn’t merely striking, it’s significant. Football is a team sport. The more players are willing to run for each other, work for each other, and fight for each other, the higher the team’s ceiling becomes. Norway lost to England because Sorloth wasn’t willing to submit his striker’s instinct to keep the ball and score to the team’s need for him to pass to Halland, while there isn’t a single Argentine player who wouldn’t made that pass.

This Argentine team is one of the few that has definitely reached its ceiling. Whether that is enough to defeat an excellent Spanish team that is better almost man-for-man across the roster, and can put its own Ballon d’Or winning midfielder, Rodri, up against Messi, is what we will have to wait to see. I think the X-factor may be that Messi knows the Spanish players, and the system, as well as he knows anything in football. He is a Barcelona legend, after all, so he knows everything about the entire Spanish roster.

The king winning one last crown, then riding off into the sunset is the fairy tale ending. Logic and data analysis tells us that Spain should win this game. And yet, I somehow don’t think they will.

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The Postmortem

Reading the English media and social media vs the rest of world media and social media is absolutely surreal today. If you have an Instagram account, I HIGHLY recommend a scroll-through.

England:

  • IT’S THOMAS TUCHEL’S FAULT! We did NOT bring him in to do what Southgate would have done with a 1-0 lead!
  • We were totally in control of the game until we scored. Why did the manager leash our Brave Lions?
  • The first Argentine goal-scorer should have gotten a red card in the first three minutes of the game.
  • Pickford should have saved that first goal.

Everyone else

  • MESSI IS FOOTBALL!
  • It’s Jude Bellingham’s fault. Why did he pick a fight with Lionel Messi? What did he think would happen?
  • How did Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, and Eliot Anderson not get yellow cards for their violent fouls on Messi?
  • Pickford was amazing in saving two certain goals.

I just find the contrast intriguing. Especially since it tends to show how it should not be surprising that the English players would have a tendency to go conservative and play negative. Here’s one observation that I’ve only seen once, but I think may be particularly perspicacious: Tuchel was tell his players to keep pushing forward, but they wouldn’t do it after they had the lead. So his defensive substitution wasn’t his tactical plan, it was an attempt to structurally defend what he observed was the shift in the players’ collective mentality.

Also, while Bellingham is a great player, he’s a hothead and more than a bit of a stupid prick. So the fact that he was dumb enough to follow in the footsteps of those who angered Michael Jordan and Steve Smith and inspired them to new heights in big games shouldn’t be a massive surprise.

Jude Bellingham was caught slapping rival Argentinian player Valentin Barco in feisty full-time scenes following England’s World Cup capitulation in Atlanta. Bellingham aimed a slap at the back of the head of Strasbourg star Barco, who did not even play in the match, in the aftermath of the Three Lions’ late collapse and 2-1 defeat.

UPDATE: Everyone blaming Tuchel for parking the bus is ignoring the timeline.

England were on the precipice of their first World Cup final in 60 years after taking the lead in the 55th minute through Anthony Gordon, but Tuchel opted to park the bus rather than try for a second goal. The German moved to play five at the back, with Gordon coming off for Ezri Konsa in the 72nd minute. Declan Rice and Reece James then made way for Dan Burn and Nico O’Reilly 10 minutes later.

The change they’re all blaming was 17 minutes later. Which is why I suspect that the fault for switching to a defensive mindset lay more with the England players than with the manager. If you’re urging your players to keep attacking, but they’re falling back despite your instructions, then reinforcing your defense is the correct decision whether it works out in the end or not.

After the match, Tuchel insisted he had ‘no regrets’ about his tactical decisions, arguing that the problems began before any of his changes were made.

What he probably needed to do to give England its very best chance to win was take off Harry Kane and whichever midfielder had shifted to a defensive mindset, but imagine how his critics would be howling for his head if he’d done that with a 1-0 lead and it didn’t work out! Tuchel hasn’t criticized any of the players, but he has said that he has no regrets about his changes, so I’m reasonably confident that this is the correct explanation for what so many people have found puzzling.

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