Soccer, Sports and Politics - Part Deux

Two goals, one a great individual display, the other awesome team build up:

 

Always Arsenal's problem post 2004. Trying to pass it into the net.

 

Time management in Brazilpic.twitter.com/WB6sR8sh9u

— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) March 4, 2024

 

Not a problem this season.

 

Emmitt Smith left 'utterly disgusted' after alma mater University of Florida eliminates DEI department (msn.com)

Subtitled: Black man attends regional PWI, gleefully talks cash shit about said PWI's greatness for 3.5 decades and then suddenly sees them accurately when they finally do something even he knows is wrong

Hey, Emmitt... Florida's band played the first ten notes of Dixie every damn time your ass crossed the goal line. It is (or was, as of EA Sports' NCAA 2008) literally in their fight song. Were you deaf between 1987 and 1989, or did you decide to ignore it because you were receiving the royal treatment given to a top SEC ballcarrier?

Late to the party, my guy, and not fashionably so.

The USC Trojans don't play Dixie when (if) they score a TD. You might have been able to help them beat Notre Dame in 1988 when the Irish last won a natty. But you decided to stay close to home. That's on you. But did you think all was rosy in Gainesville, or was it that you hadn't been more than 100 miles from Pensacola except to visit an SEC athletic facility and had no ideas what kind of college life you could have had in a state that was significantly less ass-backward than Florida was even before this rubber boots- wearing clownsuit became governor? Do you think your state's residents just suddenly became conservative, or have you realized that they were just waiting for a Messiah to guide them?

 

We will see if this is the year. They need to find their steel when they play a must win. That is the other issue since '04.

 

You’ll never see this in EPL:

pic.twitter.com/0QOPb9b4sR

— Out Of Context Football (@nocontextfooty) March 4, 2024

 

Shooting a football match on 35mm film ⚽️🎞️ #expiredfilmclub pic.twitter.com/Y286a9AjoT

— Miles | Expired Film Club (@expiredfilmclub) March 3, 2024

Shooting a football match on a 127 year-old camera ⚽️📸 pic.twitter.com/7F8LfO55dD

— Miles | Expired Film Club (@expiredfilmclub) February 25, 2024

Six Nations rugby shot on 35mm film 🏉🎞️ pic.twitter.com/DRck4iapeB

— Miles | Expired Film Club (@expiredfilmclub) February 15, 2024

 

I just saw this so it must've popped up because of Emmitt:

Louisiana State University’s Tigers are named after a company of homegrown Confederates famous for their audacious attacks at First Manassas. College bands kept playing “Dixie” for more than a century after Fort Sumter; the University of Mississippi (where the football team is named, with no attempt at subtlety, the Rebels) clung to the battle flag and “Dixie” until well into the twenty-first century. The University of Florida played Penn State in the 1962 Gator Bowl, just a year after the Nittany Lions’ star defensive lineman, future Hall of Famer Dave Robinson, had broken the bowl’s color barrier; the Gators played with a Confederate battle flag patch on their helmets to show that despite Appomattox, the South had not really surrendered.

 

I swear if you close your eyes, you could convince yourself Mickey Mouse has just broken the 400m indoor world record for Netherlands… pic.twitter.com/GyEbYSYn3H

— Bairdric (@Bairdric1) March 3, 2024

 

Dutch Monitor will find you and hunt you down.

 

Which one?

 

??
That was 1962.

No Eastern PWI program wanted Black athletes in 1962, not even Dave Robinson. I'd be surprised if USC wanted them. Check to see who his road roommate was* and who his potential GFs were. That will tell you how welcome he was. The Northeastern schools just tolerated them, which is worse than not accepting them at all. Emmitt played in the late 80s and was supposed to recognize the opening strains of Dixie at the end of his school's fight song**. That he apparently did not speaks volumes about his upbringing, if there was any (some children end up rearing themselves morally, because the parents have often been down thoo so much that they don't even want to discuss it with their kids on a daily basis. and it leaves those children vulnerable to all sorts of attacks and being used like Emmitt was at UF. Emmitt's folks may have been that kind).

My parents would never have allowed me to enroll at any PWI without a clear understanding of what I was there for, who I was to avoid to keep from becoming a Scottsboro Boy, that I was to observe the lives and treatment of the students who looked like me but were not athletes, and that I was never to cheerlead for the school once I left if I noticed signs of conservatism within the environment. It would be a stepping stone to the NFL and nothing more. Poor Emmitt actually thought he was a Gator- he didn't realize he was just passing thru and nothing was gonna change while he was there..

* Northeastern teams who wanted to appear not so conservative often recruited even numbers of Black players so Kyle wouldn't have to suffer a Black roommate- a tradition continued into the NFL until at least the mid-60s if not longer

** I hadn't heard it until I played with Florida for a game when I first bought NCAA in 2000 or so. I'm not that much older than Emmitt, but I heard it right away.

 

Not photos. His roommate. His dating pool.

For reference yet again

 

Not last season where you lads had no fight against City at home and lost other games with like 8 to go?

 

Google it. He was the only AA at Rutgers at the time, accomplished student & athlete, married a fellow AA law school student but also philandered around in Europe. Was labeled a "commie" with all the heat that brought mid 20th century. Did it all during Jim Crow too. His biographer noted upon his death in the 70s

the "white [American] press ... ignored the continuing inability of white America to tolerate a black maverick who refused to bend, ... downplayed the racist component central to his persecution" [during his life, as they] "gingerly" [paid him] "respect and tipped their hat to him as a 'great American'," while the black American press, "which had never, overall, been as hostile to Robeson" [as the white American press had,] opined that his life " '... would always be a challenge to white and Black America.'"

 

Tomiyasu one of Arsenal's best defenders? Come on - he was/is a bench player. Of course, a deep bench is important, but I don't buy the fatigue excuse in this case because Arsenal were playing just 1 match per week during the stretch run (eliminated from Europe and FA Cup early on).

Partey is a limited footballer. So yeah, if they were playing him when he wasn't 100% fit he must have been beyond rubbish. Glad they got a world class MFer in Rice. That's probably the biggest single difference last season to this season. Partey coming on for the final 20 minutes to protect a 6-goal lead encompasses all the type of situations that I want to see him on the field in the next 3 months. But anyway... so, its more difficult to envision Arsenal leaking a bunch of goals down the stretch this season like they did last season. The big question is, are they going to continue banging in the goals?

 

Perhaps, though they already had Jesus last season. Personally, I'm not a big fan. Glad to see Havertz filling-in for him lately and hope that continues.