A Real Belter, Mexican Style

Given that I'm cheering, of course, for the US to qualify for the World Cup (that's soccer for us Yanks and football for most of the rest of the world), I probably shouldn't be enjoying great goals scored by our rivals, the Mexicans. But Oscar Rojas's goal in Wednesday night's World Cup qualifier vs. Trinidad and Tobago (neither of which could beat Mexico, which won 2-1 on the Rojas goal) was a real belter. Watch and enjoy.

A few other notes about the game: I fired it up on the netbook live on the fantastic site justin.tv, which offers all kinds of live sports programming from all over the world (probably of questionable legality--but who cares?). I turned the sound down because I wasn't in the mood for the babble of Spanish commentary, although sometimes I quite enjoy it.

Anyway, the Mexican TV coverage was actually very good and included some scenes rarely seen on US or European TV. There were crowd shots, but not the typical cheering-and-scarf-waving stuff; some of the images seemed to show a scrap or two taking place between rival fans. Nothing serious--mainly handbags, as the Brits would say, but interesting to see nonetheless. But better than that was a fairly gratuitous shot, during play in the second half, of a not unattractive (ahem) young lady wearing some sort of fairy wings (I have no idea) and prancing around in pants that we might call form-fitting. Now that's some superb camera work.

Doubtless all of this will show up on YouTube at some point, but I'm too tired to look for it tonight. You have the goal; that'll have to be good enough for now. Muchos kudos to Mexican TV, though, for interrupting the action for a mild cheesecake shot and a few minor crowd-fight scenes. That sort of thing just gives the viewer a sense of, you know, the atmosphere in the stadium and all...especially the fairy girl. She had a lot of atmosphere. But I digress.

Speaking of the World Cup, I can rest easy on one front, as the European nation I support, the Netherlands (better known as Holland in football circles, although Holland is, of course, only part of the Netherlands) has already qualified for South Africa 2010. Now, if the Oranje can just recreate their performances in the opening rounds of Euro 2008 and avoid dropping another floater like the one they dropped vs. Russia in the Euro, World Cup 2010 could become very interesting indeed. It's exactly a year away...well, today, now that it's Thursday morning. I can't wait. Oranje boven! Oh, and, uh...go USA!