USNMT one nil over Bosnia at the half.

@chienfou

I was away from screen for this one. What did the coach do?

@f00l
The ball went out of play and he picked it up and held it while he was protesting some action on the field. It actually looked pretty silly

@f00l
In the (extremely) unlikely event that it came down to France vs USMNT (which would have to be a final match the way the brackets work) I would be very torn as to which team to support.
French heritage (1st generation) vs Natural born citizen…
Much as I would love to be in the position to have to make that choice, I am not convinced it is very likely to happen. I will however continue to watch the matches of both teams for as long as they keep winning…

@chienfou

I love France. Only been there once tho.

My earliest ancestry (that I know of) to arrive on the shores of N America’s east coast were split between some English and some French Huguenots.

One of them, according to legend, actually hid in a wine barrel to get aboard ship bound for N American; he was some kinda of very minor nobility locally, and was just enough of a local notable for the anti-Protestant forces to specifically target him for arrest.

Supposedly the rest of his family either went to Holland or England and then many/most eventually headed over here.

And the family picked up more French ancestry in Louisiana.

Mom’s family name is clearly Americanized French. I’ve heard that we are supposed to be at least distantly related to everyone else with that last name whose family has been in N America for a while.

I dunno if that’s true. And no kinda close relation speaks French or preserves French culture, afaik. I wish we still did. I’d be smarter and more culturally aware.

I think the French and English ancestry showed up at about the same time. People have done the research but I’ve never checked into it.

Anyway. The possible game.

If the French don’t bow out because of the presence of ranch dressing, and the US and France meet in the final …

I would root for the US team.

And I would admire and be in awe of the French team•.

——-

A lot of the times when I watched this game I know absolutely nothing about. I can’t really understand very well exactly how the players plan to accomplish something with the ball and their positioning and their skills. If they are mostly not close to either goal.

To me and my uneducated eyes, they seem to just be kind of vaguely trying to get closer to the opponent’s goal and then get lucky or something

With a great team, such as France or Argentina (and I haven’t yet watched Spain)

It’s a whole different deal to watch them. I can make sense of them because they are so coordinated as a team and so intelligent and have so much game perspective in their play, and they have the skill to often do what they want on the pitch.

So I’m better able to make sense of the game, and then I can kind of figure out how the game works a little bit better than I could yesterday;

and then it’s easier for me to make sense of the play from teams that don’t seem to have that level of insane talent and coordination and intelligence

I guess the less great teams are trying to do the same sort of things that the great teams do, just with variations for talent and ability to read possible opportunities.

But lesser teams do all that less well, and that’s why it looks like more of a mess to me

So I love watching the great teams.

———

And of course the France has one of the all time great national anthems.

I could put that famous nightclub scene from Casablanca on repeat.

/youtube casablanca le marseillaise

@f00l
They just held an event in our local small antique movie theater. The Montgomery Recreators (who play swing/big band stuff) came and did an hour and 15 minutes show then there was a break while they reset the stage and pulled down the screen for a showing of Casablanca. I hadn’t seen that movie in years. I forgot how good it was…

@chienfou

The screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein (brothers) (with contributions from Howard Koch and Casey Robinson) must have been “in the zone” while writing this film.

Was there ever another film with so many quotable lines?

And the love story resolves perfectly. Under terrible conditions, loving often means doing the sacrificial and honorable thing, which often means not indulging one’s normal dreams of sharing a life with one’s love. .

/youtube “there are no waters in Casablanca” “I was misinformed”

From Wikipedia:

Julius Epstein later noted the screenplay contained “more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there’s nothing better”

Many of the names cast and extras were actually refugees. This includes the most of the actors playing Nazis including the actor playing Major Strasser (Much of Hollywood was in the armed services and elsewhere at the time).

Many of the cast already knew the lyrics to Le Marseillaise before they got to America. Portions of the crowd scenes were so moving for the refugee cast and crew that filming had to be paused more than once to let them stop crying.

Screenwriter Robert McKee and the Screenwriters Guild of America both call the screenplay the greatest of all time.

/youtube Casablanca “round up the usual suspects”

It’s as re-watchable as any film ever made.

It has been dissected by all sorts of semioticians and literary theorists;

There were proposed remakes. (Godard refused) Many films have used parts of the film as lift-off energy for their own meta-reworkings of narrative filmmaking.
(Most famously, Play It Again, Sam and The Usual Suspects

Bogart said “here’s looking at you kid” to Bergman while she was playing poker between takes.

The line was put into the script and became immortal.

Conceptualization for the film was heavily influenced by prior films Algiers, Pepe Le Moko, and La Grande Illusion.

/youtube Casablanca “hill of beans”

@f00l

Somehow, that previous post saved itself without my intention

Anyway, one of the teams got assigned at San Diego. I think it’s the Swiss.

They have a luxury hotel area blocked off just for them with lots of security and they get to stay there and just fly out of the game so they get to settle in and that’s for more comfortable and of course San Diego is a great place to hang out

And right next door to their hotel it’s a fairly wild Canyon. That’s not tiny.

Anyway, when the team arrived, they got a lecture from the local Leo’s or rescue people.

Not about any political or legal or immigration or gun ownership or cartel activity or anything like that

About the local wildlife

And specific snakes, especially rattlesnakes, and tarantulas taste like that

The team kind of seemed to think it was a bit of a Hollywood or California joke. Not serious.

So the local person explained it was very real.

That the local residents always wear tall boots or cowboy boots are similar and don’t wear shorts and terrain like that because of the danger

Supposedly the speaker said something like

“It’s serious. if you think it’s not serious then maybe you will miss a few matches or maybe you will miss the rest of your life if you’re unlucky”

@f00l

/giphy rattlesnake

@Kyeh
Thanks…Waiting to see who they’ll play for third place…

@chienfou

@Kyeh
Guess it’s France vs England Saturday…

@chienfou Oh, will you be able to watch that?

@chienfou Oh, good!

@chienfou

And condolences re 3rd place match.

I watched this one

France played like they were zombies or were asleep the first half

England walloped them for the first half

When France came out onto the field for the second half it was like a different team they were playing like they might’ve won everything again

They scored four goals very impressive

Final score England won 6-4 which is an incredible scoring total

If France had played during the entire game the way they played the second half. They would’ve won the game unless England also stepped way up.

Mbappe was astonishing the second half.

So all we have left is Spain versus Argentina tomorrow

I didn’t know in this modern world of misery and division, and everybody hating everybody else else’s political opinions, that some major world event could be this much fun

The Olympics stopped being this much fun a long time ago

I think the reason it was this much fun is that the traveling fandoms are so great. They’re wonderful and they’re just a joy to be around. At least they were for this World Cup.

——-

Plus everyone:
The teams and players
The managers and staff
The stadium owners
The fans
Etc

Get to bond together, about how much we all hate FIFA for being so corrupt

FIFA has run very tough deals with all possible contracts

Such as FIFA sales not being charged any sales tax

Such as getting a hefty percentage of all television ad revenue

Such as FIFA controlling the ticket prices and letting them run up to extreme prices

Such as everyone still believes that all the people at FIFA headquarters who have any power still take massive amounts of brides and keep the money locked away in secret bank accounts

But I give it this. It is a great sport.

Sorry about France’s loss.

Mbappe is ahead right now for the Golden Boot. I think by 1 over Messi. But he’s had the chance to play one more match than Messi.

Messi still has one game to play.

/giphy fútbol

@f00l
Mbappe is currently two up on Messi. Tomorrow will be exciting!

@chienfou

It’s exciting goalless in OT.

Very interesting play.

Spain dominates the pitch and controls the ball, but cannot score.

Argentina, everything they do and Argentina goalkeeper is insanely good

Argentina is playing well enough to disrupt anything Spain has going

15 or so min to play in OT.
0-0

Spain just scored.

1-0

@chienfou @f00l did Argentina even attempt a goal?

@f00l @pakopako
I was at wirk (ER 1445-2315) so missed the first half then too busy to watch the rest of the game (brought my laptop “just in case”). Saw that Argentina played a man down most of the last part of the game. Thought it would go to PKs.