We need to find ways to include the whole world to give hope to Africans so that they don’t need to cross the Mediterranean in order to find maybe a better life but, more probably, death in the sea.
They don’t need the hope of their national team winning, they need for an end to post-colonial conditions that keep them from having safe and stable societies!
You know, people have been making these claims that football (or sports in general) and things like the olympics and even Eurovision were going “solve” these kinds problems caused by globalization, but I’ve yet to see that’s actually the case.
Ugh…too bad, it is a mess. (Though I have to confess to never having warmed to the game, despite having played it on occasion – basically just being a body to fill out a side – and having had a close relative who was a member of the MCC.)
The whining about “preserving traditions” was always a tired old lie. The fans wanted to keep the name because they knew it pissed people off.
New Football teams used to spring up all the time, and fold later. If they were so concerned about tradition they could have easily reused one of the old names that had more traditional association with the DC area, but they couldn’t be bothered.
And from the end of professional sports that nobody wants to be at.
This is going to be a season to forget. We are 8 points clear of relegation to non-league at the moment, but that could become 2 points if Oldham win their games in hand. Now we have three injuries, another player has left to go to Australia, and our best player up front so far this season was originally signed as a defender and has since played in just about every position other than in goal. Hopefully the return of Omari Patrick and Jamie Devitt along with the other new players signed in the transfer window will sort things out.
Which is funny, because Carlsen is a master trolley.
ETA:
My post was held because of the word at the end of the sentence. I should have provided more context. Magnus Carlsen is easily the greatest chess player of this generation. Maybe ever. Aside from his legendary chess skills, he is equally famous for being a trolley and a bit of a jerk. He logs into public chess servers and plays low-ranking players, drunk, and heckles them. But he also trollies grandmasters. Here’s him in 2019 wasting 9 moves on GM Jose Martines Alcantara at the beginning of a game:
Alcantara isn’t some run-of-the-mill patzer. He became a GM in 2018 at the age of 19. So he was 20 and a newly-minted GM when Carlsen decided to screw with him. Wasting even one move against a GM in chess is absurd and a high-risk endeavor. To waste 9 moves is to say “I can beat you easily, any time I want to.” In a world tournament it’s a dick move.
He has been known to play music over his computer speakers when beating people online. He has been known to throw in extra moves when he’s obviously beaten someone.
So, for people to get janky over him being trolled . . . it seems a bit odd.
I have a friend who is a chess coach and also plays competitively a bit… men in chess being assholes seems to be the standard for most men, from her point of view. She works with a lot of older men, though.
I hate, hate the IOC, the resources they demand host countries to cough up and the environmental damage all that new, single-use construction does. But I fucking love seeing all these sports that don’t get TV time otherwise. Jamaica qualifying for bobsledding again this year is awesome! And alpine skiing, too?! Neat!
