I mean, that doesn’t look anything like Stevie beyond the sunglasses....

“Kevin Johnson, Stevie Wonder, and Carlos Santana at June’s meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors; photo via AP”

Which is why I included the sentence “While this doesn’t mean that such enthusiasm will translate to MLS games, only a fraction has to (18k+ per game over 16 games).”

soccer is working and people are watching. you don’t have to. That is cool. But the fact is that MLS and US soccer are doing just fine. Within a decade, only the NFL will be demonstrably more popular.

This is not true. Yes, half of the half million plus hispanic population is Cuban. The second largest groups, however, are the Colombian and Central American populations, where soccer is king. There is a very significant Peruvian and Argentinian and Venezuelan populations as well. Then, there is the very robust…

I think that is right.

That same argument could be raised by her, theoretically. We don’t have audio, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that when he bumped into her he said something like “ move out of the fucking way” ....Her brandished fist could be arguably be her reasonably responding to what she perceived as threat of force…

“She’d have to show that no one else bumped her at anytime of the evening, which is impossible.”

“ Second, you assume that if a woman first brandishes a fist, signifying intent, then carries through and punches, that she would not injure. That’s ludicrous. All she would have had to do was make contact with an unprotected eye, nostril, lip, etc. if she were wearing jewelry, the damage could be severe. “Female”…

The longer clip provides a sequence which looks to me like: he bumps/shoves her, she wheels around, touches him (cannot really see) with left hand, brandishes right fist, he appears to grab both of her arms, she frees and swings her left arm at him and misses, he swings and connects.

So which is it, is Argentina crap or have they under-achieved?

Agreed 100%. I just said the same thing much less clearly.

The penalty was terrible. I agree. But Ray Hudson and Schoen were off base in how they characterized Higuain’s chance at the end. Lavezzi’s pass was poor, as if he could not make up his mind whether to shoot or pass. The angle that Higuain had and the speed with which he was running made that an extremely difficult…

Carli’s 3rd is just an astonishing bit of skill, power, vision....I wish she would return my calls. What Zidane did for France in 2006 after their underwhelming group stage, LLoyd did for the US post group phase..sans any moment of madness.

Tobin Heath was excellent. She is nifty on the ball, comfortable dribbling out of pressure more than anyone on the roster and capable of inventive passing.

Copa America next summer. Certainly not Mickey Mouse. And neither Brazil in 2009 or 2013 nor Spain in 2009 acted like it was some meaningless event when they won and lost respectively.

People flock to McKinney for the racism?

Hiring a lobbyist to secure a vote is a slightly different thing. A better analogy would be having the lobbyist pay the elected official for voting a certain way. Which, as Tom Delay, Bob Ney and Jack Abramoff would attest, is not without risk.

It is a misconception that Brazil does not extradite. It does extradite with some limitations and it does prevent extraditions of its own citizens. But not foreign nationals. And Brazil does in fact have an extant extradition treaty with the USA and Switzerland, for that matter.

Several years ago the USWNT scrimmaged our U-17 BNT and lost 8-2. While I understand why some are curious to wonder about and raise such hypotheticals, part of me wishes folks could just enjoy each team (women’s and men’s) on their own merits.