6 great minutes

For six minutes on Friday, the world seemed back in balance.  After George Samaras tied Greece's game versus Germany in the EURO 2012 championships in the 55th minute - on a beautiful pass from Dimitri Salpingidis - it was as if Ellas was finally able to draw on some of it's civilization equity to make things even with the EU, European Central Bank and the IMF (AKA the troika).


We owe you billions in bailout money, you owe us for inventing most of what makes up modern western society.  Let's call it even, 1 to 1.


Then stubborn reality showed up in the form of a blizzard of goals from Germany, and all of a sudden it was 1453 again.  After overachieving, we lost Constantinople and the football game 4 to 2. 


Germany is very, very good.  They made great passes and were aggressive the entire game.  Ellas was on her heels most of the game, yet resiliently stayed in the EURO longer than anyone expected. 


Of course, the country looks likely to stay in the euro zone longer than expected, too.  All the hand wringing leading up to last weekend's election proved to be nothing more than that.  The Greek electorate was pretty mature (something you can't say about our electorate, at least in 2010) and elected enough members of parliament from the 3 'stay in the euro zone' parties - New Democracy, PASOK, and the Coalition of the Democratic Left - to form a new coalition government and ease fears that the motherland would leave the common European currency.


Much like the performance of our football team, the elections turned out as well as could have been expected. Though Greeks elected a pro-euro coalition into power, almost 60 percent of the electorate voted for anti-bailout parties. That number gives the new government some leverage to renegotiate the terms of the bailout with the troika.


With Merkel stubbornly opposing euro bonds or a EU stimulus package, Greece's best hope for economic recovery is a renegotiated debt repayment schedule. One reason so many Greeks voted for Syriza (the Radical Coalition of Leftist Parties) and other anti-bailout parties is the accurate assessment that Germany and the European Central Bank are more concerned with repaying loans to German banks then in helping Greece out of it's current crisis.  


Of course, that perception helped make the Germany-Greece football match so news worthy and prominent on front pages - not just sports pages - around the world. 


The Ethniki played hard and well in advancing to the elite 8 of the European championships.  Let's hope their play shows Greeks what can happen when the nation rallies together and thus inspires Greeks to pay their taxes and keep their heads up as they face the crisis. 


Let's also hope the elections inspire the troika to cut Ellas some slack and renegotiate our debt repayment schedule.  


After all, the Germans scored 4 goals to our 2 - how much more do they want?


And don't forget, for six minutes everything was in balance with our contributions off-setting our debt.  Zito H Ellas!


A few more EURO 2012 notes:

• What are the odds that 3 days after Antonis Samaras is inaugurated as prime minister that George Samaras scores our game-tying goal? Big week for Ellas and that sir name.
• Though the game was not really THAT close, would have loved to see what would have happened if suspended Greek captain George Karagounis had played against Germany.  Tough way for him to go out.  At 35 you have to wonder if he will play for Greece again even if Ellas does qualify for the 2014 World Cup.
• Sports is always full of 'what ifs.' For Greece, hard NOT to wonder what would have happened if Karagounis had converted that penalty kick versus Poland.  If Ellas wins that game we play Portugal instead of Germany, a team we defeated twice in Lisbon on our way to the 2004 European championship. Tι εάν ...
• I'll blog about this later, but congrats to Labron James and the Heat.  I'm not a big fan of Dwayne Wade and strongly dislike Pat Riley, but James is clearly the best hoopster on the planet, worked hard after last year's humbling loss to Dallas, and Miami was the best team.  The decision show and the stupid and preening celebration with Wade and Chris Bosh will always be viewed as huge, ego-driven mistakes. However, James learned from those mistakes. Isn't that the point of life?  Congrats to him.

Greek voters may decide world economy's future

"Greek voters may decide world economy's future."  That's the headline, on page A15, for one of the Washington Post's 3 articles on today's Greek elections.

For most peoples, that headline would be a bit intimidating.  But Greek voters have decided the fate of the world's future before. We did it at Thermopylae, at Marathon, at Guagamela.  We were the first nation to defeat the Axis Powers in World War II.*  We established three of the greatest cities of all time in Athens, Constantinople and Alexandria.  

We may even smite Germany in soccer this week.

Bring it on.

Like many Greek-Americans, I have gone through bouts of hand wringing in anticipation of today's vote (which, by the way, will likely be inconclusive).  

I don't like the idea that New Democracy, the centrist party seen as the counterbalance to the leftist Syriza, winning today.  They are the heirs to George Bush in Greek politics; they cooked the books and lied to the EU about Greece's debt and ran the country into the ground, leaving a mess for Barack Obama/PASOK (the traditional Greek left party) to clean up.  Voting for them would be like rewarding Mitt Romney with the presidency in November so he can do what Bush 41 did to the economy: tax breaks for the wealthy and no regulation of our criminal financial sector. 

But my loathing of New Democracy is not the main reason I hope Syriza wins today.  No, after much internal debate I actively hope Syriza wins so that finally, a political party and more importantly a people will stand up to the barbarians (AGAIN in the case of Greece) and say NO to austerity.

Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras wants to keep Greece in the euro zone, but he - and the battered Greek people - also want the troika of the European Central Bank, World Bank and IMF to compromise and give Greece a better deal.  

[Syriza will also - and finally - start collecting more taxes from wealthy Greeks, a huge part of the problem with the nation's financial crisis.] 

Most Greeks believe, and liberal economists such as Paul Krugman agree, that the current bailout deal has mainly helped German banks recoup their money.  However, the bailout and debt repayment schedule has NOT helped Greece's economy grow.  It has devastated the Greek health care system and shaken Greek civic society and even bruised the arrogant Greek psyche.  

Austerity and only caring about paying back your debts is not a successful program for any nation, as the U.S. can attest, and does not lead to growth.

How Greek voters react today will beg the big question for Angela Merkel and Germany.  It's time to act like a responsible nation, but will they? The Germans fashioned the current monetary union for Europe - and have benefitted like no other nation on the continent.  

If Syriza wins and forms a government, Germany will be asked: do they care more about Europe?  Or do they, and Merkel, mainly care about protecting German banks from their willfully-made bad investments?  

The Germans should compromise, and renegotiate Greece's debt repayment, if they are serious about the euro and saving Europe.  Doing so would go a long way in deciding the fate of the world's economy.  It can't always be the Greeks!

But as has often happened in our planet's history, the Greeks will have to decide the world's future one more time, in this instance by rejecting austerity today.

If it weren't for bad luck

Sometimes a person, but in this case an entire country, simply can not catch a break, has absolutely no luck.  


That's true of the Greek state, a nation battered by bad leadership, bad economic problems - and even worse solutions.


Sports is one potential reprieve.  But whereas Friday's spirited fight and 1-1 tie with Poland was inspirational, today's depressing defeat to the Czech Republic was just 'throw up your hands' sad. 


What more can happen to the motherland?  We came out sloppy on defense, victim to a new back line made up of transplanted midfielders and a new goalie. The Czechs immediately took advantage of Greece's awkward back line to score two quick goals within the first seven minutes (a EURO record, BTW).


Our back line was weak, our goal keeper Halkias even weaker. The second goal in particular simply and sloppily squirted right past him.  Bad luck defense, bad goal keeping.


Like they did versus Poland, things proceeded to get a little worse. With five minutes left in the first half Ellas scored, but the goal was negated by another bad call - this time a terrible offsides call.  It's soccer's worst and most inconsistently called rule, and it stung the inventors of civilization today.


Greece did admirably fight back in the second half, and Fanis Gekas punched in a misplayed ball by Czech goalie Peter Cheh to cut the lead in half early in the second period. Despite outplaying the Czech Republic squad for the final 50 minutes Greece could get no closer, and lost a crucial game today.


All is not lost.  If Greece manages to defeat Russia and if the Czechs defeat the Poles the motherland could advance to the knock out round.


Greece miraculously won EURO 2004; no one expects a repeat of that improbably championship. However, it would be nice to see Greece win a game or two, or at least not run into so much bad luck, bad goal keeping, and tough calls from the refs.   But I guess when you are on a country-wide losing streak, complete with double digit unemployment, a 3-year long recession, record deficits, and a mean spirited and ineffective austerity plan' that's simply too much bad juju and bad karma for the Greek soccer team to overcome. 


Our Ethniki has admirably shown some fight at EURO 2012.  Let's hope the team - and of course the nation - is rewarded for that effort against Russia on Saturday.

THAT'S what it is!

As many folks know, the Washington Nationals' new slogan is 'Natitude.'  It's hard to define a made-up term, one primarily chosen - in this case - because it sounds cool and is a nice melding of Nationals with a sports and societal buzzword.

In the old days, when lions like Dean Smith or John Wooden or Bobby Cox or even Joe Torre coached a team, attitude was bad. Teams strove for the antithesis, a sort of honest blend of confidence, success and humility sometimes called class, grace, or simply sportsmanship.

Now attitude is strived for, easy to market and exploit.  Combine that with a team coming into it's own led by young and therefore modern stars, and voila - Natitude.

I like using the hash tag #Natitude, but could not really define it in the case of the 2012 Nats.  But that was before this weekend's sweep of the Red Sox IN FENWAY.

The Nats went into Boston and were not intimidated as they swept the three-game series. Nor did they display much attitude.  They were LeBron James in game 6 serious as, for 3 nights, they picked up each other.  On Saturday, Ian Desmond got a big hit, with help from Adam LaRoche.

On Sunday, it was Danny Espinosa and Roger Bernadina with huge hits, with help from Michael Morse and Ryan Zimmerman.

On the mound, Mike Gonzalez and Sean Burnett picked up Gio Gonzalez one night, Tom Gorzelanny picked up Jordan Zimmerman the next.

And Tyler Clippard picked up everyone all three nights, earning an equal number of saves.

Doing your job, helping your team and teammates, is one definition of Natitude.

The one exception was Friday night, when the Nats' modern young stars simply dominated and didn't need much help.  Stephen Strasburg struck out 13, including Kevin Youkilis with the bases loaded in the 6th, to shut down the Sox with poise and simply nasty stuff.  Bryce Harper did the same  with his bat in blasting 3 hits, including a 420+ foot bomb to center.

Harper may best epitomize Natitude, specifically his home run trot.  It's actually a sprint that takes less than 20 seconds.   No boasting, no standing in the batter's box admiring his handy work.  Simply and confidently blasting a home run, then not showing up the pitcher and getting back in the dug out as fast as you can.

Success without excess.  Natitude.

Maybe Football DOES Explain Everything

Yesterday's post pointed out how, contrary to one book's title, soccer does NOT explain the world.


But today's 1-1 tie between host Poland and the motherland was practically a microcosm of Greece's current plight. 


Facing the host nation in the Euro 2012 opener, Greece came out with what appeared to be a mixture of lethargy, sluggishness and even disinterest.  The players on the pitch vividly, too vividly, represented the populace of a proud nation whose citizens have been worn down by recession, unemployment, incompetence and pessimism.


Less than 20 minutes in, Greece trailed 0-1 after Poland took advantage of our goal keeper getting out of position; was it a metaphor for Greece's out of whack accounting ledgers? 


Things got even worse - believe it or not - when Sokratis Papastathopoulos was forced to swallow the equivalent of hemlock when we was given two highly highly dubious yellow cards (which equals a red card) and was ejected.  


So Greece was cheated by a referee and after the ejection were reduced to 10 players - a metaphor for austerity?


The combination of lethargy and being a player down resulted in Greece being thoroughly outplayed in the first half, and down 0-1 after 45 minutes.


But then, improbably and hopefully, some rays of hope emerged.

One, instead of giving in to the notorious Greek fatalism the Hellenes fought back.  Led by second half substitute Dimitris Salpingidis - the best player during the qualifying round of EURO 2012 - Ellas was much more aggressive and active.


Salpingidis was rewarded for his effort when he scored the equalizer less than 15 minutes into the second half after he poked in a rebound off a header from Fanis Gekas.  Despite being down a man Greece had come back and tied it.


The good fortune continued in the second half when the Polish goalie was given a red card for taking down Salpingidis in front of their goal.  


Of course, we are talking about Greeks here, a peoples who seldom do a good job with good fortune (for instance, we get the Olympic games but they help bankrupt the country; after World War I we're given half a loaf of Asia Minor but blow it trying to conquer the entire loaf, etc. etc.).


Today, that turned into George Karagounis, the Greek captain and a hero of the 2004 European champions, failing to convert a point-blank penalty kick.  Though we were down a man, we should have scored there and won the game.


Ten minutes later, Greece's bad luck struck again when a iffy off sides penalty was called against Kostas Fortounis - a Greek footballer who plays where else, in Germany - and negated another potential goal from Salpingidis. 


What a game.


Greece, a country battered by their own political incompetence and punished with a draconian austerity plan imposed by their European partners, fielded a team that had their own battles against a partisan home crowd, a bad referee who called two crazy yellow cards, a 10-player squad for most of the game, and a tight off sides call that negated the potential game-winning goal - yet still managed a tie and thus a point against Poland.  


Being down a player seemed to inspire fight rather than fatalism.  It was a proud nation showing admirable fight and pride in the face of adversity.  


I think all Greeks, members of the Greek diaspora, and phil-Hellenes hope that kind of fight continues in Euro 2012 but also inspires our motherland to do the same.


Zito H Ellas!

• Greece's next game is Tuesday at noon against the Czech Republic. The Czech's were demolished 1-4 against our Orthodox brothers from Russia today.  
• If Greece plays 90 minutes versus the Czechs the way they fought in the second half today I love our chances.  Greece was on the attack in the second half, and made a great comeback.
• Kudos to ESPN's crew for their Hellenism.  
• One, Greek-American Alexi Lalas proudly talked about the Greek squad in the pre-game show, complete with excellent Greek language skills pronouncing the long Greek last names.
• Two, ESPN's Ian Dark pointed out the many Greek Communists settled in Poland after their side lost the Greek civil war. Excellent historical note!
• Finally, three, Bob Ley summed up 2,500 years of Greek history when he said in the post-game shpw: "Sometimes your good, sometimes your lucky, sometimes your Greek."

Greece Still in the Euro . . . 2012 Football Championships

Greece will be in the Euro for at least one more month as the Ethniki Omada (national team) compete in the 2012 Europe Football Championship, the second most prestigious title in world football.  Greece kicks off the tournament Friday at noon eastern when they take one of the two (racist?) host nations, Poland, in group A (to be fair to Poland, the real racists appear to be in the other host country, Ukraine). The game will be shown live on ESPN.


Since World War II there have been 3 significant events in Greece.  One is the restoration of democracy after six years under the junta in 1973.  Two is Greece's entry into the European Union in 1980.  And three is the sporting events of 2004, a year that saw Athens host the Olympic Games and the motherland some how win the 2004 European Championship.


That 2004 title is one of the improbable in the history of sports. It's Villanova beating Georgetown in 1985, or Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson.  Consider that prior to 2004 Greece had NEVER WON A GAME in an international football tournament, let alone a title.


Of course, 2004 was the good old days in Greece.  The country was flush with money, some borrowed and some donated by the EU, to build new Olympic facilities, up grade ports and build a new airport (which is efficient but styleless, but what do you expect when you pick a German architect to build it?), dramatically expand the Athens Metro system (which was a huge success), and build new hotels.  


We visited in 2005, a year later, and the pride in their city was evident from every Athenian we talked to.  


Now we know the back story: that the government in power in 2004 and 2005 had been cooking the books and lying to the EU about Greece's deficit spending for years; the wealthy (who supported the conservative New Democracy government) continued to NOT pay their taxes; and the deficit got larger and larger and larger - and Greece's standard of living was not sustainable.


What a difference 8 years makes.  Greece was riding high in both sport and society in 2004.  Heading into Euro 2012 it's doubtful that this year's team can repeat that magic, or how long the motherland will even be in the euro zone once the Euro tournament ends the first week of July.


A few more EURO 2012 notes

• There is some good juju for Greece's team, however.  In 2004, Greece opened the tournament by beating the host nation Portugal 2-1 to put the tournament on notice.  Once again, Greece opens the entire tournament by playing the host nation.  If Ellas wins 2-1 again watch out!
• Why would you award EURO 2012 to Ukraine in the first place? Racist behavior by their fans has been a long-standing problem there, to say nothing of the performance of the Quisling government in Ukraine during World War II.
• During the 2010 World Cup, I read "How Soccer Explains the World." It was a fun read, but it was also depressing.  It should be called "How Soccer HELPS PERPETUATE SOME PROBLEMS IN the World.'  Chapter after chapter talk about soccer rivalries that serve as proxies for ethnic or political or racist strife and tensions in Serbia (Nazi collaborators vs. partisans), Scotland (Catholics vs. Protestants), Spain (fascists vs. Catalonian nationalists), etc.  I guess we can expect a new chapter or editor's note on new Ukrainian racism in the next edition.  

Good Playoffs, Shorter Seasons

Watching the NBA playoffs, one wonders why bother with the regular season?  Of course, you need the regular season to figure out who makes the playoffs.  But it's striking - and obviously obvious - to see how much better the play is in the post season.

Both series are pretty compelling; the young Thunder led by arguably the best scorer since Michael Jordan taking on a Spurs team that is professional and compelling, and the old guard Celtics led by young gun/old soul Rajon Rondo taking on the must see TV that is LaBron James and the Heat.

The NBA should consider institutionalizing the 66-game, lock-out induced schedule.  Like all leagues, the NBA regular season is too, too long at 82 games (the only exception to this is college basketball, whose 30 game schedule capped by a tournament seems about as perfect as 90 feet between the bases*).  There are too many bad NBA teams - thanks mainly to expansion - to waste our time watching.  Shorten the season, and put us and hapless teams like our hometown Wizards out of our collective misery sooner than later.

But the playoffs are a different story. The level of play is fantastic, as is the effort.

That, along with wanting to see who wins,  is what really stands out for me watching these playoffs.  Effort.

One stereotype about the NBA is that players don't play hard for four quarters or that defense is an afterthought. Watching the playoffs should dispel both of those lazy analyses. 

In the playoffs, every shot is contested. And that's true for the first shot of the game and especially the last.  You can feel the defensive intensity oozing from your TV screen.

The effort extends both ways.  It was pretty compelling to watch Rajon Rondo play 53 minutes - 53! - and make shot after shot in a losing cause.  It was inspiring stuff. 

Ditto Manu Ginobili or James Harden as they recklessly and repeatedly attack the hoop, or Kevin Garnett go down low - though he hates it - to exploit Miami's lack of a big man.  Or watch Kevin Durant patiently wait for the game come to him then simply blow up and take over, as he did last night.

Anyway, check it out.  It's the playoffs after all not the regular season - inspiring stuff.

A few more sports notes:

• What else is inspiring? Watching Stephen Strasburg bounce back from 3 consecutive average outings, only one of which he actually pitched badly BTW, with seven innings of shut out ball, with 9 strike outs and no walks to boot.  Not only was it great to see him dominate yesterday and lay to rest rumors of a tired arm or similar post-Tommy John surgery problems, Strasburg did what number one pitchers do on a contending team - he slammed the door on a 3-game losing streak.  
• We're heading to Nats Park in about an hour for Evan's annual birthday party game with his crew.  Excellent weather, an excellent celebration - and we get Gio Gonzalez on the bump.

* Schedules

Back to scheduling for one more second.  On one level, it's easy to understand the main reason why owners and TV execs in particular would oppose shortened seasons: fewer games to sell tickets and TV rights.  

But shortened seasons would benefit all four of the major leagues (baseball, basketball, football and soccer; I do not consider a sport that penalizes players 5 minutes a game for fighting a major sport; you ball your fist in any of the real major leagues and you get suspended 5 GAMES - as it should be. Grow up NHL.)

Expansion has greatly diluted talent pools for all the sports, as has the simple explosions of sports and leagues.  The larger number of teams in each league is one - but not the main - reason you see so many foreign players in all the leagues not named the NFL.


One way to minimize the impact of a diluted talent pool is to player few games.  A shorter season in all the leagues would help immeasurably.  Or, measurably.

• It would help cover the lack of pitching depth in the majors.  If MLB went to the old 154-game schedule teams could experiment for 4-man rotations, need fewer pitchers in general, and baseball can get rid of the asterisks that go along with comparing records in the pre and post-162 game era.   And, with baseball expanding it's post season a shorter season would ensure that the Fall Classic is completed before November.  Baseball is already a grind; why not make it a little less grindier?
• We've already discussed the NBA.  A shorter season gets us to what we want to watch - the playoffs - sooner.  No one pays attention to the NBA any way until after March Madness anyway. Start the season like the NBA did this year - with a Christmas Day triple header (which was awesome, BTW).  Let the NFL have Thanksgiving, the NBA can take Christmas.
• The MLS season already makes no sense, interrupted with side competitions, national team games, etc. and spanning from who knows when to who knows why. They should go back to the traditional world football schedule of games from October to May; MLS is afraid of competing with the NFL for fields and attention.  But with teams getting their own venues that is no longer a problem. And the NFL only plays once a week; MLS should shoot for the other six days and play a shorter season, too. Like the NBA, the MLS playoffs are usually more compelling that a numbingly boring 0-0 tie played in August during the regular season.   
• In an earlier post I pontificated on how to fix college football, including a shorter season, and try to restore the balance between being a student and athlete.
• But the NFL is most in need of a shorter season.  In the old days, when I first started watching the NFL, they played a 12-game season. It's now ballooned to an abusive 18-game schedules that wears out bodies faster and faster. In an era with heightened concerns over head injuries and an epidemic of debilitating injuries, doesn't it make sense to expose the players to fewer risks via fewer games?  The NFL will still make boatloads of money thanks to their lucrative television deals.  The least they could do is shorten their employees' exposure to life altering traumas by playing fewer games (and giving out guaranteed contracts).