You're Doing It Wrong

Was ready for work and parked in front of the TV at 6am for the first half of the Australia v. Japan game. Who knew Australia even played soccer? Why play a sissy game like soccer when you can beat the crap out of each other on the rugby field?

Went to the office and had my most productive day ever as I didn’t want to expose myself to anything that might spoil the USA game results. I stayed in my office, working even through lunch, talking to no one and no Internet or email. I’m sure my employer would be proud. ahem.

I left early and as I crossed the Morrison bridge I could see traffic backed up on I-5 for miles and I was thinking (like Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Turns out the accident was about 100 yards from where I got on the freeway so after the initial awkwardness of merging both Morrison bridge on-ramps with one lane on I-5,(a shout out to the stupid car that didn’t seem to understand it was supposed to let the tow truck pass: doh!) we were done with it and 15 minutes later I was sitting in front of the TV firing up my USA v Czech Republic game.

Fuk. I think I burst a blood vessel in my forehead from screaming. Cz was really good. After watching them for about 10 minutes I was thinking how much I’d enjoy watching them play someone else. The USA played WAY below expectations. I was completely depressed. But interesting tidbit: the Czech goalie is named Cech. Seriously.

Meanwhile, I’d heard about the thrilling ending to the Australia game so I fired that up and watched Japan get their hearts broken. Wish I could have seen that live because it was unbelievably exciting.

Finally, it’s time for the Italy v. Ghana game. Italy is another one of my very favorite teams partly for their play and mainly because they are outstanding to look at down to the very last man. I don’t think there is one ugly man in Italy playing soccer.

The DVR ate my game. This was quite distressing although not as much as you might guess because it was getting late and I was tired and had a headache from yelling at the American team. I did various trouble shooting and managed to get it started but it kept freezing and after about 20 minutes gave up the ghost.

Other shows work fine so I’m not sure what’s going on but will have to deal with Comcast later today. Bob is video taping the Brazil game for me today as a backup because I MUST HAVE MY BRAZIL.

After all this it was still a little too early for bed and I was all wound up so I decided to start the season opener of The 4400, this sci-fi TV show I got into. WTF?! They turned this character into an old lady. WHY? And this other key character is played by a catastrophically bad actress.

Bummer all around.

My World Cup coverage is on the wane and tomorrow will probably dry up completely as all my time will be spent either watching soccer or at work. No time for noodling online. Well, maybe I can come up with a soccer haiku each evening.

Lots of great looking teams today from a wide variety of countries. Way to go guys.

Netherlands v. Serbia-Montenegro played first at the fun hour of 6am (local). I dozed lightly from my perch on the couch. Netherlands is another one of my favorite teams so I had to wake up quick. It didn’t take long. Minute 18 the Orange Crush scored and eventually got the win. Extra points for having the cutest coach.

I meant to mention this Friday but the Polish coach looks pretty tight in his upper body. I have an easy exercise he could do to get those shoulders opened up.

Take a belt or strap and hold it in each hand, above your head, wider than shoulder width.

Start with your left hand and very gently pull to the side and slightly back while your right arm raises straight up. Take your time, work with your breath and try to get some movement in your shoulder blades.

Slowly go back to the starting position and repeat to the other side. The strap should stay taut through the exercise.

Someone has some photos of other good shoulder openers to try.

I don’t know if I’ve seen Serbia-M play before but I felt bad for the unfortunately named Dejan Stankovic.

The next game was Mexico v. Iran. Mexico is one of my favorite teams, except when they play the US, and one of the great things about them is in addition to playing exciting football, they have fantastic hair. Remember Luis Hernandez? (Sorry this doesn’t actually link to a picture. Lame. It took too long to find one.) Look at these guys. I think this is the first team I’ve seen that didn’t have bald guys. Bald is in this tournament. And I’m not complaining, I like bald, too.

My favorite hair on this Mexico team: Torrado (midfield). Is he related to that girl from Dazed and Confused?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Iran play. I missed their win against the US in 98 and I know nothing about the team and I was surprised what a fun game it turned out to be. And I think Omar Bravo (Forward, Mexico) should change his name to O Bravo like it says on his shirt for all the time. What a great name. Instead of saying “Hey Omar” his friends would say “Hey O Bravo.” It sounds so much better.

Finally we have the Portugal v. Angola game. Portugal is another one of my favorite teams and Angola is another team that I know nothing about. Portugal got the win but they weren’t as exciting as I would have liked. I think Christiano Ronaldo needs to wipe that pout off his face. He looked like a spoiled child. I enjoyed watching Angola. I can’t believe how fast some of these guys are.

Watching the games you see all these guys hit the ground after jumping, after colliding with other players, after taking a long run. When was the last time you fell down? Can you imagine doing it for 90 minutes?

The best player name of the day is Jamba (Defender, Angola).

And the most bizarre hair award goes to Loco (Defender, Angola). It was like an extreme bastardization of a reverse mullet (short in back, long in front). Like a bangs reverse mullet. Or maybe an extreme Corddry.

That’s it for today’s coverage. Enjoy the upcoming games.

First thoughts:
1 – Did Trinidad and Tobago kick ass or what !?
2 – Was I dreaming or did KIA have an ad that featured Balki and a mime!?

First off, it’s rough to get up at 6am and go straight into soccer. It’s hard to clap and jump around at that hour. I wrote a note that Paraguay had some bad luck and I already forgot why. Oh yeah, that own goal thing and having to take their keeper out minutes after starting. Poor guy.

I wanted England to be a lot better. I have high hopes for them this tournament. We’ll see how things progress.

I don’t like the commentator. Marcelo is okay. That other guy. You know: it’s okay to stop talking sometimes. Especially when you’re going to take every teeny stumble, and turn it into some sort of game turning event.

Also, why does ABC play a cheezy tone before it puts up a WC update on the bottom of the screen? We’re watching the game. We’re looking at the screen. We don’t need a tone to tell us to look at the bottom. Especially if we were watching yesterday and already know. Also the whole sports stats thing makes me crazy. “This is the first time in World Cup history that a guy with a nose ring has gotten a foul in the first ten minutes while wearing red shoes.” No one cares.

On to Sweden v. Trinidad and Tobago (TnT). Sweden is my sweetheart team. Wow, they are cute. They were much cuter in the special I saw, rating a high 11. On the field they were more like a 9, but still, excellent. It would have been nice if they could have gotten the ball in the goal.

I really wanted to see Sweden surprise everyone in this Cup and oops! TnT was hoping just not to humiliate themselves and they took it to 0-0 tie. People who think soccer is boring would probably not understand how a 0-0 game could be totally exciting and why one team would be celebrating like it was 1999 while the other team was crying in their beers. Fantastic game.

Meanwhile, my poor soccer widower husband was trying to get my attention. “Are you between games?” “Yes, but I need to watch the highlights and last nights highlight show.” I ended up starting the Sweden v. TnT game 10 minutes late and my Dad called when it was over but I had 10 minutes to go. “Do you want me to tell you who wins?” “No!” I shrieked “I’ll call you later” and I hung up the phone and ran back to the TV.

I thought I was still pumped up for one more game but actually I was running out of steam. It must be all the eating of dip type foods that can scooped onto a chip or piece of bread. I was fairly alert for the first half of the Argentina v. Ivory Coast game but I got tired of the elbows and the diving and the commentators on this one bugged me, too. Where were Adrian and Tommy? What is up with that Shep guy, bringing up what must be his only glory of playing with Pele? I wanted to brag to him that I sat on Santa’s lap once.

I watched the last half hour in the horizontal position with my eyes closed, oops. I’m still building my endurance. I’ll do better tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to arrange my week next week to maximize my game watching. I still have to work so I’m going to have to limit it to two games although I think I can cram in one half in the morning before I leave for the office. When I watch the other games, I can forward to the highlights. Thank God for DVR. Also avoiding spoilers is going to be a problem. The USA plays Monday at 9am. No radio or Internet. I’ll just race home and watch the game.

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.