Passing of World Cup calls for change of goals

It was a little after 2 p.m. on Sunday, and I still had half a baked pretzel roughly the size of the Ivory Coast sitting in front of me at the Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas. That’s how sure I was that Spain and the Netherlands were going to penalty kicks.

But then Spain scored, and the World Cup was over.

No more David Villa. No more Arjen Robben. No more Diego Forlan of Uruguay, who can bend it like Beckham. Better than Beckham, in my opinion. No more Schweinsteiger and Mertesacker, and one can only hope those two don’t start a law firm.

No more match-predicting octopuses or octopi, if you prefer. No more vuvuzelas ringing in my ears. No more crazy-flying soccer balls named Giuliani or Jabulani or Fonzarelli. No more 4 a.m. pilgrimages to the Crown & Anchor; no more setting the DVR for the same time, because it’s hard to watch the World Cup from behind a post in a tiny pub jammed with drunk lads named Nigel.

No more Paraguayan lingerie models with perfect, um, cell-phone holders.

(I think I am going to miss Larissa Riquelme most of all).

No more of any of it, at least for four years, because the soccer gods and that Sepp Blatter guy have spoken, and because all good things must come to an end. And also because this is America, where there are more important things than soccer, such as cleaning up oil slicks and LeBronathons and baseball season, which resumes in a couple of days.

But I still had half a giant pretzel, half a "Jumbo Complete" with all of the sweet mustard, most of the onion mustard and just enough Obazter cheese to get me through three more minutes of added time and penalties, or until the British referee was through handing out yellow cards.

I yearned for one more deft first touch, one more flick on, one more perfectly weighted ball that would unlock one more defense. Don’t fret, somebody said. FC Dallas is playing the Seattle Sounders tonight on MLS Direct Kick. No, I told him. Don’t need it that bad.

I would settle for talking to a Boateng.

There were two Boatengs, half-brothers, in the World Cup, one of whom (Kevin-Prince) played for Ghana and scored a goal against the United States, one of whom (Jerome) played for Germany. This is why you have to keep an eye on the Germans. When you’re not looking, they’ll sneak a Boateng into their side. Or a Gomez. Or three guys from Poland named Klose, Podolski and Trochowski.

There are also soccer-playing Boatengs named Joshua and George. And a Boateng who fancies high fashion named Ozwald.

There might even be a Boateng in the NBA. Although based on his one-basket, one-rebound, three-foul performance during the Knicks’ loss to the Nuggets in a Summer League game at Cox Pavilion on Sunday afternoon, Eric Boateng’s chances of making that happen might seem more remote than the Faroe Islands’ chances of winning the World Cup.

But he earned a scholarship to Duke and played three seasons at Arizona State, starting all 33 games for the Sun Devils this past season. He had 16 points, 14 rebounds, three assists, four blocked shots and no turnovers against UCLA on Senior Day, and that isn’t bad for a kid born to Ghanaian parents who didn’t pick up a basketball until his sophomore year in high school in North London, where his mother raised him, because he wanted to be like the other Boatengs (except, maybe, for Ozwald) and preferred soccer.

He told me he is not related to Kevin-Prince or Jerome, that Boateng is the Ghanaian equivalent of "Smith" or "Jones," that Ghana is sort of like Tempe in the summertime, at least according to his mother, that Ghanaian people are extremely sociable, that Ghanaian chocolate is to die for (something about the cocoa beans over there). His favorite soccer team is Arsenal of the English Premier League, but, yes, he was cheering for Ghana against the U.S. in the World Cup. "I don’t want to get thrown out of the country," he said, laughing.

He said there are no words for "slam dunk" in Twi, a dialect spoken by the Akan people of Ghana, so the next time Ghana plays Cameroon in basketball, I’d take Cameroon and lay the points.

What about "goal?"

"Goal," the 6-foot-10-inch center said. G-O-A-L. Just like in the U.S. Just like in the U.K. Just like in a lot of places, but not on "Univision" during the World Cup.

Then it’s G-O-A-L-L-L-L-L-L-L!

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.