By MONTE DUTTON

The USA played Paraguay in the World Cup on Friday night.

Paraguay is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their fate. Or was that Uruguay? If I wrote a song about Paraguay, I’d have no choice but to rhyme it with Uruguay. So I think I won’t.

Turns out Butch and Sundance died in Bolivia. They should have gone to Namibia. With Olivia.

Okay, I wept a little during the national anthem before the football match. American football is a game. It’s my favorite. Worldwide, it’s a match, played on a pitch, which is world for “a field.” I like it. It’s a beautiful game, uh, match.

The last time the USA hosted the World Cup, I watched our lads tie Switzerland, 1-1, in a bar in Ann Arbor, Mich., with a bunch of English fans. I was also in Michigan for a NASCAR race when Al Cowling led police on one of the world’s few low-speed chases with O.J. Simpson. I watched it at an Applebee’s.

It was the same weekend in June 1994.

The USA looked great. Then again, what do I know? The lads led, 3-nil, because zero is nil in a football match. But the final score was 4-1, which cannot happen in a football game.

San Antonio’s collapse in Wednesday night’s NBA final was cataclysmic. That loss may hurt the Spurs next year, never mind next game. I saw the whole New York comeback, although I watched The Poseidon Adventure for a while. It was a night of epic disaster.

The Poseidon Adventure was released in 1972, when I was 14. That was 54 years ago. I think of it as a fairly recent flick. Gene Hackman’s really good. Gene Hackman was always really good. He was the most reliable actor since Spencer Tracy.

Tom Hanks is the modern Jimmy Stewart. Once upon a time, James Mason took Claude Rains’ place. Judy Garland led to Barbra Streisand. Katharine Hepburn led to Meryl Streep. Carol Burnett succeeded Lucille Ball.

I doubt there’ll be another John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe. Or Cary Grant, who invented his own dialect.

The best movie ever filmed completely on studio sound stages was Casablanca. The best filmed completely on location was Lawrence of Arabia.

At this moment, which is to say my list would probably change tomorrow, my favorite movies, alphabetically, are The Bridge on the River Kwai, Casablanca, Giant, The Last Picture Show, Lawrence of Arabia, Little Big Man, North by Northwest, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Patton and Pulp Fiction.

The best comedy was Young Frankenstein. The best film noir was The Maltese Falcon. The best love story was Moonlighting. The best miniseries was Lonesome Dove. The best I’ve watched recently for the first time was Casino.

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