Comment du Jour

Velkom to Football, ah, Soccer!

South Africa is hosting the World Cup of Football, the month-long extravaganza of the beautiful game; the country will be the backdrop to amazing sporting events until early July.

Team USA has done surprisingly well—a 1-1 tie with England, and a 2-2 draw with Slovenia. In the Slovenia game a third American Goal was disqualified by a referee and thus the USA did not win. Well, that is what the Referees decreed anyway.

The USA is performing remarkably; I always say Americans learn soccer and play it well. The Europeans—and of course Brazil and Argentina—have Soccer in their DNA and thus the beautiful game comes naturally.

Germany was off to an amazing start with a 4-0 win over Australia but Germany’s second game saw a very jarring loss to Serbia 1-0.

European teams are doing well with the Netherlands winning two games, Portugal winning one but Italy having a surprising draw with New Zealand.

The real surprises seem to be the poor performance of England (a favorite for some) and France. Les Bleus are just not up to the game after a spate of scandals and poor performances both on a draw with Uruguay and a loss to Mexico and off the pitch with arguing among teammates and staff.