Having a Hard Job is Not Carte Blanche to Kill

I have tried to mostly steer clear of the Ferguson/Eric Garner/Cleveland PD situations for a multitude of reasons, not least of which is the fact that I haven't been super-rational lately due to work stress. That said, it's getting to the point where there's so much shit out there that drives me so nuts, I can't hold it in anymore.

First off -The Blogfather, as he usually does, eloquently charted the landscape of the issue last week. Needless to say, it's worth a read.

Beyond that though, based on what's out there in the Facebook fever swamp, there's a couple of things that I feel that I need to point out.


1. A few people have argued that we just don't get it, because the police have an extremely hard and dangerous job. That is true, but it is not an excuse on its own for non-warranted lethal force.

OK, first things first - yes, they absolutely do. No question. Also, for the record, they don't get paid enough. All rational people can agree on these two points.

But, at some point that becomes an explanation, not an excuse. If anything, that is precisely why we should expect the men and women in those uniforms to conduct themselves to a standard that befits the massive responsibility that they have. I know myself, and I know that I would last roughly 0.2 seconds in that job before I thoroughly cracked. Oddly enough, I have found an alternate way to spend my working hours.

I find it hard to believe that we have entirely staffed these positions appropriately when you look at something like the Justice Department's review of the Cleveland PD. One or two incidents here or there could indeed be the suspect lying, or the media sensationalizing something (both being the go-to defenses by the police in these cases...it's page 1 of the playbook).  But, a repeated pattern of behavior such as this stretches the credibility of those arguments like the Plastic Man's limbs.

Among the findings:

• The Cleveland Police department engages in a pattern of using excessive force in violation of citizens' Constitutional rights.
• Officers were quick to pull their guns, often escalating situations, and fired their guns at people who did not pose an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury.
• There were incidents where officers punched and Tasered suspects already subdued or in handcuffs – sometimes as punishment.  And they used Tasers too readily.
• The report also cited the city for failing to adequately investigate and discipline the officers involved in using excessive force. They said that investigators conducting reviews admitted that their goal was to paint the accused officers in the most positive light.

Of course, the Cleveland PD must be given their chance to refute the findings of the investigation, and if they can prove that it is unfounded, then great, more power to them. The people of Cleveland deserve to know, one way or another.

That takes me back to the original premise of this bullet, though. The police have a difficult job, where they have to make snap decisions at a moment's notice and there is always the lingering threat of bodily harm and even death. No one is trying to downplay that.

But, let's take this to its logical conclusion. Soldiers have a difficult job as well, and death is even more of an ever-present. That still doesn't mean that, for example, the My Lai Massacre was not a war crime. The fact that our men were sent to a distant jungle to fight a war in a living hell for years on end for no discernible purpose is one of the great tragedies of our nation's entire history - but it does not and never will justify the wanton slaughter of unarmed noncombatants. 

Likewise, there is no justification for choking a man who has not made any kind of threatening motion (yes, I've watched the video - he's just standing there). There is not and never will be a justification to taser someone once they've already been handcuffed. There is not and never will be a justification for pepper spraying defenseless kids in the eye when they're protesting peacefully (remember that gem?).

It is beyond question that the police must, at times, use lethal force to save the lives of themselves or others when they are faced with a them-or-me situation. But, as an example, the officers surrounding Eric Garner were never in danger. Not once.


2. The fact that a black guy totally killed a white person that one time does not outweigh centuries of institutional racism. For fuck's sake.

Fire up Facebook at any time this last week, and you'll surely have seen some variation of this one, usually with a hysterical "WHERE WAS AL SHARPTON THEN?" tacked onto the end of it.

There will, of course, always be isolated examples of tragedy no matter where you look. White killing white, black killing white, brown killing Asian, man killing woman, woman killing man, any permutation you care to name.

But, I have not yet seen the evidence of a long-standing, institutional, targeted campaign other than those in positions of authority killing black people. The link I just put there is useful mainly as a compilation point of recent situations where this has happened, none of which involved the victim perpetrating any kind of actual crime.

At the end of the day, Louis CK wasn't wrong about how fucking outstanding it is to be white in this country. I have, on occasion, been known to be walking alone, wearing a hoodie, and probably publicly intoxicated down the street at 4 AM. As you might imagine, I have not once been stopped by the police in those cases.

Actually, I have only had two experiences with the police in my entire decade here in the city. It is probably worth sharing, if only as a comparison point.

• Walking down 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, coming home from the Hellmouth Bodega. I have in my hands two small paper bags, containing one tall boy of Shite Domestic Swill each (Original Coors, if you must know - it's a guilty pleasure). A police car drives by, stops, and the officer asks me if I'm drinking in public.  I tip forward the bags to show him that they're unopened, say "No sir, they're not unopened", and they drive off. Yes, it probably helped that I was polite, but that's kind of not the point. Being disrespectful is not a crime - had I said "No, fuckface, it's not open", there is still absolutely no excuse for them to do anything other than drive away.
• Not long after I moved to this neighborhood, I first experienced the police doing bag checks at Atlantic Avenue. Please note that I am NOT against this practice - it is absolutely defensible as a measure for keeping our subway safe. And, I get that I live in a major hub, and this sort of thing should be expected more often. I'm with you that far. But, given that this was the first time I had encountered this, I didn't know what the protocol was. I was wearing a backpack as I was heading off to soccer, so I dutifully walked over and put my bag on the table. The officer looked at me like I had 12 heads, literally SNEERED at me like I was wasting his time, and sarcastically said "Yeah, maybe next time...get out of here." Again, let's be clear - he thought it was PATENTLY RIDICULOUS that I would submit to the bag check. Somehow, I decline to believe that he'd have been so cavalier if my skin weren't so...translucent.

The fact is, the numbers speak for themselves as far as the differences in police behavior to different races goes. There is a deeper discussion to be had about socio-economic factors of the city's neighborhoods, and how crime is more likely to occur in some than in others. However, walking down the street isn't a crime. Selling loose cigarettes is of course technically a crime, but one that I find it hard to believe as being worthy of a police officer's time and attention. I imagine that the sun would go nova before I, being as ridiculously white as I am, would ever be stopped for these things. Anyone arguing otherwise does so in defiance of a veritable Mount Everest of evidence.

But, you know, a white woman was killed once in Central Park so it's totes even, y'all.


3. Why aren't the police first in line to fight against gun proliferation?

This one...this one is a bafflement. I have never seen an instance of turkeys voting for Thanksgiving than this.

Seriously, ask 100 police officers what their stance on gun control is, and I imagine you'll get back 85 or 90 NRA registration numbers.

But, why is that? The fact that they have a dangerous and sometimes lethal job is made indescribably more so by the ludicrous ease that bad guys can get their hands on guns, ammo, bulletproof vests, etc.

I honestly don't know the statistics here, but I can't imagine that the guns that kill police officers tend to be legally purchased through approved channels. Call it a hunch.



4. The victim card

This is the crux of it...the whole ballgame, right here.

The thing is, at a basic level I believe that most people want to like the police. There is a tremendous amount of satisfaction that comes in a feeling of safety, in a feeling that you can trust those brave and hardy souls tasked with our protection. By way of full disclosure, my father and brother are both police officers. A good friend from back home who gave me a place to stay for almost a year when I had nowhere to go is a police officer. The guys who let a high school kid join them for their team's hockey practices and gave him a jersey to boot are all police officers (I still have that precinct's shirt and wear it from time to time).

On the whole, these are good men and women who do a thankless job for shit pay, and sometimes die for that privilege. I keep stressing this because it is important to note that none of this is indiscriminate police-bashing.

But, these are humans who do this job, and humans are fallible. Some, like the officer who murdered Eric Garner, have a bit of previous with this sort of thing.

I can't help but think how far it would go with the communities that they serve if the police ever, EVER, admitted to making a mistake. I mean, fucking EVER.

A week ago, four St. Louis Rams players make one gesture on television to protest Ferguson. The St. Louis police lose their minds. 10,000 people protest the Garner situation, and Commissioner Bratton pours oil on the fire with an arrogant statement about how it will peter out.The Cleveland PD shoots a 12-year old kid, and in turn files a lawsuit over how harshly they're treated.

Even kids in Marketing 101 at the local state college can do outreach better than that.

Once again, I stress that the police have a massively difficult job with a very real threat of bodily harm. But, the flip side of that coin is that the police have guns, and tasers, and the power to use them. The police have significant power of life and death, not to mention the ongoing liberty, of the people that they serve. Quite literally, our lives and our freedom are in their hands. Correspondingly, we have the right to question how that is utilized, and we damn sure have the right to feel confident in the men and women who are entrusted with that power.

It is not remotely helpful that, at the first sign of being questioned, the police brass immediately opt for fight-or-flight. It is not remotely helpful that the "evil sensationalist media" card is played damn near 100% of the time, thus making it harder to tell in those cases where there is far too much of that for a sane person's liking. It is not remotely helpful that you create an Us vs. Them mentality, when all too often our friends and neighbors are lumped in with Them. It is not remotely helpful that they roll in with tanks and military weapons for situations that don't come close to calling for it, with an increasingly militarized mindset, when we live in the safest times that our country has ever known. It's said a lot, but when you have nothing but hammers, everything starts to look like a nail.

Of course, I realize that the communities they serve have to meet the police halfway here. We ought to work together to find ways to reduce the number of frivolous complaints against officers that have acted correctly. Surely, a large PD or two could hire a few data analysts to look for exactly those patterns. We should have civilian liaisons to our PDs of all sizes, and they should be well versed in the police's side of the story. For their part, the PDs themselves should do a lot more for their officers as far as PTSD counseling and treatment, and there absolutely ought to be a culture change there so that officers in treatment for the same don't get ostracized by their peers.

But, it's going to be hard for anything like that to gain any traction when unarmed kids keep getting gunned down, when already-subdued suspects keep getting brutalized, when no mistake is ever admitted to.


Besides that, a few truths have to be understood.

• Being black is not suspicious activity.
• Wearing baggy jeans and hoodies is not probable cause.
• Resisting arrest non-lethally is a crime, but not a capital one.
• You can't blame a community for crying foul when laws are applied differently to them then they are to others - the loose cigarette principle.
• Most importantly, lethal force is a fucking LAST RESORT. End of story.

What is the Point of No Return?

This is one of those instances in which the subject touches on soccer, but the sport itself is incidental to the larger question here. Today, I read an article that caused me to ponder where the line is as far as how grievous of a mistake do you have to make - in general - before you just aren't allowed back in whatever section of society happens to be affected.

Here, the story is that a struggling second-division team in England called Wigan Athletic - a side that was up with the big boys in the Premier League not too long ago, just hired a guy named Malky Mackay to try and get them back up to that division.

On the face of it, the Latics have made themselves a brilliant hire. Mackay straight up worked miracles with Cardiff City a few years back, taking that team from the perpetual gloom of underachievement all the way to the Premier League for the first time.

Awesome, right?

Well, the problem is that Mackay is a bit of a homophobic, racist, sexist bigot.  If you don't end up clicking on the link, here's two examples...taken from a lengthy dossier compiled by Cardiff's owner, Vincent Tan.

On the arrival of South Korean international Kim Bo-Kyung:

'Fkn chinkys. Fk it. There's enough dogs in Cardiff for us all to go around.' 

On a player's female agent:
'I hope she's looking after your needs. I bet you'd love a bounce on her falsies.'

Et cetera, et cetera, and so on. Real great guy, huh?

As you might imagine, Mackay made a big show of penitence directly after the incident starting blowing up Fleet Street, and there's been another round now that he's been hired by Wigan. That said, for some reason the only thing my brain keeps giving me here is the South Park version of Saddam Hussein doing his "Relax, guy! I can change!" routine.

Perhaps this is unfair of me, but my general philosophy is that once you get past the dipshit teenager/young adult stage, you pretty much are what you are. Sure, there are individual instances of people tripping and falling over some revelation that drastically alters their internal landscape. But, on the whole? I don't buy the idea that people change their stripes all that often - especially when they are 42 years old like Mackay is.

However, I also fully realize that this is the opinion of one guy who, let's be honest, is no expert on human psychology. I also fully subscribe to the idea that knowledge comes when you understand that you know nothing at all, so the planet-sized caveat here is that I fully admit that I could be wrong. Maybe Mackay really is a good guy, and maybe he does deserve another chance.

It's funny, actually. If you phrased this in the context of a prisoner serving their sentence and leaving prison, then my default setting is "Of COURSE they deserve a chance to show why they have been rehabilitated!".  Hell, that's the theory behind incarceration in the first place - serious reservations about the execution of that practice in this country aside.

I'm not sure how to square that circle in comparison to this, though.

In my defense, I think some of this is just soccer-specific. The game has become so globalized now, I'm not certain it's a good idea to have guys like this around when the skill set of a modern manager has to include the ability to handle players from all over the world. Most sides will have to integrate South Americans, Africans, Europeans...sometimes the occasional player from Asia or North America as well. My own team, Arsenal, is on the low end of things these days and we still have players from: Poland, England, France, Wales, Germany, Spain, Costa Rica, Argentina, Czech Republic, Colombia, and Chile. Of course, the team also has a significant black contingent among that number.

Call me crazy, but as badly as I'd love for the Arsenal manager to be fired like 10,000 times over at this point, I'd rather keep him forever than have a guy like Mackay anywhere near us.

I suppose that defense withers in the face of other scenarios, though. I ask myself this question: Say I'm an HR person at a company, and Mackay has left soccer and applied to my company. He interviews well, and is qualified for the job. But, there is another candidate that has the same qualifications and general ability. I'll tell you this now, this is a literal 0% chance that I'd hire Mackay in that situation.

So, that leads me back to my original point. Let's say a guy like this genuinely has changed, for argument's sake. Doesn't it make sense to incorporate them back into the herd to ensure that they don't slip back to old habits? But, on the other hand, how can you be sure that said change truly is genuine?

Personally, I don't know. I'm glad it's a call I don't have to make, I'll tell you that much.

 

Your Impending Sign of the Apocalypse - # 1 in a Series

One day, when civilization as we know it has been reduced to rubble and the few survivors are left picking at the bones, the more enterprising of them will ponder how a once-great people let it all happen.

In a first of what will probably be a long series, here is the first item that they will look back on and wonder at how we missed such obvious warning signs:

No further explanation is required, surely?

You're Not Helping

The list of things that I would change about the Democratic Party - and those of us who have registered officially as such - is a long one. How long? Well, if it was written down on a sheet of paper, the resulting stack would be able to reach the fucking moon, that's how long.

But, if I were granted one change and one alone, I would immediately zero in on our side's insistence on playing the "Voters are Stupid!" card every time an electoral defeat is suffered.

Here's the thing - on the whole, people are not stupid.

There are certainly individuals out there that you can hurl into the dumbass bin, no question about it. But, it is a fallacy to blame a lack of intelligence on the voting patterns of the electorate. People vote for specific reasons, and one of the major failings of the Democratic Party (among the legions) is a lack of understanding of the cause-and-effect going on here, and a spectacular failure at selling policy to the voters in clear, simple language that tells a coherent story.

You have to hand the Republicans one thing - they absolutely do not have that problem. Sure, the narrative that their leadership is spinning nowadays is not exactly a shining beacon of good governance. One example can be found in Kansas, where Sam Brownback was given the car keys to create a Tea Party Utopia, with distressingly predictable results (Starve your state of revenues and then you have nothing left to address your state's needs? Who could have known?). Meanwhile, he just got voted in for another term. Why is that? Well, if you dig into the blue-team Id, it's because the people of the Sunflower State are slack-jawed yokels who can't be trusted with their own governance. I love the Blogfather's writing more than I love cake, but he went down this road, too. It's not helping.

Look, for one thing, no one likes to be called a moron. Recently, I followed a link to some conservative-leaning article (forget which, sorry), and I did something I usually wouldn't do for million dollars - I read the comments. Over and over, I saw a very real anger at left-leaning people who look down on them, call them stupid, dismiss their opinions outright. It only took half a second to see where they were coming from. It's a hell of a silly tactic to try and convince someone to see things your way, that's for sure.

Beyond that, though. the truth is that you become a salesperson written large the millisecond you choose to run for elected office. I do understand the kvetching about uninformed voters that you sometimes hear, but at the end of the day it is incumbent on the person doing the pitching to convince their audience to buy whatever it is they're selling. Oddly enough, I was in a meeting today at my job that reminded me of precisely this scenario. My boss and I, as the owners of one of our products, were being pitched by another firm who wanted to take on some of our volume. Imagine a high school freshman who waited until the last day to work on a major project, didn't read the material, and then turned up to class spewing a bunch of word salad in an attempt to drown the teacher in so much bullshit that they'd get a pity C- just to shut them up, and you get the idea of what we had to deal with.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Democratic Party is that high school freshman far too often for my liking.

Whatever else you want to say about the other side, their message is clear and coherent, and everyone sings from the same hymnal - tax cuts good, regulation bad, vote for us or Ebola-infused ISIS monsters will descend on your local shopping mall. It's mostly nonsense as policy, but they are brilliant at selling it. It's not hard to see why voters, especially in fraught times such as these, are more willing to opt for the party that at least can all agree on something.

Normally, I would write this off as Democrats Being Democrats, but there is too goddamn much at stake these days to be cavalier about it. I don't like the idea of wage distribution hanging out in the Gilded Age part of town. I'm not thrilled that my nieces' kids might need scuba gear to see the Statue of Liberty. I am a bit off-put at the idea of running a pipeline of the worst fuel known to man right through the Ogallala Aquifier.

But, when you pitch someone, you have to lead off with what you can offer to the audience. Anything that doesn't advance that idea is wasted breath, and in politics you don't get that much breath to waste. We may want voters at large to be as informed as the Founders themselves, but it's time to start dealing in realities. People do not have a ton of time to spend in making this decision, and it is going to be made at a basic "what can you do for me" level far more often than it being the result of careful study. Assuming otherwise will get you, well, exactly what happened this past Election Day.

There are other factors at play too, gerrymandering being the worst of them. But, I don't think it's insane to surmise that even gerrymandered districts can be won if you bother to contest them properly. I can see Brownback losing to a Democrat 4 years from now. Honestly, I can. Just shy of 5 million more people voted Democrat than Republican in the 2012 Presidential election. These people are out there and waiting to be convinced.

How, you may wonder? Glad you asked!


My Plan to Get People to Take You Lot Seriously:


1. For fuck's sake, find a message. What does this party stand for? It shouldn't be that difficult to come up with a big tent that makes sense (it's probably time to write off West Virginia, guys...really) and a message that resonates with people of that mindset. Simple concepts, clear and concise language, immediately getting to the point of what's in it for them.

• Tax rates that make sense - Warren Buffett should not pay less taxes than his secretary. General Electric should not pay $0 in taxes. Ever. The 1% are stealing from you. We want you to succeed, we want you to do well, but then we expect you to pay your fair share.
  
• Job creation - Say you're running for a House seat in Minnesota. Remember that bridge that collapsed a while back? Vote for us, and X number of you will have a job tomorrow rebuilding that sucker. Hey, wouldn't it be nice to take a comfortable, affordable train ride to your Mom's house in Topeka? Vote for us, X number of you will have a job tomorrow building that light-rail track.

• War-mongering has to stop - Hey, wouldn't it be nice if your sons and daughters, your parents and uncles and cousins were able to finally come home from the Middle East? Look, combating terrorism doesn't happen by blowing stuff up - it comes from vigilance and effective police work. Why don't the Republicans trust the NYPD to do their job?

2. Positive language. Sure, Republicans are great at scare-mongering, but everything they do has an underpinning of "We'll protect you". Democrats especially fail here with global warming. Sure, it's especially likely that bad things will happen if we continue on the road that we're on. But, if you tell people that we better stop or else you may as well start scouting out beachfront property in Kansas City, they're simply going to shut down. They don't want to hear it, that's just human nature.

There's so many other ways to steer people in the right direction. For example, anyone notice that China is going all-in on solar power?  Hey, folks. Let's invest in solar, let's create good jobs in that industry AND ensure that the Chinese don't steal a march on us. It's good for the country and it'll be less expensive to turn that light switch on.  (Sidebar: Yes, I understand that BP and Shell and whatever will flood campaign money in the other direction. My argument is that, a) don't take their fucking money and b) the money disparity is already heavily in their favor anyway...at some point it has to be diminishing returns, doesn't it? Who doesn't get turned off by seeing the same political ad 300 times when they're just trying to watch Monday Night Football?).

3. Find better candidates. Find candidates that are actual Democrats. This one's simple - if you have to run Joe Manchin to win a state, you probably shouldn't bother with that state. It's a lot more effective in my mind to get in and fight for seats in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, etc etc etc.

4. Don't be that high school freshman when it comes to getting people to register to vote. Why is our GOTV effort only done 4 seconds before Election Day? Especially with voter-suppression efforts in full effect around the country, why not work on this NOW? That way, they can delay and delay and stall all they want, but eventually these registrations have to go through.

5. Make them own their failures. Look, a fertilizer plant in Texas blows up because the EPA hadn't been there since the Cleveland Administration, it is absolute lunacy not to hang that around the neck of the anti-regulatory party like it was the albatross in Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Yes, of course they're going to play the "you're politicizing a tragedy" card. Guess what, that doesn't stick in the end...Benghazi ring a bell, perhaps?

6. For the love of all that is holy, STOP refusing to run candidates! John Oliver beat this drum on Last Week Tonight a while back, noting just how many walkovers (not entirely on their side, to be fair) happen across the country. Sure, many of these are going to be losing efforts no matter what happens. But, my sense is that every uncontested election is a plot of ground where the seeds of your ideas can't ever germinate. Maybe you lose 85-15 this time. Well, at least get your side out there! Brick by brick, election by election. Maybe it's 75-25 the time after. 65-35 the time after that.

This ties into the next one, too.

7. Let demographics do its job. Don't let them scare you off with their howling about just how unfair it is to reach out to minorities and women. This is the spine of the next unassailable majority, if you let it happen.


That'll do, for now. I've taken the scenic route to get here, but this is my point: Calling people stupid may make you feel better, but it won't move the needle one fucking millimeter. Whining about gerrymandering may be understandable based on the facts, but it doesn't get your next-door neighbor out on Election Day. The fact of the matter is that there is a laundry list of tangible steps that can be taken that would have an actual affect, and none of it is happening right now.

Perhaps, instead of sharing that meme about idiot voters on Facebook, you could write to your representative or to the DNC and enquire as to whether they could perhaps locate their vertebrae again. Wouldn't that be swell?

Grading the Goalkeepers - 1966 World Cup

So, while this here shanty is intended to be the storehouse for all of my non-Arsenal writing, that doesn't mean I'll shy away from soccer entirely on here. Given my long experience as a rec-league goalkeeper (I recently did the math in my head - I'm either at or very close to 1000 games at that level), I will likely share my insights on the position here from time to time.

I mean, especially since the next journalist or pundit that knows jackshit about the position will be the first one.

Anyway, I recently came across this link, which shows a GIF of every goal scored in the 1966 World Cup. Always always focuses on goals and goal-scorers, but people rarely talk about the poor dudes who are tasked with the thankless job of trying to keep them out.

So, I wondered two things:

1. Are goalkeepers in general as drastically-better at their job as I imagine them to be?

2. Specifically, what about the guys playing for the little minnow nations? Even Honduras' keeper had one or two excellent saves in the group stage of this past World Cup.

Sadly, this won't show me any of their saves, so maybe one or two of these guys let in a few clunkers but made 100 brilliant stops that I'm not seeing here. Still, I think this will give a general idea. Please note: I am seeing all of these for the first time, I only have the one camera angle, and I'm giving my off the cuff thoughts.


Group 1:

France 0-1 Mexico: Horrendous. Helen Keller-esque. There is no need to charge out of his net like that, and he gets beat at his near post with a fairly soft shot.

France 1-1 Mexico: No chance. The chuckleheads playing center-half both give the guy all day to shoot from the top of the penalty area and it goes in off the inside of the post.

France 1-0 Uruguay: No chance. This was a well-struck penalty kick.

France 1-1 Uruguay: No chance. There were several defensive errors in the lead-up to this in their own penalty area, and the scorer hit his shot perfectly across the face of goal.

France 1-2 Uruguay: Partial fault. It takes a weird deflection out to the left post, but the keeper still has time to come out. I'm not always a fan of coming off your line unless you're 100% certain you can reach the shooter's feet, but the speed wasn't an issue here. I'm assigning partial fault because, frankly, he shies away from the potential contact. You have to make yourself big there, which he failed to do.

England 1-0 Mexico: No chance. It's a long shot and I think he sees it all the way, but Charlton hit the shit out of it. Pace and placement = no keeper saves that.

England 2-0 Mexico: Horrendous. The keeper spills a tame shot, and Hunt is there to clean up the rebound. Down 1-0 with 15 minutes to go, that's a dagger against your team.

England 1-0 France: Absolutely at fault. I don't blame him for the shot that hits the post or the weird rebound to the back post, but how does he not come for the cross in the first place? Was he waiting for a written invitation from Charles de Gaulle?

England 2-0 France: Oh my god, this guy is terrible. A tame header goes directly into his hands, and he somehow contrives to let it spill off and into the net. They conceded 5 in the group stage - he was badly at fault for three and partially at fault for a fourth. There seriously was no one better in the entire country?


Group 2:

West Germany 1-0 Switzerland:  Slight fault. The defense may as well have laid out a welcome mat for the entire German attack, but the keeper does dive the wrong way on the initial shot. Further, he had the recovery time of a three-toed sloth after mealtime when the first one went off the post.

West Germany 2-0 Switzerland: Moderate fault. Again, the defense is all over the place, but even on a 1-v-1 the keeper has to do better than this. He slips, is slow coming off his line, and takes an age to get down into his dive.

West Germany 3-0 Switzerland: No chance. This is a largely similar goal to the second, but I have a lot more sympathy for the keeper here. Beckenbauer scythes through the center so quickly that there is little time to react, and the shot is perfectly across the face of goal.

West Germany 4-0 Switzerland: No chance. This is a 1-v-1 for almost the entire length of the Swiss half, and there aren't many good options for a keeper there. Coming out - like he did here - just means he'll slot it into the corner as your legs are moving. If you stay put though, he has an eternity to make enough moves to get you to commit and then round you.

West Germany 5-0 Switzerland: No chance. The keeper doesn't dive on this penalty kick, but it's right in the bottom corner anyway. I suppose the real question here is: "How was this only 5-0?"

Argentina 1-0 Spain: No chance. Unmarked back-post tap-in.

Argentina 1-1 Spain: Iffy. The keeper loses out in a physical challenge to the striker, who simply muscles it in. Judging by the era, the keeper should have planted a knee in his gut on the way up. However, these days this is almost certainly whistled as a foul against the attacking player.

Argentina 2-1 Spain: No chance. The shooter has all day to let fly, and it's perfectly placed into the far corner.

Spain 0-1 Switzerland: No chance. The shooter was all alone at the back stick, and the keeper damn near gets down in time anyway.

Spain 1-1 Switzerland: Hard to say. The camera angle is in tight to show the physical battle that the striker has with his marker. The shot looks like a decent chipped effort that the keeper might have done better on, but perhaps I'd feel differently with a better view.

Spain 2-1 Switzerland: No chance. Powerful header into the top corner.

Argentina 1-0 Switzerland: No chance, this was an excellent finish into the far corner.

Argentina 2-0 Switzerland: Absolutely at fault. He comes well off his line for a high ball he's never going to get to, leaving the striker with an easy finish into the unguarded net.

West Germany 0-1 Spain: No chance. The keeper takes a few steps off his line, which I think was ill-advised. Either way, the finish was good enough where I don't believe it would have mattered.

West Germany 1-1 Spain: Absolutely no chance. The angle was tight but the keeper's positioning is OK and the shot was a real thunderbastard into the upper 90.

West Germany 2-1 Spain: No chance. The defense simply has to deal with this. Once they don't, the ensuing shot is from point-blank range and flies into the corner with pace.

Group 3:

Brazil 1-0 Bulgaria: Horrendous. Pele's only goal of the tournament never should have happened. Not only did the keeper let it squirm under his body, but his wall placement was utter shite in the first place.

Brazil 2-0 Bulgaria: Garrincha's goal was also on a direct free kick, but this time no wall or keeper was ever going to be able to do anything about it. What a beauty, directly into the top corner.

Portugal 1-0 Hungary: No chance. The marking was woeful on this corner, and Almeida couldn't miss from there.

Portugal 1-1 Hungary: Dreadful and comical at the same time. The keeper goes to pick up a loose ball with both hands, somehow can't manage it, and it slips out to the Hungarian player for an easy goal. You can see why most of us will dive onto the ball now, tuck it into our body, and establish control before getting up and distributing it out.

Portugal 2-1 Hungary: Gobsmacked. That is the only word that can describe this one. A simple cross comes in right into the keeper. It could easily be caught, but if you're going to punch you have to get it out further than the 5 or 6 centimeters this went. That is especially true when the opposing striker is about that far away, and can lash it in from there. If I conceded a goal like this in my Sunday league I would expect my captain to bench me.

Portugal 3-1 Hungary: Bloody hell, he may be worse than the French and Swiss guys. On a corner kick, he sort of wanders out into no-man's land, then displays a vertical leap that couldn't clear a shoebox when he attempts to save the header.

Hungary 1-0 Brazil: Probably horrendous. The GIF doesn't show the whole lead-up, but the keeper goes down super-early, perhaps expecting a shot much sooner. That allows the striker to simply slide it into the net in the other direction. I may be missing something from this angle, but I doubt it.

Hungary 1-1 Brazil: No chance. Dreadful defending from the Hungarians, leaving the shooter with all the space he could want to pick out a perfect shot.

Hungary 2-1 Brazil: No chance. The keeper doesn't dive, but it wouldn't have mattered. What a brilliant finish.

Hungary 3-1 Brazil: No chance. It's a perfect penalty kick.

Portugal 1-0 Bulgaria: No chance, but own-goals don't get much better than this. Imagine Judas van Persie's goal against Spain from this last World Cup, only if it were into his own net.

Portugal 2-0 Bulgaria: Dreadful. Sure, Eusebio had time and space in the area, but when it hits your hand like that, you almost always should keep it out. The only exception would be if the guy hits it at Mach 7, and that emphatically isn't the case here.

Portugal 3-0 Bulgaria: No chance. It looks like a developing 1-v-1 until the defender sneaks in at the last second. It looks like he tries to back-pass it to the keeper and woefully underhits it.

Portugal 1-0 Brazil: Worse than Helen Keller-esque. This may be the most preposterous of the lot. A simple cross from the side should be caught. Instead, the keeper shovels it out into the middle of his own penalty area, leaving Simoes with surely the easiest goal of his career.

Portugal 2-0 Brazil: Horrendous. There isn't much he could do about the header once it got to that point, but that cross has to be the keeper's to come get.

Portugal 2-1 Brazil: Probably no chance. It's hard to tell from the camera angle, but it is definitely through a forest of bodies and it looks to nestle right into the corner.

Portugal 3-1 Brazil: Probably horrendous. The keeper makes the right decision to not come for the corner kick, but once it bounces out to the left post, it looks like the shot goes right through him.

Hungary 0-1 Bulgaria: What in the entire fuck is this guy thinking? Sure, it's a 1-v-1 from well out, but he goes well outside the penalty area and then dives at his feet, hands out. What was your plan there, chief? Even if that worked, that's the most obvious red card of the tournament.

Hungary 1-1 Bulgaria: No chance. What an epic defensive failure this is, highlighted by an own-goal only slightly less ridiculous than in their previous match.

Hungary 2-1 Bulgaria: Hard to say. This practically turns into one of those "scene missing" cards right as the shot was struck, but it did look like a solid finish.

Hungary 3-1 Bulgaria: No chance. Well-struck header from in close.


Group 4:

Soviet Union 1-0 North Korea: No chance. Unstoppable header.

Soviet Union 2-0 North Korea: Terrible. The keeper comes out like a crazy person, doesn't corral the ball, and the shooter is left with an empty net. I keep stressing it to people, but for me coming off your line is a weapon in the goalkeeping arsenal that should only be used in very specific situations. This isn't one of them.

Soviet Union 3-0 North Korea: No chance. The Korean defense lays out the red carpet for the striker, and with that time and space in the area there isn't much a keeper can do.

Italy 1-0 Chile: Hard to tell. Part of this seems to be missing, but it looks like the keeper comes out and doesn't get there at the back post.

Italy 2-0 Chile: Also hard to tell, but it looks like he gets beaten pretty badly at his near post. It's a fallacy to say that every near-post goal is laid at keeper's feet, but this didn't look like it was hit all that hard.

Chile 1-0 North Korea: No chance. Emphatically-struck penalty into the upper 90.

Chile 1-1 North Korea: Impossible to tell. This looks like film recovered from somewhere on the rings of Saturn.

Soviet Union 1-0 Italy: No chance. This was an unstoppable shot into the top of the net.

North Korea 1-0 Italy: Hard to tell. The camera angle is weird, but I'm not sure the keeper could have done much here.

Soviet Union 1-0 Chile: May be harsh, but partial fault. It takes a ludicrous deflection off of the defender, but the keeper is poor in getting set and then dives the wrong way. That is almost always a sign of panic. Had he stayed composed, there is a chance that his dive would have deflected that shot before it rose high enough to reach the top corner, where it finished.

Soviet Union 1-1 Chile: Definite fault. It pinballed around and that part of the aftermath is hard to pin on the goalie. But, it does look like the initial set piece should have been caught and held.

Soviet Union 2-1 Chile: No chance. This was a beautiful chip over the keeper on what was essentially a 1-v-1. I don't know if there was something tactically at play here, but it looks like high defensive lines got beaten a lot here in the group stage.


Quarterfinals:

Portugal 0-1 North Korea: No chance. This was beautifully struck into the top corner.

Portugal 0-2 North Korea: May be harsh, but definitely at fault. The keeper does well to recover from an ill-advised rush out of his net to palm away the cross, and he's kind of unlucky that it went right to an opposing player. That rush-out meant that he wasn't set, though. He probably should catch and hold otherwise.

Portugal 0-3 North Korea: Impossible to say. This was filmed at a "the cameraman dropped his camera" angle, so I have no idea what's going on here.

Portugal 1-3 North Korea: Hard to say, as this comes in right as the ball is struck. It's in close and goes into the far corner, so I'm not sure what the keeper could have done to prevent it.

Portugal 2-3 North Korea: No chance. Unstoppable penalty kick.

Portugal 3-3 North Korea: Another shitty camera angle, but this looks unstoppable.

Portugal 4-3 North Korea: No chance. Another gorgeous penalty.

Portugal 5-3 North Korea: Definitely at fault. Timid keeping here, as the cross comes in only a few feet away from him. You have to come for this.

West Germany 1-0 Uruguay: Partial fault. It took a strange deflection on the way in, but there was still a little time to react. A World Cup quarterfinal calls for a better effort, surely.

West Germany 2-0 Uruguay: Hard to say, but it looks like the tail end of a 1-v-1 where the keeper had no choice to come out. From the looks of what I'm seeing here, Beckenbauer loved nothing better.

West Germany 3-0 Uruguay: No chance. How does he have so much time to shoot?

West Germany 4-0 Uruguay: Again hard to say, but it looks like yet more catastrophic defending from the Uruguyans.

Soviet Union 1-0 Hungary: Preposterously terrible. The shot is saved and it's under his body, but the guy gets up without the ball and the Soviet player sneaks in to ram it home. I literally cannot envision this goal happening today.

Soviet Union 2-0 Hungary: No chance. The striker slipped his marker and could guide his header wherever he wanted.

Soviet Union 2-1 Hungary: No chance. I don't agree with the keeper coming out here, but I don't think it would have made a difference. It was a fine finish from Ferenc Bene, who looked to have one hell of a tournament.

England 1-0 Argentina: I don't think there's a chance. Sure, the header is so close in to the keeper that your first thought is probably that he should have came for the cross. But, the way Hurst runs across diagonally, I'm not sure the keeper could have spotted that run.


Semifinals:

West Germany 1-0 Soviet Union: Iffy. Hard to say from the camera angle, but this looks like a shot that sneaks in at the near post which perhaps shouldn't have done.

West Germany 2-0 Soviet Union: Again hard to say from the camera angle, but this is a long range shot that looked saveable from what I can see. I'm not sure if the keeper expected the shot or what, but his reaction time looked a tad on the slow side.

West Germany 2-1 Soviet Union: Horrendous. Good lord. What is with keepers and fumbling easy catches at this tournament?

England 1-0 Portugal: No chance. Horribly unlucky for the keeper, who displays perfect timing and technique in coming out to dive at the shooter's feet. The fact that the rebound went all the way out to a guy perfectly placed for it is just the devil's own luck.

England 2-0 Portugal: No chance. Weird angle for this one, but it looks like a perfect shot across the face of goal.

England 2-1 Portugal:


Third-Place Match:

Portugal 1-0 Soviet Union: No chance. What a tournament for Eusebio, this one a perfect penalty kick.

Portugal 1-1 Soviet Union: No chance. From what I can tell here, this was a brilliant save on the first attempt, and an unlucky bounce out to a Soviet player.

Portugal 2-1 Soviet Union: No chance, and utterly dreadful center-half play in the lead-up. By my count, that was three headers that they could have won before the final shot came in.


Final:

England 0-1 West Germany:  Partial fault. The defender should absolutely do better on the initial clearing header, but it looked like especially poor dive technique on the resulting shot.

England 1-1 West Germany: No chance. Brilliant header.

England 2-1 West Germany: No chance. There is an absolutely bizarre clearance from the defender, and it's hard for the keeper to handle appropriately when there is a defender on the line. Speaking of, literally the only time I want a defender on the line is on a corner kick, if I'm absolutely down and out, or if I've dashed out of the net for some reason. Otherwise, let me do my bloody job.

England 2-2 West Germany: No chance. Looked to pinball around, it missed everyone on the way in.

England 3-2 West Germany: No chance. This was THAT goal, the one with the crossbar and down. Nothing the keeper could do, the guy hit the hell out of it.

England 4-2 West Germany: No chance. It's a bit weird that he keeper didn't even try, but it was such a brilliant finish that I don't think he could have gotten it.


In conclusion:

For the most part, it looked like the guys playing for the best teams kept the errors to a minimum. It is virtually impossible to make a like-for-like comparison between now and then, but I'd say on the whole most of them didn't embarrass themselves.

However, the really bad ones? The French guy, the Swiss guy, the Bulgarian guy? None of them would come within 948 astronomical units of an international team nowadays. By that, I mean ANY national team short of, say, the Cook Islands or Montserrat. The example I'd use here is San Marino's guy, Aldo Simoncini. Sure, he lets in a bad one every now and then, but based on the volume and quality of the chances he faces, it's a wonder that they don't concede twice as many as they do. The guy who is literally on the worst team in Europe today would, by my estimation, be the 5th or 6th best keeper here at worst.

Again, you have to make allowances for the age, but on the whole Gigi Buffon would moonwalk into any of these teams, I'll put it that way.

I'm back...

I haven't written anything here in four years. Looking back on it, I'm kind of embarrassed at some of the drivel I had here on this shabeen on the docks of Blogistan (to quote the Blogfather). So, I deleted all of those old posts (28 in the span of a year, I was quite the prolific bastard back then, I'll tell you that for free) and am back here for a fresh start.

Let's do this.