Newsweek: America the Ignorant

Newsweek on-line has a slide show with unusual ideas that Americans believe. It is titled 'Silly Things We Believe About Witches, Obama and More.'

Forget the birthers, the creationists, and other religious and political fanatics, and similar fringe groups. Their ideas are not exactly motivated by hard facts.

Also, I am not surprised about the lack of education on religion, government, geography, and other subjects. That is a well documented issue. I also remember that while in college I was told by… enlightened students that Greece is in Southeast Asia (Asia, Europe… same deal), Greeks are black (Southern Europe, Mediterranean, North Africa, Africa!), and Greeks speak Latin (the expression ‘sounds Greek to me’ never really registered!), and other trivia of similar ‘quality'.’

However, the following really blows my mind:

In 1999 (eleven years ago!) 20% of Americans still believed that the sun revolved around the earth.

How is it possible to believe in something that was shown to be false almost 500 years ago? They have never heard of Copernicus and the heliocentric cosmology? Where do these people live? According to the poll they are all around me!

I guess I have lived a rather sheltered intellectual life because I have never met people with such extreme ideas. I should be thankful for that!

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: August 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (1)	Spain	1883
2 (2)	Netherlands	1659
3 (3)	Brazil	1524
4 (4)	Germany	1464
5 (5)	Argentina	1288
6 (6)	Uruguay	1152
7 (7)	England	1125
8 (8)	Portugal	1062
9 (9)	Egypt	1053
10 (10)	Chile	988
11 (11)	Italy	982
12 (12)	Greece	975
13 (13)	Serbia	969
14 (15)	Croatia	968
15 (16)	Paraguay	961
16 (17)	Russia	956
17 (18)	Switzerland	940
18 (13)	USA	931	Lost to Brazil in a friendly.
19 (19)	Slovenia	917
20 (20)	Australia	911

No changes on the board except USA that lost a friendly to Brazil, lost 38 points and dropped five places! Teams ranked 8-20 are so close in points that losing a few of them could result in significant ranking drop.

Competition at the national level in Europe heats up next month with qualifying games for EURO 2012. Greece will play at home against Georgia on Sep. 3 and then an away game against Croatia on Sep. 7.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

FIFA World Ranking Top 20: July 2010

Rank (previous)	Team	Points	Comment
1 (2)	Spain	1883	Back on top for the World Champions
2 (4)	Netherlands	1659	#2 in the world again
3(1)	Brazil	1536	Expected better
4 (6)	Germany	1464	Great effort but run into Spain
5 (7)	Argentina	1289	Great talent; Entertaining coach; Not good enough.
6 (16)	Uruguay	1152	A great run with Diego Forlan leading the way.
7 (8)	England	1125	High ranking for a team that sucked and whined.
8 (3)	Portugal	1062	Pretty fair.
9 (12)	Egypt	1053	Highest ranking ever (for staying home to watch TV)
10 (18)	Chile	988	Good run. Lost to Brazilin the round of 16.
11 (5)	Italy	982	Two ties (New Zealand??) and 1 loss…
12 (13)	Greece	975	One win against a good team maintained the rank.
13 (14)	USA	969	They deserved a higher ranking
13 (15)	Serbia	969	A win over Germany will get you a lot of points!
15 (10)	Croatia	968	Lost ground (for staying home to watch TV)
16 (31)	Paraguay	961	Meteoric rise after losing to Spain in the quarterfinals
17(11)	Russia	956	Stayed home; Watched TV.
18 (24)	Switzerland	940	Win (over Spain) and tie: +6 spots.
19 (25)	Slovenia	917	A decent run and the highest ranking ever
20 (20)	Australia	911	A win and a tie. Not bad for a team from Oceania!

I was actually surprised that Greece maintained its position but it came against a former top 20 team.

Spain is rightly the number 1.

Holland deserves to be number 2.

Uruguay could have been higher.

England should have been lower.

Why did Egypt go up?

Why did Russia go down?

France dropped 12 spots and out of the top 20. The way the played they were easily the worst team of the 2010 World Cup.

The latest full table can be found at the FIFA World Ranking website.

The best & worst of the 2010 World Cup - Goal.com

Good one!

The best & worst of the 2010 World Cup - Goal.com

World Cup 2010 Final: Netherlands 0 - Spain 1

Spain is #1! They beat Holland in extra time with a marvelous goal by Iniesta (116th minute.) It was a tough game with both teams missing several chances to score. Credit goes to both goalkeepers (Stekelenburg and Casillas) for playing so well. Stekelenburg could do nothing to stop the goal by Iniesta.

The Spaniards have been ranked #1 for months and after a great campaign (7 games with one fluke loss to Switzerland) they proved they deserve to be called 'best in the world.' Well done!

New England Revolution 2 – Los Angeles Galaxy 0

Our second game with Jason exactly one year after the first one! Complete with blue cotton candy (which he does not like but I guess he remembered from last year.) May be we should make it a ritual: Go to a soccer game around July 11, eat junk food, and drink sugary liquids!

It was fun but the atmosphere was not as exciting as that of Sounders game. BTW, note the half empty stadium (by design) in the third picture. (Forget the empty second tier; That does not even count for the MLS!) You cannot see that on TV since the cameras are placed in front of the empty half. This is not Seattle…

 

The game itself was not bad for NE which was rather unexpected! After all they were playing against one of the better MLS teams after they have suffered four straight losses. Revolution scored two goals in the second half and could have scored more if they were a better team. But I should not complain; My expectations were pretty low so we were pretty happy that we cheered twice for the home team.

The first goal was scored by Marko Perovic in the 66th minute; A free kick from just outside the box that drilled into the right corner of the net. The second goal was scored by Sainey Nyassi in the 74th minute off a rebound. Landon Donovan did not play for LA but the rest of the starters were present.

To commemorate the event:

World Cup 2010 Finals: Greece 0 – Argentina 2

Finito! A loss to Argentina by the score of two-nil ended the 2010 World Cup campaign for Greece. The goal-scorers were Martin Demichelis (77’) and Martin Palermo (89’). Argentina was obviously the better team and had a number of scoring chances with 12 shots on goal. And they lined up with much of their bench!! However Greece tried hard, was a bit unlucky (since Rehhagel had to use all three substitutions for injured players), and had a couple of decent chances.

The formation was defensive (5-4-1) with Samaras being the only striker. I assume the strategy for Greece was to play good defense with counter-attacks in order to get out of the game with a tie and then hope that Nigeria would take care of South Korea. Should Greece have lined up with a more offensive formation? Do or die? Possibly. Nevertheless it was not a bad strategy and it almost worked. Nigeria had a lot of chances but could not convert. Greece held Argentina in check for most of the game but in the end could not withstand the barrage of attacks. Tzorvas, the Greek goalkeeper, played very well today. None of the two goals were his fault.

Though in the end it was three games and out for Greece, there is a certain satisfaction with the way the team played. Granted, in the first game against South Korea the team was awful. That was the game that cost Greece the qualification to the round of 16. It is unfortunate because they played really well against Nigeria and held their own against powerhouse Argentina. The team gave Greeks a sense of pride.

I think the most important aspect of this World Cup, other than the first goals and first win, was that there a number of good young players that can step up  and with proper coaching deliver good performances. We will need that in two years!!

Congratulation to Greece for their effort.

For posterity, the starting eleven players of today’s game:

Top row, left-to-right: Vyntra, Papastathopoulos, Moras, Tziolis, Kyrgiakos, Tzorvas.

Bottom row, left-to-right: Papadopoulos, Katsouranis, Torosidis, Karagounis, Samaras.