I don’t know if these are also soccer cliches in English, but they are widely repeated bits of wisdom in German.
First, for our friends from Japan: “The game lasts 90 minutes.” Das Spiel dauert 90 Minuten. Bayern Munich learned this most famously in 1999, when the game lasted a little bit longer.
Second, for les [...]

Just so no one shall be able to say that a ball is simply a ball at afoe, and since it’s a weekend, I’ve decided to tell you, gentle readers, about a quick’n’dirty short film concerning the “true meaning” of the “Miracle of Bern” - Germany’s surprising victory in the 1954 world championship - that [...]

“Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming.”
I don’t think that England can count on own goals from all of their opponents, though.
(Comments in the main thread, pls.)

Let’s keep this in one thread from now on.
…The Guardian and the NY Times will liveblog everything.

We’ll get the first one out of the way early: Twenty-two men played. In the end, Germany won.
(Over Costa Rica, 4-2 just for the record and so anyone who pulls this post out of the archives years from now will have the context at hand.)
Predictions for Poland vs Ecuador?

Anyone taking Costa Rica tomorrow? For the sheer perversity?
Just wondering.

There is not much market for reviews of books published almost a decade and a half ago, so without further ado, my thoughts on The Prize, by Daniel Yergin. This evaluation is overdue because I started reading the book when I bought it, back in 1997. I put it down around page 400 (which is [...]

When I lived in Vienna, in 2001-2002, I lived in the 11th District, Simmering, a roughish working-class suburb struck through with railway lines and motorway spurs. Specifically, I lived in one of the four huge brick gasometers of the former city gasworks, once Europe’s biggest, now redeveloped as a mixture of shops, flats and a [...]

…is at it again.
Gay marriage undermines marriage….okay, I admit it. I’m a cranky, stick-in-the-mud conservative who keeps making the same tired old point.
And again, he fails to provide proof, sticking instead to his familiar method of talking out of his ass.
So, once more I get to remind people that Stanley Kurtz is a quack who [...]

Krrrrushing the opposition in the Eurovision Song Contest!
Monster hard rock heavy metal zombie mask wearing whatever group Lordi from Finland dominated the contest, though some Russians think it’s a sign of European conspiracies against Russia. Like everything else in the world.
I used up my snark quota for this week already, so I don’t have anything [...]