Women’s and men’s national soccer matches didn’t attract the same fans

It was quite a day for those of us who consider ourselves fanaticos de futbol, but for very different reasons.

Women's win topped men's loss locally

For this Sunday saw the women’s national team play for the World Cup – and WIN!!! Team U.S.A. beat the Netherlands 2-0 in a championship match played in France, which also was quite the feat because this is the second consecutive World Cup the U.S. women have won.

IT REINFORCES THE very notion that when it comes to women’s soccer, the U.S.A. rules. Our women are better than the women of any of the other 200 or so nations of the world that play soccer.

But later in the day, the men’s national team had their own championship to play for – as in the Gold Cup, the every-other-year tourney for bragging rights across North America and the Caribbean.

Our men took to the pitch, and right here in Chicago. As the Gold Cup championship match this time around was scheduled for Soldier Field. Where the other Team U.S.A. tried to win bragging rights – only to lose 1-0 to Los Tricolores of Mexico.

Which feeds off of one of the most intense rivalries in the world of soccer, as much of the political tension that exists between the neighboring nations spills over onto the pitch.

In L.A, Mexico tops all

DON’T DOUBT THAT for the sizable Mexican-American population of Chicago, they were on hand to see the Mexican nationals issue a symbolic whomp over every nitwit who tries to use the red, and blue as some sort of evidence of their natural inferiority. One-time soccer star Landon Donovan pointed out during the broadcast of the match that the crowd in Chicago seemed to be leaning toward Equipo Mexico.

While a lot of the people chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.” every chance they got were hoping for a men’s team victory as further evidence of superiority – and perhaps evidence that Donald Trump isn’t a total whack job every time he shoots his mouth off.

Which is a totally different vibe than one got from people whose interest was in watching the women’s team take on the World.

For the women's team, it really is!

I was at a “watch party” where people gathered to see the Women’s World Cup final who were eager to see a U.S. victory as further evidence that Trump is the ultimate whack job for all his rhetorical nonsense.

FOR TRUMP HAS engaged in his own comments being critical of the women’s national team, because he thinks some of its players don’t conform to his ideal of what an “American woman” ought to be.

Especially forward Megan Rapinoe, who has taken her own pot shots at Trump and even got quoted in the New York Post as saying her presence on the team is an “F You” to our president.

Which the Post tried to write up as evidence of those whacky, soccer-playing broads, only to find many people followed the World Cup specifically because they liked the idea of someone standing up to Trump.

Of course, this whole Soccer day must be miserable for those of us who actually take anything Donald Trump says seriously.

Donald Trump's nightmare front page?

BECAUSE NOT ONLY did the women win (and one of the players managed to drop a U.S. flag on the ground), the men lost – AND to Mexico!!!

Which was actually a happening I enjoyed seeing – the goal in the 73^rd minute by Jonathan dos Santos must have been as agonizing to the ideologues as that of Rapinoe being the hero of the game. And winner of the Golden Boot!

I don’t doubt those people are going to go into overtime with the rhetoric about how soccer is an abomination and how it really doesn’t matter. They weren’t watching anyway. Which means they missed a heck of a show – particularly the portion that occurred at Soldier Field and saw people paying hundreds of dollars per ticket for the right to watch (I had to view on television).

Or perhaps many were like one woman I encountered at a watch party, who while viewing the women’s team going for the glory on behalf of the United States could only generate a great big raspberry for the evening’s activity by the men.

  -30-

Chicago out-conned by Rio de Janeiro?

For all the rhetoric we hear about how venal and corrupt the inherent character of Chicago truly is, I couldn’t help but wonder if the real problem is that our city is run by a batch of goo-goos.

The 'games' that never were

It was the thought that popped into my head when I read reports about the bribery and corruption that is being alleged, tied to the decision more than a decade ago to stage the 2016 Summer Olympic games in Rio de Janiero.

THE OFFICIAL RHETORIC was that the International Olympic Committee decided it was FINALLY time to stage an Olympics in a city south of the equator.

But now, we have a former governor of Rio saying he paid the U.S. equivalent of over $2 million to committee members in order to ensure they voted for Rio over any of the other cities around the world that were competing for those games.

In short, bribes were paid. The process was rigged.

Now how truthful should we think all of this is? Well there’s the fact that former Governor Sergio Cabral already is convicted of criminal acts and is serving a lengthy prison term – at 200 years, it is one he may never be free from.

SO WHAT REASON would Cabral have to lie? It seems he has nothing to gain, or lose, by coming forth now with the testimony he offered in court last week. Or it could be the ultimate reason – political revenge.

There are other officials who will have trials coming up soon – and this could be a desire on his part to take down those officials to make them suffer the same fate that he is now enduring.

Daley's soul supposedly too black, but … 

Attorneys for those officials, by the way, claim it’s all trash-talk on Cabral’s part. He’s got no proof! Or so they say.

Now how is any of this the least bit relevant – or interesting – to those of us in Chicago? It’s because those 2016 Olympic Games were the ones that then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was determined to bring to the Second City. Remember the plans for a stadium to be temporarily erected in Washington Park?

REMEMBER THE GLOBAL battles between Tokyo, Madrid, Rio and Chicago? Remember the sentiment that this was a fight for Chicago to win so as to show our global dominance?

… was Hizzoner really too honest to prevail?

Remember the thousands of people gathered in Daley Plaza on that date in 2009 when the Olympic site was chosen – with fanatics chanting “We’re Number Four” (Chicago’s place on the four-city ballot) only to be suddenly silenced when it was learned that Chicago’s bid was the first to be knocked out of the running.

We really were number four – in terms of actually getting those games. The visions of Barack Obama presiding over an Olympics held in his home city turned out to be fantasy.

Mayor Daley was so disgusted by the city’s failure to win the Olympic games that the city has pretty much given up on attracting the International sports scene. It’s a large part of the reason why the 2026 World Cup tourney for soccer will be played partially in the United States – yet none of the matches will be held in Chicago.

EVEN RAHM EMANUEL had enough of the bad aftertaste to not want to bother with the international sports scene.

But now, we hear the whole thing may well have been rigged. We may well have lost that political fight to Rio de Janeiro because we weren’t corrupt enough. As in maybe we would have attracted the Olympic games and all the international attention that Daley wanted to bring to Chicago if only we were as corrupt as some of the political ideologues would want to insist we are.

The 'facility' that never became!

Not that I’m claiming we in Chicago should have loosened up our wallets and come up with more cash than the International Olympic Committee demanded from the Brazilians.

But it makes me wonder how much those ideologues are choking on their rhetoric at the notion that Chicago was out-corrupted by somebody else. And that it may well have been a Daley who got out-hard-balled politically for being too honest.

  -30-

Summertime, when living is easy, and some see chance to justify strip joint

One of the things I enjoy about a Chicago lifestyle is the maze of weekend events we always manage to have take place during the summer months.

DANIELS: Gave political pervs a show

Yet I wonder if the most offbeat event of them all was the one up at the Admiral Theater – the one where Stormy Daniels, an exotic dancer, is trying to take advantage of her “15 minutes” of fame to bring in as much money as she’ll ever earn.

DANIELS IS THE sexually-explicit dancer/performer who has her fame because of rumors claiming she had an affair with now-president Donald Trump, back when now-first lady Melania was pregnant with their son, Barron (he’s now 12).

There also are stories claiming that Trump paid her off (supposedly $130,000) to keep her mouth shut – stories that Trump backer and adviser Rudy Giuliani has claimed are not true and that we should ignore because a stripper like Daniels has no credibility. Even though many of us think Trump has even less.

Anyway, Daniels (that’s actually her stage name, the birth certificate reads Stephanie Clifford and has been identified in court documents as Peggy Peterson) is now traveling from city to city on what she’s calling her “Make America Horny Again” tour – and that tour was in Chicago this weekend.

Five shows in three days from Thursday through Saturday – and people with an interest in seeing just what kind of “T & A” the president gets aroused by turned out en force. Although many of the news reports (no, I've never had an editor assign me to cover a strip show) that took it upon themselves to “cover” the show pointed out the large number of women and gay people who turned out.

TRUMP: Wasn't welcome in Chgo this weekend

THE IMPLICATION BEING that people inclined to think our nation’s current president is a sleaze want to see for themselves just how trashy a tramp the Donald goes for.

Which probably says more about us as a society than it does anything negative about Trump, or Daniels herself. We’re willing to watch the sleaze and “tsk tsk” about it. Perhaps we get some false feeling that we’re above it all.

The Chicago stops did manage to create some controversy. For a while on Friday, Daniels quit. Or was fired. It wasn’t clear. Although the sides ultimately reached an agreement that resulted in her doing the five full shows she was under contract to do in Chicago.

GIULIANI: Does he have credibility any longer

I’ll give Daniels one bit of credit. Her show name may be a parody of the campaign slogan that many Trump backers still wear on their red caps, but she’s not trying to make a political spectacle out of it.

SHE’S PUTTING ON a sex show, and nothing more! Which probably upset the spectators who were expecting an anti-Trump weekend (one story found a man upset because he wanted his picture taken with Daniels so he could rub it in the face, so to speak, of his Trump-loving aunt).

In fact, the reason she nearly walked out of her Chicago gigs was she resented the attempt to have her perform on stage with a man who was a crude-looking Trump lookalike. She wanted the stage to herself, figuring the sight of her bared breasts was enough to attract attention.

No bad-wigged men were necessary. Besides, those of us who care have all heard the story about the time she is alleged to have spanked the future president with a business-oriented magazine. Do we really need to have it acted out for us live?

Although I’m sure some people were determined to see something sordid. If they weren’t perhaps they would have spent the weekend at the Puerto Rican parade in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, or the Uncork Illinois Wine Festival in suburban Oak Park.

THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING offbeat that one can do on a summertime weekend in Chicago. It’s part of what makes this city such a joy to live in – even if the Trump backers can’t quite comprehend that fact.

LOZANO: Scored goal upsetting soccer/Trump fans

Although I have to admit that the summer temperatures that reached such intense levels on Saturday and Sunday made me look for every excuse to stay inside an air-conditioned house.

All the more reason I was able to enjoy World Cup soccer on Sunday and that 1-0 victory los Tricolores of Mexico managed to achieve over Die Mannschaft of Germany.

Which, considering all the Mexico-bashing rhetoric Trump has engaged in, is just as big a blow to the political blowhard’s rants as the Daniels traveling sex tour.

  -30-

A society of ‘dishwashers’ sees El Tri victories as a drop-dead to xenophobes

It’s a question I often hear – how can anybody who lives in this country possibly root for Mexico in the world of international soccer? Particularly since the Mexican national squad is considered to be an archrival of the U.S. national team.

This restaurant snub, ...

Yet then, all I need to see are little tidbits like the sign I saw Sunday outside a restaurant seeking workers to be reminded that every time we see an Equipo Mexico win, it upsets the sensibilities of so many in our society.

PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO think they’re offending us when they go out in public wearing their ridiculous red “Make America Great Again” caps.

The fact that Mexico pulled off a shocking 1-0 victory over the German national team on Sunday (Germany is actually the defending World Cup champion, and so many Anglo pundits were determined to believe that Mexico was unworthy of a spot on the same pitch with Die Manschaft) was my ethnic brethren’s way of saying “Drop Dead!” to the nitwits who probably see nothing wrong with The Sign.

Which, I must admit, my father was the first to notice. We went out for a Father’s Day dinner (we all wanted a hearty meal, but nobody wanted to cook in Sunday’s excessive heat), and as we left, he pointed out what he termed a racist sign.

For the restaurant in question had two signs on their window – one in English and the other in Spanish. The English sign was a properly printed poster seeking a need for people to work in jobs as cashiers and counter-help.

… does goal make up for it?

THE SIGN EN Español was a makeshift thing that expressed a need for trabajador para lavaplatos. As in dishwashers. As in back-in-the-kitchen and out of sight of paying customers. Implying that such people wouldn’t be bright enough to speak English.

Although I’d wonder if there’s really an intelligence level between up-front and behind-the-scenes workers when it comes to a restaurant employee pulling minimum wage-or-less (and counting on a share of tips to make up the difference).

In the overall scheme of things, this is a lesser snub. It is almost laughable that anybody who thinks in such a way would be capable of running a business that doesn’t immediately delve into bankruptcy.

TRUMP: Another 'Drop Dead' target?

But then again, I still had the after-glow of watching the Mexico victory over Germany just a few hours earlier on Sunday. And in seeing that moment when television cameras panned over to the faces of German fans in shock that they had actually lost to “Me-xi-co! Me-xi-co!”

ONE THAT I watched largely on the Spanish-language Telemundo network broadcasts. I tried watching the Fox Sports 1 English-language broadcast, but quickly found it annoying to hear announcers complaining that the Mexican fans who made the trip to Moscow to watch their team in the World Cup managed to sing their national anthem in a louder, more boisterous manner than the German fans.

Almost implying that Mexican fans should be meek and accept their eventual defeat. Which didn’t happen, and which gave many people of Mexican ethnic origins a moment of joy.

Particularly in Mexico City, where seismic sensors detected a small earthquake – albeit of man-made causes, in the federal district. Which, coincidentally, matched up with the exact minute when Hirving “Chucky” Lozano scored the Sunday match’s lone goal in the 35^th minute.

Chicago Cubs fans love to think the whole world was all worked up when they had their post-World Series victory parade to Millennium Park. Yet not even they managed to create a seismic disturbance of the likes we saw Sunday.

A cinematic moment when Mexico prevailed over Germany

I DO HAVE to admit one thing – I wasn’t alone on Sunday. I noticed while trying to order food a family – of whom the mother and three sons were all clad in various jerseys of the Mexican national team.

It has me thinking I’m going to have to go out and get myself an El Tri jersey – although I’m still trying to figure out which design I like the most.

Although I also have to confess it wasn’t a complete picture; the father/husband figure of the family?

He apparently is still living in the past of 2016 – he was wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey! I’d like to think the rest of his family was ashamed to be seen in public with him.

  -30-

Is Equipo Mexico in the World Cup really the equivalent of Chicago Cubs?

It’s no secret that when it comes to the world of international soccer, I’m a follower of El Tri, as in the Tri-colors (a.k.a., the national futbol team of Mexico).

Donovan gets paired up … 

It’s also knowledge to anybody who has closely read this weblog throughout the years that I don’t have much use for the Chicago Cubs baseball club.

SO I HAVE to confess to feeling a touch of nausea when I learned of an advertising campaign trying to compare the chances of Team Mexico winning the World Cup to that of the Chicago Cubs winning a World Series.

Which, as Cubs fans will never let the rest of us forget, actually managed to happen two years ago. If that occurred, then perhaps the day is destined for the near future that Mexico’s national football team (also the arch-rival of the U.S. national soccer club) will see themselves as a real “world champion” of soccer.

A happening that, to Mexican fanaticos de futbol is a thought that usually includes a glance skyward – as though the whole affair is truly in the hands of the good lord himself.

Then again, I still recall the parody paper The Onion publishing a story following the Cubs’ World Series victory of 2016, telling of the riotous celebrations that occurred in Heaven following the Cubbies’ victory – with several Cubs fans being banished to Hell for their vandalism and other misbehavior.

SO WHAT’S THE connection between El Tri and the baby blue bears?

It seems that Modelo, a Mexican beer brand available in the United States, has new commercial spots featuring one-time Cubs player David Ross and Landon Donovan, who during his own playing career with the U.S. national team was often an antagonist of Team Mexico and a large part of the rivalry that has developed.

… with Ross in ad playing off alleged curses

But now, he’s saying that U.S. fans ought to root for Mexico (which plays its first World Cup match Sunday against Germany). It even claims that with the Cubs being able to break their “curse” (which really was little more than generations of ineptitude), it’s now time for Mexico to do the same.

Which in the case of the World Cup usually involves Mexican teams qualifying and making it past the first round of matches, but then ultimately losing once things become more competitive.

MEXICAN TEAMS HAVE never made it past el Quinto Partido (a fifth match, with a team ultimately needing to win eight matches during the next month in order to win the whole thing).

Now, the one-time Mexican villain of Donovan is talking in terms of Mexico prevailing. Although it seems some soccer fans in this country are willing to follow suit because of the lack of a U.S. team in the running.

The Morning Consult organization came out with a poll this week showing only 20 percent of people intending to watch the World Cup this year, although 77 percent of those who watched international soccer will tune in their television sets to the activity taking place in Russia.

Who they’re rooting for? It seems there are 11 percent each who will cheer for Mexico or England (could the British become the faves of those of us enamored with this Age of Trump that we’re now in, with the rest of us backing Equipo Mexico), with another 10 percent for Brazil (a perennial futebol powerhouse).

ALL I KNOW is that I’ll be tuning in on Sunday, along with June 23 (against South Korea) and June 27 (against Sweden) to see if Mexico can advance beyond the group play, while playing into the theme of Mexico being a Chicago Cubs equivalent.

Is '18 THE YEAR for losing ways to end?

Who knows? I may even have a few beers – although to be honest, I’m more likely to crack open a Dos Equis or a Tecate (sorry Modelo).

Although I’ll be honest in admitting I’ll take some joy from those people who go out of their way to feel miserable because they can’t enjoy “the beautiful game.”

The ones who want to think they’re the majority, even though that same poll showing only 20 percent will watch the World Cup also showed only 14 percent “very likely” to watch the Daytona 500 auto racing.

  -30-

Mexico -- 1; U.S.A -- 1

Just a thought in the wake of the tie played Sunday by the national soccer squads for the United States and Mexico, which is being considered a symbolic victory by the U.S. team because they avoided suffering a humiliating defeat at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City that could have ruined any chance they had of qualifying for the World Cup international soccer tourney to be played next year in Russia.

TRUMP: Real target of Mexican fan contempt

Considering that many Mexican and Mexican-Americans have felt great anger at the contempt repeatedly shown us by President Donald J. Trump, a Mexican victory would have been a symbolic "shove it" to the Trump-ites of our society.

AND YES, I realize that many Trump types probably don't pay any attention to "real" futbol.

But I have to admit that watching the match between the North American rival nations gave off more of a "World" series feel than the pro baseball tourney played each year in this country. Really, a "World" Series between Chicago's North Side and Cleveland?

For a more thorough account of Sunday night's match, check out this weblog's sister site at The South Chicagoan.

  -30-

Soccer returns to Soldier Field?

It would be intriguing if the Chicago Fire could take over Soldier Field for a few days next summer.

Soldier Field has had varied uses throughout its existence

And no, I don’t mean I want to burn the stadium down. It may look hideous and freakish from the outside. But it still is a 60,000-plus arena that has housed many sporting and other historic events during its nearly century of existence.

I’M REFERRING TO the Chicago Fire professional soccer team that plays in Major League Soccer. That league has an all-star game every year, and Crain’s Chicago Business reported Monday how officials are negotiating with Chicago for use of the stadium. City officials have put a hold on Daley Plaza and Millennium Park’s Wrigley Square and Harris rooftop for the end of July – which is when the all-star game is scheduled for.

Even though the Fire themselves play in a stadium they had built for themselves about a decade ago out in suburban Bridgeview. For the all-star game (which likely would pit U.S. stars against a foreign team that would view the event as a chance for a U.S. vacation trip for its players), they want the vastness of an outdoor stadium with the massive capacity of a Soldier Field.

Considering that Bridgeview’s Toyota Park barely seats over 20,000 people, it’s quite a difference.

It was always part of the reason why I thought it a mistake that the Chicago Fire left the city for a suburban location back in 2006. I know the argument the team makes – that their crowds fit perfectly in their new stadium, but would get lost in the vastness of a Soldier Field.

YET A PART of me has always thought that the team ought to be striving for the level of success that they could pack ‘em in at a Soldier Field – rather than settling for the smallness of Toyota Park; which I’ll admit is a nice little stadium that I’m sure many second-rate teams would love to have as a home facility.

Soldier Field, when configured for 'futbol'

Perhaps having an all-star game at Soldier Field could be a first step toward moving at least a part of the Chicago Fire schedule back to the near South stadium, thereby creating the potential for Fire officials to start thinking of ways to attract the kind of crowds that would fill Soldier Field to an intimidating presence.

That will be when soccer can truly claim to have “arrived” in this country – when they can draw the kinds of crowds that the New York Cosmos of the old North American Soccer League used to draw (77.691 for a match on Aug. 15, 1977 against the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale Strikers) on occasion.

Or perhaps something like the 61,308 that the Fire themselves drew to Soldier Field for a July 23, 2011 match against Manchester United – an English team!

NOT THAT THE idea of soccer (real football, as opposed to that phony kind the Chicago Bears play ever so badly these days on the Soldier Field turf) ought to be considered alien.

'94 World Cup ceremonies at a jam-packed Soldier Field

I still recall when the World Cup international soccer tourney was played for 1994 with the United States as its host – and how Soldier Field was used as the site for the opening ceremonies and for several first-round games.

Germany and Spain fans, in particular, got to see their teams each win a match, then play each other to a 1-1 tie.

There also was the Copa America tourney, which in the past was for a championship of the South American continent but this year was expanded to include North American national teams.

HOSTED THIS YEAR by the United States, some of the matches were played at Soldier Field, with both Chile and Argentina both managing early round wins on the path to the championship game (fans in East Rutherford, N.J., got to see the championship game between the two, with Chile winning ultimately on penalty kicks).

A nice-enough stadium, but it ain't Soldier Field by any means

Heck, there even was a U.S. matchup against Costa Rica at Soldier Field, with a 4-0 victory for the Stars & Stripes on Soldier Field turf.

If you want to be honest, hosting a Major League Soccer all-star game would be a lesser event than those. Yet it still would be nice to see something involving “the beautiful game” taking place within the Soldier Field bowl.

At the very least, it would be a relief for Chicago sports fans who have come to associate Soldier Field with the weekly dose of agony every autumn as we watch “da Bears” lose, yet again!

  -30-

Let’s hope we don’t have to endure ’95-like summer any time in near future

Sunday was a summer-like day in Chicago – temperatures that got up into the high-70s Fahrenheit and enough humidity in the air that one wanted to wear as little clothing as possible while outside.

The big picture of what happened 20 years ago this week. Image provided by Pic2Fly.com

Yet aside from putting on the fan that sits near where I tend to write, my thoughts were going back to that time 20 years ago.

BECAUSE IT HAS been exactly two full decades since that five-day stretch of time in mid-July 1995 when temperatures got so intense and people were caught so off-guard that the number of heat-related deaths skyrocketed.

Some 485 people officially died in Chicago due to the hot weather, although the city Health Department has acknowledged that as many as 739 people wound up dying because of heat as a contributing factor.

Consider that we the public got all worked up that about a dozen people were killed during the Independence Day holiday weekend due to gunfire.

I’m not diminishing the severity of that many homicides in the city. But we have to be honest – that was one incredibly hot time-span. It’s not something any of us wants to relive.

HOT AS HELL? We’d have to ask a deceased politician’s soul to find out precisely how hot the afterlife is for those of us who misbehaved during life on Earth.

The most serious explanation I ever heard of what caused the intense heat was an inadvertent shift in this planet’s weather patterns. For a couple of weeks in July of ’95, Chicago became hit by the kind of heat that usually hits Saudi Arabia. Just like our recent winters reached such record cold levels due to Arctic-like blasts swooping down through Canada and hitting large swaths of the United States.

The estimate turned out to be too low

In the Middle East, the locals have learned either how to tolerate the heat, or how to make themselves more comfortable. We in Chicago were caught off guard.

Particularly those amongst us who, for whatever reason, were inclined to live shut-in lifestyles and to think of air conditioning as some sort of stupid luxury for mental weaklings.

MANY OF THOSE amongst the hundreds who died fell into that category.

Which is why many of Chicago’s efforts to make “cooling centers” easily available to the public date back to the mid-1990s; just like that winter storm we always say took down Michael Bilandic as mayor and made future officials wary of the idea of letting the streets get too sloppy from snow and ice.

We don’t want a repeat of so many people being found dead in their apartments – so many people that the Cook County medical examiner’s office gave us the image of freezer trucks having to be parked outside their West Side offices to accommodate all the bodies that had to be processed.

Now I have to admit; I don’t have first-hand memories. Because back in that decade, I was living and working in Springfield, Ill. I usually joke about how I’m a native Chicago soccer fan who missed the sight of the World Cup in ’94 and the opening ceremonies being held at Soldier Field.

YET I FEEL fortunate that this was something I merely heard about on news reports while enduring a more reasonable summer sweat while working at the Statehouse.

Although I still remember talking to my own mother, who told me how my brother took her out to movie theaters just about every single day during that heat peak so they could enjoy the air conditioning.

She felt comfortable, even though she later joked about the agony of having to endure the sight of a lot of crummy films.

Which I’m sure is the kind of story we’d like to be hearing from those hundreds of people who did die because they didn’t have a place to go to help them cope with the hundred degree-plus temperatures that we got 20 years ago this week.

  -30-

Will women’s pro soccer gain much in way of benefits from World Cup win?

The part of the world that cares much about professional soccer in this country will actually be paying attention to the Chicago Red Stars, if indirectly.

Chicago's new fabulous femme athlete?

For Chicago’s club in the National Women’s Soccer League has four of its players who were part of the team that represented the United States in the Women’s World Cup tourney this year.

OF COURSE, THE next time the team takes to the pitch, there will be even greater attention. Because they’re scheduled on Sunday to play the Houston Dash – the team for which Carli Lloyd plays for.

I’m sure the Red Stars are miffed that this particular match is being played in Houston. There’s no chance of a record-setting crowd for the Red Stars consisting of people who are curious to see what all the fuss is about.

The Dash won’t make their lone Chicago appearance for this season until Sept. 6 – their final regular-season match of the year. By which time, it’s likely that the public attention (some 26.7 million U.S. viewers Sunday on television, including the Spanish-language broadcasts) has passed, and the “Lloyd” name won’t be considered as big a deal.

Although it’s possible that every team in the women’s league will gain a bit of a plus. We’re likely for each team to go out of its way to let us know which of the U.S. team members are actually a part of their own ball clubs.

THE RED STARS (a reference to the Chicago city flag) were quick to put out a statement (picked up on by the Associated Press) letting us know of Shannon Boxx, Julie Johnston, Lori Chalupny and Christen Press.

The same Press who gained her own bit of fame in recent weeks from those Coppertone television ads where she “shows off” by heading a beach ball into the pool.

She may well become the glamour girl, of sorts, of the Chicago sports scene. Unless someone from the Chicago Sky (women’s professional basketball) manages to do something to catch on.

I may come off as a bit sarcastic here. It’s just that I’m fully aware of how fleeting “fame” can be, and how quickly it will be before the Women’s World Cup and the U.S. victory will become just a footnote in the public culture eye.

Lloyd coming to Chicago Sept. 5

SO WHAT ARE the chances that much of anything will happen for the Chicago professional soccer scene as a result of Sunday night’s victory?

I’d be willing to guess that most people in Chicago don’t have a clue where the Red Stars play; even if they were interested in checking out a match or two.

While the Chicago Fire men’s professional team has rose to the point of having its own stadium – and a fairly nice structure at that – in suburban Bridgeview, the Red Stars use the athletic facilities at Benedictine University in suburban Lisle.

I’m not knocking the facilities there. But they’re worthy of a small-school athletic department, not a professional sports team that purports to represent the city of Chicago in its respective league.

WHICH THEY HOPE to move up from someday, just as the Chicago Bandits professional softball team used to play in Lisle until they eventually got better facilities in suburban Rosemont.

Although the small, suburban image will stick in the minds of fans who try to check out the league. After seeing the women’s national team win a World Cup in front of a crowd in excess of 50,000 people, will they take seriously a team that draws a couple thousand people (at best)?

To the point where they will wind up missing out on the quality of play on the pitch. Which is their loss more than anything else.

Particularly for those people who are interested in finding a diversion from the knuckleheaded budgetary activity our political people have been engaging in – and will continue to in coming weeks.

  -30-

Carli Lloyd-3; Japan-2

Oh, by the way, the rest of the U.S. women’s national soccer team also managed to score a pair of goals, which gave us the end result of the United States taking its first World Cup soccer championship in 16 years by a 5-2 final score.

The new sporting hero

I have to admit that Sunday’s championship game between the United States and Japan was one of the most remarkable soccer games I ever have seen.

PARTICULARLY FOR THE play of Lloyd, a New Jersey native and midfielder for the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League when she’s not playing for the United States.

She managed to score three goals within the first 16 minutes of the match, particularly that third goal that she kicked from the middle of the field – carrying roughly 180 feet right into the goal in large part because the Japanese goal tender managed to lose her footing while trying to block the ball.

That probably will be the moment that lives on in televised sports footage for years to come.

Admittedly, this match would have been more competitive if the Team Japan of the second half had been on the pitch for the entire match. But the U.S. team was able to get overly aggressive (jumping out to a 2-0 lead within the first five minutes) early on, making it difficult for Japan to seriously come back.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to admit they didn’t quit. There was one point when the score became 4-2 that created a feeling in the gut that perhaps some sort of miraculous comeback was in store.

So now there is a serious sporting moment that took place Sunday – with the women’s team getting its third championship (the others came in 1991 and 1999, the latter at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.) ever. Which is better than men’s squads from the United States have done – no championship ever, even though that tourney has been played since 1930.

 

Will Renee Wronecki (Miss Ill.) get her moment?

Perhaps this could give a jolt to the men’s national squads to do better when they take to the pitch in 2018 in Russia.

And you have to wonder, will anything that happens at the Miss USA pageant next Sunday short of a “wardrobe malfunction” by some unfortunate contestant come close to matching the drama of what took place today in Vancouver?

  -30-

Fanaticos de futbol? Or people cheering for anything on a television screen?

We’re in the midst of the World Cup, and the computer-related technical difficulties I have experienced during the past week have prevented me from sharing the interest and excitement I have felt during that time.


To the point where I have to admit to getting a kick out of the television spots for the Kia Sorrento automobile that have been airing recently – the ones in which a sexy, Brazilian-type woman comes sauntering into a bar where allegedly “all-American” guys are watching NASCAR racing on television.


AFTER CAPTURING THEIR attention to the point where they can do nothing but watch her, she goes over to their TV set and flips the channel from auto racing to soccer, while excoriating them to “Watch futebol!”

An offensive thought to some. But one that will wither away with the passage of time. Which is what I think truly offends those people who want to rant and rage about soccer not really being a sport worthy of our time.

Their time is over. The ‘beautiful game’ is here and has its place in the U.S. sporting scene. Even if people who have spent too much time watching auto racing have numbed their sensibilities to the point where they can’t recognize it.

In my case, I was one of those kids back in the 1970s who always enjoyed when gym class turned to playing soccer for a few weeks (it just seemed more interesting than the constant start/stop/start again of “phony football”), and I always found the international aspects of the game to be intriguing.

I MISS THE Chicago Sting of old to the point where I can never truly claim to be a fan of the Chicago Fire franchise of Major League Soccer – even though I have gone to the occasional match.

But nothing quite matches the spectacle of the World Cup every four years. One of my life’s regrets is that when the cup came to the United States in 1994 and had opening ceremonies at Soldier Field, I was living elsewhere – and had to watch the whole thing on television.

Just like I’m watching this year’s tourney on a combination of ABC, ESPN and Univision.

As I write this, it is half-time of Mexico versus the Netherlands. Nobody has scored yet, largely because the Netherlands goaltender has made several spectacular plays to prevent El Tri from getting on the board.

THE FAN IN me remembering the birthplace of my grandparents is appalled, but the sports fan in me wonders how good a baseball shortstop Dutch goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen would be – nothing got past him!

At least not until Giovani dos Santos managed to get a goal past him early in the second half of Sunday’s match.

I get my kick whenever the television broadcasts feel the need to show us the Zocalo in Mexico City – that downtown gathering spot similar in spirit to Daley Center and the Picasso – to show us Mexican fans cheering on the national team.

Because the scene looks all too similar to what we have seen in Grant Park in recent weeks where local fans are given the chance to be a spectacle in their cheering on of the U.S. national team. Although U.S. fans aren't quite at the point of being able to sing anything like "Cielito Lindo" in unison the way Mexican fans are capable of doing.

ALTHOUGH I DO believe that many of the young people gathering there would easily find some other place to be a spectacle if the World Cup weren’t taking place. About the time these people are grandparents is when the sport will be so deeply entrenched in our pop culture that people will look back at those Ford advertising spots and wonder how anyone could ever have thought auto racing was more intriguing than activity on the pitch.

That, and somebody is going to be able to look at those ads, see Adriana Lima, and realize just how “hot” grandma was, back in the day. Wow!

  -30-


EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm still in denial about the last few minutes, and the stoppage time, of Sunday's Mexico versus Netherlands World Cup match. Excuse me while I go crawl into a hole and wimper. Although I promise not to be as insufferable as Chicago Cubs fans get when they whine about the 2003 playoffs, Moises Alou and THAT foul ball!

29 days and counting ‘til World Cup; and Chicago gets included in festivities

We’re just under one month away from the World Cup – the international sports tourney where the best national futbol clubs of the world convene to compete for something as significant as the Super Bowl fantasizes itself to be.

A local dose of pre-World Cup action on June 3

This year, of course, the action is in Brazil. Anybody from Chicago is going to have to spend some big bucks to make the trip to the southern hemisphere if they want to be able to say they saw world-class soccer.

TRUST ME, I made the mistake of going to see Major League Soccer matches during the last World Cup tourney in 2010. The level of play of the Chicago Fire and the teams they compete against just isn’t the same!

But it’s not like we in Chicago are totally cut out of the festivities.

I found it interesting that the Mexican national team that will compete is including a few last-minute exhibitions (“friendlies,” in soccer-speak) to warm up – with one of them scheduled for Soldier Field.

It will be right on the shores of Lake Michigan that Mexico’s Tri-colors will take on the national team from Bosnia-Herzegovina come June 3.There’s the potential for 50,000 or more people to pack their way into the bowl to see the two teams make whatever final adjustments they feel are necessary to avoid embarrassing themselves in Brazil.

NOT THAT I’LL be among those on hand.

For one thing, I have some work these days that will keep me busy that night. Although I also was appalled at the $240-plus price for a single ticket for the match.

Maybe I could scout around and find something a bit cheaper. But I just can’t envision paying that much for a friendly between two teams that have little chance of winning the whole thing. And I wonder about the sensibilities of anyone who has no problem paying such money.

The World Cup itself is being played this year between June 12 and July 13. The U.S. national team plays its first round matches on June 16 (against Ghana), June 22 (against Portugal) and June 26 (against Germany).

LOCALLY, PEOPLE WILL be able to gather at Grant Park, where Crain’s Chicago Business reports that the U.S. Soccer Federation plans to erect giant video screens so people can gather in large crowds and cheer endlessly (or so they hope) for U.S. goals.

Envisioning a video screen supplying soccer, instead of a band

 

Perhaps some people would find such a crowd to be an ample substitute for being in the stands at the real match. Personally, if I’m going to do nothing more than watch television, I suspect I’ll do it in the comfort of home.

Which is how I suspect I’m going to follow the World Cup. Don’t be surprised if – come next month – I have the television tuned in the background to the matches while I write about whatever issues of concern take place in Chicago.

I recall the same sentiment some 20 years ago – which was the one time the World Cup tourney was held in the United States, with the opening ceremonies and first few matches played right here at pre-renovation Soldier Field.

OF COURSE, THAT was during my stint working and living in Springfield. So even then, I was watching televisions at the Statehouse, trying to catch a few minutes of action here and there while everybody else went about the business of trying to govern the state.

RAUNER: Four more months to talk

As for this year, it all makes me wonder if for the upcoming month, I will be among those who find the plight of the United States and Mexico national teams (both of which could find themselves eliminated following the first round) more intriguing than anything that comes from the mouths of Rahm Emanuel or Bruce Rauner.

They’ll both have several months after the World Cup to spew their rhetoric that will anger so many people in so many ways.

  -30-