kevin_standlee | Entries tagged with world cup

I had trouble getting out of bed this morning, mainly due to getting to bed pretty late last night. I suppose I should think of it as practice for next weekend, except for the being-able-to-sleep-in part.

After breakfast, I settled in to watch the USA-Ghana World Cup quarter-final, which alas the US lost. The USA seems in this tournament to spend most of the match playing from behind, either by giving up an early goal or by chasing a needed goal in the case of the third preliminary-round game, and there are only so many times that Landon Donovan could save the USA's bacon. So the USA loses and the rest of the world rejoices in our defeat, while once again a bunch of Americans say, "Soccer isn't a real sport anyway" and go chow down on sour grapes.

As the USA was being defeated, I signed in to act as an associate producer on the live coverage of the Locus Awards in Seattle. My job was mostly to moderate viewer comments and keep the stuff in the background flowing while the hosts provided commentary and led the discussion. I was happy to do this.

This afternoon I popped out to do a small bit of grocery shopping -- I don't need much because I'm leaving for Pasadena on Tuesday afternoon after Lisa meets me at my office in San Mateo -- and bought new slacks to replace the once in which I wore holes while up in Oregon. I also put on Flickr Photos of Tonopah Lisa took during her sojourn there that inspired the Tonopah in 2012 Westercon Bid. If time permits, I plan to create a slide show from these photos that we'll be able to run during our bid party and maybe at the bid table.

I also need to get the boxes of Match Game material packed, which means picking and choosing what goes and what stays. The van is apt to be very full on this trip.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Fremont, California

Today has dawned with a brilliant blue sky and bright sun. But there's still a whole lot of moisture in the air, and since so much of what we need to do involves the grass and stuff covered with dew, Lisa said we'll wait until this afternoon when things have dried out a bit before we get to work. The days are nice and long, which gives us plenty of time to cut brush and saw fallen branches into pieces small enough to put into the wood shed or dump in the "coal seam" disposal ditch.

Another project is installing a new piece of hardware that Lisa had us purchase yesterday: an oversize exhaust fan that fits over the top of the existing roof exhaust fan on the trailer. This will solve a number of issues with ventilation. The existing built-in fan doesn't have the air-moving capacity we want, and when you open the existing vent when it's raining, sometimes the rain blows in. This new vent has a more powerful fan and a sloped design that should keep out the rain. And yes, there are times that you want to run the exhaust fans even when it's raining, especially when we're cooking.

Meanwhile, it looks like I'll have enough time to watch the USA-England World Cup match this morning before we go to work this afternoon.

Update, 12:30: Rats! It turns out that the fan won't fit on the roof unless we were to remove the luggage rack, which would leave holes in the roof. Oh, well, we should be able to return it for a refund. A pity, though; it would have been nice to be able to vent the place more quickly.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: Mehama, Oregon

And so another World Cup comes to an end. I had no dog in this fight, having no ethnic background from either France or Italy. (Well, "Standlee" and "Reynolds," my paternal and maternal family names, are probably both Norman French, but I don't identify with the French ethnically. To the best of my knowledge -- my family history gets cloudy prior to the American Civil War -- I'm Anglo-German-Cherokee.) The first half was pretty good, but the second got dull, and overtime was painful as both teams were clearly out of gas. And but for a mis-hit penalty, we might have seen sudden death go to sudden death, as the keepers stopped none of the attempts.

It's a shame that the Zidane ended his career on such a classless note. As soon as I saw the replay of him head-butting the Italian player, I said, "If any of the officials saw that, it's got to be a red card!" And it was, no doubt about it. Even if the Italian player was taunting him, Zidane made a terrible mistake. He had an opportunity to end his career like Beckenbauer, and instead wasn't even on the pitch when his teammates collected their second-place medals.

More encouraging was the show of good sportsmanship between the two teams' goalkeepers before the penalty kicks began. Also, I think the match overall (unlike most of this World Cup) was officiated excellently, with the players being allowed to play and to decide the game on the pitch. You hate to see a World Cup decided by penalties, but this one was so equal that it was possibly inevitable.

Current Mood: sick

Oh, no, not "sick" as in "never want to attend one again," but "sick" as in "I seem to get ill almost every time I attend one." I thought I'd managed to avoid it this time. I washed my hands regularly. I drank a lot of water. I even got nearly enough sleep. All this seems to have done was postponed the inevitable, as I woke up this morning with the beginning of a cold, and as I sat here watching the World Cup 3rd-place game, I could feel the cold getting its hooks into me. I guess it just took a few days for the bug to incubate.

It's a good thing this is my "off" week. Oh, I have some work to do from my mundane job -- mainly to make my life easier next week, and because for a change they gave me enough notice of the task that I can get it done somewhat at my leisure rather than with someone breathing down my neck looking for an answer immediately -- but I don't have to go anywhere (other than to get some groceries) or do much of anything on a set schedule. I probably should write up the Westercon Business Meeting minutes, however. I sort of wish I'd done it during the convention, but Lisa got very unhappy about me spending so much time over the computer during a convention; however, the longer I wait, the harder the job will be.

I enjoyed that 3rd-place game. With much less on the line, the teams actually got out there and played rather than sitting back and playing nothing but defense and banking on a penalty-kick shootout. Bad luck to Portugal to score an own-goal -- without that the last few minutes would have been even more exciting when Portugal scored their first goal. The home-team crowd were happy, although they of course would have been happier if their boys had been in tomorrow's game instead.

My predictions made a few days ago obviously got shot to pieces. Shows you how much I know about soccer.

Current Mood: sick

I am working from home again today (and it's legitimate, for reasons discussed in a friend-locked post), so once again I get to see (sort of; it's on in the background while I hunch over the computer responding to analysis requests) World Cup matches. This morning it was Cinderella team Ghana against Brazil. While Ghana seemed to actually play better than Brazil, especially in the first half, Ghana had to try a risky strategy and ended up losing 3-0.

I take some cold comfort in knowing that even if the USA had managed to beat Ghana in group play, they would have taken Ghana's spot in the round of sixteen and run into Brazil, and that almost certainly would have been that for the USA anyway.

It still was a great tournament for Ghana.

The last round-of-sixteen match is being played today. My "brackets" for the remainder of the tournament are:

Quarterfinals:

Germany - Argentina: Germany in a very rough and tumble match

Italy - Ukraine: Italy, probably on penalties after 0-0, with both teams down at least one man

England - Portugal: Portugal, but England could surprise me

Brazil - Winner of France-Spain: Brazil, probably without much difficulty

Semifinals:

Germany - Italy: Germany

Portugal - Brazil: Brazil

Finals:

Germany - Brazil: Very tough call, but I'll guess that Germany's home-pitch advantage is just enough to overcome Brazil

Now in a few days you can all come back and laugh at me.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: Spain vs. France

(Because they "Dive, Dive, Dive!")

Australia was robbed. While there was no assurance of an Australian victory in extra time (or penalty kicks, should it have gone that far), that was an unjustified PK that decided the game in stoppage time. The Italians have learned the lesson that FIFA have been teaching people by ordering the referees to be so over-sensitive: dive like your lives depend upon it.

I am generally sympathetic to referees, having been an AYSO referee in my teens. (I played for a league-winning team, too, albeit no thanks to me.) But referees have gone overboard in this World Cup, and the players are playing to the referees. That "foul" that let the Italians win should have been a yellow card, all right -- to the Italian player who "sold" it.

Current Mood: infuriated

Before the workload roof caved in on me (I'll write about that separately later), I got to watch the USA's final game in this year's World Cup this morning. Things have been too busy for me to comment on the results until now. While I think the referee was wrong on calling that penalty kick, it wouldn't have mattered that much, as the USA had to win the game, not draw. I'm very disappointed in the USA team, which was supposed to be better than that. Congratulations to Ghana for coming in as the assumed doormat of the group and instead moving on, while the #2-ranked Czechs also go home. (I don't see Ghana getting past Brazil, though.)

Current Mood: disappointed

Because we needed to get over to the Seaside Convention Center (about 50 meters from the hotel) this morning, I only saw the first part of the Ghana-Czech Republic match this morning, but I saw Ghana score the first goal. Lisa was bemused by me whooping and hollering over it. I was even more excited when we came back just before noon and I saw that Ghana had won that match against the powerhouse team that was supposed to sweep the group. Instead, the door was left wide open.

Then game USA-Italy. Best result for the USA would be a win, of course, and they showed a lot more aggressiveness than they had in the game against the Czechs a few days ago. However, they still haven't managed to score a goal, even though they pulled off a 1-1 draw, thanks to an Italy own-goal. The story of the match appears to be the referee, however, and that's never a good thing. (I speak here as a former soccer player and referee when I was in high school.) The Italy player sending-off on a direct red looked reasonable. He threw an elbow into the American player and drew a fair bit of blood. The first USA sending-off (a direct red) was not reasonable IMO; it should have been a yellow. The second sending off (a second yellow) also not reasonable; it was not even cardable, although it was a foul.

That the USA was able to mount a credible offense at all playing 9-on-10 says to me that the USA is improving, but will it be enough in time?

While the USA wanted to beat Italy today, now we're their biggest fans, as we need them to beat the Czechs while the USA must beat Ghana in the final pool match. We don't want to have goal differential (USA is -3) have to decide the group. But the USA still has a chance. They just have to get out there and win.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Seaside, Oregon
Current Music: 147.540 MHz

Italy and Ghana did not oblige the USA by playing to a draw, which puts the Americans in an even deeper hole going into their second match. It's not impossible -- Turkey lost their first match in the last World Cup and came back to eventually finish third in the tournament -- but it's not going to be easy.

A promised pile of work did not materialize today, so I went out for a walk around Quarry Lake Park, which I had pretty much to myself, except for the birds, rabbits, squirrels, and fence lizards (lots of those -- dozens of them basking on the rocks). I took my radio with me and listened to sports-talk radio. While at least one of the hosts was talking about how the Sweden-Trinidad & Tobago match sort of reeled him in, some of the others continue to have this condescending attitude toward the game that everyone else in the world calls Football. The fascination with it apparently completely mystifies most Americans. The KNBR guys were talking to a US sports reporter in Germany, who summed up the US attitude by saying, "I don't plan to stick around after the US is knocked out, which doesn't look like long now." As usual, the American attitude is that any sport that we don't dominate must not be very important, and is something played by People Who Talk Funny. Sigh.

Current Mood: depressed

Especially after the remarkable come-from-behind victory of Australia over Japan in the early game (congrats to the Socceroos), I thought the USA might be able to break the dismal record they have when the opponents first score against them (0-13-1), but it was not to be, and worse, the Czech Republic got extra goals for that likely-to-be-crucial goal differential tie-breaker as they won 3-0. The USA did not look good, with one good shot that hit the post and a couple of decent scoring opportunities, but otherwise they looked tired and listless. I hope that USA coach Bruce Arena is able to find a combination that will come out and shine against Italy next Saturday. Now I'm rooting for a draw between Ghana and Italy, although it doesn't seem likely.

Current Mood: disappointed

I did indeed manage to get up before 6 AM in order to watch the England-Paraguay match. Using Skype,

cherylmorgan and I watched the match "together" even though she's in the UK right now. There was a time-travel oddity, though: presumably because of something in the way she got the signal on the BBC internet feed, her view of the match was around 15-20 seconds later than mine. That meant that if I saw a big play, I'd react to it before she'd even seen it.

Now I have to run, as Dave Gallaher is waiting at the gate to take us both to the NZ Maori-Ireland A rugby match.