World Cup OVERLOAD

I stopped posting for a little while the last few weeks (in case there is a devout reader out there who was wondering). Between a spurt of job applications and a two-week honeymoon in Thailand, I thought that would be for the best. And while I was gone, quite a bit happened. The 2nd Round of Asian qualifying concluded. Teams were drawn into dozens of qualifying groups in Rio de Jinero. The US National Team hired Jürgen Klinsmann to coach the men's team (thereby giving me many more excuses to write with umlauts!). And hey! FIFA's still awash in scandalous bribery allegations which means there's still a shot (an extremely outside shot, but a shot) that the US could host the 2022 World Cup.

Since I'm now gainfully employed, I may not have much time to write. But I love the whole World Cup event so much that I honestly do want to write whenever I can. I may try to enlist some help from fellow Montanans/soccer fans/gene pool members but until then trust that posts are coming in the next few days that will cover farewells to the eliminated Asian nations, "Well I'll Be Damned" awards for minnows who have survived a shark attack (or perhaps just a "slightly bigger minnow" attack) and advanced to the later rounds of qualifying and maybe even previews of the various groups kicking off in the next few months and weeks.

To keep the space warm for me I'm including a link to Grant Wahl's great writing from Palestine in the second round of the AFC's Qualifying. I read the polished form of his article during my 12 hour flight from Seoul to Chicago (it helped make a long flight--made longer by a lack of sleep and broken video system--much more enjoyable). Since this is the kind of writing I would love to do on this blog but can't (both because I have no funds to finance it, and because I'm not nearly that good of a writer) so I'll let him do it for me.

Enjoy Wahl's writing (if you haven't already), I'll be back with snarky commentary aplenty in the very near future