And It All Meant Nothing, Kinda

Kind of in a lull with Liverpool these days. The Asain tour is over, there isn't a friendly until the weekend, and we may be done with signings as we await the "dead wood" to shuffle out the door, hopefully cleaning up after themselves as they do. So it seems like a good time to look elsewhere today.

-I wrote a piece about the US Women's win over Brazil a week ago today, so it makes sense to look at it now that the tournament is over. While I enjoyed that quarterfinal simply as entertainment, I never thought it was a harbinger of a larger cause or some definitive moment in sports. It was just a good game, from a sport I don't really care about and never will. Same with yesterday's final, it was entertaining and that's about it. The defending was comical, the goalkeeping at times hilarious, the coaching at times defied belief, and a host of other things that keeps women's soccer in the curiosity department. I'm sure NBC will make sure we get all flag-wavy next summer when this same team tries to take Olympic gold. And I probably won't care then either.

And if we're going to get into the whole equal coverage thing, then don't be lulled into this "Well it's great for Japan and we're proud of our girls" crap. Would the US Men get such coverage if they tossed away two leads late in the game? We already know this answer, based on the two-goal lead they vomited away against Mexico. The US biffed this. They should have been up three by half an hour in. They couldn't defend a lead, and they couldn't finish Japan off even though they were begging for it.

Winning is everything, second is nowhere.

-What was the wake up call for lots of people is those who got to watch the Brazil-Paraguay match alongside the US-Japan. Even in a match where Brazil played as if they were nursing a hangover and Paraguay was...well, Paraguay, the difference in speed and technique was so large it should be placed in Northern Arizona. That's why people don't watch women's soccer. As for the match itself, at least Lucas will get a longer break now. But there is nothing funnier than watching Argentina take perhaps the most talented roster in the world (seriously, they'd give Spain a run on simply talent) and find the most creative ways to fuck it up. In South Africa it was not having a manager who could count to six. In Germany it was a manager who shat himself on the minute every minute after taking the lead against the hosts. This weekend? Pretty much everything. They finally did figure out that Messi and Tevez can't play together, but it wasn't enough. How Messi barely gets a shot throughout a match is truly a mystery. And the fact that Tevez was the one to miss his penalty, well, that just couldn't be more delicious, could it? I'm sure he can blame everyone but himself for it.

But Luis Suarez will march on, and Uruguay will be the likely favorite. They also put on the best penalty-taking display in recent memory (and Brazil possibly the worst), as all five shots hit a corner or the roof of the net. Hopefully this won't tire El Pistolero's legs for the real things to be decided starting next month.