Is it even happening?

The World Cup is in apparent full swing over in Qatar, and honestly I sometimes forget it’s even going on. The unusual November start time for a usually summer event surely has something to do with it. Who in the heck thought it was a good idea to play football in the middle of the dessert - in open air stadiums? I’ve read those stadiums are air-conditioned, which is crazy because it’s not that efficient is it, if the cool air has a way to escape through a giant gaping hole?

I guess that doesn’t matter when energy - read: oil - is dirt cheap in the country.

Also hampering the World Cup spirit is the fact we all have jobs now. The problem with the tournament being played on the other side of the world is that there aren’t any “prime time” games for us to watch in the evening. The day’s games are essentially over by the time lunch hour is done. Even kids can’t watch the games because there’s school. Not so if the games were held during the traditional summer months. I fondly remember watching every single World Cup match back in my school days. That was my summer break life for a month. I’d never get out of bed.

As an American it’s good to see team USA making it back into the tournament for the first time since 2014. As of this writing they have advanced into the round-of-16 stage, with a match this Saturday against the Netherlands. Not sure I’ll be watching that one as that match starts bright and early at 7:00 AM my time. The weather’s been cold lately and it’s so easy to slumber on deep into the morning.

The World Cup is coming to North America the next time round, with Canada, Mexico, and the United States cohosting. San Francisco is one of the selected cities to have a match, so hopefully I will get to tick that box on the bucket list. It’ll be nice to bring my dad as well, a life-long football fan.

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Duck, duck, goose.

No World Cup for China. Again.

World Cup 2018 is in full swing and as us Chinese are doing that once-every-four-years pondering on why China have once again failed to qualify for the tournament. In the entire World Cup history the Chinese national team have only qualified once, quite a while back in 2002. The team then had a dreadful go of it, failing to score a single goal in group play. 

How can a country of 1.6 billion souls, in a football region that isn’t exactly competitive (you’ve got the twin titans of Japan and South Korea and that’s it), can’t ever seem to form a competitive team? One would think that simply by law of large numbers China would at least be able to scrap a group together and consistently qualify for the games. 

It isn’t for the lack of money: god knows China is full of wealthy corporations and millionaires. My father tells me China’s football federation and the clubs are awash with capital, able to attract foreign players away from Europe to the Chinese leagues. On the contrary I think it’s because of the immense prevalence of money that's preventing China from playing football on the world stage. 

I see a succinct lack of national pride in Chinese athletes. For footballers in other countries it is an absolute dream to represent their national flag. Just this past weekend the Mexican players was in tears of joy because they won the match against the defending German champions. I seldom see this sort of elation and emotion from Chinese athletes. Look at the Olympics games: where are the signature shots of Chinese athletes standing on the top podium step bawling their eyes out while the national anthem is playing?

In every Olympics China wins a ton of medals, but how many of those are for team sports?

My father says sports in China is too focused on the individual, not nearly enough on team and country, and it’s largely due to the corruption of money. Athletes are selfish towards their own achievements in order to maximize the amount of money they’ll receive - there’s no play for fun or for the love of the game. A player gets upset his teammate scored the goal rather than himself. The lack of unity and playing for the collective have hugely contributed to China’s futility in getting into the World Cup tournament. 

I don’t know if the team China will ever get its act together and fight with some national spirit, but I constantly hope. I would love nothing more than to root for my birth country in future World Cups. 

I dig awesome restroom tile-work, especially public ones where I can look like a creep taking my phone out to take a photograph. 

World Cup fever

It's World Cup season once again and it's always a special time because I get to enjoy watching the games with my father. Every four years we'd spend the month of June in front of the television taking in all the matches - or at least endeavor to. The 2018 edition is held in mother Russia and the time-difference makes things difficult: the games are held during the day our timezone so we can only properly watch on the weekends.

On campus the games are shown at the Student Union which is great because none of us need to work during the Summer, right? (Wrong). 

Attending a World Cup game is on the bucket list so I am happy about the announcement the the 2026 games will be cohosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. it's Great news for America because Team U.S.A won't have to worry about not qualifying because host countries receive automatic berths - a genius move by our soccer federation. Anyways, I look forward to going to a live match with my father in eight year's time.

Might even kill two birds with one stone and go to a game in Canada because I've yet to travel to our northern neighbor. 

FiveThirtyEight has a quiz that will tell you which team you should root for in the World Cup. I got team Deutschland so I shall root for them since USA is not in the tournament. Sadly Germany's first match against Mexico didn't go so well (spectacular game, though) but it's still early days for the defending champions. 

The next three weeks should be quite exciting. 

The many shades of purple. 

Midsummer

It was an interesting weekend for the most part. It marked the final two days of the 2014 World Cup, which is a bit melancholic when you think about it. Granted, fours years will undoubtedly fly by in seemingly no time until the next world tournament. Unfortunately that is to be held in Russia, so only the most hardy of fans in the United States will be willing to essentially not sleep at all to catch games during the early hours of morning.

Pass the snacks, please. 

It was also a rare weekend where I went to two Giants games. Well, two if you only look at the ticket stubs. Due to the World Cup final I had to abort the Sunday game, having only entered the ballpark to receive the bobblehead giveaway. I didn't even pay for seats - it was a standing room ticket. Quite clever, if I do say so myself. The game on Friday that I actually did stay and watch was a good one, though. The team actually won, which is a rarity of the Giants this past month.

I am miffed that I missed seeing the two grand-slams hit by Posey and Bumgarner on Sunday. Damn you, World Cup! 

A Facebook acquaintance of mine flew to Spain this week to partake in the historic running with the bulls. Tick one off the bucket-list for that guy. Personally I don't think I'd be brave enough to risk getting impaled by an angry bull many times my size. But a lesson for the younger people out there: stuff like running with the bulls is proper "you only live once" type of shit, not getting hammered with alcohol and peeing on a police car (massive cookie points if you get this albeit obscure reference).