allez les bleus!

italy v. france. wow!

in my life i have loved four sports teams: kansas city royals, the arsenal, the edmonton oilers & france.

this year the kansas city royals could be the worst team in the history of major league baseball, so i don't have to worry about them.

but i've seen the arsenal, the oilers and france make it to the finals in the champions league, the stanley cup playoffs and the world cup, respectively. i have had to suffer as a fan of the losing side twice already. you can guess how little i want to suffer again.

but my own selfishness aside, i want to see france win for two great players who i love -- henry and zidane.

zidane -- here's a guy who has leukodystrophy, a degenrative gentetic disorder of the nervous system. he has had a masterful career, alreayd won a world cup, and he's retired from football so that his last game is the world cup final on sunday. even better, he once retired from international football, but came back because a visitation in the night told him that if he came back france could win one more time. moreover, this man has done the impossible. not only has my mother, a canadian raised on hockey and the belief that soccer is a "fag's" game, become a fan of football, she even thinks zidane is sexy. if zidane and the french win it will be mythic. and even my mother will forever be a fan of les bleus.

henry -- then there's our captain. arsenal's henry has already had one major heartbreak this year, and this one just has to be. and if he gets it, if he plays an important role, this may finally be the year for him to win the footballer of the year (probably not, but it's nice to dream). regardless, i love the man, and think he is an exemplar of all things good in footballers and people. i am very proud my two year old son loves him so much. as milos says : "henry, henry, henry." go france go.

with love and optimism, the bananas

why i hate brazil

here's a post to answer canadian gooner's query. these are the reasons i hate brazil. all of them are personal, to some extent, and some are purely emotional, but they are the reasons and there are plenty of them:

their 5 stars -- they've won five world cups, and my very makeup rails against the overdog. i am not always required to appreciate the underdog, but the overdog -- the yankees, the canadiens, the lakers, and all historically dominant sports teams (barring the oilers, which i can defend but have no reason to here) -- force bile into my throat.

their ego -- and part of that bile comes from the egos that necessarily develop around that "greatness". i read a lot of soccer mags, and the first thing i do every day is read the soccer websites, and i've seen a lot of interviews with the current crop of brazilians. only two of them show any humility and ronaldhino is not one of them. of those whose interviews i've read, only juninho and gilberto silva see themselves as working parts of an exceptional team -- the rest consider themselves gods among mortals. and maybe they are. but carrying that attitude around the footballing world and shoving it into the faces of everyone is no different and no less vexing than the world's only "superpower" doing the same politically. adriano is called the emperor and believes it; ronaldo pissed off raul so badly on real madrid, saying "i score goals. i don't need to run," that they don't talk anymore; ronaldinho has bought into the idea that he's the greatest ever and is only capable of admitting that some other players are good; cafu is the captain of the gang and feeds their egos by continuing to mystify their greatness when he talks; kaka considers his abilities "magical"; and roberto carlos figures he's the best left back who ever lived, let alone in the world.

their luck -- the other thing that pisses me off is that they are lucky. sure they pound on crap teams on a regular basis, and even simply good teams, but they usually find a way to win against really good teams, squeaking out one goal wins, and that is often done with a stroke of crazy luck. good on them, certainly, for taking the risks that lead to the luck. that is admirable. but it is frustrating when your team falls because of their luck -- and that clearly adds to my disdain for them.

their whining & diving-- i will admit straight out that they aren't the biggest footballing nation of whiners in the world, but they are the ONE nation that has both no cause and no need to whine or dive. and it's the way they whine and dive. lots of teams are theatrical and that's annoying (and the brazilians aren't the most theatrical), but the way they complain one would think they were trinidad and tobago, a crap team having their job made even more difficult by horrible calls. and in damn near every game i've seen the calls and the benefit of the doubt go their way. moreover, a different standard is set for brazils whining than for everyone else. you all know i hate england, but consider this: ronaldo complained to the ref at half time during the france game, contesting a perfectly valid yellow card, all the way back to the tunnel. does anyone think that if that had been rooney he wouldn't have been shown a red card immediately? because they are brazil their whining and diving get them further than anyone else (except maybe italy). and that is impossible for me to admire or like.

les bleus -- and on a completely personal level, brazil was set up to be my villains right from the start because it was the 1998 World Cup and les Bleus that brought me back to football. and whoever played les Bleus in the final were doomed in my eyes for all time.

so there you have it. i probably forgot some reasons. i am sure that gio can add a couple. but that is why i hate brazil.

magisterial

i'm sure many of you were expecting me to write a big, expansive, excited take on france and brazil last night, but i thought it better to let the whole experience sink in before i got started. plus, knowing that most of my friends have seen their teams crash out makes me sensitive to your feelings (sorry dollev and taras and canadian gooner and gio).

i am ready now, though, so here goes:

i have heard commentators over the last few years using the word "magisterial" to describe the performance of a team, and i've always thought it was a bit much. until yesterday. for that was exactly what the french defeat of brazil was -- magisterial. with all the experience necessary to come into a game with authority, and just enough youth to envigorate the oldsters, france looked like brazil and brazil looked average. from around the tenth minute on, france took control and never let go, never ever looking like they were going to let brazil back into the game.

the french midfield made the brazilian midfield of ronaldhino, junihno, gilberto silva, ze roberto and kaka disappear. only ze roberto looked consistently threatening, but even he was well and completely controlled by vieira, ribery, malouda, makele and zidane. france didn't make the brazilians look bad, but they did make them look like a good team struggling against superior skill, and what a feat that was for the french: anyone making the brazilians look inferior have more than done their job.

everyone's talked about the magic of zidane yesterday, and it was magic. he was back to his old best. not as fast, surely; but he was crafty, spot on with his crosses (particularly the cross that bounced from henry's foot to the back of the net), and a tower of calm and strength. it was his game yesterday, his greatest in years, and it was a joy to watch such a fantastic player being great again. he was the magister that made the french victory magisterial.

still, there were three other exceptional french performances that made the game a wonder to watch -- even for neutrals (of which many shared the experience with me yesterday). patrick vieira and claude makelele were both perfect. it was they who gave zidane the time and space to weave his magic. it was they who shut down ronaldhino and kaka. it was they who started the moves forward. and patty was always ready to move into the attack. the other was frank ribery. he is the future of france, and he's a damn fine little player. ugly he may be, but his football belies his physical appearance. he is elegant, fast, tricky and tenacious. he is thrilling. and we definitely haven't seen his best yet.

which leads me to the hope i have for reaching the finals. we still haven't seen anywhere near the best from henry. he's been playing well, but he's been getting caught offside (and genuinely so) too much, and he's been a little off pace. but i saw the stirrings of henry greatness yesterday when he appeared, totally unmarked, at the far post and poke-volleyed zidane's perfect cross past a helpless dida. it was a hint of the great henry that arsenal fans know and love, and it looks to me as though he's going to be showing up for real in one of the next two games. if that henry shows up no one else will have to do a damn thing. he can win it all by himself.

now, of course, france is mostly old and they may have spent themselves against brazil, but there's a feeling these guys are exuding that makes me think they will be in the final. regardless, i feel privileged as a france fan (and relieved) to have witnessed their performance against brazil. at this point i no longer have to care about our sturdy but tired performance against switzerland, our lazy capitulation to a surprise draw against an energetic south korea and our unconvincing win against togo. a strong victory against perennially weak spain gave me hope and that hopes has now been fulfilled. france played like champions against the champions. and for all french fans everywhere we can hold our heads high once again (2002 is now just a painful memory).

allez les bleus! vive la france!