What Have You Told Us At All?

Unless you've been living under a rock or quietly humming the "Marseillaise" to yourself all day, you've surely heard of the newest reason to hate our Gallic friends, which is depicted below:

For those of you who have even worse vision than I do, that is a picture of French striker Thierry Henry blatantly palming the ball with his left-hand before passing to an on-rushing William Gallas, who placed the ball in the back of the Irish net to tie yesterday's World Cup qualifying match at 1.

Coupled with the fact that the French won 1-0 in Dublin in the first leg of the qualifier, Gallas's now-infamous goal sent the French to the World Cup and left the Irish to sit around and ponder what June 2010 will be like leading tourists on tours of Blarney Castle instead of taking on the world's best soccer playing nations in South Africa. I thought it would be more appropriate to give Irish players the job of leading tours at Blarney Castle rather than chasing down that pesky leprechaun from the Lucky Charms box, drinking themselves into oblivion, or surviving antoher potato famine, but I digress.

Because we all know that Henry's hand-ball was only possible due to the fact that the good men and women of the U.S. Military (with assistance from other nations) liberated France not once, but twice, in the 20th century, I feel that it is within my unwritten rights as a citizen of the United States of America to bring to light other instances where the French have unjustly been rewarded:

Today's Example--

• 1879: A Hungarian named Laszlo Goulash invents what the world now knows as "french fries." Of course, we only know them as "french fries" because a Frenchman named Phillippe Depardieu made a deal with Goulash whereby Goulash would agree to lend his name to Depardieu's new dish if Goulash would also agree to allow Depardieu to name the new potato creation after Depardieu's home nation. That Goulash guy got ripped off.

Please feel free to share any other instances that you are aware of where the French have taken something that is not rightly theirs.

We're Threading Hope Like Fire

"Only in America, ladies and gentlemen. Only in America."

The following has absolutely nothing to do with A) Don King or B) boxing but who doesn't love Don King in a sequined denim jacket that resembles the American flag?

I quote the most well (or worst) coiffed man in boxing in response to the following paragraph in ESPN's game report for last night's World Cup qualifying match between the United States and Honduras, which the U.S. by a score of 2-1, by the way.

A crowd of 55,647 attended the first-ever qualifier at Soldier Field, site of the 1994 World Cup opener. While the game was played on American soil, the dominant support was for Honduras, a Central American nation of about 7.6 million. Fans in blue and white appeared to outnumber red-clad American supporters by a 4-to-1 margin, and in the final minutes some fans threw a few cups filled with liquid at Howard.

"It's just the way it is," Dempsey said. "Maybe one day we'll have more U.S. fans."

Only in America, folks. Only in America.

A quick consultation of Google Maps for directions between Chicago and Tegucigalpa reveals the following phrase: "We could not calculate directions between Chicago, IL and Tegucigalpa, Honduras."

I'll repeat that: Google Maps could not even calculate the directions between Chicago and Honduras and their fans outnumbered U.S. supporters by an estimate of 4 to 1.

A few points before we move on, though:

• I know American people don't really dig the whole "soccer" thing.
• I know that the vast majority of the Hondurans at Soldier Field last night were probably naturalized Americans who have Honduran heritage.
• I hate to engage in stereotypes here, but I feel safe in saying that people from Latin American nations care a wee bit more about soccer than Americans do.

With all that said, my goodness folks. That paragraph is pretty depressing to read. I'm sure that Jig or Lance could regale you with stories of feeling outnumbered by supporters of the Mexican men's national team when they went to watch a friendly between the U.S. and Mexico here in Houston about two years ago, but a 4 to 1 margin screams of two things: 1. apathy and 2. a lack of national support that probably means the U.S. won't be winning the World Cup between now and, oh say, THE END OF TIME.

I cannot imagine a similar scenario taking place in another country, even if it is a sport that the U.S. dominates on the world stage. If the "Redeem Team" from the Beijing Games were to travel anywhere else in the world to play in an Olympics qualifying match, I'm going to venture a rough guess that the crowd in the arena would not be, oh, 4 Americans for every German or Italian or Ghanian or Australian.

Again, these could be the rantings of someone who has drank of the soccer kool-aid to a degree that would make Jim Jones proud (too soon? Probably not.), but I have a feeling that Don King would agree with me when I say that things like this could happen "only in America."