Tag: Algeria

Population 1960-2008

I’ve been watching the great HBO series Six Feet Under on DVD for about a week, and yesterday I saw the episode which ends with Ruth Fisher singing along with a tape of Joni Mitchell. I didn’t even recognize the song, but a google search for the lyrics revealed it was Woodstock.

Then last night I had a dream about walking up a long hill with the same song playing in my head, but when I came to the crest and looked down, instead of mobs at a concert I saw a flood like an ocean, and millions of people washed away in it.

“And maybe it’s the time of year

or maybe it’s the time of man

and I don’t know who I am

but you know life is for learning.”

“We are stardust,

billion year-old carbon,

we are golden,

caught in the devil’s bargain

and we got to get ourselves

back to the garden.”

So far we’ve had two mega goalkeeping errors in the first days of World Cup.  England’s Robert Green let in a routine and weak shot because he didn’t follow a rule that even middle school goalkeepers know: get in front of the ball and smother it.  Don’t try to catch it from the side.  Ever.  The result was a 1-1 draw between the US, which was really stung early in the first half, and England, which for all its star power doesn’t play like a team.  The tabloid press in the UK today was really ugly: the error was called “Hand of Clod” and “Shock and Draw” and the Times said, it was “one disastrous spill the Yanks won’t complain about.”

This is what makes for such ugly press:

And then today, as if yesterday’s goof weren’t enough a wake up call, Slovenia, a country the size of Houston, beat Algeria on a goalkeeping error.  And, instead of just eating crow and moving on, the Algerian coach had this to say:

Algerian coach Rabah Saadane said the new World Cup ball was a challenge for goalkeepers.

“Everyone saw what happened with the ball, and what happened yesterday with England’s goalkeeper,” Saadane said. “You have to adjust to the flight of the ball.”

source

Yeah.  I saw what happened.  Here it is:

Coach, that’s not a problem with a ball. That’s called goalkeeper spacing out. Nice try though.

The world cup continues until July 11.  More about it occasionally.  

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cross posted and ON SIDES at The Dream Antilles and the almost always dreaded dailyKos