Your daily World Cup update

We were doing a traffic check late last night and noticed a real nice uptick in hits over the weekend. We did some sleuthing and discovered that our World Cup post on lefty navel-gazing as ably demonstrated by David Zirin of The Nation had been read by... David Zirin, the same David Zirin that wrote that piece in The Nation to which we linked.

Zirin in a post here linked back to BwD and though we're sure he probably is a BwD newcomer he proved himself to be a quick learn by tagging us as "various inept corners of the right-wing blabbosphere". Sweet.

We tried registering at his site in order to leave a comment thanking him for the link but that proved highly unsuccessful so we'll do it here since we're sure that we have lured him in to daily readership and a potential blog roll honor.

David,
A sincere thanks for the link love. Regardless of differences in viewpoints it's always gratifying to be recognized by others, particularly when we think they are on the verge of being regular readers.

A quick word about the World Cup as it relates to our country and others: We love the World Cup. We have had a World Cup item at BwD almost every day for nearly the past two weeks. Loving the World Cup though does not detract from our opinion that soccer is a rather odd sport. But that's just us as we were raised on football, basketball and baseball. But every four years, we bear down to absorb this athletic oddity with its crappy officiating, quirky rules (offsides? Yeah, so what?) and flopping. (Flopping hardly ever occurred in the NBA until Vlade Divac came along and we all know where he's from. Yep, he's a foreigner).

Point being, we give it an honest-to-god try every four years and yes, we don't take it too seriously as we still rib our quadrennial acquaintance in the process because it is an odd sport. After all, how many jingos do you know that got their ass out of the rack at 3 in the morning 8 yrs. ago in the middle of the work week to go to a SRO pub to watch USA v. Germany in the quarters? We're a pretty elite crew.

Re: USA v. Algeria and joy vs. jingoism. There are certainly socio-political implications in sports and even more so in international competition but sometimes it can be overplayed and overemphasized. Though every player out there has their own unique story as to how they wound up out there on the pitch (see?), when they do get out there nothing else matters but the game. Not their background, not their socio-economic situation and perhaps not even their country. Their play reflects the fact that they are competitors of the highest order and any "playing for" is for the guys in the same uniform.

Our elation after the US win was pure joy with a dash of patriotism (do you view jingoism as the same thing?) We're we happy because we view ourselves as superior to Algeria? We're we happy because that improbable victory lent credence to the notion that a market-oriented economy in a representative republic produces better soccer players than any other system? We're we happy because, damn, we're having a rough go of it with respect to the economy and all and we just wanted to thrash some runt African nation? No, no and no. We were elated because "we" outscored our opponent. We were ecstatic that facing elimination, we didn't give up but rather came up with one of the greatest counters we have ever seen an American team execute. We were full of joy because WE WON! That's it. We Won. Sometimes it really is that simple.

Thanks again for the link.

Sincerely,
Beers with Demo