Tag Archives: Fact-Mic Check

You Know Nothing of Sengkang Punggol FC

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So, you enjoyed the world cup matches, didn’t you? The goals. The drama. The near misses. The crushing weight of expectations bearing upon broad shoulders, the dissipation of dreams like the dew of an August morning. Yet one very important victory escaped your grasp. It happened in Singapore. No, this is not some of that low level “second division” soccer stuff. This is not some “World Cup Break” twist and turn to divert your attention to something that is merely superficially amusing.

No, this is profoundly amusing. Continue reading “You Know Nothing of Sengkang Punggol FC” »

NYTimes (Goal Blog) World Cup Colossal Fail

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So, I generally try to stay away from the “Guardian-fact-checking” style of blogging. I also am a huge fan of the Goal blog at the NYTimes. Still, that made this morning’s reading all the more disturbing.


How intriguing, no? Zidane won the World Cup with Italy in 1998 and then played against Italy in the 2006 final? Surely that’s got to be a record or something. So maybe Materazzi talked some trash because Zizou betrayed the Azzurri.

Or maybe, just maybe, Zizou never played for Italy. And maybe Italy did not win the World Cup in 1998. And maybe….

In the Spirit of Stealing Content Part 5

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So, you brushed off your espanol with last week’s thievery post, but now I have a bit of hazy-maze-puzzle for you. A feminist friend sent me a link lamenting that a women footy club in Naquera, Spain, faced with severe financial difficulties, did the unthinkable – they pulled off a Brandi Chastain…in calendar form.

Allegedly, the ladies posed for a scandalous soccer calendar to raise funds. Yes, Simone De Beauvoir rolls in her grave and my postmodern-liberal-radical feminist mind races in circles and circles. Is this a good thing? Do we problematize sexuality by ironically portraying the gender roles? Or is this master-servant with one whip firmly in one party’s hand? (And we assume that’s a bad thing)…

Then comes the skeptical aspect and a regional linguistic element – the concept of a town named “Naquera” to my Mexican ears elicits a laugh. Why? Well, because “naco” is the word used to describe somebody who, ahem, lacks culture. Think redneck, but without intellectual stalwarts Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy defending the cause. It is an even worse (and homophobic) perjorative in Nicaraguan Spanish.

And thus I began my search for the truth from the comfort of my desk but in a surreal state of disbelief and suspicion. And then things got interesting… Continue reading “In the Spirit of Stealing Content Part 5” »

In the Spirit of Stealing Content Part 2

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You speak a little Spanish and wanna hang with the big boys of South America? I suggest reading Futbol y Asociados, who focus on Ecuador but pretty much cover the whole continent. Alejo dug up a pretty delicious tale of government corruption, futbol, and fan hassling, all revolving around one national id card… Continue reading “In the Spirit of Stealing Content Part 2” »

In the Spirit of Stealing Content Part 1

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Jack Bell of the NYTimes found a pretty cool fact about the 1950 World Cup…

“India was invited by FIFA — what a quaint notion — to participate but declined because its team was forbidden to play in bare feet.”

I wonder if that would happen 50 years later. Of course, now that the winner of the World Cup gets $30 million, maybe the Indian Football Association would spring for some shoes, or at least alpargatas.