Of Confederations and Profanity

The start to the USA's Confederations Cup campaign inspired a torrent of vitriol among American supporters, as well as a fair amount of swearing, including -- the alleged drunken Facebook rants of former US player Eric Wynalda. (Wynalda claims his Facebook account was hacked.)

I enjoyed it when he announced games for ESPN. For all his faults, he would usually come through with at least one really incisive observation. My favorite comment from his rant? "Maybe if I make a comeback, Bob will let me limp around and take ten pens to pad my stats." Think Waldo might be bitter about Landon Donovan passing him on the all-time scorers list for the USA? Probably... but he's kind of right. When was the last time Lando scored a goal from open play?

Of course the team pulled off a miracle escape, beating Egypt 3-0 while Italy lost 3-0 to Brazil to move into the knockout stages of the tournament. This great escape led to the following quote from US midfielder Michael Bradley:

"All the [expletive] experts in America, everybody who thinks they know everything about soccer, they they can all look at that score tonight," said the coach's son, midfielder Michael Bradley said. "Let's see what they say now, all right? Nobody has any respect for what we do, for what goes on in the inside. Let them all talk now."

Point taken. Maybe that 3-0 loss to Brazil doesn't look so bad after all.