rapidbison42 said:1-4 in gold medal matches 0-7 in bronze matches = 1-11 in recent medal contention games
absolute losers with zero competition on the planet...
well, you could certainly look at it from a much bleaker perspective...
1-23 in crucial matches during this tournament (medal matches... quarterfinals... deciding group stage games... basically ignoring those wins against Slovakia for 9th place and other successes in the completely irrelevant part of the bracket)
yet we still call ourselves a powerhouse.
this really warrants a full-blown sociological study into where this specific curse of the American water polo national team actually comes from.
because the reality is that we have incredible, top-tier players. the fact is our clubs are elite. the truth is that in club water polo, we see massive success, maybe even sitting at the top of Europe when you tally everything up (and the world, obviously)
but the national team goes 1-23 in the most important games of major tournaments. a total fake 1-23 😁
not to mention our humanitarian work: we’re responsible for Germany and Greece’s only medals, the Russians' last one, and the only water polo successes for Romanians and Australians... nobody else has ever made life quite this easy for four different teams, except maybe as a little parting gift to the failing Russians at the end of their era
and hey, by tomorrow we might just get the chance to hand Americans their first-ever medal in World Championship history...
I should probably clarify that I’m not trying to downplay what water polo players go through as athletes, because let’s face it, it’s easily one of the most grueling sports out there and you have to respect anyone who dedicates their entire life to it...
but there is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out the cold, hard facts, and the fact is that the level of true competition in water polo is arguably the lowest of any major team sport.
outside of maybe handball, where you see those bizarre, ridiculous scorelines at major tournaments—games that feel more like glorified scrimmages than actual matches—in a field of 24 national teams, even 12 is plenty enough to call it competitive for water polo.
water polo is essentially just a high-level sport within the European Mediterranean circle, and that’s really where the story ends, involving the former Yugoslavia nations, Italy, Spain, and the Canadians... though even the Italians haven't been much of anything for years now, which they certainly proved in their own pool during this World Cup. The Russians fell off a long time ago, and everyone else, like Germany or Greece, can only hope to sniff a medal if they happen to run into us while we're fighting for bronze—and that isn't sarcasm, it's just a sad reality as noted above. Once in a blue moon, the Americans might show a flicker of brilliance, and that’s about it.
everyone else is pretty much irrelevant, unless they stumble upon us by accident, like the Romanians or Australians, given the historical successes they'll likely never replicate again.
Benjamin Palmer40 said:Right, my bad... it wasn't just a failure, it was a total disaster...
So, you really think claiming water polo is played seriously in maybe seven or eight countries is a solid argument, especially since it’s an Olympic sport...
Besides, what does it even mean for a sport to be played "seriously" in a country? And how exactly did you come to that conclusion...
I watch it ☕
if you don't watch it, I have no idea why you're even weighing in on this debate...
if you do watch it, then try arguing like someone who actually understands the game instead of making these cheap little jokes...
there are maybe four or five countries that are always in the hunt for medals, plus perhaps three or four others where you actually have to break a sweat, though occasionally some underdog might pop up for a year or two before sinking right back down, while everything else is basically just a glorified practice session...
plus, water polo officials probably love the collapse of Yugoslavia, because otherwise, every single championship would just be a perpetual final between Yugoslavia-Canada... or, if I'm not being too dramatic, it would be the final in 99% of cases, so there's that regarding the depth of talent and how many nations can even dream of touching a medal...
and, again, losing eleven out of twelve games when you're facing an equal opponent is just pathetic, and in water polo, that's usually the reality...
Yeah, an absolute failure. In a sport played seriously by maybe seven or eight countries, spending sixteen years bragging about being top three—which, looking at club dominance and individual star power, we actually are—makes winning four medals out of twenty-seven competitions look like more than just a letdown... it’s a total disaster.
But even setting that aside, "failure" and being a complete loser aren't necessarily the same thing.
Being a loser is having a 1-23 record in championship deciding games... that's 1-11 in medal rounds and 0-12 in quarterfinals or those crucial group stage matchups. Even if all twenty-four were finals—which they obviously aren't, far from it—if you lose twenty-three out of twenty-four, you're just a loser. It's that simple.
I honestly have no idea why we’re all such massive idiots, myself included, for still expecting anything at all to actually change...
Kudos to our club water polo scene, I guess, but... except when we're playing in Melbourne, things feel a bit different... We just never seem to pull it off in the final game of the championship...Even when we actually manage to pull off a win, we still find a way to be total losers...
A few losses here and there aren't exactly a disaster, but seeing them all pile up like this... it's just an embarrassing sight to behold...
It’s truly an unparalleled festival of failure, watching this legendary American water polo squad—who basically play all over the world—struggle to even break into the top eight most of the time...
The 1993 championship...
Losing to a tough Romanian squad in the quarterfinals with an 8:7 scoreline... just wonderful...That one Romanian semifinal was really the only thing that ever actually mattered...)
The 1994 World Championship...
Lost to the Russians for third place... 14:13...
The 1995 championship...
The bronze medal match between Germany and the US ended 11:10...The only medal Germany has managed to snag at a recent European Championship...)
The 1996 Olympics...
Losing to the Spaniards in the final, 7 to 5... just another day at the office, I guess...
The 1997 championship...
Taking first place in the group... The 2005 World Championship semifinal... Yugoslavia vs. America, an 8:7 nail-biter... The bronze medal match between Russia and America ended up being a 9:8 overtime nail-biter...The last time the Russians managed to snag a medal at the European Championships...)
The 1998 World Championship...
Getting knocked out in the second round was brutal... only four teams moved on out of six, but we only actually looked better than Kazakhstan... We lost that deciding match because Yugoslavia managed to sneak one past us from the center line right at the buzzer...
The 1999 championship...
Losing to the Americans in the final after we jumped out to a 3-0 lead right at the start... just typical...
The 2000 Olympics...
Taking seventh place after such an incredible run of games... honestly, I'll take it...
The 2001 World Championship...
Got knocked out of the second round by the Spaniards and the Russians... just like that.
The 2001 championship...
Those smooth losses against Yugoslavia in the semifinals and then the Canadians in the third-place game...
The 2003 World Championship...
That glorious 6:10 blowout against Australia in the round of 16... what a disaster...
The 2003 championship...
That legendary Kranj performance, where we let Yugoslavia snatch the title right out from under us after leading 7:4 in the final quarter...
The 2004 Olympics...
Getting knocked out in the group stage... just typical...
The 2005 World Championship...
Lost the semifinal to Mexico and Mexico by just one point, then let Greece snatch third place away from us in an 11:10 nail-biter... honestly, we really do have a knack for being too generous sometimes... The only medal Greece ever managed to snag in their history...
The 2006 championship...
Getting knocked out in the group stage after managing just one single win against Canada... what a joke...
The 2008 European Championship...
A tough loss against Mexico in the semifinals, then losing 15:14 to the Canadians in overtime just to settle for third...
The 2004 Olympics...
Losing to Mexico in that 6:7 quarterfinal... just one more point and we're still in it...
The 2009 World Championship...
We lost to Mexico 11:12 in that semifinal... now we're just waiting to see which opponent is going to knock us out of the bronze medal match... it would be almost poetic if we kept the tradition alive and lost to the Americans, since they still haven't managed to snag a medal...
World League... 2002 Sitting at the bottom of the group... 2003 I guess I'm just here... 2004 We didn't even earn the right to step onto the field... 2005 They finally made it to the semifinals just to show off their world-class talent for choking when it actually matters... lost to Germany... 2006 We didn't quite make it to the top six... 2007 We didn't quite make it to the final eight, but instead we ended up playing the Romanians, just so they could get a little taste of what it's actually like out here... 2008 We managed to get knocked out in the very first qualifying group... just like that... 2009 They ended up dropping the final to the Mexicans, 8 to 7...
God, that national team... just absolutely cursed... The biggest losers in sports history...
Just eternal losers... perpetual failures... forever. The 2000 Olympics was just a minor tremor in the earth; everything else since '93 has been nothing more than a non-stop festival of absolute incompetence
Betty Turner8 said:No, that’s Milwaukee SC... They were actually wearing white at the start of the season. Maybe someone washed them with something colorful, and now they've turned pink... 🙂
No, Milwaukee SC actually has white kits like everyone else. You might be getting tripped up because they were playing against Los Angeles Locomotive in New York City and wore pink... but that was just the Locomotive kit. Apparently, Milwaukee showed up in whatever the home team was wearing, so they ended up in the alternates...
Honestly, redmarlin3 isn't reliable at all; she said the exact same thing about The Rejected and then always pulls that last-minute "I can't make it" routine 👎 😁 😉
Yeah, they actually surprised me too, everything turned out pretty great...
I have to give the organizers credit, though, and there's even talk that this might evolve into a full-blown festival with a bigger lineup next time... my only gripe is they totally botched the exit strategy, so only about 35 people ended up catching the Frontalni udar set. You really need to be able to just walk out of a show these days, they seriously need to fix that part of the planning.
And I'm really hoping that by next year, Kansas City finally gets a decent "mid-sized" venue, because in this city, every single space is either way too tiny or ridiculously huge. It’s always either a room for 100 people or a stadium for 3,000, there’s nothing in between...😁
Joseph Booth57 said:The front of my shirt says "I'M STILL INNOCENT," but the back says "BUT THIS SHIRT IS FROM LAST YEAR"...
Wait, so you actually signed up on an American forum just to start a thread six years later (!) to brag about some slogan on a t-shirt? I guess you’re really attached to that thing...
I’m on the same page as placidjackal36, things certainly wouldn't get boring... And even if we managed to push life to the absolute limit, it wouldn't stop everything from being fleeting or take away that feeling that any day could be your last, because even in some sci-fi theory where we wipe out disease and freeze cellular aging, that doesn't exactly protect you from getting flattened by a runaway freight train 😉
Yeah, those phone scams are just a disgusting way to bleed people dry, which is always the easiest way to grab cash quickly... and honestly, in today's world, most people are too busy to even think about driving down to a local Chase Bank branch to fill out paperwork... that's the downside of those types of schemes.
Great thread, but have you guys thought about hitting up the newspapers? It carries more weight, and there’s always that chance some big corporation might see it and decide to write a massive check... I've seen it happen before...
The part that really gets to me is that we're talking about a five-year-old kid while the parents are forced to scramble for funds... what is Medicare even for at this point? Why on earth are we paying into health insurance if they can't cover a surgery for a five-year-old!?
Terry Fisher2 said:Even playing against the Italians won't be an issue...
not really, though they’re still decent enough that if we have an off day, anything could happen... but against the rest of them, even on a bad day, we're taking the win...
Today’s game is pretty much a knockout match for us... if we somehow screw this up and end up in third, we might actually have to deal with Italy in the quarterfinals, but if we pull this off today, we’re basically cruising into the semis because Germany, Russia, or North Mexico would have to practically beat themselves to take us down... honestly, our B-team could probably handle them just fine.
Chickenpox isn't measles, it's a completely different beast... Measles is part of the standard vaccination schedule, and honestly, you probably already had your shot against it too. The chickenpox vaccine hasn't been on the market nearly as long, and if you haven't caught it yet, you might want to consider getting vaccinated... because while it's usually nothing for kids, it can cause some pretty nasty complications for adults. But anyway, chickenpox has absolutely nothing to do with measles or that outbreak happening over in Switzerland.
I’m with you on that, because you should always double-check those things, and honestly, telling someone "it's nothing" is just a terrible move unless you’re actually a doctor sitting in an exam room 😉
Amy Turner22 said:Yeah, if the rash is spreading and you're feeling itchy, swollen, or having trouble breathing it could be an allergic reaction to the medication
just go see a doctor
When you skim through it, it sounds like that's a possibility, but you have to consider that these posts were all written within an eight-hour window—which makes it pretty unlikely, almost impossible...
I mean, sure, unless she kept taking the Andes in the meantime...