Just World Cup things

Sport Review #246

So there’ve been more upsets than Taylor Swift ticket sales.

The last few nights watching the big guns chase and then fail to win games they need to win has been some of the best sporting action I’ve seen in ages.

No wonder women’s football is where the growth is when the entertainment is this good. The games are tight. There’s no (or an respectfully small amount of) shithousery. The added time is a massive lucky dip. And the fans! The commitment to costumery is unparalleled, and seeing the South Africans, South Koreans and Jamaican fans, to name just a couple, flip out with the joy of it all is heartwarming and wholesome.

And it turns out we didn’t need to worry about people not getting how big the tournament will be. Crowds have turned up to all of them, even the potential hard sell ones. You can’t buy a ticket to any more Eden Park games. I’m sure the Ferns opening win helped massively, but maybe we just did the last minute tickets sales bit like we always did and had it under control all along.

It’s about to get better though - with big guns Italy, Brazil and Germany all on planes and USWNT yet to get out of first gear, this tournament will just get better, with some extremely tasty round of 16 matches coming up.

I was lucky enough to have a kick around at downtown Auckland’s Unity Pitch in the FIFA Fan Zone on Tuesday afternoon. Colleagues charged around the magenta pitch, which overlooks the Waitemata Harbour, which was good enough to sparkle rather than churn on the day we went down. The fan zone was full of USWNT fans ahead of their match against Portugal that night, and before long we had a handful of boys and girls on tour from the States with their parents join us to play.

These cliches about football bringing people together write themselves don’t they? But how else would aging players like us get to meet and play with (*cough* accidentally bowl over *cough*) young kids on their big adventure from the other side of the world? It was really, really cool, especially when the youngest player on the park scored the winning goal. She was stoked.

Thanks for reading - Richard

This week's best NZ sport content

The world cup has brought amazing football, full stadiums and a diverse, welcoming and proudly gay fan culture to New Zealand, says John Palethorpe [Spinoff]

Andrew Voerman rates the Football Ferns’ contributions through the World Cup campaign [Stuff]

Now the Ferns are out, Suzanne McFadden asks who you should support now [Locker Room]

Brilliant. The Herald analysed Australian rugby coach / financial numbers man Eddie Jones’ proclamations on the All Blacks’ effect on the NZ economy and found he was…. right? [NZ Herald]

From the Even A Stuffed Clock Is Right Twice A Day department comes Auckland Mayor Wayne ‘Off Piste’ Brown saying North Harbour stadium could be bulldozed in a year - the old saying that the best thing that could happen to Auckland stadiums is an explosion could be about to come true! [NZ Herald]

Video nasty

Amazing.

Long read

How Vanity Fair legend Graydon Carter started a breezy high end newsletter, then products to sell, then turned Airmail into a kind of accidental media empire, while he was taking some time away from working [Columbia Journalism Review]

Recommendation 

The Rewatchables pod discusses A Few Good Men, shocking softball technique, unrealistic drunk acting and all, in front of a live audience [The Ringer]