Well, today’s been pretty interesting…
So, that happened.
As with many pursuits, one of the great things about soccer is that it is often a unique an combination of “you never know what’s going to happen ” and, “on any given day anything can happen.” If you need proof of that fact today would provide as good an example as any. Let’s take a look at a few of the things that made today special.
- Honduras…Honduras!?…defeated the almighty Spain at the Olympics today. So that was huge. The fact that the winning goal was scored by the New England Revolution’s Jerry Bengston. Huh?
- Shame on the group of Spanish players, by the way, who accosted the match officials after the final whistle. You have to win the match, boys, just “being Spain” isn’t enough.
- A ten man Senegal defeated Uruguay behind two goals from Senegal’s Moussa Konate. That gives Konate three goals in two matches against Uruguay and England. The young many currently plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv- I’m not sure that’s going to last much longer.
- Here I was thinking that Team Great Britain was essentially going to be an English team with a few tag-a-longs. Instead, it now appears that Team Great Britain is a core of Welsh generals leading a group of English infantry. Wales’ Craig Bellamy scored the team’s goal in the first match against Senegal and today Ryan Giggs scored and the play of Bellamy (again), Neil Taylor, Aaron Ramsey, and Giggs himself drove Team Great Britain to victory.
- In a scene I don’t think anyone ever thought they would see, the Rangers newco took the field at Brechin City F.C.’s Glebe Park for a first round match in the Scottish Challenge Cup.
- If that were not enough, among those players who took the field for Rangers was USMNT captain Carlos Bocanegra. Say what?! I can only imagine that he hasn’t yet formalized a transfer away from the club- he couldn’t possibly plan on playing Third Division football all season…could he?
- Need more? In said match Rangers needed extra time to defeat a club that just missed out on demotion to the Third Division last season. A sign of things to come?
- Finally, if it wasn’t already abundantly clear that newco owner Charles Green can’t “leave well enough alone,” today he was in the press suggesting that “bigotry” (and we all know what that means in the context of Scottish football) was behind much of the punishment meted out to the Oldco/Newco by the SFA/SPL/SFL. Mr. Green, sir, shut up.
