Back in 2013 I did a list of 10 Movies I would watch today, tomorrow and next week.
May of these films, thankfully, seem to be in heavy rotation among long-haul airways, so you can see them without commercial interruption if you are crossing an ocean.
However, I left out one movie that has to force its way into the top 10 somewhere (probably at the expense of one of the comedies) — one I watched more than once on the way from Paris to Los Angeles.
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We went for the burritos. We stayed for the NBA.
We had been in California for a week without visiting a restaurant serving Mexican food, and that was remedied by a visit to a little place named La Costa, in the Inland Empire city of Redlands.
We sat so that we had a good view of one of the two TVs hanging from the ceiling because a couple of us, anyway, were interested in the outcome of Game 4 of the Cleveland-Toronto series.
By the end of our meal, we were just two of several people watching the game, perhaps another indication of the rise of the NBA as one of America’s favorite sports.
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For nearly two full NBA seasons, I read a lot about the Golden State Warriors. I saw the occasional clip.
But not once in the two seasons in which the Warriors upended the NBA with a rain of three-pointers … did I see as many as five consecutive minutes of any game live. That can happen, when you live in Abu Dhabi or France.
That changed today, during Game 3 of the Western Conference championship series, which I watched, and I have to ask: What’s all the fuss about?”
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It was jarring from the moment it was cued up for television viewers:
Alan Pardew … coach Alan Pardew … dancing on the sideline moments after his Crystal Palace team took a 1-0 lead in the FA Cup final, the world’s longest-running competition in team sports.
The goal came late … ish … in the match against heavily favored Manchester United, in the 78th minute, and in theory an English Premier League team ought to be able to nurse a goal advantage from there to the final whistle.
But then Pardew busted a move, and the wrath of the soccer gods was incurred.
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When I was married, several decades ago, I remember my parents producing a lengthy list of their friends and associates who they thought ought to be invited to the ceremony and reception.
I also remember thinking, “Hey, this is for the people getting married and our friends and relatives. … and why do we have your pals from the club/church/workplace on the guest list? I don’t know those people!”
Some of us are slow on the uptake.
A major subplot at most weddings is this one: It is a formal opportunity for people in the latter half of life to get together and see former colleague and associates and maybe even high school and college buddies — and to share perhaps decades-old news and photos.
Sure, the kids are in the expensive dresses and the rented tuxedos, and they will do about 90 percent of the dancing, but the oldsters are having almost as much fun — in an oldster sort of way.
As we saw again tonight.
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First thought: This is no kind of team to give 88-year-old Vin Scully in his last season as the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers. These are not The Boys of Summer. They are not The Big Blue Wrecking Crew.
The Dodgers not quite awful but they certainly are not good — which you might reasonably have expected when ownership committed to spending $245 million on salaries this season for the fattest payroll in the bigs.
In the won-loss column, they are the epitome of mediocrity — 21 victories, 21 defeats — after tonight’s loss to the Angels.
But it’s scarier than that.
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Yesterday, we linked to a podcast reexamining what happened to the U.S. national team at the 1998 World Cup … and if we boiled it down one of the primary factors for the U.S. face-plant at France ’98 was the bad behavior of John Harkes, the team’s captain.
So, it was a bit of a surprise to bump into “Harkesy” in a news story today, while visiting The Guardian website.
He apparently is not suffering from lingering bad feelings from the 1998 episodes because Harkes now is the coach of FC Cincinnati, a new United Soccer League club in Ohio’s biggest southern city.
And Cincinnati seems to be revealing itself as a fine soccer city, perhaps one deserving of a place in Major League Soccer.
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It would seem a bit late, as well as irrelevant, to conduct a post mortem of the U.S. failure to win a point from the 1998 World Cup.
But Alexi Lalas, one of the best-known players on that U.S. team, and Steve Sampson, the U.S. coach, spend 40-plus fascinating minutes on The Mutant Gene Podcast going over what happened to their team at France 1998 — the most miserable World Cup experience for the Yanks in the modern history of the team.
It is fascinating stuff, especially for those who have some memory of what went on in that tournament, four years after the U.S. had reached the final 16 when hosting the 1994 World Cup.
The 1998 U.S. performance had all sorts of subplots, and one of the biggest came to light 12 years later.
I covered that World Cup from beginning to end, focusing on the Yanks till they went down in flames, and to hear Lalas and Sampson talk about it made me almost queasy, even now.
Some key points:
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This is a little odd.
City people, like us … who find it fascinating and even a bit soothing when the neighborhood’s flock of sheep come ambling and baa-ing along.
Check the video!
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Here we are on Day 2 of My Favorite Soccer Coaches Roundup, which includes a certain Spanish player and coach who grew up wanting to be a sports writer. But more about that in a bit.
I have been a fan of Quique Sanchez Flores from the moment he was named as coach of the Al Ahli club in Dubai.
He looked cool, in that studiously “informal” Spanish/Madrileno way. One shirt tail hanging over his jeans. Old sneakers. A sweater worn over a collared shirt, not quite lined up.
And if anyone in the Arabian Gulf League had the right to cultivate cool, it was him — former Valencia and Real Madrid right back, former Atletico Madrid coach who won the Europa League and the Uefa Super Cup in 2010. Arguably, the most-qualified coach in the history of the UAE.
This season, Quique (pronounced KEY-kay), a nickname for “Enrique”, took charge of Watford, one of the three English clubs promoted into the Premier League, and then he went out and secured their place in the top division.
Watford finished 13th, with 45 points, and were never at real risk of relegation.
But that did not keep Watford’s owners, the Pozzo family of Italy, from deciding this week that they and Quique had differing visions for the club — meaning he will not be back for a second season leading the club.
Which is crazy.
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