Courtesy of MLusk at Weather Records

Tired of the World Cup : Why America Will Never be a Soccer Power Were America Ok Oh (or) Full Bore : Ok Oh and the Existence of Boxing Cliches

It is true.  I never thought it would be had I given it a thought, but I hadn't.  This does not make it any less true, but it is, and that's that.  I had nearly willed it otherwise, but the reality is creeping in through tired nostrils.  I am beaten to a tidy pulp.  Still, relatively, the same from without, perhaps a touch pudgier, you wouldn't notice, I'm sure, but inside, I feel like that mystery boxer Malouda was referring to.  See, and there you go, I can't even get through a simile without reference.  After two weeks of bruising what ifs, this weekend, a long one, thankfully, unthankfully, has me against the ropes.  Korea lost, America lost, England lost and Mexico lost.  Uruguay, Ghana, Germany and Argentina are winners.  I don't even care what happens with Holland tomorrow.  Chile?  Well, maybe I'll be up for that one, surely, were I Chilean.  Like the fish.  But no, I am tired.  Tired from beer and heat and soccer and grilled meat.  Tired from schedules that are not my own.  My brain feels fuzzy.  My toe looks like it may achieve an ingrown nail.  I am happy for the winners and not overly sad for the losers. (Ok, I am particularly sad for those Koreans, they played a great game.) (And I'm sad for Mexico because the first goal was cheating and the second one was just awful.) (And yes, there was cheating by the Germans too, but the English were so pitiful, so who cares?) (And the the Americans just tired themselves out.  You can't feel sorry for that.)  And so there I am, like the American soccer team, tired out, throwing myself into a nominally foreign game with a gusto more experienced foreigners long ago learned to temper with specificity.  But I threw myself in there, dragging my family along, my poor wife, my impressionably young son.  And we are all tired. The boy has the sniffles.  All because I couldn't do what the Italians normally do and what the Uruguayans showed they still can.  Attack, lay back, then attack again at the right moment.

No comments: