plastic doodads
As you know, this is the time of year for cutting down trees and hanging plastic doodads on them and watching them die slowly in your living room. And that’s just what we did Tuesday night. Well at least the doodad part. The living room looks very cozy now, what with the new paint job around the fire place and the Christmas decorations up. We also got the chimney inspected and it got a clean bill of health so all that is needed is to get some wood in there and light her up.

The home of childish insults and blinding homerism under the best of conditions, the online soccer forums are going crazy now that the WC groups have been announced. Just absolute garbage posted in a seemingly endless stream, each serving topped with a large dollop of nationalistic vitriol. The US sucks, MLS sucks, Italians are diving whiners, Czech Republic will stink if Nedved doesn’t play, Ghana will lose all 3 games, not 1 US player could play in Serie A, Italy’s 3-1 win over Holland a month ago doesn’t mean anything, Ghana can’t play defense and blah and Blah and BLAH. I loathe reality TV and yet I put on my hip boots and wade through this cyber-offal looking for what exactly? Who knows.

One thing that is neat however, and unique to soccer, is that this typical sportsmonkey chest beating is a global hobby. The people posting about the Italian team are in Italy and there’s folks from Africa talking about Ghana and how they did during qualifying. So that part is cool I think. And then, like a KC Royals fan weighing in on the Red Sox/Yankees debate, we have a post like this from a fine gent in South Africa:

I admire all the United State supporters on this forum backing there boys and talking about qualifying but have you seriously looked at who you coming up against? I mean Italy are head and shoulders above of you in terms of players and tactics. Czech Republic is an awesome side with Nedved, Rosicky and Pobosky all quality players. Ghana has Essein and Appiah both could easily win a game individually.

The U.S.A like every team has a chance and you have proven to mix it with the big boys before but I think the group you find yourselves in is one of the toughest to get out of. But anything is possible, good luck to all the teams.

And that about sums up what I’ve been feeling over the past few days. The US do have a shot at being one of the top 2 teams from the group and thus earn themselves a place in the final 16, but it would be an amazing feat. A sizeable step forward from their impressive run in 2002.

You know you want it and so here it is…a World Cup IQ test. I’d be fascinated to know what you score, so please post results. I will happily boast that I scored 11/11! Hooray for me!