Olympic Games protest on the Dam

I'm not 100 percent sure what to call yesterday's protest timed to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics. The predominant theme was "Free Tibet" but there were a lot of advocates of other causes there too, notably from Myanmar.



I kept hunting for an answer to the question "why hold this protest today" (obvious answers being, in order to embarrass Beijing and cash in on the publicity to promote their various causes) but no one seemed willing or able to express that.

(Uyghurs)

I had quite an interesting discussion with a young Tibetan who had come a long, long way from a monastery through torture by Chinese police and a dangerous escape through the Himalayas to freedom in Nepal. He eventually ended up living in Amsterdam _ which might as well be the planet Mars from his perspective.

This was the kind of conversation that was at about 1/1000th of the depth it could have been ... hearing the bare facts of such a tale is like knowing an onion by its husk. My mother died while I was young.

Moments such as his expulsion from the monastery and the pain of leaving home on a treacherous walk with danger behind and total unknown ahead. Ay.

And in the midst of those thoughts I was also thinking how bittersweet it is that his life will always be circumscribed by those experiences. There is no possible future in which _ for instance _ he becomes a stock broker or a concert pianist.

Nor will I be a Tibetan monk. It's all one.



The most interesting comments about reasons TO protest came from a German woman I spoke to. She told me:

"I feel really unhappy that our leaders are now in China because I think human rights are more important than economic interests."

But weren't the Olympics begun in order to give us a respite from political disagreements?

"Everything is politics. When the Olympics started in Greece, the games were held among free countries. If we do not concentrate on human rights, treatment of people and freedom, then we lose the ideals of the Olympics."

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Russia vs. Netherlands 3-1 = Orange Crush

Full disclosure: your author was inebriated while taking these photos.




The mood was better before the game:



Holland at its best: After the loss, all of the Dutchies agreed the Russians deserved to win and sought out the one Russia fan in the cafe to shake his hand.

Brief photo essay after the "More"


(1-0, Russia leads...no sweat)


(1-1 equalizer! Hilarity ensues)


(2-1 in extra time and the Dutch are minutes from elimination)


(3-1 and it's all over but the crying)
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Oranjekoorts

(flickr: raphael.gerber)

I was originally planning to ignore the soccer completely, because sometimes I feel like sports takes up a disproportionate amount of life.

Sport is so trivial. But then, what isn't?

Under the circumstances I find myself strangely compelled to opine.

The Dutch have savaged Italy 3-0 and France 4-1 in the first two matches of Euro 2008.
As reader Branko points out, so much for the "Group of Death."



The Dutch team has been brilliant, and no matter what else happens this tournament, their demolition of the defending World Cup holder and runner-up is one for the history books. Most of the 7 (!) goals will also go onto the tournament highlight reel. My absolute favorite was the second goal against Italy, with three moments of greatness in quick succession from Giovanni van Bronkhorst, Dirk Kuyt and Wesley Sneijder.

The Italy win was deeply satisfying because if anyone deserves to lose like that, it's the Italians. This is their comeuppance for years of treating the world to negative (I won't say catenaccio) football.



The France win was awesome because they were worthy opponents and they still got beat. When the Italians went down 2-0 I expected them to open up their game and show off some of their formidable talent. I was very disappointed when they kept playing like they were defending a 1-0 lead. Including attempting to delay the game with bogus injuries (?!) The Dutch, to their credit, were looking to make it 4-0 at the end of the game.

The French came out after halftime playing (quite rightly) all out, like men with nothing left to lose. So both teams played fast, beautiful soccer. Kind of like the magnificent Dutch loss to Czech Republic at Euro 2004.
The French came very close to scoring a number of times, and when Thierry Henry pulled it back to 2-1 I thought we were going to have a tight game on our hands.



And then Arjan Robben scored a freakily good goal the very next minute to make it 3-1.

Which brings me to my real theme: luck.



The best team doesn't win in football nearly as often as in other sports. I've heard it said that this is because it is so difficult to score that a single goal in either direction is usually decisive.

Fun with statistics: the second goal is actually an even better predictor of who will win a game than the first goal.

In any case, a marginally better team will tie or lose to a marginally worse team at least half the time in soccer. A team usually has to be either extremely better or significantly better and somewhat lucky in order to run up a lopsided score.
In the case of the Italians and French, the Dutch may have been significantly better, but to have so many goals fall in _ they were also very lucky.

(sprain)

Stepping out of the orange fever reality distortion field for a minute and looking at the team, I would say this: the Dutch have a range of very good to brilliant attackers (Van Nistelrooy, Van Persie, Robben and Kuyt) and midfielders (Sneijder, Van der Vaart).

However, in my book their only excellent defender is Giovanni van Bronckhorst. Khalid Boulahrouz is playing well right now, taking away a lot of balls, but I don't know him enough to know whether this is exceptional. Last time I saw him play, he was also making a lot of mistakes (ditto for Bouma and Ooijer, formerly of PSV).

Of course Van der Sar has somehow become a truly great 'keeper in his old age, which is crucial. But there are also always goals that no goalie can stop.

I don't really think Van Basten makes a difference either way, but I like one thing about his attitude from the start: there's no problem in drawing Italy and France in the first round, because if you can't beat any team in the tournament you might as well go home.



So, in my view the Dutch are vulnerable on defense and we'll see what happens: they must have at least a 1-in-8 chance of winning the tournament now, if you figure 50-50 chance in the quarters, semi and final.

Call it 1-in-6 because the Dutch *are* the best team in the tournament, by all appearances.

I certainly hope they win because:

a) they deserve it when they make the game so pretty and fun to watch and
b) it's going to be very entertaining to be here to watch the Netherlands go nuts if it happens.

But the odds are still against them and in the meanwhile it's in my nature to be the guy whispering into Caesar's ear during the triumphal march: "Memento Mori."

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