{"id":898,"date":"2006-07-07T13:46:37","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T18:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2006\/07\/07\/weltmeisterschaft\/"},"modified":"2006-07-07T13:46:37","modified_gmt":"2006-07-07T18:46:37","slug":"weltmeisterschaft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/07\/weltmeisterschaft\/","title":{"rendered":"Weltmeisterschaft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t had the time to type up the answer to <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2006\/07\/06\/pandering-frivolity\/\">yesterday&#8217;s quiz<\/a>, so instead why not a <a href=\"http:\/\/fifaworldcup.yahoo.com\/06\/en\/\">World Cup<\/a> open thread?  It was pretty easy to discern the pattern in the quarterfinals, where Portugal beat England, Italy beat the Ukraine, France beat Brazil, and Germany beat Argentina &#8212; all of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eurozone\">Eurozone<\/a> squads were victorious, while those nations still puttering along with their local currencies were left to go home and lick their wounds.  Hooray for globalization!<\/p>\n<p>But what is it that separates <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Les_Bleus\"><em>Les Bleus<\/em><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Azzurri\"><em>Azzurri<\/em><\/a>, victorious in the semifinals, from their opponents?  I mean, besides a bluish tinge, a strong wine tradition, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flag_of_Italy\">almost identical flags<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crooksandliars.com\/posts\/2006\/07\/05\/italy-beats-germany-2-0-to-go-to-the-world-cup-finals\/\">amazing goals<\/a>?  (And being picked by me to lose?) Eventually it hit me:  these were the countries that have been home to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Avignon_Papacy\">Popes<\/a>!  Sometimes <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Western_Schism\">simultaneously<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>So what will happen in Sunday&#8217;s final?  Italy has had more Popes, but France has been more of a leader in unifying Europe.  A titanic struggle between the temporal and spiritual realms awaits.  <em>Allez les Bleus!<\/em> <em>Forza Italia!<\/em>  (I will, at the time, actually be in Italy, so I&#8217;m leaning slightly <em>Forza<\/em> over <em>Allez<\/em>, but I wouldn&#8217;t bet against that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zidane.fr\/homepage.html\">Zizou<\/a> guy in his last professional game.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t had the time to type up the answer to yesterday&#8217;s quiz, so instead why not a World Cup open thread? It was pretty easy to discern the pattern in the quarterfinals, where Portugal beat England, Italy beat the Ukraine, France beat Brazil, and Germany beat Argentina &#8212; all of the Eurozone squads were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}