The ball often gets kicked between the posts at the western end of the celestial football field, Beta and Zeta Tauri. The goalposts of the Mighty Brethren team, Castor and Pollux, are easy to see, yet the Thundering Bulls constantly aim too wide.
This is from the January game in our Zodiac Wavy Chart for 2023, which traces the fortunes of the planetary league throughout the year.
Naive Questions Department
I don’t know much about football, but during the past few weeks it’s been hard to avoid. I saw the headlines and first paragraphs of an article and they had an abstract, mystic tone; sometimes I read down to try to find specifics of what actually happened, but no.
– In the final game of the World Cup, the score was Argentina 3, France 3. So how come Argentina won? That’s probably the easiest for you to help me with.
– Of Argentina’s goals, 2 were scored by Messi; of France’s, all 3 by Mbappé. So how come all the adulation was for Messi? Other players of either side seemed hardly to be mentioned.
– What is it specifically that Messi is good at? Kicking the ball accurately toward the goal? “Dribbling” it for long distances while dodging opponents’ boots? Organizing strategies in his team? Inspiring them? Not mentioned. Instead, quasi-spiritual sentiments about “Messi not becoming Maradona, Messi becoming himself.”
– When I played soccer (as it’s called to distinguish it from Rugby football and American football) and especially when I saw a few professional games, I perceived that it was an elegant, strategic game, in which players skilfully passed the ball, over long distances, to teammates in open spaces until it could reach one who had a shot at the goal. So when a goal was scored it was the achievement not just of the last player in the chain but of them all. Has the game undergone a change of nature so that the team, as in cycling, merely “drafts” the superstar?
– Before the World Cup came on, at least one of the top articles would be about matches between those teams whose popularity I remember from long ago, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspurs, Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City. But now you can’t help noticing that almost all of the stars have Arabic or African or Hispanic names. They have been bought from other clubs, and clubs are owned by Russian billionaires. So do the folk of Chelsea or Brentford manage to remain fan[atic]s of “their” clubs?
– Non-football question. A journalist called Clarkson wrote in the Sun newspaper that “I hate Meghan… at a cellular level” and would like to see her paraded naked through the streets with shit thrown at her. (Was he drunk, and the blame with an editor?) No reason was mentioned. All I know about Meghan Markle is that she is an American of at least partly African descent who married a member of the British royal family. Nothing wrong with that, so what can she be supposed to have done that could be proportionate to this vomit of hatred?
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I completely agree. The game was tied at the end of 120 minutes of play. Both teams should be honored by declaring the game a draw.
The 2006 world cup final was also decided by penalty kicks. France and Italy played to a physically and emotionally exhausting 1 – 1 tie, then Italy won on penalty kicks. The Italian team celebrated deliriously while the French players were weeping. It shouldn’t have ended that way.
P.S. I reject the idea that we could ever decide who is “the best footballer ever.” Eusebio, Pele, Maradona*, and others were arguably the best player at the time they played, but the game changes over time.
The Dutch player and later coach Johan Cruyff, who played for Barcelona in the 1970’s and managed the team in the 1990’s, would be on my short list of greatest footballers of all time, in large part because he helped to transform the way the game was played. When I played soccer as a youth, I was a left fullback. I was a decent defender, but I never went further than midfield. Every team had five forwards, three halfbacks, and two fullbacks, and each player stayed in their own zone. Cruyff and others invented “total football”, so now every player except the goalkeeper plays the entire field. It’s a completely different and more beautiful game.
* Maradona gets an asterisk for his infamous “mano de dios” goal against England in the 1986 world cup.
Unlike some other famous soccer players who score a lot of goals, Messi is also a huge asset as a team player. He watches the whole field and skillfully passes the ball to his teammates when they have an opportunity to score.
Although I’m not a soccer fan, watching one of the many “Messi highlights compilations” on youtube such as this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV0PbW8fJKk
make it clear why he is considered one of, if not the, best ever footballer. His signature plays are dribbling the ball through multiple defenders over a long run and then scoring, or scoring goals with artful subtlety (kicks with precise placement and exactly the right trajectory / speed such as lifting the ball over the goalie and bouncing it in off the bottom of the crossbar).
This fall / winter, Mars was kicked through the Zeta – Beta Tauri goal with a beautiful curving trajectory much like many of Messi’s penalty kicks, while the second goal to come on March 11 is more of a straight shot.
I managed to follow the slow-motion bits of that – wished it was all that way. The main emotion I would feel now in watching football would be sympathy for the goalkeepers.
Sir Jeremy Clarkson, don’t worry I know he’s not a Sir yet but no doubt will be,is a nasty piece of work and a motocrat who hates anything that doesn’t involve cars.He is also a conspiracy theorist about global warming which I suppose goes hand in hand with being a car enthusiast.
Hi Guy –
“In the final game of the World Cup, the score was Argentina 3, France 3. So how come Argentina won?”
The net, final score of the game was not 3-3, it was 7-5 in favor of Argentina (I am, of course including the penalties shootout at the end).
“Of Argentina’s goals, 2 were scored by Messi; of France’s, all 3 by Mbappé. So how come all the adulation was for Messi? Other players of either side seemed hardly to be mentioned.”
It’s not just about the goals scored. Sports ‘journalist’ who only mentioned Messi and Mbappe are not good journalists, and you should not follow them.
“What is it specifically that Messi is good at? Kicking the ball accurately toward the goal? “Dribbling” it for long distances while dodging opponents’ boots? Organizing strategies in his team? Inspiring them?” Yes to all your questions, and much more.
“Before the World Cup came on, at least one of the top articles would be about matches between those teams whose popularity I remember from long ago, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspurs, Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City. But now you can’t help noticing that almost all of the stars have Arabic or African or Hispanic names. They have been bought from other clubs, and clubs are owned by Russian billionaires. So do the folk of Chelsea or Brentford manage to remain fan[atic]s of “their” clubs?” Globalization, I suppose. From EPL I follow the ‘Hammers’. Are English clubs still owned by Russian billionaires? I think there was at least one example this year of a Russian billionaire forced to ‘resign’ (?) ownership, no?
Thanks for your blog!
The system of deciding by “penalties” (which are supposed to be for infractions of the rules) seems unpleasant. The great game between the top teams was clearly a draw, and could have been celebrated as such. Instead, this duel between individuals, like gladiators, while the rest stand by. A more imaginative and appealing system would be a draw. The cup could reside for the next half year with the side that was last in the lead, then be transported to the country that scored the equalizing goal. That would provide a happy headline for football in the middle of the non-football season!
In Sunday’s world cup final, the score at the end of 90 minutes was Argentina 2, France 2. So they played two 15 minute overtime periods. Each team scored once during overtime, so at the end of overtime the score was 3 – 3. The tie was broken by penalty kicks. Single players from the two teams took turns shooting the ball at the goal, which was defended only by the opposing goalkeeper. Argentina got the ball in the goal on four penalty kicks, France only twice. So Argentina was declared the winner.
Lionel Messi is 35 years old. This was almost certainly his last world cup. He had already gained every other honor in the game, but he had never before been on a winning world cup team. Kylian Mbappe is 24 years old. He played on the winning French team in the 2018 world cup.