I follow quite a few different blogs, and I visit them whenever I see updates on my own blog's RSS feed. Occasionally, in a bizarre bit of synchronicity, several blogs will all talk about the same topic or theme, which is both creepily uncanny and ticklishly amusing. Tonight is a good case in point: John Pepple, who follows soccer and has been writing about the World Cup, just put up a post titled "Soccer: England Snatches Defeat from the Jaws of Victory." Right after that on my blog's feed, I see that Michael Gilleland—self-styled "antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon"—has just published a post titled "Prayer for the Dead," which may well apply to England's crash-and-burn at the World Cup. The prayer reads in part:
O goddesses of earth, and you, form of the invincible beast which, fame ever tells us, have your bed and growl from your cave in the gates passed through by many strangers, a guardian not to be subdued in Hades! I pray, child of Earth and Tartarus, that he may walk clear when the stranger comes to the plains of the dead below. On you I call, who are eternal sleep!
Grim words for a grim time (team). Heh. But do remember: it's just a game.
I was actually up watching that match. It was brutal if you were hoping for an English victory, which I was.
ReplyDeleteI heartily disagree with John's assessment that England just simply "didn't bother" to add another goal, though. They tried--believe me, they tried--they just happened to suck harder than a Dyson. Kane had a sure thing and drilled it right into the woodwork, and Sterling continued his mystifying habit of streaking past the defense only to bumble about in the box and eventually give up the ball. England ended the night with a single shot on goal. One. Shot. On. Goal. But it wasn't because they were lazy, or because they thought they had the game won. They were just rubbish from play (and only managed to capitalize on one of their set pieces), while Croatia fought tooth and nail to get back into it and eventually win it.
So much for football coming home.