Apparently the United States went to the polls yesterday and elected a new leader. This of course meant nothing good was on television to distract us from the world of sports that’s out there to keep everyone sane. It might have been slow in terms of recent standards but there were some noteworthy happenings.
— Apparently [...]
FIFA recently decided to expand the field of the European Championship finals from 16 to 24 teams and the question I’m asking is why? With a 16-team field only the best qualifiers would be able to compete for the second highest honour in international soccer (behind the World Cup of course). Now, with 24 teams [...]
I don’t know what logic the Astros were using by dealing for Randy Wolf who was supposed to be a lock to go to, and help out, a contender. Yes, a contender, not Houston who are a dozen games back (when I’m writing this). But maybe they’re smarter than we think: They could just be [...]
Some call it a contract, others call it slavery. Well at least that’s what FIFA president Sepp Blatter called it. Comparing the way that soccer players — with contracts that they have agreed to — are bought and sold on the transfer market to “modern slavery” might be the dumbest and most uninformed thing I’ve [...]
The wait is over for the supporters of Spanish football, they’ve finally won another title. The last time Spain won a major championship, it was 1964 and they played against — not Russia, but — the USSR in final.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit it, even as a proud German fan, the better team [...]
Sometimes it’s disappointing when the top two favoured teams heading into a tournament come to face each other the finals. Nobody really wants to root for a favourite; we’re a society that loves the underdog stories and seeing the best triumph sometimes upsets us. Look at the Red Sox and Patriots now. Nobody except loyalists, [...]
With the rain coming down in Vienna, Spain clearly coped with the horrid conditions better than Russia could. The first half may have been evenly fought but credit is due to whatever the Spanish coach said at halftime to fire up his players. Russia was outclassed from minutes 45-90 and that’s why Spain was able [...]
I’ll make no bones about it, Germany was outplayed by Turkey and were a bit lucky to win it. When you hear a phrase like that coming from a guy that is still wearing his Michael Ballack Euro 2008 jersey, that’s saying something. 63-37 possession is a telling statistic to aid that argument.
Germany may have [...]
It looks like the karma deities were looking out for the underdogs and teams that didn’t rest their players for inconsequential third group games. Three out the four lower seeds advanced out of the quarterfinals and the one favourite that did survive, Spain, was taken to penalty kicks by a seemingly improving Italian side. But [...]
So the Germans finally listened to my advice and look what happened. They downed Portugal 3-2 in a game that didn’t even look close for the first 30 minutes. Then, when Portugal stepped it up offensively, the game seemed just on even level. The Germans clearly outclassed the cocky Portuguese squad to advance to the [...]
