Paraguay!

Nice goal by Paraguay against Italy (the 2006 champs). Header right into the tippy-top corner of the net. Nicely played and placed.

I just read that Paraguay's primary striker Salvador Cabanas is missing this tournament because he was SHOT in the HEAD in a bar in Mexico City in January. Apparently he is recovering well.

I was sorry to hear that Germany's favored goal-keeper Robert Enke committed suicide in November. At the memorial service, the clergywoman said "The death of this athlete shows that soccer is not everything in our life.... Behind popularity and success there could be profound loneliness and desperation."(huffingtonpost Nov 2009).

I do wonder what winning and losing means for these neo-liberal soccer subjectivities, given their dual roles in the private market place and the public imagination.

It is raining hard in the stadium, which is exactly as I remember June in Cape Town.