The World Cup

I am disappointed. Very.

The 2010 World Cup, the 19th, is now over with Spain as the victor. The tone of the Cup is exemplified by the fact that its ultimate winner got to the finals by scoring exactly 8 goals in 7 games. Ho hum.

To be fair, the better team won (in the second half of Extra Time no less) but that’s not saying much. The Dutch played like bruisers: they knew they couldn’t win so they came out swinging, ending up with almost 10 yellow cards and one red. The Beautiful Game, this was not. In fact, it bore all the calumny heaped on Soccer (by Americans) as boring, pointless, banal.

I’m not sure exactly what happened this year: Brazil played woefully lackluster football, France was a disgrace, past World Cup champions Italy were a no-show. Argentina showed some life but were quickly snuffed out and Germany burst out with some impressive scores only to limp out with a whimper. Things Fall Apart indeed.

And don’t get me started about the African teams.

Regardless, congratulations to Espana. Hold your first World Cup close, fondle it for the next four years when hopefully a better champion once again holds it shamelessly aloft.