ChevChelios
Tartan Army Lt. Col (ret'd)
I realize that almost nobody in North America (with the exception of Mexico) cares about the World Cup despite the fact their countries are hosting it, and granted that fundamentally it's all globohomo bread and circuses and depressingly mercenary to boot, but there is still a great deal of aesthetic pleasure to be derived from football soccer when it's played at its highest level. For that reason I'd like to propose an open thread for anyone who is following the WC to share their insights.
My own biggest concern in this competition is obviously Scotland, which has qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. Despite a brilliant qualifying win against Denmark last fall, the Scots are (more typically) looking very poor so far, having only managed the narrowest win against Haiti a couple of days ago -- and they have yet to face African champions Morocco and five-time World Cup winners Brazil (even though the latter team is now just a shadow of its former greatness). As lacklustre as they are, Scotland may benefit from the fact that this year's competition has been expanded from 32 to 48 teams, so at least some third-place teams from the group stage are going to advance to the second round.
Just to anticipate the most obvious political points: yes, Western teams are constantly getting blacker -- France is by now entirely black, and for that matter even Japan has a darkie goalkeeper -- but this isn't the case across the board: Czechia's players for example all resemble Nazi super-soldiers, and South Korea's squad are like a racially-homogenous hivemind. And the black African countries themselves never do very well at the WC, for whatever reason. There is still enough recognizable ethno-nationality in most of the teams to make it a genuine exhibition of the world's various peoples, at least for now -- so we should enjoy it while it lasts.
My own biggest concern in this competition is obviously Scotland, which has qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. Despite a brilliant qualifying win against Denmark last fall, the Scots are (more typically) looking very poor so far, having only managed the narrowest win against Haiti a couple of days ago -- and they have yet to face African champions Morocco and five-time World Cup winners Brazil (even though the latter team is now just a shadow of its former greatness). As lacklustre as they are, Scotland may benefit from the fact that this year's competition has been expanded from 32 to 48 teams, so at least some third-place teams from the group stage are going to advance to the second round.
Just to anticipate the most obvious political points: yes, Western teams are constantly getting blacker -- France is by now entirely black, and for that matter even Japan has a darkie goalkeeper -- but this isn't the case across the board: Czechia's players for example all resemble Nazi super-soldiers, and South Korea's squad are like a racially-homogenous hivemind. And the black African countries themselves never do very well at the WC, for whatever reason. There is still enough recognizable ethno-nationality in most of the teams to make it a genuine exhibition of the world's various peoples, at least for now -- so we should enjoy it while it lasts.
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