{"id":514,"date":"2014-06-29T00:06:07","date_gmt":"2014-06-29T00:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/?p=514"},"modified":"2014-06-29T00:06:07","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T00:06:07","slug":"uruguay-still-wearing-their-neon-pink-pajamas-at-a-world-cup-four-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/uruguay-still-wearing-their-neon-pink-pajamas-at-a-world-cup-four-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Uruguay, still wearing their neon pink pajamas at a World Cup four years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t care about soccer. Haven’t played since I left Lesotho. But I was sick last week and so started watching the World Cup and lo and behold little Luis Suarez is back at it, cheating and denying and getting kicked out while his countrymen continue to support him and pretend the world is picking on their small nation. After Suarez bit an opponent in the shoulder the other day and got banished, the president of Uruguay went to the airport at 5:30 AM to give Suarez a hero’s welcome home. He called Suarez “a boy genius.” Is the country nuts from the top down?<\/p>\n

I remembered that I had written about Suarez and his teammates and their mishandling of themselves when I went to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. I read those posts and thought, How is it that this guy is still allowed to play at all? Here are the posts from then:<\/p>\n

URUGUAY WEARS PINK PAJAMAS<\/address>\n

I’ve been keeping a pansy list. It includes players which, when an opponent gets close enough, throw their hands in the air, arch their backs, roll in the grass and then look at the referee with a soap opera face while grasping their shins for dear life. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is on the pansy list, and so is Oezil from Germany. France and Ghana have some players on it too, but then last night’s game between South Africa and Uruguay made the list obsolete. For Uruguay tops them all. Uruguay wears pink pajamas.<\/p>\n

They spent so much time on their knees in the grass, writhing in fake pain, that the referee eventually fell for one of the acting jobs and awarded them a foul which probably ended South Africa’s World Cup.<\/p>\n

Uruguay was the better team, technically. They were up a goal, and they didn’t need to cheat, but they did. A Uruguayan player and the South African goalie were both running at the ball when the goalie slid, the Uruguayan jumped, and the tip of one of the goalie’s cleats kissed the tip of one of the Uruguayan player’s cleats. Then the Uruguayan, Luis Suarez, twisted himself in the air, spread his arms out wide and looked to the referee begging. The referee kicked out Itumeleng Khune, the South African goalie. Uruguay got a penalty kick and went up 2-0. The stands were shocked. The entire country seemed deflated. The South Africans in the room with me were silent. The television announcer stuttered until he said, \u201cPeople in the country are likely to lose interest in the World Cup now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn’t that Bafana Bafana was going to lose the game 2-0; it was that they got ripped off. Soon enough, the stands began emptying. The likelihood that South Africa can now make it to the next round is paper thin.<\/p>\n

I hear no more vuvuzelas outside my window. Thanks, Uruguay. I hope you sleep well in your fuzzy wuzzy pansy pants.<\/p>\n

URUGUAY WEARS NEON PINK PAJAMAS<\/address>\n

Ghana and Uruguay were tied 1-1 and in the last seconds of extra time when a Ghana player kicked the ball at the Uruguay goal. Luis Suarez of Uruguay, standing on the goal line, with nothing but the net behind him, then put both hands up and slapped the ball out of the air. He was not the goalkeeper, however, which made touching the ball with his hands on purpose a clear act of cheating. Luis Suarez cheated. The Ghana kick was a sure goal. And when the referee approached to issue a red card, Suarez was walking away, then he gave the ref a double take and dropped his jaw like, \u201cWhat? Me?\u201d<\/p>\n

If Luis Suarez hadn’t cheated, Ghana would have won. Africa would have won: The entire continent had taken the Black Stars as their own; they were the last African team left in the tournament. South Africans were particularly supporting the Ghanaians, referring to the team as Baghana Baghana. Nelson Mandela wrote a personal letter to the Black Stars to wish them well. Local companies took out full-page advertisements in newspapers to show their support, such as the one by Metropolitan financial services which showed a drawing of Africa and the message, “Together we can conquer the world. Good luck Ghana!”<\/p>\n

But Luis Suarez struck again. Remember, this is the same guy who faked an injury against the South African goalkeeper during the group stage, getting the goalkeeper kicked out and breaking the spirit of the South Africans, basically ending their World Cup run.<\/p>\n

On the radio today people called in and were very careful to avoid making real threats toward Suarez. One person said: \u201cShame on you. That’s twice you’ve been responsible for knocking out African teams.\u201d And another vaguely said: \u201cSuarez should be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t care about soccer. Haven’t played since I left Lesotho. But I was sick last week and so started watching the World Cup and lo and behold little Luis Suarez is back at it, cheating and denying and getting kicked out while his countrymen continue to support him and pretend the world is picking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8huLi-8i","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/a-rainy-day-i-will-never-forget\/","url_meta":{"origin":514,"position":0},"title":"“A Rainy Day I Will Never Forget”","author":"Greg Alder","date":"August 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was 97 degrees, the hottest day of the year. I expected more of the same today: the National Weather Service had forecast a high of 91 with clear skies. But at 9:30 AM it began to rain. It didn't begin to sprinkle, it began to rain -- what a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Marine layer fog most mornings -- like this -- is as close as we usually get to rain in summer.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Summer-morning-marine-layer-2014-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":626,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/the-best-moroho\/","url_meta":{"origin":514,"position":1},"title":"The best moroho","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my yard in Southern California, where I sowed moroho in one of my \"plots,\" as Basotho would call this vegetable garden bed. Every year at Ngoana Jesu Secondary School, ntate Lemphane had the students of his agriculture\u00a0class sow their own plot of moroho using seeds of a couple\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/the-best-moroho\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"img_20161013_071914","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/IMG_20161013_071914-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":503,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/morning-reads\/","url_meta":{"origin":514,"position":2},"title":"Morning Reads","author":"Greg Alder","date":"May 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There are morning reads and there are other reads. Other reads can be read in the morning, but morning reads don't want to be experienced except in the early hours of the day when your mind is freshest, most philosophical and most optimistic. Preferably also you have a cup of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}