It's not keeping me from sharing all kinds of nonsense to keep this train moving, though.
Let's start with youth being served.
Lamine Yamal is four days from turning 17. He's started every match at the Euros for Spain, recording three assists in four matches leading into yesterday's semifinal against France. Les Bleus took an early lead on a sublime back post header by Randal Kolo Muani from a Kylian Mbappe pass. Fewer than 10 minutes later, Yamal did this (go to the 3:00 mark, unless you want to see all the highlights), making him the youngest men's player ever to score in a Euro match:
As you know from years of watching this space, one of our collective dreams is to buy a piece of property with enough buildings on it to create a compound for all of the Gheorghieverse to live in harmony and/or visit. Dave should visit. Rootsy and I both follow the Instagram account @old_house_life to keep our eyes on promising properties. Like this one. A 9,000 square foot building with great bones in a pretty part of Western Massachusetts for 200 grand? We could do worse.
Roan's success has led her to be called a "queer pop icon", "a superstar in the making", and a "visionary performer". Roan has been credited with leading a "lesbian pop renaissance" on the music charts and within the cultural zeitgeist. Roan's music brought the concept of compulsory heterosexuality into the forefront of mainstream pop music. She has been praised for her "unapologetic authenticity" and "expression of her queerness and femininity" in her music and live performances, inspiring young women to embrace their own sexuality. She has also been applauded for her image "rejecting the male gaze" within the pop landscape. Roan has been praised for her "punkish" attitude towards the status quo for queer performers and applauded for "rewriting the rules of lovelorn pop." Rolling Stone described watching Roan's performances as "like watching Michelangelo craft the statue of David in real time."
That's a lot. But according to my kids, Roan's caught lightning in a bottle, with her fiercely unique and absolutely female-first perspective a counterpoint to the stultifying tete a tete at the top that sees over-the-hill rams feebly butting against one another to see who gets to run the world. The kids, I think, would prefer a Femininomenon. And if you think this ain't your thing, just listen to the audience. It's theirs, for sure.
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20 comments:
When you’ve lost Stephanopoulos…
Clooney appears to be wavering, as well.
Speaking of the yutes, you might have seen where soon-to-be-hated Duke hoopster, 17-year-old Cooper Flagg, chopped it up and more than held his own against NBA stars at the Olympic training camp. And 16-year-old Quincy Wilson, the quarter-miler from Maryland, made the U.S. Olympic track squad. Wilson is the Cooper Flagg of Lamine Yamal, or something like that.
Flagg is indeed the real deal. Played the last few years at Monteverde. The prep school team in the country by a pretty wide margin, located about 30-40 minutes north of Orlando. He's absolutely going to be the #1 pick in next year's draft unless something goes drastically wrong.
One of my junior high classmates has a son (Caleb Gaskins - top 5 in the 2026 class - look him up) that transferred to Monteverde from a local high school last year after winning area player of the year around here as a freshman, so I watched a good bit of Monteverde over the past year.
the most impressive thing about flagg in that scrimmage was his absolute lack of fear playing against the best players in the world. he was all, 'i belong here', and it turns out he did and does.
watching dutch fans parade through dortmund pre-match is something else. that's amazing.
both euro semis incredibly entertaining footy. headlines in england tomorrow: "by golly, ollie!"
fox sports reporting berhalter's out. everything's coming up milhouse!
Watched the match with my Dad who is in his (small) college's hall of fame for his soccer exploits. For a while I was regretting being too busy yesterday and not watching Spain-France with him yesterday. Until the 90th minute. Knocking off work for 2 hours and sharing a beer and some soccer with my Dad is about as good an afternoon as I could ask for.
pond would be good for me . . .
Think of all the ways we could defile that former church. I can hear the game of Z echoing through the grand hall.
I sustained a nasty ankle twist taking out the trash first thing this morning. Happened while stepping from the end of my walk into my driveway, in flip flops with a bag full of trash. I gotta say - that first step was a doozy.
one man's defilement is another man's worship, rootsy. just sayin'. think of all the roots band jams you could host in that place.
multiple outlets reporting that us soccer is taking a run at jurgen klopp as gregg berhalter's replacement. sign me up for all of that.
SAME
Hey rob, as someone who cogitates about soccer and has experience at the grassroots level, hope one of the pieces you're noodling is what you think is reasonable and attainable in this country and with USMNT, with a coaching change on the way.
Does talent pool exist to be at least relevant beyond CONCACAF? Are there cultural and structural impediments that have to be navigated? Can they be overcome?
I'm not sure the US has the talent to satisfy klopp.
Today’s Pablo Torre finds out podcast on the of interpreters is a must listen.
i could (and probably will) go on at length on this subject. possibly hot take: we have talent and pipeline to be able to compete at a very high level. realistically, we have for a while. we were one really bad call away from making the semifinals of the 2002 world cup. our talent level has risen since then.
two structural challenges jump out at me: we’re stuck having to play most of our competitive matches in concacaf, which doesn’t test us enough, and our federation is a cesspool of cronyism and self-dealers. neither is easy to solve.
new compound just dropped: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9TQFZyPtew/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
returned to men's league soccer this evening after a several month absence caused by a groin injury (a groin injury). we play 7 v 7 (6 field players, one keeper) across the width of a full field for 25-minute halves. tonight we had 6 dudes show up, so we all played the entire 50 minutes man down. not exactly easing myself back in. groin was fine, did not pass out from exhaustion. baby steps.
see what you did there, tiny
Hope that groin heals
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