I’ve never been a soccer fan, dating back to the games when my seven and and eight-year-old kids were playing. They had little interest in the game. But I’ve enjoyed an epiphany this week, marveling at Paraguay’s tenth shootout to defeat European power Germany, or the incredible drama of Cape Verde. Population 500,000, playing defending champion Argentina evenly for a hundred and ten minutes, losing in overtime to the team led by Lionel Messi, the Michael Jordan of soccer.
My grandson Kai has adopted his favorite team, Norway. I got hooked earlier by the Scottish fans during their stay in Boston when they charmed and miraculously outdrank the locals. Amid all this, however, a stigma. A US player, Folarin Balogun was suspended.
I don’t know enough to say whether that was justified or not, but those are the rules until Donald Trump and his disreputable commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, intervened with a corrupt head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, who undid the suspension. Now I’m still probably gonna cheer for the American team, but that’s cheating. And if that decision is upheld.
Any victory will have an asterisk. However, let’s not let several sleazy characters and actions undercut a fabulous World Cup. Go Norway.
It is absurd and embarrassing for the president to involve himself in such matters. You would think he has more important items to attend to. As for Mr. Shay’s comment about this being TDS, that is complete nonsense. I am hard pressed to think of any other recent president who would interject himself, inappropriately, in this way. But this is Trump, and as the great George Will has correctly stated, for Trump there is no bottom, he will always find a way to go lower, and sadly, if history is any guide, his supporters will utterly prostrate and debase themselves in defense of the indefensible. Such is the state of American politics, sadly.
Go Belgium. What a crock of shit