That 19 year old Mbappé owned this match. 3 goals were attributed to him.

they should have this tournament every year. best tournament in sports.

I think yearly would be a bit much - fine as it is, but yearly hoopla might be a bit too distracting.

Because it's once every four years, the gratification of winning and the anguish of losing is greatly enhanced, as reflected by intensity of spectators and global viewership.

MOTD: Spain v.s. Russia

Legal BBC One streaming:
tvplayer.com/watch/bbcone

via any ExpressVPN UK location

there is no anguish in losing. sports is supposed to be for fun, for flexing your athletic abilities, and an art form. not a competition. half the wins are pure luck anyway. one team hits the goal post, the other team scores a goal off the the defender's foot. it's practically meaningless except for the ch-ching ch-ching.

am i going to cry because messi will not make an extra 10 million euros and buy his 20th ferrari? boo hoo hoo. he didn't even pay his taxes last year.

watching these players and the fans cry when they lose is almost as entertaining as the sport itself.

uruguay all the way! i cannot even locate that country on the map, but i like that star player. first of all, he takes the time to go to the gym, which is not the case for most footballers who barely have more physique than me. and his celebration when he scores is not obnoxious.

ps saudi arabia desperately needs a new coach, 12 new players, and a fashion designer. who chooses a uniform color the same as the pitch? ugly and annoying.

You mean the art form of wriggling on the ground hoping their dying performances would impress a Hollywood scout much less the refs?

No anguish in Sergio Ramos' tears? Speaking of which, adios tiki-taka. Watching 120 minutes of that into the wee hours reminded me why I prefer NBA Dubs.

Flip side, witnessing the collective jubilation of the Russian host nation in their improbable penalty shootout victory nearly justified the over lengthy foreplay.

The climatic joy & tears on the field of competition/survival are for a lack of a better word, the celebration of life. That's the FIFA drama i'm more intrigued by.

Dolphin, the idea that competitive sports are not competitions is ridiculous.

> Dolphin, the idea that competitive sports are not competitions is ridiculous.

I just met a guy who made a list of "Top 100 movies of all time". It's absurd. There's no such thing. All films cover different topics and have a message. Some films suck, but people are obsessed with categorizing everything. Best this, best that. The first part of the film was slow. Who cares? What did you get from the film, which is a piece of art? There's a message the artist is trying to impart usually ... unless it's a brain-dead trashy film.

Also, with regards to climbing Mount Everest, it's probably mostly a western thing. I don't think people in Nepal were thinking of climbing it. They were just extolling the virtues of its beauty. But people have to turn everything into a competition. And if you happen to drop dead while climbing, other climbers will walk right past you. Tough luck. Gotta win!

It spills over into the inevitable comparison of one human being with another human being and everyone is constantly trying to prove or convince themselves that they're better than another human being. And people are constantly engaging in one-upmanship to the point where you can't have a genuine relationship with anyone.

Now back to sports. The powers that be overplay the importance of who wins. And notice that if your team doesn't win in 20 years, when they finally win the announcers make it sound like something amazing. The fans have waited 20 long years for this !!! Why would you sit around waiting 20 years for something to happen beyond your control? And that also means that you've been sitting around frustrated for the 19 years that your team didn't win anything. So 19 years of frustration and 1 year of jubilation. That's a poor return on your investment of time. You are wasting your time.

Sports is a business. So if they convince you that winning is everything, then you get addicted, like a gambler at a slot machine, hoping and praying that the next game is going to be the jackpot. It's a scam to keep people hooked.

If you detach from the outcome, you can just enjoy an occasional match without being an addict, which is what most sports fans are. There's an entire section in the mainstream media rags devoted to discussing sports. That's ridiculous. People need to stop reading that trash and focus on something more enlightening.

Also notice that half the players on the France team are of African origin, yet an African team never seems to win this tournament. So what up with that? Are you sure they're not letting certain teams win over others? I would look into it. Not to mention half the players don't originate from the country they're playing for.

Again, who cares who wins? Unless you're a player or a coach or the girlfriend of one of the players. Then you can get to stay home and snort coke all day long with the big fat paychecks their boyfriends are bringing in. My boyfriend won! I don't need to work! Woohoo! THAT is cause for celebration!

Now back to the real world. There's an ahole trying to get me fired at work as we speak. I envy people who actually have the time to obsess over who wins these tournaments. You got it made in the shade. You can sip pina coladas on an exotic beach resort. You got it all worked out.

edit: wow, that was long-winded! I promise not to post anything else for at least 2 weeks.

ok, this is the last post ... PROMISE! he he.

here is a buddhist commenting on competition. this is DEEP, so go get a drink before reading!

www.elephantjournal.com/[...]

We often lose our perspective about gain and loss, because the modern world is very competitive. With that attitude, we are in a perpetual rub with our environment. We’re playing the game of “’What about me?’ If I gain something, I will be happy. If I lose something, I’ll be miserable.” That kind of friction simply wears us down. Competition doesn’t enable us to accomplish what we want. It just adds the grind of trying to gain by outdoing somebody else. It makes us aggressive—unable to relax in our own mind. We become susceptible to anger, which destroys any virtue that we’ve gathered. Trying to manipulate the environment by promoting ourselves and hoping for others to fail is unpleasant and delusional. We are only as good as we are, and forcing another person down doesn’t make us any better. Competition is unstable. Even when we win, we have not really won. We always have to prove ourselves again. If we want to make progress on a spiritual path, we cannot base our worth on succeeding or failing at one event.

After I’d been running for a while, two friends—both experienced marathoners—said that I was in good enough shape to run one myself. It hadn’t been that long since running for an hour had felt like a long time. What’s interesting about a marathon is that even though it is considered a race, most of the competition is with ourselves. We are rising to our own challenge. As I ran the Big Sur marathon—considered one of the most beautiful and difficult—I felt relaxed and comfortable. I thought about all the miles I’d run to get to this point, through snow and rain, heat and cold. When the race was over, someone asked me who had won. I said, “I’m not trying to be corny, but everybody won.”

so point is ... competition is basically stupid in many ways.

france won and ... woopedy do.

the end.