All That Glitters Isn't Gold

While the women's World Cup soccer tournament was going on in France, the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup was going on back in this hemisphere for the national men's soccer teams of the Americas.  And you probably didn't even know about it.  You may not have even known that the championship game for the Gold Cup took place in Chicago yesterday while the women's championship game was in Lyon, France.

And with good reason.     

The U.S. men's team, the defending Gold Cup champions from 2017, lost the final to Mexico, a national team they haven't defeated in six years. 

I wrote yesterday that the American men's team's failures often coincide with the women's team's successes.  But this may be the first time they coincided on the very same day.

And the men lost on home turf.

What are we paying them again?

The women are getting a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan's "Canyon of Heroes."  I propose that the men's team get a parade in an appropriate urban downtown district.  How about Newark or Detroit?

We'll even have ticker tape thrown at them.

In bundles.

Some of you will say it's easy for me to bash the national men's team when I don't play soccer myself.  No, I don't.  And neither, apparently, does our men's team.    

Bet You Didn't See That Coming

The week gone by in review:

Republican Senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) couldn't bear to see any form of repeal of the Affordable Care Act passed, and they couldn't count on at least one Republican to join them in defeating the repeal bill in the Senate.  Then one courageous senator joined them - Arizona's John McCain, just back from brain surgery.  Bet you didn't see that coming.  

After a slew of numerous deaths of black Americans at the hands of trigger-happy police, Donald Trump suggested how police could do a better job of arresting criminal suspects - namely, rough them up and stop worrying about being so brutal with them.  Even for Trump this is beyond the pale.  Bet you didn't see that coming.

Despite having placed himself on the side of gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump tried to get transsexuals thrown out of the military, only to be met with resistance - real resistance - by the military and by Republican members of Congress as well as Democratic members of Congress.  Bet you didn't see that coming.

I used the word "transsexuals" instead of "transgender" because "gender" is a literary, not a anthropological, term.  Bet you didn't see that coming.

Anthony Scaramucci, the incoming White House communications director, used vulgar language while talking with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, and his comments got published because he failed to make clear - he failed to communicate -  to Lizza that his comments were off the record.  Bet you didn't see that coming.

After all the scuttlebutt about Trump possibly forcing Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of his job for failing to back Trump in the Russia investigation and for making it impossible to stop the investigation - and rumors of Trump possibly replacing Sessions with Chris Christie! - Reince Priebus found himself forced out as White House Chief of Staff and replaced by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.  Bet you didn't see that coming.  

Trump said he would sign the Russia sanctions bill passed by Congress, mainly because it included tough sanctions on Iran.  Now Putin hates him.  Bet you didn't see that coming.

The only senator other than Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky to vote against the Russia sanctions bill was Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, but he did so because of the Iran sanctions that were included, saying that "following Trump's comments that he won't re-certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement I worry new sanctions could endanger it."  Bet you didn't see that coming.

Also . . . the U.S. men's soccer team won the 2017 Gold Cup, defeating Jamaica 2-1.

Bet you didn't see that coming.   

Going For the Gold Cup

After an uninspiring game or two in the CONCACAF Gold Cup men's soccer tournament, the United States  scored an impressive victory over Costa Rica this past Saturday to make it the championship game.  Our guys will play Jamaica tomorrow in what could be the prelude to the most exciting World Cup ever next year.  (Jamaica upset Mexico to win its championship berth.)  The United States, contrary to its reputation as the ninety-five-pound weakling of men's soccer, has in fact won five Gold Cup championships, and the team has shown obvious improvement of late.  Could this be the setup for our boys' best-ever showing in a World Cup come 2018?  Could they even be a . . . Cup favorite?

We'll find out soon enough.  I'll certainly be watching the Gold Cup championship game tomorrow night.  It'll be a refreshing diversion from what's going on in Washington, particularly the Russia story.  Ironically, the 2018 World Cup is taking place in . . . Russia.