Disappointments

The United States and France were both extremely disappointing in their first matches of the World Cup. Two of the teams I root for, either because of individual talents or national pride, let me down this week. The US decided they didn't want to be in the World Cup apparently, and France decided that they would rather beat up on each other than the other team (sounds like a Lambuth team from 2 years ago). Other than that, there have been some very good games that I felt myself pulling for the underdog including Trinidad & Tobago vs. Sweden and Brazil vs. Croatia. In both these games the teams worked very hard and played with a pride and spirit that couldn't be seen by many of the opening teams.

Side note: I hate American commentators. Why do the feel the need to unearth useless statistics like, "This X-Team has never scored a goal in the eleventh minute on European soil at a high altitude." Ok, maybe true, but a worthless fact. An actual "statistic" the commentators felt like sharing was that Australia was the first team to score 3 goals after trailing by 1 goal for 80 minutes. C'mon guys, it is soccer. There are only a few statistics that matter. 1) The score. 2) How many World Cups have they been in. 3) How many World Cups have they won. And as an honorary 4th statistic- How many times have they beaten Brazil. Other than that soccer fans don't care whether they win more when the snow is falling at a 34 degree angle. Just talk about the players and the game. I miss the British (Though, thank God, they do commentate the earliest match of the day).