Losing in the Olympics and other blessings, er, I mean curses

OK, I'm not afraid to admit it, when the US lost in the Olympics to Nigeria the other day, my secret thought was:


"Man, I can't get enough of that Natalie Coughlin...."

Er, um, I mean, my OTHER secret thought was "Well thank you Petr Nowak for delivering the coaching job I always expected of you. Now I get to have Stuart Holden and Pat Ianni back here in Orange that much faster."


So does that make me an unpatriotic swine? Go ahead, sling them stones at my glass house. I can handle it. The fact of the matter is that when Dynamo is not playing, I am all U-S-A!!! But during the season, I wind up dumping the red, white and blue for Orange faster than a Dutch fanatic. I can't help it. It's just the way my emotions seem to run.

Now, does that mean I root against the US? Heck no, I'm not THAT much of a scumbag. Winning the Gold Cup last year was beyond awesome. And if the US had advanced into the quarters in Peking (Oops, dating myself here), Beijing, I would have rooted for them. But admit it, how many of you watch these games rooting for the US but at the exact same time are praying to whatever happens to be your deity of the moment that your player, meaning your club's player, doesn't go down with some horrific injury? Let's be honest here.

W
ell, just as I find myself getting settled in to the idea that Holden and Ianni are coming back from that polluted sinkhole to my hometown polluted sinkhole (Hey, native Houstonian here. I can get away with that.), along comes the news that Brian Ching, the Flyin' (though easily grounded with injury) Hawaiian, has been called up to the national squad for the qualifier against Guatemala. And I'm not ashamed to say my first thought was "INSERT EXPLETIVE SERIES HERE!" Now he still gets to play for Dynamo Friday against RSL here at the Rob, but will miss next week's match against (Thank you Dan Loney for my all-time favorite putdown fake name for a team) Bizarro Chivas. Now las chivitas will be without Sascha Kljestan for that game as well, but still.


But of course, like so many other multimational clubs, we wait the call-ups for the Canadian National team. I fully expect that good-looking hirsute fellow to my left will be playing for Canuckistan, as well as one Mr. Patrick Onstad. Will this madness never end?

Oh, well, if you can't beat 'em... U-S-A!!!! (Just please don't get hurt Brian.)