Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Futbol!

This post will mean little to those of you who do not like/watch soccer. I watched the US play Panama last Sunday in the Gold Cup final. The Panamanians did very well - tying the US and eventually losing in penalty kicks. A few thoughts/observations:
  • Whenever the US played a Latin American team in the US, for it to be a "home" game they would have to play in some obscure place (like Columbus, Ohio - sorry Elenamary) or else it would really be an away game. If it were played in Miami, LA, or NY, there would be more fans cheering the Latin American team. There are probably two reasons for this:
  1. There is an unwritten rule in Latin America - root for your national team first and then for any other Latin American team.
  2. Given that the US seems to dominate almost everything in sports and otherwise, it was good to see them humbled on the soccer field.
  • In Sunday's game, however, which was played in NY, there were many L/H/H cheering for the US. This was something new. Are L/H/H finally transitioning from immigrants to Americans? Do they feel that the US is their home and worth supporting?
  • Soccer tournaments use the penalty kicks to decide the winner should the final game end in a tie. I hate seeing this. My solution - if no one wins the game, then declare that there was no winner for that year. Why must there always be a winner? Same goes for any other sport...

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