Team captain John Mensah started off strong with a brilliant header at the 10-minute mark. Tunisia then responded in the 42nd minute when Saber Khalifa outjumped Samuel Inkoom for the equalizer header on an immaculate cross. Tunisia appeared to have Ghana on its heels with consistent challenges from there onward, though the Black Stars managed to avoid disaster for the remainder of regulation and carried the match into extra time. Finally, the Ghanaians’ prayers were answered the 101st minute when a careless deflection off Tunisian goaltender gave Andre Ayew a free strike that crossed the net to give Ghana the decisive advantage. Tunisian tempers flared after their goalie’s gaffe, leading to multiple bookings and a red card in the 108th minute that sealed their fate.
Oh, the other game was all right too I guess. At least if you’re not Robert Kraft. And on a day that is celebrated as pseudo-national holiday and is undoubtedly the single national sporting event that matters most, I still have to talk about the pinnacle of American sport. Today’s Super Bowl XLVI altered the legacies of two of our generation’s greatest quarterbacks, probably created a whole new audience for The Voice, and produced a plentitude of both dumb and great plays worth dissecting, not to mention a handful of interesting commercials and a certain music artist whose good manners went M.I.A. for an inexplicably expletive in her guest performance.
But I’ll get to that later. First I need to make a clarification about the position of this blog. I claim to talk about the matters in sports that I think truly matter, but my perspective on what matters in sports has definitely been shifted recently. I just returned from a trip to Ghana that coincided with the beginning of the football soccer, season in Europe as well as the Africa Cup of Nations, a biannual tournament to determine the best national team in the African continent. This is the most viewed highlight in the US of the African Cup of Nations this year. That just about sums up why we aren't watching soccer events like the Africa Cup of Nations here.
I bet most of you readers in the United States didn’t know that this event has been going on since 1957, and has an impact on its audience unequaled by the Super Bowl or any other American sporting event, and neither did I until a few days ago. Heck, I had to use an online soccer slang dictionary to get most of those words right in the first paragraph. But it’s about time I gave a nod to the sport that is far and away the most popular on Earth, and I might as well mix in a small bit about my trip while I’m at it.
Despite road sides littered with trash and a thick smog layer that makes the harsh afternoon sun so dim that you can stare straight into it, Ghana is a country with a bright future due to rapid modernization that is effecting everywhere from city intersections to small dirt road communities. Ghana was even just named the World’s Fastest Growing Economy in 2011, and I got to see on my trip a sizable young population with increasingly impressive technological literacy that should allow the African nation to continue its growth. And most importantly for the motives of this blog, Ghana has got one solid football squad in the Black Stars, who were recently rated the #2 team in the continent. The widespread unwavering passion for “The Beautiful Game” in this country is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in America.
It’s easy to tell what the most popular sport in Ghana is just from a drive through the country. In just about every empty area of dirt, grass or cement that isn’t filled with people in commerce or shops, there are kids of all ages playing Football for Ghana resonates with a kind of national pride that is impossible to find in the U.S. sports market that prefers to relic in intranational rivalries like the Super Bowl, World Series, and NBA playoffs rather than international events like the Olympics and the World Cup. Ghana hasn’t won the African Cup in 30 years, and a win this year would be a statement in Africa that would resonate far beyond sport for a country trying to prove itself on an international stage. Call me a communist, but I was happy after Ghana’s 2-1 win over the U.S. in the 2010 World Cup because I knew it meant so much more for them than for me. I can only imagine the level of unified national celebration that engrossed the streets after that game. I got to see firsthand on my recent trip that everything changes in Ghana on game day.
I’d compare game day in Ghana to the scene in a New England sports bar watching the Red Sox in the World Series in 2004. Across the entire country. during every match the Black Stars play. After the game, you can ask anyone you see about the game, and they’ll all have a heated rap on all the player flops, mistakes from referees, and spectacular plays that made the difference.A Quick Nod to the World’s #1 Sport
For the 11 days I was in Ghana for my most recent trip, there was something pure and refreshing about watching nothing but soccer on television to fulfill my sports addiction. I went from a place where most announcers have a loose understanding of the English language to one where all the announcers are British and speak British AKA Super English saying things like “an out of this world Bernini sculpture of a finish!” or “This is a Bernini sculpture of a goal! It’s perfection… he guides it heavenly, it’s a majesterial hit by an artist!
Soccer is the sport that celebrates the remarkable play to the fullest, as a play has to be remarkable enough to pass through the net in order to score a point. The dozens of solid plays players make to win possession, move the ball up the field, get free kicks or corners, get past their man, find an open teammate, and more are worthless unless they lead to a ball that crosses the entire defense and the keeper for a goal, a task practically impossible without perfect execution on a spectacular play. The team that can create more perfectly beautiful plays that result in goals is the winner in this pure and rudimentary game.
The trend in American sports nowadays is toward being as judgmental about players’ performance through countless stats, metrics, and visual evidence to prove something the fan wants to know, held up to their high standards of knowledge. There always needs to be a clear winner. Every tenth of a second has to be accurate to meet our strict model of efficiency standard.
Maybe that is why we have trouble accepting soccer. Now in the age where Moneyball is mainstream, it’s going to be as difficult as ever for Americans to come to terms with the idea of stoppage time, frequent ties, game deciding penalty kicks based on the blow of a ref’s whistle, and all those freakishly talented soccer pansies falling all over themselves trying to draw a call, without instant replay review to call their bluffs.I mean, seriously, does anyone else wonder why they don’t just stop the clock during injuries or dead balls and end the game at a fixed time rather than let it keep running for how ever long it takes for a guy to properly milk an injury, then guesstimate how long the game was stopped for at the end of each 45 minutes with “stoppage time,” only to use that added minute number as a general guideline for when the referee ends the game. In America, that’s unconstitutional. In soccer though, purism rains supreme, and the sport is resisting off all movements that might disrupt the flow of the game.
And what about giving proper credit for a goal to the guys who possess the ball, manages take it from the opposing offense, move it up field, routinely send perfect through balls, banana crosses, brilliant back heels? Isn’t there something in the box score for that? Isn’t there a box score? Soccer is the last remaining sport where watching it truly speaks for itself. It is about one play where everything goes perfectly, and ultimately it is only the goal scorer who matters and who makes the play that scores points to effect the outcome. And it will retain this advantage over all other sports as long as they exist, and this will continue to keep it in its own league, so to speak.
Onto My Football
Moving from the pure to the impure, the Super Bowl is a sporting event that is no longer allowed to speak for itself. Now it is a full day event synonymous with two weeks of useless press coverage, a half time show for girls to watch Madonna perform and meaningless celebrity scandal develop, and, of course, a handful of heavily reviewed million dollar commercials looking to capture your attention. It’s a functional economic formula that in the last few years has produced the most widely viewed events in world history. NBC paid about $950 million for this year’s rights, and it sounds to me like a good investment.
Companies prepare for months trying to make commercials shock their ways into viewers’ memory banks on ads. We have the success stories of E-Trade, with their baby commercials that truly restored their struggling company, and the quick rise to prominence in the web domain market of GoDaddy with their racy (intended) commercials starring Danica Patrick. News shows and websites even replay the “Top Ads” nowadays to review their “favorites” from the whole game, which pours in more money to advertisers after the initial mass exposure. NBC spent a ton of time advertising shows on their own network, particularly The Voice, which I’m sure was a major reason why they dropped almost a billion dollars for network rights this year.
The difference in sports advertising really epitomizes the cultural difference between the US and Ghana. During the nationwide television event of football in Ghana, at least half of the commercials are the same Coca-Cola commercial playing the uplifting song that was the theme of the World Cup, “Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan, as players leap through the air making gravity defying soccer moves.
But anyways, I would be neglecting my heritage not to rattle a bit more about the Super Bowl. Here are the highlights in case you missed it. The Super Bowl has arrived at a pretty set routine as far as I’m concerned. You spend all of Sunday morning preparing for it AKA doing nothing except maybe buying some nice food and sodas, call your friends last minute to see what they're doing for the game, then you get together and the game finally starts as both teams are sloppy with mistakes and getting the jitters out on sports’ biggest stage.
In this case, mistakes were especially costly for the Patriots from beginning to end. Tom Brady threw his first pass to Casper from his own endzone, resulting in a well-called safety on the Pats’ first offensive play from scrimmage. Then, the Giants move down the field, until Victor Cruz made the tough mistake of staying up too long on his feet resisting tackle, allowing the defender to yank the ball from his grasp. Luckily, the play was nullified because of a bigger mistake—the Pats having 12 men on the field.
Following this inexplicable error by the Pats’ defensive coordinators, they redeem themselves by calling the perfect play on the goal line, where the middle linebacker cuts across towards the side of the field to stop the Giants from doing a quick slant. Well, Victor Cruz made his cut for the quick slant and Eli Manning made a play that should have hit defender Jerod Mayo right in stride so that he got an interception and a long return the other way, but Mayo was playing ketchup on the play and wasn’t looking at the QB for some reason, so the ball whizzed by his ear, and Victor Cruz caught it after an “I can’t believe that ball got through” bobble.
Right after, on the following kickoff with the score 9-0 Giants, Chris Collinsworth called Julian Edelman Danny Woodhead on mistake. Ahh, the stereotypes 5’7 to 5’10 white males have to endure! The game proceeded rather mistake-free for a bit, then the halftime show came up. I didn’t see it live, but I saw the replays where M.I.A. (didn’t know that was a person) gave the crowd the finger and might have thrown a few expletives into the lyrics or something. Not cool.
I know a lot of people were offended by the whole Janet Jackson boob incident in 2004, but being an 11-year old boy at the time, part of the audience for whom the incident was supposed to be offensive and damaging, I thought it was pretty awesome. Sure, Janet kind of went off the map after that, but Justin Timberlake is only a bigger pimp now after ripping off a girl’s shirt in front of tens of millions.But giving Americans the finger on their national holiday does not impress anyone, you British She-Douche. I don’t care if you’re a great philanthropist and a majorly influential musician, you don’t get to do that as a guest at the Super Bowl.
The mistakes got more costly through the game for the Patriots, as a Welker drop (Brady misfire?) that could have locked up the game for the Pats fell to the ground and New England gave the Giants the ball with just enough time to execute a full drive. Then, Mario Manningham’s textbook lesson on how to take a hit and get control in bounds (I swear every year now there’s a memorable catch), left Bill Bellicheck in such a stage of déjà vu shock that he challenged it, only to lose a valuable time out and an extra 40 seconds. Ahmad Bradshaw made a potentially game breaking mistake by going into the end zone to give the Patriots a chance to score with less than a minute, but Tom Brady couldn’t make it happen on the ensuing drive, despite a valiant 4th and 13 conversion and solid Hail Mary attempt.
And just like that, Peyton Manning’s humiliating year was given a cherry on top, as Eli Manning put himself above Peyton in terms of Super Bowl wins and Super Bowl MVPs, 2 to 1. Peyton will always be a charming and funny personality, and Eli will always be kind of a derp, but their careers are comparable now. I have to send my condolences to Peyton Manning, whom I felt was on his way to owning every passing record imaginable and an unquestioned spot as the best quarterback of all time before his preseason neck surgery ended his year. He didn't actually play this year, but he missed out on the passing fiesta where every quarterback threw for career numbers, and didn't even get a chance to fight off the newfound criticism with his on field play. Now he's probably out of Indianapolis, and it's a mess.
People already seem to forget that this is the first modern quarterback the first quarterback to have a freakish statistical season (his 2004 season is still rated the best ever on a play-to-play basis by Football Outsiders), the first to make his mouth as valuable a weapon as his arm with all his pre-snap audibles and adjustments, and the first to truly embrace the new technology of all the film available to study opponents.
Tom Brady needed this game to get past Manning. Instead, Eli was the one to pass Peyton, at least for now. From now on, we’ll be looking at whose career has been better, and Eli still needs a few years to catch up, but he has accomplished a ton this season. With the Super Bowl victory, Eli Manning’s season is the most significant among all QBs this year. Sorry Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. 8 game winning comeback drives in 19 games this season is ridiculous. 4900 passing yards with 27 TD and 16 interceptions isn’t too shabby either. This might be the best season ever for a Super Bowl winning quarterback.
After Super Bowl XLVI ended, they of course immediately showed the commercial with the winning team’s Super Bowl champion gear, prompting some imbecile at your Super Bowl party to ask how they have the merchandise prepared so quickly, and then follow up asking “Wow, I wonder what they do to all the losing team’s gear.” That imbecile is usually me. It goes to charity and to countries like Haiti BTW.
NBC got unsportsmanlike conduct in my book during the post game celebrations when they focused the camera on Robert Kraft, the Patriots’ remarkable owner whose beloved wife passed away in the last year, as he was the last to leave his box, staring in disappointment and gloom at the field and then up at the sky before sadly sulking away. That’s not very classy to show such a classy guy at such a vulnerable and tough time right after his life’s work’s loss.
Non-Sports Matters that Don’t Matter
If you were like me and didn’t want to turn off the TV or change the channel after the game ended, then you got shown to the season premiere of the second season of NBC’s wannabe show. American Idol is one of the highest rated TV shows in the history of television, so it makes sense that a spinoff of the show with better, more qualified celebrity judges would be successful too. The Voice is a singing competition where singers audition to be trained by one of the four judges, Blake Shelton (a big deal in country, I guess), Christina Aguilera (cleavage), Adam Levine (Maroon Five), and Cee-Lo Green (hero). Here’s the format, via the faithful Wikipedia
The series consists of three phases: a blind audition, a battle phase, and live performance shows. Four judges/coaches, all noteworthy recording artists, choose teams of contestants through a blind audition process. Each judge has the length of the auditioner's performance (about one minute) to decide if he or she wants that singer on his or her team; if two or more judges want the same singer (as happens frequently), the singer has the final choice of coach.
Each team of singers is mentored and developed by its respective coach. In the second stage, called the battle phase, coaches have two of their team members battle against each other directly by singing the same song together, with the coach choosing which team member to advance from each of four individual "battles" into the first live round. Within that first live round, the surviving four acts from each team again compete head-to-head, with public votes determining one of two acts from each team that will advance to the final eight, while the coach chooses which of the remaining three acts comprises the other performer remaining on the team.
In the final phase, the remaining contestants (Final 8) compete against each other in live broadcasts. The television audience and the coaches have equal say 50/50 in deciding who moves on to the final 4 phase. With one team member remaining for each coach, the (final 4) contestants compete against each other in the finale with the outcome decided solely by public vote.
Pretty cool idea, actually. Solid choices for judges too, especially Cee Lo Green. People should know him from the unbelievably catchy “F*ck You” song, which was rated the #1 song of 2010 by Time, but even more importantly, “Crazy” (as part of Gnarls Barkley with Danger Mouse), which Rolling Stone rated the #1 song of the 2000’s and #100 song of all time.
I feel like everyone has to respect Cee Lo as one of the coolest guys out there. Here’s a guy whose dad died when he was 2, mom was paralyzed in a car crash at 16 and died when he was 18. Despite his unbelievably rough luck, this is a guy who maintains an offbeat sense of humor in all his songs. “F*ck you” is an upbeat, happy song that is actually cursing out Cee Lo’s gold digger ex-wife. He’s the only guy who can pull off the outfits he does (see picture). Cee Lo is fun to watch on The Voice too, as he mixes in his sense of humor with his job as judge/coach.
I never watched American Idol, but I found it interesting to see who won and see if they were achieved mainstream success like Kelly Clarkson or remained nobodies like Ruben Studdard or David Cook (not Dane Cook). That was the driving force behind the show, I thought, since the audience wanted to feel like they were part of the process of finding the next big music star.
After being brainwashed though watching an entire hour of The Voice, I noticed that on NBC’s Sunday night news, the promotion for The Voice only continued. They answered my biggest question about the show, with an immediate feature on one of last year’s top performers, Xenia, and her post-Voice career. I looked it up and saw that most of last year’s top performers were all practically mainstream duds in the modern music scene that favors hip hop and electronic music more and more.
But this girl Xenia apparently has half a million views on YouTube for her country music video “Sing You Home”, and she’s had a fairly successful album release too. She was coached by Blake Shelton, the country guy, which was a brilliant call since he’s the only coach who can really point these singers in a feasible direction for success. The most stable place to go for young talented singers has to be country. CMT is a channel that will always exist. Though people where I am in LA don’t listen to it much doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a significant loyal following. So it seems to me like if The Voice wants to try to build up to the level of pedigree of American Idol’s talent, its best chance is in country music, and the singers’ continued support from their established celebrity coaches.
Only on the Super Bowl do I find it appropriate to ramble this much about pop culture in a sports blog. Thanks for reading this far down, and don’t worry, I won’t ever again talk about The Voice (or soccer either probably). I’ll be sticking to Saturday weekly recaps of the sports matters that matter, across all sports, I’ll be providing bi-weekly NBA power rankings, and I’ll be throwing in the occasional semi-serious article like the part today before I started to talk about the Super Bowl.
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