The Great Real Madrid Cheating (Conspiracy) Theory

Slept badly, feel much worse. Ottawacker Jr. seems much brighter, though, so I will take that. Mrs. Ottawacker had a bad day at work yesterday; I’m not sure she enjoys anything about it any more. I can understand that, but hope it is a temporary blip rather than something more ‘deep rooted’.
 
I have been avoiding the newspapers because of various issues: Trump and his fuckwittery, obviously, but also because of the Champions League result on Tuesday. For this reason, I missed the brouhaha around Real Madrid and the most recent way UEFA has found to enable its “success”. Real Madrid is one of those teams that people seem to accept at face value – i.e., they believe whatever Real Madrid says about itself. Their dominance of the Champions League, for example, where it has a very impressive record. In fact, the first five editions of the tournament were an invitational tournament; who invited the other participants? The tournament organisers: L’Équipe and… Real Madrid. Then there are the persistent bribery and corruption allegations against them; the “strange” decisions that go against other teams (plus the “extra” time that is found when it is needed, and the “shortened” time that appears when it is not; not to mention the whole Franquista back story. I dislike the team intensely, so I am not in the best position to be non-judgemental, but even so, last night’s incident seems quite astounding.
 
Essentially, what happened it this. In the penalty shoot out to settle the drawn tie between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid (played over two legs), with the score 2-1 to Real (after three penalties, so everyone had scored), the Atletico player Julian Alvarez took his kick, slipped and scored. After protestations from Real Madrid, VAR came in and decided he had touched the ball twice; this meant his penalty was deemed illegal, and therefore not counted. When it was pointed out that the ball hadn’t actually moved, the decision was “explained” to say that, while the ball hadn’t moved, it had been touched. This, by any standard, is quite astonishing; this is what we have come to. Why is it astonishing? Because in the official Laws of the Game, it is clearly marked that the ball has to be seen to have been moved. So, if the ball wasn’t moved, it can’t have been seen to have been moved, so the penalty cannot be disallowed. Anyway, nothing will be made of it – because nothing ever is. UEFA and FIFA are both closed shops; they both “self-police”, nothing ever changes. It is worse that the House of Lords. And people wonder why conspiracy theories exist.
 
Back to more prosaic issues: Mrs. Ottawacker had a blood draw this morning and discovered, an hour before, that she had lost her requisition form. Cue panic. She wandered up to argue her case at the blood lab; while she was out, the clinic called back to say it could send a copy of the requisition form to her. By some miracle, I got the form, got into her computer and sent the form on to the lab. I am a genius. I should work for UEFA.
 
Decided that what we all really needed – i.e., Ottawacker Jr. and me – was a trip to a bookstore. So we drove down to South Keys to the local Indigo store and spent a happy hour wandering around looking at books. Ottawacker Jr. likes this because he gets to sit on the throne – which is perfect, as it allows me to wander unhindered among the myriad shelves.
 
Mid-afternoon, when we returned, I found that Mrs. Ottawacker had volunteered me to take Ottawacker Jr. to the movies so he could see Paddington Goes to Peru. It was written on her list, so she must have remembered to tell me. The only small glitch to this was that I was now feeling absolutely crappy and didn’t feel up to going. So, in a rare example of a rule maker falling on her own sword, Mrs. Ottawacker took him instead. This meant that she fell asleep in the cinema for the first hour of the film instead of me. I satyed at home and fell asleep in the chair. It was infinitely cheaper, and I didn’t have popcorn all over me when I woke up.
 
For a later supper, we had hot dogs and salad. I had, you see, forgotten to take something out of the freezer. There it was, clearly marked on Mrs. Ottawacker’s list of things for me to do. So I must have known.