Histories of Feelings

First, a note on the future: My thoughts on the final coming tomorrow. For now, I’ve already tipped my hand on Slate and in this comment on Alan’s post, which takes some stats out of context to tell a different story about Spain. I love you, Netherlands, in all ways, but for the next 48 hours my tears look like tildes and upside-down exclamation marks. In the meantime, I’m a week late on links.

I did a piece for Slate on the history of Dutch football and why rooting for Spain is the best way to honor it. By simple virtue of the fact that you’re here, you probably already know who Rinus Michels is, and there wasn’t room to go into points like Cruyff’s role in forging Spanish tactics. But there’s some significant RoP doctrine toward the end.

• Orange Devolution: why I’m rooting for Spain.

I also write a flurry of posts for Yahoo!, on subjects ranging from Italian xenophobia to heartwarming bus tours to terrifying smackdowns in the psychic animal world:

• New Zealand go undefeated. Amazing fact: If Spain win the World Cup, New Zealand will be the tournament’s only unbeaten team.
• The exquisite agony of German table soccer.
• English tabloids calmly prepare for Germany game.
• English tabloids calmly react to Germany loss.
• Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger, competing hard to see who represents more of their generation.
• England’s loss takes a bite out of the economy.
• FIFA sends home a fresh crop of awful referees
• Cristiano Ronaldo’s existential despair.
• Javier Aguirre miraculously combines the arts of opera and punching.
• Like a latter-day Frank Sinatra, Lionel Messi has a cold.
• The secret to the World Cup is a brain parasite found in cats.
• Italy blames its loss on players who don’t play for Italy.
• Eight percent of Russians think Russia will win the World Cup.
• Swamp soccer, where soccer meets swampiness.
• Argentina return home to a surprisingly warm welcome.
• German players write a thank-you note to their fans.
• Cristiano Ronaldo, the sitcom.
• Johan Cruyff praises Dirk Kuyt, annihilates my sense of scale and justice.
• A psychic parakeet fights a magic octopus.

Many great things have been written elsewhere while I was putting off rounding up the links, and at this stage of saturation and weariness I won’t remember even most of what’s mattered during that time. Recent goodnesses that come immediately to mind include Fredorrarci’s monumental post on the World Cup and mortality, Tom on whether Spain are boring, Alex Massie on the Unofficial Football World Championship (an absolutely fantastic subplot), and David Winner on cross-pollination between the Netherlands and Germany (a taste of what might have happened had the ’74 rematch come through).

Oh, and Twitter is fun. Get in on it.