It has not been a happy sports weekend for me, as not only did my native country and my adopted country bow out of the World Cup Football Tournament in inglorious fashion, but The San Francisco Giants have resumed the play they were doing a month ago, scoring a run, then essentially telling the pitcher, “OK, don’t give up any runs and we win this one.” Nuff said on the latter subject.

               The problems with the US and England teams are very different, to be sure. In America, as I’ve said many times, soccer is ever-growing in popularity as a participation sport, but that doesn’t translate to making it a popular spectator sport. From a nation of 300 million, it’s relatively easy to find enough able players to field a competitive national team, but the opportunities to make quick money don’t lie in professional soccer as much as they do in America’s Big Four sports, so there may be some very good potential players that are opting for careers in baseball, basketball, American football, or hockey. Ghana is a poor nation with the population of Texas crammed into an area the size of Michigan. For many of its young athletes, football is their only salvation, so its taken a whole lot more seriously, thus not that surprising that a small African nation could take one to the big boys.

                England’s problems will be discussed for probably most of the next four, eight, twelve years, and the year 1966 will continually be held over everyone’s heads again. I suppose if England had not won that year, there’d be less to talk about, but probably more despair. Yes, that was an absolutely horrendous call from the referee, disallowing an England goal that would have tied the game and gave them something to build on. What it wound up doing was spurring Germany to come out in the second half opening up a can of kick-ass. The England defense looked porous throughout most of the four matches, but looked especially overmatched here against a younger, faster, and more motivated opponent. 

                 The sports writers and broadcasters have been running rampant the last 24 hours, so I don’t need to offer much more on criticizing England’s lackluster performance. The music nut in me became overly curious about how well all those football anthems were doing on the charts. I didn’t hear the chart show since it was on the same time as the England-Germany match, but where there were eight football-related tunes on the Top 40 two weeks ago, there were now four, thankfully a hasty goodbye to that horrible karaoke rendition of Elvis’s “If I Can Dream” by former footballer Terry Venables. The original of “Three Lions” was just barely hanging in, and James Corden/Dizzee Rascal’s re-working of Tears For Fears’ “Shout” was down from number one, replaced by Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.” If “Shout” is even in the top 40 next week, I’ll be surprised. Meanwhile, all those St. George flag displays are coming down in record time. 

                 Finally, there were disappointments on the personal level. The captain of the US team, and probably its best player, Landon Donovan, went to high school in Redlands, California, where I also did, although different schools and VERY different times. Since I’ve been living in Essex, I’ve felt compelled to root for West Ham, a football team that has less chance of ever winning the Premiership than the San Francisco Giants do the World Series. I’ve chosen to root for teams that frustrate and disappoint, otherwise I’m reasonably happy. West Ham can say that of the four official goals that England scored in the entire tournament, two were by Hammers. Of course, that’s allowing that one of them was scored for/against the US by quickly displaced West Ham goal-keeper Robert Green. A pure case of Peter Principle at work, as Green had been one of the few West Ham players even worthy of a spot on the national team. I’m sure he’d be welcome to play in the American soccer league, should he decide to play there.