Well, I think there’s two different problems there. It’d be nice if the team could move into a more possession based style, and maybe the mindset isn’t there (I still can’t really believe the technical skills aren’t there).

I hope and I think that it is basically just a failure of tactics and woman-management. Because I don’t think, when I look at the actual players, that there’s a lack of technical ability or instinctive understanding of soccer. That’s just not what I see when I look at the players in the attack - I think there are many…

but I love both of those things

I don’t think it has to be a question of a morality play. That implies that it has to be about good triumphing over evil - I definitely don’t believe that there’s any element of that in sports. But I do think morality is a concern in relation to sports, because I think morality has to do with most things. And I would…

I think those are fair points. And I’m not really trying to advocate a zero-tolerance policy for anything. I strongly doubt that suspensions would be the answer to any problem. But at the same time, I don’t see the need to minimize what Solo did, and I do think there’s a justifiable reason to be angry or depressed…

Sorry - I mean to refer to the sports entertainment system in general, not to talk about two different systems operating.

Yo, I’m still going to watch the Women’s World Cup and cheer for the USWNT, and I do agree that there’s a distinction between intimate-partner abuse and family abuse, but this still kind of seems like some bullshit. I’m just not sure you can (rightly) be so critical of the system in the one case for doing exactly what…

If we’re going to talk about remakes, it should be pointed out that Carpenter himself also remade this movie, except in space, and with Martian zombie ghosts, and with Ice Cube in the convict role and Natasha Henstridge in the cop role, and it was called Ghosts of Mars, and it’s fantastic.

Man, fuck that dude.

In some respects it’s not necessarily THAT shocking that the midfield got overrun a bit for the first third of the game - I think, in some ways, that’s a risk you kind of have to accept in a matchup between a 442 and a 433, especially when your wingers are fairly attacking-minded as well.

I can’t speak for anyone else. All that I can say is that I am starting to get properly fired the fuck up already

There’s an obvious tactical solution to this problem.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: fuck Kevin Johnson.

If we wanted meritocracy, we wouldn’t fucking have playoffs. The whole point of playoffs is to be unfair but also entertaining and crazy.

Fuck Kevin Johnson.

You know, I don’t really give a shit if someone hates Taylor Swift; I just wish people were more capable of couching it in terms that weren’t about “Oh, it’s just very advanced Pro-Tools production techniques” or whatever.

Well part of the problem is that poptimism means a million different things - and there’s always been an element of poptimism in which, on some level, pop music is about a battle between the (stodgy, invisibly racist and sexist, over-serious, joyless, hegemonic) indie press and self-conscious artistic alternative…

This is a great piece.

oh, go and write a masterwork of French literature about it

Go to hell, Costas.