Go Tahiti!

Today the Confederations Cup kicks off in Brazil. This is somewhat of a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup, and the host country will definitely be under the microscope – not only will their progress in preparations for next year be scrutinized, but the Seleção themselves are a bit of a mystery, having played few meaningful games in recent years, and not looking terribly impressive in those. No doubt some of their top rivals will be watching today’s game with Japan closely and taking copious notes.

The Confed Cup always has a rather ersatz field, as it brings together the current champions of the world’s six regions. It’s a fun and somewhat unpredictable affair – witness the fact that the U.S. reached the final in this event four years ago, having beaten Spain in the semis, and the Screamin' Eagles then had the Brazilians down 2:0 a half hour into the final before the Seleção rattled off three goals to restore order to the universe. And this year the LOSE has a special rooting interest in this event, as it features probably the biggest underdogs you’re ever going to find in a major international soccer tournament, or just about any other tournament for that matter. There probaby hasn't been an underdog this big since Angola tried to play the Dream Team at the Barcelona olympics.

And that would be these guys:

I mean, uh, these guys ...

Behold the national team from Tahiti.

Tahiti won the most recent championship in Oceania, which is far and away the weakest region. It’s so bad, in fact, that the Australians started playing in Asia essentially because they got tired of winning all the time. No legit competition. The Socceroos departure has left the region at the mercy of New Zealand, who’ve shown themselves well – the All-Whites were the only team at the World Cup in South Africa that didn’t lose a game – yet somewhat inexplicably, New Zealand bombed out in the most recent Oceanic championships, and Tahiti wound up winning the tourney and punching a ticket to one of the more prestigious soccer events on the planet.

Tahiti is ranked about 140th in the world right now. They have one professional player, who plied his trade in Greece this past season. One of their goalkeepers used to play in France. Other than that, the Tahitians are all semipros or amateurs who mostly play in and around Papeete.

These guys are awesome. Their coach has stated that their primary goal for this tournament is to go through a half without getting scored on. Scoring a goal would be a triumph. Scoring a goal against Spain would probably get your picture on a postage stamp. They have no chance and they know it, but a few days they get to be treated like football royalty. And when they take on Spain next week at Estádio de Maracaña in Rio – an arena which is, quite simply, one of the games greatest stages, if not the greatest of all – they're damn sure going to enjoy the moment.

Compare and contrast the carefree attitude of the Tahitians with the plight of their first opponent in the tourney, which are the African champions from Nigeria. The Nigerians had a world cup qualifier in Namibia last week, after which the players stuck around Windhoek and refused to board their flight(s) to Brazil, briefly staging a wildcat strike after not being paid. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time in African football, which seems constantly besieged by political infighting and cronyism. FIFA finally had to step in and resolve this issue, working out a settlement between the national federation and the players, and the Nigerians are now headed across the Atlantic but aren't likely in the best of moods.

Not that it will likely matter that much in terms of the final results on Monday – the Nigerians have far more talent and will likely overwhelm the Tahitians. But the Tahitians don't need to win to acquit themselves well. By simply being there, they've already won, and I suspect they will embrace the challenge and compete accordingly. Even if they get thrashed (and they likely will), the actual scores of the games won't matter much. It's always better to play, and to lose, than not have the chance to play at all.

And in any event, they get to go back to Tahiti when it's over:

You could do worse.

How Do You Say "This Team Sucks" in Danish?

As I've said before, sports are the greatest of reality TV. Unscripted and unpredictable. You really do have NO IDEA what is going to happen. Most of the time, it will follow some sort of pattern you can expect, given who is at play and what the situation is. But not always.

I give you Exhibit A. These are the highlights of the World Cup Qualifier the other night in Copenhagen between Denmark and Armenia. The Danes won the Euros in 1992 and have been one of the consistently good footballing sides for about 25 years now. The Armenians, meanwhile, are one of the many dreadful European teams that turned up after the breakup of the Soviet Union. They just lost a home game last Friday to Malta, who hadn't won a relevant game since 1994.

Roll tape ...

We needed some enthusiastic Armenian broadcasters for proper effect.

Denmark 0:4 Armenia. And while we should give some props to the Armenians here for playing hard and playing with class, this performance by the Danes has "let's get the coach fired" written all over it. That first goal was 25 seconds into the game, the second was 15 minutes later, and it's hard to tell at what point incompetence gave way to indifference by the guys in the red shirts. Apparently, what remained of the crowd at the end of the game applauded the Armenians 4th goal and applauded as their players were substituted off. Can you blame them? If I sat through 90 minutes of this tripe, I'd ask for a refund.

Those four goals feature some of the worst defending I've seen at an international level. Well, this was worse ...

 
That's an own goal from a game where Uzbekistan, verging on their first trip to the World Cup ever, lost 0:1 to South Korea. Pretty much the most important game in the history of the country and you lose like that. The Uzbeks can still qualify, but they're going to need some help. It would be fun to see them make it to Brazil, because it's a country that could use some good news, and what's the point of any of this if you can't bring a few hours of joy to people here and there?

And now I have spent more time researching football in Armenia and Uzbekistan than I ever would've thought possible. We would sometimes search for obscure stories when I was working at daily newspapers just to get unusual datelines into the paper, all journalists being devious rascals at heart. You've be perusing the wires and come across some story datelined VADUZ or NOUAKCHOTT and then you just had to find a way to get it in the paper. The research I undertake in writing this blog feels a bit that way sometimes. In following the WCQ for Brazil 2014, I've found myself looking up the likes of Namibian goalkeepers and the history of football in the Faroe Islands. (The Landsliðið played hard but lost 2:0 to Sweden the other night, just so you know.)

But this is a good thing, in the end.

I am someone who has always viewed the world as being far, far larger than just the small corner of it I inhabit. A part of how I choose to understand the world is through learning about how we, as humans, play games – how we compete and, yes, how we fail. And no game on earth is a bigger deal than soccer, a simple game with simple rules that takes on every sort of political, ethnic, ideological, and cultural connotation humans can invent. Just as it's been argued that understanding America requires and understanding of baseball, the same can be said of "the beautiful game" and what it says of the world around us.

Although in Denmark right now, they're probably not too excited, and understandably so. I'm not sure how you say "this team sucks" in Danish, but most Danes speak English better than I do, and I'm sure that particularly American English phrase has been uttered repeatedly.

IN PLAY LOSE Important Concept #2: The MODGOD

Another extremely important theoretical concept here when it comes to our continuing explication of failure is something that I refer to as the MODGOD Theory of Good Intentions.

MODGOD stands for Modified Guterman-O’Donnell and is named for Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell, co-authors of the book Worst Rock-And-Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate. In this book, the authors, who are a pair of longtime rock critics, layout a theory as to how otherwise extremely talented artists end up making terrible records, and it goes something like this: an artist(s) gets a great, great idea for a song or a record. They love the idea, think it’s the greatest idea they've ever had, and they approach the ensuing recording project with every ounce of earnest, heartfelt sincerity. But what happens along the way is that they also shut off their internal bullshit detector. And celebrities have enough say and sway that they can then afford to ignore those types of people – producers, engineers, bandmates, managers, etc. – who would point out what an awful idea it is. They can force their idea through the pipeline against whatever opposition may be there. And the end result, of course, is a terrifyingly bad recording. A dreadful product which started out with nothing but the best of intentions.

Feel free to steal this theory and apply it to just about everything else in the world around you. Most of us do not intend to fail. Quite often, you will come to discover that the worst outcomes are rooted in what seemed, at the time, to be the greatest of ideas. Saying “he means well,” ain’t a compliment.

IN PLAY LOSE Important Concept #1: Sayre’s Law

I figured that it’s important, as we go forward here on the LOSE with further explorations of losing, to define a couple of theoretical concepts which will come up in future posts. I can then link back to these later on.

The first of these is Sayre’s Law, which is named for U.S. political science professor Wallace Stanley Sayre and refers to his attempts to explain the particularly vicious nature of politics in academia – in any sort of dispute, the intensity of the feelings involved is inversely proportional to the value of what is actually at stake.

In the sports world, this concept shows up most glaringly every four years during the Olympics, a spectacle which consists of a whole lot of sports that people only care about once every four years. The more seemingly irrelevant the sport, the more prevalent the petty politicking and big-fish-in-small-pond behaviours. You’re more apt to find cheating and corruption in these sorts of situations, because the stakes are otherwise small, and since those who have a passion for the particular endeavour cannot hope to ever achieve any other sort of reward, they’ll fight like hell for whatever crumbs they can get.

Apply this to your own life as you see fit.

3 Points is 3 Points

There are no bad wins ... there are no bad wins ... there are no bad wins ...

Back in action in "The Hex," which is the 6-team, 10-match CONCACAF qualifier for the World Cup. US is playing tonight at The Office, which is the Jamaican's home ground in Kingston. Tough place to play. Reggae Boyz compete hard at home. World Cup Qualifying is always great stuff. There are no sure things – witness that Malta won a game tonight for the first time since 1993, and Liechtenstein got a draw with Slovakia.

The U.S. got a 1:0 lead on a goal at 30' by Altidore, who seems to finally be starting to fill his enormous potential. Four years ago, he positively abused the Spain backline in the U.S. 2:0 upset win over the future world champs, but he's mucked around lesser European sides since until he found his scoring touch this year in the Netherlands, and it's thought he will be for sale to some nice German or EPL club this offseason.

Anyway, this is a great and welcome surprise. So the U.S. has a 1:0 lead late in the game. 89' of the game, actually. And this wide position on the free kick is no big deal, right?

No problems here at all, right?

Jamaica ties the score at 1:1

What was that rubbish?

Uh, guys, can you play some defense please?

The U.S. has been prone to some sloppy defending here of late, and this was atrocious. Absolutely inexcusable to give up points in the last minute like this when the game seemed in hand.

And if you're the Jamaicans, now that you've been given an absolute gift, it would be a good idea here to tighten the screws on the back end and take the 1:1 draw.

Four minutes of stoppage time added on ...

Yes this happens

Not exactly stout defending by the Jamaicans here:

 I have no idea what those guys are doing. Clearly none of them could be bothered to, Oh, you know, mark someone 8 yds. from the goal!

I was afraid Brad Evans, of Seattle F.C., would miss this just strictly due to shock setting in upon realizing that he is this wide open!

But he didn't miss:

So the final is Jamaica 1:2 U.S. and the Screamin' Eagles pick up the 3 points for the win, go top of the standings in The Hex with games in hand and a whole lotta home games left. They're pretty well positioned now after looking pretty shaky early in the campaign.

This would go down as a bad win if there were such a thing. But the whole idea of any game is to win, and winning means not making the big mistake at the wrong time – or making it a minute before the other team does, I guess. You can win ugly if the other guys lose uglier, and it's better than going down in a blaze of glory any day. There are no bad wins ... there are no bad wins ...

Shameless Plug

A Beautiful Cup, a novel written by some stiff

I just thought this would be a good time to mention that my novel, A Beautiful Cup, which I wrote in 2003, is available in all appropriate ebook formats. It's available for $7.99 from the publisher, Smashwords, and is also available for $9.99 at Barnes & Noble and I think it's available on amazon and a few other places. It's a fun read and I hope you buy it and enjoy it.

Obligatory IN PLAY LOSE related content: one of the characters in the book is a former world-class 400 hurdler at the University of Minnesota.

I have about 3-4 other novel projects in the works here, some further along than others but all sharing one trait: at the moment, they're all pretty bad. They need some work. I'll be busy this summer.

The Worst Team Money Can Buy, June Edition

We’re going to stay away from the obvious here in choosing this month’s award for The Worst Team Money Can Buy, which would mean selecting the Los Angeles Dodgers, because ripping this sorry lot is shooting fish in a barrel. But after Don Mattingly decided to call out two of his overpriced players – benching Andre Ethier and then Matt Kemp – the Dodgers did seem to get some semblance of a clue this past week, at least for the short term, as they won three of four against the equally moribund California Los Angeles Angels of Yucaipa Anaheim. Now, the Angels fooled everyone briefly with an 8-game winning streak, although it should have been taken with a grain of salt because they beat on the Mariners and the Kansas City Royals (or Réal Ciudad Kansas, as we call them around here, the football-style club name making them seem somehow less incompetent), but the Angels then promptly gagged vs. the Dodgers and are now struggling with the Astros. The Freeway Series in L.A. should have been dubbed The Battle of Who Could Care Less.

Mattingly will ultimately be a fall guy in L.A., I would bet, even though he has a lineup full of round holes and nothing but square pegs to work with. Last year’s astonishing deal with the Red Sox continues to pay little to no dividend, which is a shock to absolutely no one, as the Dodgers took on every bad, bloated contract the Bostons had in exchange for James Loney, a good-field-no-power 1B now plying his trade in Tampa Bay. The Red Sox just gave away all of their problems in one fell swoop and have laughed their way towards the top of the AL East this season. The deal was intended to be a bold foray by the new Dodgers ownership, a salvo across the bow to announce their arrival as big time players after coughing up $2.3 billion – yes, billion – for the franchise at auction. And when people spend money this badly, you wonder sometimes how it is that they ever accrued so much in the first place, given that their decision-making seems problematic.

How much does a bad team cost these days? Well, if you’re in the NBA, it’s $535 million, which is the final price for the June WTMCB nominee Sacramento Kings to be sold to a group of Bay Area investors. Now, I will make no bones about the fact that I’m a Seattle basketball fan, and have gone on and on about the Seattle v. Sacramento saga previously, and I think Seattle got jobbed a bit here owing to the continuing interference of that little troll named David Stern, but I am opposed in principle to franchise relocation, and I wish the folks in Sacramento good luck. Because they’re gonna need it, as the deal in place for the Kings is so bad on the Sacramento end that it seems almost doomed to be a failure.

Between the Seattle group’s deep pockets and the NBA’s need to practice some public extortion, they’ve driven up the cost of doing business so high that, in order to “save” the Kings, the group of investors on the Sacramento side a) spent $535m for a franchise valued at around $295m by Forbes; b) agreed not to take $18m in supplemental revenue sharing will still playing in Arco Sleep Train Arena for the foreseeable future; and c) agreed not to take any revenue sharing money at all once a new arena is built. Now, the Seattle group could do that, because they’re bazillionaires and the revenue streams would be there in the future in Seattle, which means they would be payees into the NBA's coffers. The Kings, meanwhile, take a minimum of $20m a year from the league in just to break already (and more likely more than that), and the realities of demographics suggest the Kings will NEVER be able to be a payee into that system. So this group who bought the Kings are losing money from the moment the ink dries on the Purchase Agreement, and will continue doing so until a new arena opens and probably long thereafter, since the economics of the game aren't likely to remain stagnant.

And the iffy arena deal in Sac claims it will only include $258m in public subsidy from parking revenues – which could turn out to be more like $340m or more – and that the building will be done in 2-3 years – which almost certainly be longer. And all that time the Kings will STILL be losing money. If the building takes 5-6 years, which is far more likely than not here in the Republic o’ California, you're talking about being down $100m off the top. Then again, they just $535m for the Kings, so maybe they have $100m to needlessly chuck down a rathole. But I just don't see how this team can hope to compete, other than to luck their way into a superstar in the draft lottery. And in chatting with frustrated Seattle basketball fans and theorizing with them about the subject of future NBA landscape shifts happening, I have argued that the most likely franchise to relocate in the future is still the Sacramento Kings, albeit 5-6 years from now. Not that it's much consolation to present-day Seattleites, of course, a lot of whom want to extend the middle finger in the direction of the NBA offices, and are right for feeling that way.

But that $535m in Sac is chump change compared to the $2.4 billion – yes, BILLION – that the taxpayers in Dade County will be ponying up over the next 40 years to pay off the bonds used to finance the modernist monstrosity that is Marlins Ballpark. Having bitten hook, line, and sinker for the claims from Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria that the franchise was going broke, the county along with the city of Miami cleared out a swath of Little Havana for this ballpark. The Marlins constant low payrolls and cheap ways masked the fact that they were, in fact, profiting wildly and basically pilfering baseball’s revenue sharing plans to do so, but Loria et. al strong armed and sweet talked their way into getting this deal shoved through the various wings of South Florida government, teaming up with politicos who were long on ambition and short on smarts.

It galls me somewhat that a snake oil salesman like Loria – who bought the Expos in Montréal, ran them into the ground, sold the club to MLB and bought the Marlins – managed to luck his way into winning a World Series a few years ago, thus adding some sort of credibility to his regime (an achievement which had EVERYTHING to do with the fact he brought Montréal’s outstanding baseball development staff with him to South Florida, and NOTHING to do with his acumen as an owner) while some truly decent and long-suffering franchises continue to go without.

This ballpark deal has already led to a mayoral recall, the Securities and Exchange Commission has an open investigation going, and the Marlins have returned to their cheap ways this season after an offseason fire sale that followed last year’s ill-advised free agent spending spree, fielding a team this season that is currently 15-41 and may go down as one of the worst the game has ever seen. The Fish most definitely rot from the head. The fans in Miami are in open revolt – the Marlins are singlehandedly responsible for 40% of the decline in MLB attendance so far this year. Loria has managed to blunt all the wonderful lifestyle advantages South Florida possesses in the process, as no free agent in their right mind will want anything to do with this toxic waste dump of a franchise. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton, who is potentially one of the great players of his generation, can only count the days before he can leave.

The Marlins have pretty much poisoned the well for every other sports entity in the state when it comes to doing business. Already this year, the Florida state legislature has ignored a request from the Miami Dolphins for public assistance in remodeling their aging stadium, and then turned around and nixt a plan for property tax relief so as to finance remodeling of Daytona International Speedway – both of which are far more economically significant than the Marlins, mind you, since DIS generates something like $1.5 billion annually in economic benefit for Central Florida, while the Dolphins stadium frequently hosts Super Bowls and NCAA championships and such. (Good luck to the Tampa Bay Rays ever getting out that terrible dome in St. Petersburg, that's all I gotta say.) Now, perhaps something good will come out of this in the end, in that municipalities will stop shelling out enormous public subsidies for sports franchises so willingly. But in the meantime, there are plenty of good seats available in Miami to watch the Marlins, the Worst Team (Your Tax) Money Can Buy in June and pretty much every month for the next 39 years.