The Year So Far: Best/Worst Sporting Events
Before we dive into the highlights and lowlights of 2022 so far, allow us to begin with a disclaimer: we here at The Couch understand that over half a year has passed by now, and mid-August might be a strange time to do a status check on the pulse of the year. But between the happiness of summer dayz, big life changes for some of us, busy work, we got a little behind. So sue us! It may just about be the end of #hotgirlsummer, but it's not quite #thotumn, so I think a mid-year check in is still in order.
Besides, in case you haven't heard, COVID isn't reeeallly over. We're all still pretty much operating on pandemic time, right?
If I've said it once on this blog, I've said it a thousand times: no arena of culture and public life was as visibly altered by the pandemic as sports was. But, as most everything did, Sports found a way to press on in the 'new normal,' and this year, we saw the slow, delightful return of fans into seats, of top athletes from injury, and of real quality to the biggest sporting events. Here were the best and worst sports stories from the year so far:
Best of the Year
"Armageddon" arrives...and it delivers
Coming back from the last TV timeout of the 2nd Final Four matchup in April, CBS' Jim Nantz posited "Who would have believed if, a month ago, you said, "You know what? Duke and Carolina will both be in the Final Four, they'll be matched up against each other, and with less than 3 minutes remaining, it will be a tie game"? The question was rhetorical, because of course, the answer was nobody. Nobody would have believed that. And the reasons are myriad, but most significant among them was the fact that the two members of the most famous rivalry had never faced off in the Final Four. This rivalry is so good, and so highly competitive, that the lack of a Final Four matchup was famous; if the two ever played at that stage, the two fanbases have said for years, it would be "Armageddon." But also, there was the small matter of the fact that, quite simply, neither team looked anything like a Final Four team. Duke, the eventual ACC regular season champion and a 2-seed in the tournament, were at least closer to that territory, but were still yet to prove themselves against a really quality opponent in 2022. Their rivals North Carolina? Not even close. The Tar Heels weren't even a lock to make the tournament, and had lost in the first edition of the rivalry game by 20 points on their home floor.
And yet... call it fate, call it divine intervention, call it poetic justice, call it "the NCAA rigging it," whatever; we finally got Armageddon. In the final year of Duke's Coach K, the winningest coach in college basketball history, in a season where neither team had won any postseason praise or earned a 1-seed, we were finally going to get Duke vs. North Carolina in the Final Four. If you wrote this script, Hollywood producers would tell you it was a bit too on-the-nose. And speaking of Hollywood endings, boy, was the stage set: three weeks after Carolina spoiled Coach K's farewell to Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke would have the chance to exact revenge on their rivals on the biggest stage, and confirm that their iconic coach's last game ever would be for the National Championship. Perhaps most remarkably of all, though, was that despite the unbelieveable amount of hype and anticipation, the game delivered. And then some. The two teams battled toe-to-toe from start to finish, Duke finally playing as a team instead of merely a collection of wildly talented individuals, and North Carolina discovering a level of toughness and 'never-say-die' attitude that had simply not existed from December through February. The stars for both teams showed out, with eventual #1 NBA draft pick Paolo Banchero leading the way for Duke and Armando Bacot dominating the interior for Carolina, but in truth, no player played poorly. After 18 lead changes and a stretch of gameplay that didn't see either team get ahead by more than 7 points, it came down to the final seconds, where UNC's oft-beleagured point guard Caleb Love capped off a remarkable 2nd half with a stone-cold, game-clinching 3-pointer that will be remembered in the annals of Carolina folklore for eternity. After two epic, unforgettable hours, Coach K's career was over, Duke's dream was over, and their hated rivals would play for the national championship instead.
Sometimes, and perhaps increasingly in this era of cynical, postmodern art, the 'Hollywood ending' isn't the predictable one.
I'll end with the caveat that I should have probably begun with: would I have enjoyed the significance of this event as much if I didn't grow up loving UNC and hating Duke with every fiber of my being? Surely not. But even the most ardent Duke fan begrudgingly has to respect the enormity of the occasion, even if they undoubtedly will spend the rest of their lives trying to forget it happened.
Honorable Mentions: Rafael Nadal wins the race to 21 Grand Slams, Georgia finally snaps their postseason duck and wins the national title, Sadio Mané delivers Senegal's first-ever major title with a game-winning penalty in the African Cup of Nations, just about everything about the NFL postseason, Matthew Stafford finally gets his Super Bowl, St. Peters' Cinderella run in March Madness, Kansas' history-setting comeback win in the national title, USMNT (with neighbors Canada) return to the World Cup, Villarreal's Cinderella Champions League run, Premier League race comes down to thrilling final day, Nick Kyrgios' Wimbledon redemption arc, the return of the Warriors Dynasty
Worst of the Year
The Champions League fiasco
As a Liverpool fan, there was plenty to not like about the 2022 Champions League Final. One week after my favorite team's dreams for a historic "quadruple" ended with a heartbreaking finish to the Premier League season, any hopes of salvaging the season with a major trophy ended in a loss to Real Madrid, a team that I've always hated and one that also ended my Champions League hopes and dreams twice before, in the 2021 tournament and in the 2018 Final.
As a general football fan, there also was plenty to not like. On paper, this was destined to be a riveting finale to a tournament that had been nothing short of brilliant. We had seen Liverpool become the first team ever to win all 6 games in the group stage, despite being placed in the 'Group of Death.' We had seen Cristiano Ronaldo rescue Manchester United not once, not twice, but 3 times at the final whistle. We had seen Barcelona shockingly exit in the group stage. We had seen La Liga minnows Villarreal come close to perhaps the greatest Cinderella run ever, reaching the semifinal stage and drawing level on aggregate with Liverpool there with just 45 minutes left in the tie. And we had seen Real Madrid engineer miraculous escape after miraculous escape throughout the knockout stages, culminating in peak surrealism vs. Manchester City in the semifinal. That the final would come down to a showdown of two of the best teams in the world in the former, who had been so dominant throughout the entire tournament, and the latter, who epitomized the "team of destiny" aura that had surrounded many champions in the past, was almost too good to be true. We surely were destined for a thrilling, back-and-forth match between two elite, forward-thinking teams. Instead, we were treated to a pretty defensive, stodgy affair, where the chief aggressor generated zero goals (thanks in no small part to tremendous goalkeeping to be fair), and the winning team notched a grand total of two shots on goal.
But in reality, while both of those facts would have made the Champions League Final an enormous bummer, they wouldn't have rendered it the worst moment of the year in the world of Sports. What truly made this a bleak event was the horrible incompetence of Paris police and officials in the buildup to and aftermath of the match. I'll spare you a full recap, but for the less-informed, this Wikipedia summary is a worthwhile read. That Liverpool fans, a people that had suffered through the tragedy of Hillsborough and the years of wrongful blaming by politicians police, were once again unjustifiably targeted by police and errantly blamed for a fracas that delayed the kickoff of the game and caused bodily and emotional harm is nothing short of outrageous.
Dishonorable Mentions: OBJ's Super Bowl injury, the emergence of LIV Golf, the financial gap only widening in European football, Ben Simmons' conspicuous absence from the NBA playoffs, everything about the 2022 Winter Olympics, everything about FIFA's handling of the 2022 World Cup
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