sports
Michael Rand started RandBall with hopes that he could keep lies from conquering the minds of the weak. So far, he's only succeeded in using the word "redacted" a lot. He welcomes suggestions, news tips, links of pure genius, and pictures of pets in Halloween costumes here, though he already knows he will regret that last part.
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Posts about Soccer
TFD: Guest post -- Dana Wessel with a rowdy report from the U.S. Soccer World Cup qualifier
Posted by: Michael Rand Updated: October 18, 2012 - 6:35 PM
A guest post from Stu followed by the first-ever guest post from Dana Wessel? #manohman
Here's Wessel on his trip to Kansas City for the U.S. World Cup qualifier vs. Guatemala:
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Well look what we got here! Longtime RandBall reader, first time contributor. Now I just need to eat buffalo wings in every zip code and my bucket list will be complete.
I made the trek on Monday to Kansas City to see the United States Men’s National Team face Guatemala in a must-win World Cup Qualifying match at the beautiful Livestrong Park.
Joining me for the journey were my friends Tim, Amy, Jimmy and Dylan the rocket scientist who flew in from Denver.
We arrived late Monday evening in time for the always-epic American Outlaws night before party. The American Outlaws are a national fan group founded in 2009. It currently has 75+ chapters across the nation and tens of thousands of members. Gathering with other AO members is the best. I liken it to being a nerd and meeting up with your friends at summer camp -- you get picked on everywhere else for being different but this is a place you are accepted.
Plenty of soccer celebrities at the bar. I shook hands with former US players and current broadcasters Alexi Lalas and Taylor Twellmen. Both super cool guys. I also briefly met the golden-throat Ian Darke. You may remember him from such play-by-play calls as Landon Donovan rescuing the US against Algeria in the 2010 World Cup and Abby Wambach stunning Brazil at the last second of the 2011 World Cup. He jokingly told me I probably didn’t need any more 32-oz beers. He was probably right.
Wessel and Lalas. The big two of U.S. soccer.
The day of the match will make the podium of my best days of 2012. Our hotel had an indoor water park and I took advantage. My buddy Tim and I scoffed at the 400-pound weight limit for the two person raft ride and went down it anyway. Any time you have an opportunity to risk your safety riding down a water slide on the same raft as one of your best friends, you have to take advantage. It’s all about the little things in life.
After crushing ribs at Arthur Bryant’s, we went to the tailgate at noon with fans from all over the country in attendance. Beer was flowing. Bonds were being made. Soccer was being talked. I made it a point to shake hands and take pictures with a few of Guatemalan fans. I’m all about diplomacy. They were all very cool and polite, which made me feel kind of bad (not really) for the entire stadium singing “You’re not going to Brazil” at their small fan section once the US had put the match away.
An hour before the match we took part in another of my favorite US match traditions: the march into the stadium. Picture hundreds of US fans marching in a mob to the stadium, singing, blowing horns, banging drums. A very cool scene.
The American Outlaws section is always GA directly behind the goal. Our crew ended up in the third row inside the box. If you watched on TV, you saw how passionate the crowd was, singing and chanting the entire match. Thankfully unlike the meatheads at the Ryder Cup that chant U-S-A over and over, we have tons of songs and chants.
The US fell behind 1-donut but scored the final 3 goals of the match and won going away. I hugged multiple strangers after each goal. That is one of the magical things about sports. They have the power to propel a grown man into the arms of another grown man he has never met before.
Spreading the gospel of soccer
The coolest part might have been an impromptu celebration that happened on the way out of the stadium.A few hundred fans gathered in a big circle and sung God Bless America at the top of our lungs in the entry way of the stadium. I get a lot of guff for being a soccer fan, but moments like that make me not care. It is them who are missing out, not me.
It was a successful trip. My beloved US squad got the full 3 points, kept their World Cup dreams alive and I had a blast, despite losing my voice and acquiring bruises in odd places. The only thing that went wrong is that I still haven’t found a way to be best friends with Clint Dempsey (I swear he’d like me if we ever met, I SWEAR).
If you ever have a chance to go to a US match, soccer fan or not, you should definitely do it. It is an amazing experience and unique to what you’ll find in other sports. We all may like different NFL/MLB etc teams, but we are all citizens of the same country. And rooting your country to victory is as cool as it gets.
The final round of qualifying (The Hexagon) starts in March. Six teams play each other home and away for a total of 10 matches. Three points for a win, one point for a tie, top three go to Brazil 2014. Hit me up if you want to carpool.
Thursday (That time we lost a giant soccer ball halftime promotion) edition: Wha' Happened?
Posted by: Michael Rand Updated: July 19, 2012 - 9:44 AM
It proved to be anything but routine.
We arrived at the @MNStarsFC match against Ft. Lauderdale match for a 7:30 start time. As we were making our way toward the beer garden for a refreshment, a woman at the promotions table asked the three of us if we wanted to sign up to be part of the halftime competition. We are always gung-ho about such things and signed up enthusiastically. @DanaWessel, a soccer enthusiast taking in his first-ever local pro match, also signed up.
We took up residence behind the Ft. Lauderdale goal and started watching. Then about 30 minutes in, there was announcement over the PA system. "Michael Rand and [name not distinguished]" please report for the halftime situation. Wessel was immediately upset, but little did he know ...
So we went to the place we were supposed to go, and we're pretty sure the other contestant didn't show up. So instead, they found a last-second fill-in. We were immediately suspicious because she had a soccer warmup jacket on and, well, looked like a soccer player. We were wearing canvas shoes, and we have never played a competitive soccer match in our lives unless you count half a season of college intramurals. She was also very nervous. She clearly did not want to lose. In fact, she tried to bribe us: "I'll buy you a beer if you let me win," she said, to which we replied: "I don't think you're going to have to do that in order to win."
The contest was fairly simple: Take a giant soccer ball at midfield, dribble it around a flag, dribble it into the middle around another flag, and kick it in. First one wins. The chaos, however, ensues at the second flag when the two competitors theoretically meet. That happened last night, and we are here to report that our ball was BLATANTLY knocked away by a very fierce competitor, which we do not believe is within the official rules. As luck would have it, there are not just still images of this amusing debacle; there is a video shot, unbeknownst to us, by the hero @Whitcomb:
Rand at the Half from Josh Whitcomb on Vimeo.
After it was over, we came to find out that we were competing against Katie Bethke -- a former Gophers soccer player who now plays professionally in Europe. No wonder she was deathly afraid of losing to a floppy-shoed sportswriter! Whether that knock-away constitutes cheating is most certainly in dispute (in a good-natured way, of course ... it was more fun and certainly funnier because of the way we lost):
@RandBall @mnstarsfc Don't feel bad. There was no way I was going to lose in the dribbling competition. And cheating?! No way #streetrules
— Katie Bethke (@kbethke3) July 19, 2012
The Stars ended up losing 2-1; the real kicker (no pun intended) is that we ended up missing Footloose because it was apparently shown earlier in the evening than anticipated. Upon further review when we got home, however, it appears they were showing the NEW version of the movie in the park instead of the classic Kevin Bacon version. All in all, we probably dodged a bullet on that one.
Weekend Links with Jon Marthaler: Parise and Suter -- what if they had chosen beaches instead?
Posted by: Michael Rand Updated: July 14, 2012 - 12:20 PM
Each week, commenter Jon Marthaler bakes up a delicious batch of links for you. Other times, you can find him here. Jon?
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A thought experiment: Let's say that Zach Parise and Ryan Suter had kept everything else about their contract saga the same - the days of drama, the surreptitious text messages to each other, the collusion in becoming a package deal, and the eventual identical enormous contracts. But instead of signing in Minnesota, a place with a hockey tradition and where both had family ties, they'd signed for the Florida Panthers, and said at the press conference that their deciding factors were beaches, no income taxes, and an awesome nightlife.
I think people would have rooted for them to fail in Florida. Not just people from Minnesota or Nashville or New Jersey, but hockey fans from a lot of places; I think they would have been deemed to have the Wrong Reasons for signing, and would have been mocked for Not Getting It. But moving home to play, as they did - or if one had recruited the other to Nashville or New Jersey to build a team there - seems to make sense to most people.
To extend this experiment, imagine if LeBron had recruited Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to play in Cleveland. Obviously he would have been one of the great heroes in Ohio history, but the furor over everything else - the stupid Decision hourlong special, the introductory celebrations, and so on - would have been muffled. In fact, I think I might have actually rooted for the Big Three, if only it was located in Cleveland and not in Miami.
People seemed to have a lot of reasons to hate the Heat, but I think LeBron's rejection of his Ohio home might have been central to all of those reasons. For those of us who weren't Cavaliers fans, we could put ourselves in those shoes, and we were outraged all the same. There are many differences between Parise/Suter and LeBron, but I think the most important one is that Parise and Suter had good, solid, parochial/hometown reasons for coming to Minnesota. That's something fans can understand, because that's how we feel, too.
On with the links:
*Will Leitch's interview with Spike Lee is not, strictly speaking, about sports. But it's in many ways impossible to talk to Lee without talking about the Knicks, and Brooklyn and therefore now about the Nets, and so the whole thing is still kind of fascinating from a sporting perspective.
*Bryan Reynolds at Hockey Wilderness examines Craig Leipold, to find out if the Wild owner is a hypocrite, a master of the "dark arts," or just a businessman.
*We're just a few months away from the first Formula One Grand Prix race in America since 2007, and the second since the infamous 2005 race in Indianapolis. The Economist takes a look at the history of F1 racing in America.
*Also, you may have heard that Manchester United is planning to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The Economist looks at this plan, and tells us why ManU needs to go to the markets to try to raise some dough.
*And finally: I can't pass up a chance to link to the great Steve Rushin writing about his dad, who is a Twins fan just like you and me, and who likes Ben Revere because he "plays hard and always has a smile on his face." It's enough to make you feel good about the Twins, no matter how many leads they blow or games they lose.
Weekend Links with Jon Marthaler: Euro Cup madness and can Nick Blackburn be fixed?
Posted by: Michael Rand Updated: June 30, 2012 - 9:20 AM
Each week, commenter Jon Marthaler bakes up a delicious batch of links for you. Other times, you can find him here. Jon?
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It would be a stretch to say that everyone is watching Euro 2012, but a heck of a lot of people sure are; two and a half million Americans watched each of the semifinals in midweek on either ESPN or ESPN Deportes, impressive numbers given that the matches took place in the middle of a workday. That's a 50 percent increase from Euro 2008. Even Clarence Swamptown has at least considered watching a game, which is an infinity percent increase from Euro 2008.
Sunday's final - at 1:45pm, perfect afternoon viewing for those of you who can't stand watching Bruce Chen and his marshmallow fastball shut the Twins out again - matches Italy and Spain. I'd like to give you a glowing preview, extolling Spain's passing and Italy's newfound attacking style, but I really can't, because soccer finals are almost universally awful. The teams, afraid of being torn asunder by a counter-attack, generally are content to defend strongly and launch only occasional speculative forays into enemy territory. As a consequence, most finals are low-scoring or one-sided. The last major final, Netherlands vs. Spain at the 2010 World Cup, had two teams known for attacking, fun-to-watch offenses. That match degenerated into people kicking each other in the middle of the pitch; without looking it up, my memory says that there were 85 yellow cards awarded, and at one point two Dutch players had machetes on the field.
So for the Clarence Swamptowns of the world, who aren't soccer fans but maybe heard something about Spain's exceptional offensive style, or about the nutcase-genius hybrid that is Italy strike Mario Balotelli - judge not based on tomorrow's match. It will likely feature very few goals. Because teams from Southern Europe are involved, it will involve players throwing themselves to the ground in a hysterical manner, like terrible actors trying to fake a mortal wound in a high school production of Romeo and Juliet. (There won't be more diving than a normal match; it'll just be accomplished with more histrionics than usual.) It'll finish 1-1, or maybe 0-0, and go to penalties, and afterwards everyone will try to pretend it was a classic and not a thinly disguised shin-kicking competition.
And now that I've written this, I suppose it'll end 4-3 with two goals in second-half stoppage time. On with the links:
*Parker Hageman wonders if Nick Blackburn can be fixed. (Gut feeling: no. But at least now you can see charts that explain why Blackburn is so awful.)
*You may have been excited about the Chase Budinger trade, but poster Madison Dan at Canis Hoopus really has the only legitimate reaction.
*The Vikes Geek is still not too happy about the Vikings stadium deal. This time, he's pointing out who stands to benefit from a deal that does not have a land-purchase agreement tied into it.
*And finally: in America, millionaire businessmen sit in the suites. Millionaire England fans at Euro 2012, well - they've got an entirely different approach.
TFD: The day in shirt removal -- Balotelli, Nadal, Magic Mike
Posted by: Michael Rand Updated: June 28, 2012 - 5:54 PMDon't say we never did anything nice for you, ladies:
Mario Balotelli took his shirt off after his second goal and got a yellow card, but it was totally worth it. /AP Photo
Too hot for a shirt? Rafael Nadal thought so. Also too hot for a victory; he was bounced at Wimbledon. /AP Photo
So tired of movies objectifying men. Magic Mike opens at midnight in select theaters, WE ARE TOLD. /AP Photo
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