Argentina On Top

The Argentine men's team won the World Cup soccer tournament this past week, becoming world champions for the first time in 36 years.  And their star player Lionel Messi - now widely celebrated as the greatest soccer player ever - is only 35 years old.

Messi plans to retire soon, so now he can go out on a high having finally won a World Cup in his career.  The final was pretty intense - Argentina led France by 2-0 for a good deal of the game, then France tied it within ten minutes.  Argentina scored a third goal late in the second half only for France to tie it again.  It finally came down to a penalty-kick shootout, and Argentina pulled out a victory thanks to Messi's prowess.

It was a thrilling game and an entering tournament, The United States played well enough to actually raise hopes for improvement by 2026 when the U.S., Canada and Mexico host the World Cup.   Croatia and Morocco turned out to be  tough teams to be reckoned with.  And the Netherlands, having played in Cup finals but having never having won - they're the Buffalo Bills of international soccer - didn't even make the semifinals this year.  But who cares about the Dutch?  I've said it before on this blog, and I'll say it again: Apart from founding New York City, giving the world Rembrandt and Van Gogh, cultivating tulips, building levees and dikes that don't collapse, perfecting wind energy, and reclaiming land from the sea, what have the Dutch really done for Western civilization? 😃