Monday, July 31, 2006

The Surreal Life

In what surely must be some sort of performance-art project rather than a genuine match result, it seems Real Salt Lake, the worst team in MLS, defeated DC United, the best by far, on two stoppage-time penalty kicks. (The second officially occurred in the *96th* minute.) Sounds like the referee took his inspiration from Adidas' popular Merk+11 campaign during the World Cup. DC manager Nowak is shocked, but probably no more so than the 20,000-plus Real fans who dragged themselves to the game only to see their woeful side somehow smuggle its fifth win of the campaign. See, Timbers—there's hope!

IN OTHER NEWS 1: The ever-estimable Guardian/Observer media empire provides a fascinating post-mortem on the Serie A match-fixing scandal. The saga reads like a lost chapter from Peter Robb's incomparably weird and great Mafia book, Midnight in Sicily. Just another reason to pay more attention to Serie A this year—sometimes, you don't find out the actual result of a match (or league season) for months! The suspense!

IN OTHER NEWS 2: Yer Humble Correspondent made his debut with Muckrakers FC, an indoor team composed just about entirely of local journalists, at Beaverton's palatial SoccerPlex. We lost our Co-Rec III game by a 3-1 score, but our lone goal was a beautifully lofted shot from well outside the area from Lee Van der Voo (Lake Oswego Review). Ryan Frank (Oregonian) was absent, depriving the team of its first look at an all-redhead attack as YHC (Freelance, XIDevils) spent most of the game at forward. And we only scored once, you say? That's strange. Remember Newton Heath! We have a HUGE future in front of us.

IN OTHER NEWS 3: While on the subject of the indoor game, I'm psyched to check this place out. Never played futsal, but if it's how Ronaldhino got so good, I can't wait!

1 comment:

Zach Dundas said...

Amazing goals? Your first two goals were practically world-class! That blast from the half-way line left us all literally speechless, which doesn't happen often to writers.

That was a good game—I was impressed with the referee, too. I don't even remember what he looked like, which is always a good sign.