Tag: sports

They Think They Don’t Like it NOW

British football fans are upset that the Islamic Kingdom of Qatar is not going to permit them to drink beer in the stadiums of the World Cup matches.

Fifa has banned the sale of alcohol at Qatar World Cup stadiums just 48 hours before the tournament starts with sponsor Budweiser trying to make light of the news. The beer brand’s Twitter feed posted ‘well, this is awkward…’ moments before Fifa confirmed that alcohol sales will be confined to special ‘fan zones’ where pints cost £12, are only available at certain times, and are limited to four per person.

Plans had called for alcohol to be sold on stadium concourses, but this will now not happen – reportedly after pressure from Qatar’s all-powerful royal family. Alcohol will be available as normal in licenced hotels and restaurants… It is just the latest controversy to plague an already fraught World Cup – the first to be held in a Muslim nation – which has thrown football’s governing ethos and traditional trappings into conflict with the hosts’ conservative interpretation of Islam.

Just wait until the Muslims who rule London and other formerly English cities begin banning alchohol in those areas.

I find it extraordinary how people who obviously recognize that American Indians no longer make the laws or define the social mores in the United States and celebrate the fact that Arabs no longer make the laws or define the social mores in Israel, continually fail to grasp that their laws and their social mores are not going to survive the mass immigration into their countries.

No beer and no homosexuality? Whatever is anyone going to do for fun around over there?

As I contemplate the plight of the poor gay peasants over a glass of nice Spanish Tempernillo, a single tear traces its way down my face.

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A Satisfying End

So, the first half of the soccer season is over. Ten games, eight wins, and two goals by yours truly. Despite being the oldest player on the team, I started all ten games, and even played four complete ones. Due to our attackers being very strong and the defender behind me usually being somewhat on the slower side, I spent most of my time shoring up the defense rather than getting forward, but I think the results speak for themselves.

I’m not bothered by the relative lack of goals. I know I can still score – I had four out of eleven in the final practice – but that’s not what my role on the team presently requires. The wing’s primary responsibility is to a) get the ball to the attackers in a scoring position, b) shore up the defense, and c) link the defense with the offense. But since The Magician can score from literally anywhere on the opponent’s side of the field – the center circle, the left corner, the right corner, it simply doesn’t matter – and three of our four attackers are serious threats to break past the defense and score at any time, it’s much more important to make sure that my side – usually the right – isn’t overrun on the counterattack.

We weren’t completely impermeable, but we only allowed two goals down our side in the ten games, both by Red/Black, the top team in the league, in their 6-3 win over us. We should have won our other loss, a freak 2-1 defeat which featured an uncharacteristic keeper’s error and a needless penalty, but we bounced back very strong in the final game with a dominating 4-1 victory over the defending champions.

So, now it’s time to heal up, keep stretching, and get back to the weights and the high-intensity circuits in preparation for the spring!

It was also great to see Ender get his first goal in the field, a beautiful, deliberate shot from 20 meters, just outside the box, following a nice cross from the other wing. His team started the first half of the season poorly, but they finished strong to finish the first half in fourth place.

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Excellence + Time = Greatness

The NFL may, or may not, be irretrievably gay and converged, but the greatness of Bill Belichik cannot be denied:

The Patriots defeated the Browns 38-15 on Sunday, with New England having little trouble against the the team that Bill Belichick led as head coach from 1991-1995.

In many ways, that makes the milestone Belichick reached with the win that much more poetic. With his 324th victory — regular and postseason — Belichick tied George Halas at No. 2 for most wins all time by a head coach.

Belichick recorded 37 of his victories with Cleveland, the first of which coincidentally came over New England in 1991. The other 317 have come with New England since 2000.

Don Shula is No. 1 on the all-time list with 347.

I don’t think there is any question that he is the greatest football coach in history. And those seeking excellence in their own fields can learn a lot from the man and his singular focus on excelling in his chosen profession.

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Graceful to the End

Roger Federer announces his retirement:

To my tennis family and beyond, of all the gifts that tennis has given me over the years, the greatest, without a doubt, has been the people I’ve met along the way: my friends, my competitors, and most of all the fans who give the sport its life.

Today, I want to share some news with all of you. As many of you know, the past three years have presented me with challenges in the form of injuries and surgeries.

I’ve worked hard to return to full competitive form. But I also know my body’s capacity and limits, and its message to me lately has been clear.

I am 41 years old. I have played more than 1,500 matches over 24 years. Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamt, and now I must recognise when it is time to end my competitive career.

Always know when it’s time to go. Even greatness must eventually bow before Father Time.

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The Perfect Convergence

This account is not permitted to watch the NFL.

As the football-watching worlds watches and waits for news as to where it will be watching Sunday Ticket in 2023, a new contender for the package has emerged. According to the New York Times, Google has made a bid for the out-of-market service. The games would be streamed through YouTube, which is owned by Google.

It would be HILARIOUS if Google acquired the rights to the Sunday Ticket. It wouldn’t be long before the audience would be cut in half, not because people were turning off the NFL, but because Google was thought-policing the audience and banning everyone whose political and religious views offended them.

No NFL for you!

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Easy to Miss

I really thought it was going to be difficult to stop following the NFL when I first decided to drop my NFL GamePass two years ago. As it happens, they made it much, much easier to not pay any attention to the sport than I, a lifelong fan from the age of 5, could have ever possibly imagined.

Literally gay thought policing just isn’t something in which I have any interest.

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15 Tennis Players Withdraw

The Miami Open is hit by an astonishing number of player withdrawals during the tournament:

Fifteen players have already dropped out of the Miami Open, an unprecedented number for a major sports event.

The tennis world reacted with shock after favorites Paula Badosa and Jannik Sinner had to retire during the quarterfinals of the Miami Open. Badosa, soon to be the number three in the world, became unwell during her match against Jessica Pegula and left the court in tears.

Badosa, who was comforted by her American opponent, decided to stop after consultation with her physiotherapist. Pegula reached the semifinals of the Miami tennis tournament for the first time in her career after Badosa’s resignation, reported Yahoo Sports.

In the men’s tournament, the Italian phenomenon Jannik Sinner was forced to withdraw. He gave up after 22 minutes in the game against Francisco Cerundolo, the number 103 in the world ranking. “When I served at 3-1 and 30-0, I saw him bend over. It was very strange,” Cerundolo said during an interview. “I hope he’s okay, he’s a great player.”

Whatever could be the cause? We don’t KNOW it’s the vaxx… but it’s the vaxx.

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We Don’t Know it’s the Vaxx

But it’s the vaxx. RIP Shane Warne.

Australian cricket hero and legendary leg-spinner, Shane Warne, has died, aged 52.

Warne’s management released a brief statement in the early hours of Saturday, that he passed away in Thailand of a suspected heart attack. He is believed to have been in Ko Samui at the time of his death.

‘Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived,’ the statement reads.

To put it in perspective for American readers, Warne’s death is the Anglo-Australian equivalent of Kobe Bryant’s death. But his position on requiring the vaxx certainly hasn’t aged well.

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Diversity Time Bombs

One danger of hiring Diversity Officers that has hitherto been ignored is the way their customary posture-and-lament routine places their employers at serious legal risk due to the way their rhetorical posturing will be interpreted as damning legal evidence of structural bias within the organization.

The civil lawsuit filed by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores includes this damning quote at paragraph 7 from Troy Vincent, the NFL’s longtime executive V.P. of football operations: “There is a double standard, and we’ve seen that . . . And you talk about the appetite for what’s acceptable. Let’s just go back to . . . Coach [Tony] Dungy was let go in Tampa Bay after a winning season. . . Coach [Steve] Wilks, just a few years prior, was let go after one year . . . Coach [Jim] Caldwell was fired after a winning season in Detroit . . . It is part of the larger challenges that we have. But when you just look over time, it’s over-indexing for men of color. These men have been fired after a winning season. How do you explain that? There is a double standard. I don’t think that that is something that we should shy away from. But that is all part of some of the things that we need to fix in the system. We want to hold everyone to why does one, let’s say, get the benefit of the doubt to be able to build or take bumps and bruises in this process of getting a franchise turned around when others are not afforded that latitude? . . . [W]e’ve seen that in history at the [professional] level.”

Paragraph 8 attributes this quote to NFL senior V.P. and chief diversity & inclusion officer Jonathan Beane: “Any criticism we get for lack of representation at the GM and head coach positions, we deserve. We see that we’re not where we want to be. We have to do much better. We’re focusing on all roles at the league, and all these roles are key roles . . . But certainly at the top of the house, general manager and head coach, that’s the responsibility of the NFL to make sure that we are representing our current fan base and we’re representing those that are in the league today. And if you look at it right now, we’re grossly underrepresented.”

Shed no tears for the NFL. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving organization; the NFL absolutely deserves to suffer for its embrace of its own convergence. But it is a salient lesson in the foolishness of permitting activists inside one’s organization, and the intrinsic danger of permitting even seemingly harmless token gestures in the direction of diversity, inclusion, and equality.

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