Monday, November 14, 2022

Fine, we'll really talk about the world cup

 






First of all, let me just rhetorically ask: Aren't you glad we finally finished with all those strange photographs I was showing every day here? Aren't you glad we can finally sit down in a chair and talk about the issues of the day like civilized people?

I regret posing those as rhetorical questions as now I have no idea what the answer could be!




Let's talk a little about The World Cup.


I am running the very complicated World Cup Pool at my library. It has a buy in of $20. Each bettor got a kind of short list of different situations or teams or players through which they could win points. Each bettor has very different chances and situations that will do well for them. One may primarily succeed on the basis of the success of one team. But another may do well on the unusual achievements of a cluster of underdogs. And a third might do best because a grouping of stars all happen to score a lot of goals.

Writing and disseminating all of this made me pretty knowledgeable about the odds and situations in this coming World Cup. My now longtime obsession with first one, and now two, high profile soccer teams has only increased my understanding of all the... dynamics.

And so I could easily predict who I think will win The World Cup.

But who knows? The field, and that is defined as "everyone else", would always be a wildly better pick for this Cup than any individual team. What is really important to me is who I want to win.


I want Argentina to win so badly that this discussion is almost moot.


But let us set that aside.


Here are some teams I really don't want to win, and will be sad if they do:

Germany.

England.

France.

Croatia.

Portugal.

Belgium.


I will still be sad if any of the following teams win the World Cup because they are not Argentina.

But I will not be sad they won.


Brazil

Spain

Netherlands

Uruguay

Senegal


If any other team wins it will be so monumentally amazing that it would be churlish to begrudge their success.


The World Cup is less than a week away now. So pick your team. Or maybe boycott it? Or hide from my blog a bit? I don't know. I asked too many rhetorical questions again and so am incapable of properly advising you.






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