For the next month this is going to be soccerblog. Sorry to my regular readers who will be disappointed not to read about my garden, cooking, Home Improvement and other riveting posts.
Two games today. Only 62 more to go. I can’t wait. Two excellent games.
Home team and one of my favorites, Germany played played the big opener against Costa Rica. I should tell you that I always like to see a good game. I rarely like to see any team get their asses kicked and I loved that Costa Rica scored twice against Germany. Sure, I’m worried about Germany’s defense, but come on. Costa Rica declared a national holiday today. No one wanted to see them walk away empty handed. You could practically feel the ground move when they scored.
I expected to be less interested in the Poland v. Ecuador game and was dead wrong. Also, I didn’t do my homework on Ecuador. I thought Poland was going to be the runner up team in Group A and I think Ecuador is going to do it. What a fun game. I can’t wait to see them play Germany.
The coverage is good. I hate the score bar on ESPN2. It’s too low. There’s a hunk of screen between the bar and the top that we could use for watching play. I guess it makes it more of a widescreen thing but I’d like the extra space. Obviously I hate the lower screen scroll but I guess that’s part of life these days.
Adidas is the sportswear king in this tournament and they have one cute commercial (at least so far.) Remember how Nike had all those great commercials? Like the Brazilian team in the airport with that bossa nova music? Adidas has just one? Maybe they’re breaking out the big guns later. But love that Beckenbauer bit.
During the Germany game they made a comment how Americans will remember Frings (German midfielder) from some controversial play with the U.S. team. I don’t remember that at all. What I remember is that when I worked at Jack in the Box we had this stupid item called Frings which was a combination of fries and onion rings. The paper liner that you used to hold the item was small and awkward and you could only fit in about 6 fries and 2 onion rings. And the item was expensive. The customers (often stoners) ALWAYS complained about the quantity of the Frings and when Jack took it off the menu they complained about that, too. Torsten Frings: we salute you.
My favorite commentators: Adrian Healey and Tommy Smyth called the Poland v. Ecuador game. I love them. Especially Smyth. Everytime I turn on a game and hear his voice, I smile. He claims that he’s now a blogger. I’ll have to look that up, although I think he said video blogger and I’m not keen on video on the computer because it takes forever.
The cutest goalkeeper of the day hands down was Artur Boruc of Poland.
And possibly my new favorite official is Toru Kamiikawa of Japan who was in charge of the Poland v. Ecuador game. He just seems like an upright, no nonsense kind of guy. My old favorite was Pierluigi Collina that Lurch looking guy from Italy who was so fantastic but had to retire.
Three games tomorrow. First one, England v. Paraguay at 6am. Must get to bed early.
