Not to me.
Here are some comments on Steve Sailer’s site:
* Messi and the Argentine team had felt disrespected by Van Gaal and the Dutch team’s attitude and comments before the game, and especially by the latter’s height-ist style of play and tactics. The Dutch of course the tallest country in the world. While Argentina was one of the shortest teams in the World Cup and known for their diminutive stars Maradona and Messi.
“Long ball” is the style of soccer where teams make long high passes in the air and tall forwards use their height advantage to head the ball or gain possession against shorter defenders.
“‘Just tall people and long balls’ – Messi tears into Van Gaal for saying Dutch play good football after World Cup loss”
* Why do Americans (no one else says this) always go on about soccer being boring? I watched soccer seriously for the first time in my life this world cup, and it was much more exciting than rugby (which is what we play in my country).
One of the things I’m liking about soccer compared to rugby is that soccer feels 3d while rugby feels 1d. What I mean by this is that in rugby, the game either moves towards one side’s try line or towards the other side’s try line. All other directions are barely explored. But in soccer, the game seems to move all over the pitch, including in the air. Rugby feels like game on rails compared to soccer.
Another thing I like about soccer is what soccer players look like. Soccer plays look like normal dudes, while rugby players look like intimidating elite athletes. Soccer is similar to cricket in this respect. Cricket players tend to look like normal guys you would see down at the pub. And soccer players tend to look like edgy youths you might see fooling around outside a bar.
Soccer commentators are also interesting. There seems to be many different types of soccer commentator. My favourite is the intelligent sounding English guy. This is the accent of the men who built the modern world. I think it’s cool that they’re also commenting on the game I’m watching.
* In part because soccer games are usually rather boring to watch,
Translation: “because I didn’t grow up in a soccer culture playing and watching soccer, I find watching soccer to be boring.”
People aren’t objective about their subjective tastes.
“I find X to be boring” is always going to be a far more objective statement about these things than the broad brush statement “X is boring.”
If billions are watching, odds are most of them don’t find it boring, no matter your opinions on the matter.
I mean I find baseball and golf to be excruciatingly boring to watch, yet people watch. No doubt they appreciate things about those sports that I don’t.
soccer highlights can be exciting in contrast.
You can flip this around for instance a lot of people in Europe and Asia were hooked on the NFL highlight reels back in the 1980s and found them very exciting, only to be very disappointed when they watched a full length NFL game, live, which lasted three hours for only 11 minutes of actual play, which they found to be very boring to watch and not at all as exciting as the highlights.
So it really is all about what you are acculturated to, for the most part; unless you make an effort to really learn something new, you are always going to be using the wrong “metric” to appreciate something that is otherwise foreign to you. But people want to pretend that they are being objective about these things, even though they almost never are.
* Van Gaal was (is?) a super-manager (perhaps top 10 ever?) who is widely thought to dislike South American players. Di Maria (star for Argentina) played under him in 2015 and he was widely understood to have underplayed and generally misused Di Maria to the detriment of Di Maria’s career. Similar stories for many comparable players including Diego Forlan, hero of Uruguay and very well respected player by any account. It’s Van Gaal’s long time pattern.
So the Argentina versus Netherlands match was an opportunity for payback. Many people on the ARG team had been personally slighted (Di Maria as their flag bearer) but not in some esoteric fashion. Their careers suffered by a jerk boss. ARG also saw themselves as defending South American soccer, as you can see by Messi’s “breaking composure” and being very publicly mean/petty with Van Gaal. For Argentina it was a triumphant settling of bad blood.
Of course it was a great moment to see Van Gaal publicly refuted with the best contention at all, a World Cup.
* I remember Paul Zimmerman telling a rather dumbfounded interviewer that football had gone from a white game, which meant a strength game, to a black game, which meant a speed game. When the interviewer asked him to elaborate, Zimmerman basically told him to **** off.
* The Messi autism angle is pretty interesting. He apparently is on the spectrum which explains some of his seemingly aloof, borderline mean spirited behavior. It likely helps his game. Does autism benefit athletes in other sports? One would think autism might benefit a golfer or a pitcher in baseball.
Between Messi and Ye, it has been quite a month for autiste overlords.
The Messi autism angle is pretty interesting. He apparently is on the spectrum which explains some of his seemingly aloof, borderline mean spirited behavior. It likely helps his game. Does autism benefit athletes in other sports? One would think autism might benefit a golfer or a pitcher in baseball.
Between Messi and Ye, it has been quite a month for autiste overlords.
Due to changing sensibilities, we are unlikely going to see Christian Bale in a Rain Man/ I Am Sam type role anytime soon. Messi gives a glimpse as to how Bale might play that role. His inability to walk around the goalie is quite funny.
Lmao pic.twitter.com/SQWJwU1Tn3
— jimmy (@banana_clipper) December 10, 2022
* I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some Americans since American Football has not been taken up anywhere else…
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Australians] since [Aussie rules] Football has not been taken up anywhere else…”
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Irishmen] since [hurling] has not been taken up anywhere else…”
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Florentines] since [calcio storico] has not been taken up anywhere else…”
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Finns] since [pesäpallo] has not been taken up anywhere else…”
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Japanese] since [sumo wrestling] has not been taken up anywhere else…”
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Russians] since [face-slapping] has not been taken up anywhere else…”
“I wonder if there is an element of sour grapes with some [Afghans] since [bacha bāzī] has not been taken up anywhere else…”
