What I Wrote, Week of 4/15
Let’s just get it out of the way: BUY MY BOOK. I’m gonna start every email off like this. GET USED TO IT OR GET LOST. (Please don’t leave.) There’s still a deal over at Bookshop.org, where you can pre-order at a discount with a good chunk of the proceeds going to local bookstores. Please spread the word! I can’t think of a better gift than ISBN: 9781419758911; can you?
As for the stuff I wrote that you don’t have to wait until October 18 to read …
-We did another mailbag, which included a question about the soccer version of Tiger Woods’s recent return to the Masters:
To fit the Tiger arc, we're going to need Messi to play in the upcoming World Cup and follow through on what he said about things changing afterward -- whether that's a move back to Argentina or maybe even MLS. He'll need to play a couple of years out of the European spotlight and also retire from national team duty with Argentina. Then, he'll need to fully retire from soccer altogether and go live the quiet life that it seems like he's always yearned for. Then, after a couple of years of raising his kids and getting pulled through scenic mountain streets by his gigantic dog, he'll decide he needs one last run. Maybe his kids and wife urge him to do it, maybe he kicks a water bottle into a garbage can and realizes, damn, I've still got it.
-I wrote about Karim Benzema, someone who is incredibly good at playing soccer:
As he became Madrid's main goal-getter -- and for the first couple of years, their only goal-getter -- some of the softer skills that had defined Benzema's game began to fade into the background. The team couldn't afford to have him so far from goal, and as he aged into his 30s, it seemed unlikely that he would still be physically capable of both facilitating attacking play and finishing it off.
Until this season, that is. At age 34, not only is Benzema scoring more goals than he ever has before, he's involved in everything that happens before the shot, too.
Happy weekend, everyone.