GoooooooL!!!!

Left

And then there were four: Argentina, Croatia, France, and Morocco.

Argentina: The last chance for Messi to win the big one.

Croatia: Runners-up four years ago, in their Ralston Purina checkerboard squares.

France: The defending champions.

Morocco: The road from Morocco has made them the first team from Africa to reach the semi-finals. The 1942  film “Road to Morocco” featured one of the greatest puns ever when Bing Crosby and Bob Hope sang, “Like Webster’s Dictionary we’re Morocco bound.”

Left

On the way home are Portugal, England, and Brazil—joining Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany as big names ousted from the tournament. 

Left Home

Italy: who never qualified. To me, no World Cup is legitimate without the Italians, who always seem to have more personality than all the other teams combined.

Nothing New

England go out of a major tournament because of a failure to convert on a penalty kick.

Sore Losers

Portugal: who complained that an Argentine referee was assigned to their quarter-final match against Morocco: “Bruno, Pepe blame ref for Portugal World Cup elimination: 'Clearly, they've tilted the field against us.’”

The Netherlands: Luuk De Jong had a complaint against the referee in the defeat to Argentina: “It’s not easy …. But he seemed to blow very easily for Argentina.”

England: England defender Harry Maguire, also about the referee: ”I can't really explain his performance, the amount of decisions he got wrong was actually incredible. Really poor."

An Oldie, But a Goody

Olivier Giroud (France) 36 years old: Scored the winning header against England. (See above.)

Youngsters, But Goodies

Jude Bellingham (England) 19 years old. 

Bukayo Saka (England) 21 years old

Multicolor

One of the delights of the World Cup is seeing how the fans of the different countries deck themselves out not only in their national colors but in some outrageous costumes. Have fun, folks! The most colorful of crowds are the followers of the African elevens, in this edition the Ghanians, the Cameroonians, and the Senegalese, the last of these never stopped dancing and singing throughout the ninety minutes.

White

By contrast, there were the ranks of Qataris, who made me do a double take; I thought my linen closet had escaped from home.

Speaking of White

The Senegalese (see picture above) had painted their faces white. What would have been the reaction if, say, the English fans had painted their faces black?

A Bust at Burnley

Wout Weghorst (the Netherlands) was no help to Burnley Football Club in his time in the English Premier League. He scored two goals against Argentina. Go figure.

  

Español 

I have been watching the matches on Spanish web streaming. I can boast that I have understood every tenth word—as long as that word is “corner.” Are the Spanish-speaking play-by-play announcers the fastest speakers in the world outside of tobacco auctioneers? And it should be noted, as a gesture to equality, the network at times employs two women analysts together.

All Set

For the semi-final Tuesday—Argentina versus Croatia. 

Headgear ready. But the face will be painted neither white nor black. 

Beer Bust

*

Unless you’ve been unconscious for the past week or so, you know that the world’s most prominent sporting event—the FIFA World Cup, the soccer tournament of tournaments—has been going on in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar. Holding the tournament in a land of (to put it kindly) soccer minnows of course makes as much sense as holding the premier auto racing series, Formula 1, this year in such noted automotive venues as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Abu Dhabi. 

Qatar, after winning its bid for the World Cup, set about hiring thousands of workers from impoverished countries such as Nepal to build a number of world-class stadiums. Many international companies signed on to be sponsors of the tournament, including Budweiser, who was assured that it would be the only beer allowed to be sold in those new stadiums. Imagine the chagrin in the suds headquarters when two days before the opening match, a decree came down that, Qatar being a Muslim country, it would not allow alcohol sales at the sporting venues. This turnabout was especially hard on the England supporters, who like to get tanked before kickoff. In The Guardian, Marina Hyde’s cynical take on this development was

let’s face it – serving only Budweiser was already a de facto beer ban.*

One didn’t have to be a dyed-in-the-wool cynic to expect that the “no-alcohol-please-we’re-muslim” proclamation was not all it seemed to be. 

The New York Times reported that 

[t]he main difference between the luxury and non-luxury seats at this year’s World Cup is alcohol.**

The so-called ban, The Times reported,

didn’t affect the flow of free beer — or free champagne, Scotch, gin, whiskey, wine and other drinks — available to non-regular fans in the V.I.P., V.V.I.P. and hospitality areas. The rules, it seemed, did not apply to them.

At a $3,000-a-seat hospitality lounge at Al Bayt during the U.S.’s game with England, for instance, the bar menu included Taittinger Champagne, Chivas Regal 12-year-old whisky, Martell VSOP brandy and Jose Cuervo 1800 tequila.

 

*

Upon reading The Times report, I couldn’t help but couple it with an exposé of a week earlier by The Guardian of the £29 million a Tory peer, Michelle Mone, secretly received from a firm supplying PPE through a government contract during the coronavirus epidemic. It was a firm that Mone actively lobbied the government for.

Documents seen by the Guardian indicate tens of millions of pounds of PPE Medpro’s profits were later transferred to a secret offshore trust of which Mone and her adult children were the beneficiaries.***

Alas, all was not smooth sailing for Mone after PPE Medpro secured the government financing. The poor dear had to cancel a planned wedding ceremony in the Palace of Westminster because of COVID restrictions. So she and her fiance, Douglas Alan Barrowman, switched the venue to Barrowman’s home on the Isle of Man, which had fewer COVID restrictions.

While the couple were making wedding arrangements from this base, Barrowman seems to have also been focusing on moving profits gained from PPE Medpro around various Isle of Man registered trusts, companies and accounts.****

But the bride had her Jimmy Choo shoes, the affair had an opera singer and five bands, and the couple could go on to enjoy their yacht, which, presumably, had smooth sailing.

*

All of which proves Fitzgerald right and Hemingway wrong: the rich are different from you and me—they are hypocrites and cheats on a higher plane.

***

* https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/18/beer-ban-beckham-and-a-vagina-stadium-the-world-cup-in-inglorious-technicolor-qatar

** https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/sports/soccer/qatar-world-cup-vip.html

*** https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/23/revealed-tory-peer-michelle-mone-secretly-received-29m-from-vip-lane-ppe-firm

**** https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/23/the-yacht-the-wedding-and-29m-michelle-mones-life-during-the-covid-crisis