Tag Archives: World Cup

Riverplace Marina, Marquam Bridge and Mt. Hood, Portland Feb 6, 2006

I would have done a post last night but I had just posted about the beg-a-thon and wanted to keep that up top for at least 24 hours.

First, here’s my nothing-to-do-with-World-Cup favorite comment thread of the day: Health Food of the Future: Less Salty Wieners. I try to avoid comment threads because 90% of them make me feel that mankind is doomed and deserves it but it’s the ones like these that keep me from losing all hope.

One more thing about Denmark’s own goal. John Harkes, the commentator, said: terrible clearance on that ball.

Yes, that’s one way of putting it.

Game 12 New Zealand v. Slovakia 1-1

I missed this game live but heard the outcome. When I got home last night I watched the first half and then decided to FF until NZ scored. I got to the 80th minute and figured if they scored that late I’d just watch to the end of the game. I had one eye on the clock and I was getting all panicky that I misunderstood and wondering what was going to happen. 90+3 – what a heartbreaker for Slovakia but really cool for NZ.

Winston Reid got a yellow card for taking his shirt off. My letters to FIFA pleading that this rule be withdrawn continue to go unanswered. If you haven’t seen this yet, Jezebel is doing World Cup Shirtless photos. You’re welcome.

Game 13 Côte d’Ivorie v Portugal 0-0

Côte d’Ivorie has the most gorgeous colored uniforms. I want to take a bath in that color. It’s like your-life-is-perfect gold. And the goalie’s uniform is purple which is also awesome. Also their crest with the elephant is cute.

Portugal is one of my favorite teams and they didn’t do much. I wanted more. Also, they have a player who looks like 80’s era Limahl. No time for photo evidence tonight.

Game 14 Brazil v. Korea DPR 2-1

The TV at the office is pretty crappy. There’s something about the color red that displays funny. When I saw the NK players on the field they looked like big red glowy dots and I was thinking: Ok, am I seeing auras? Do I have some super power I can see their true identity? (I know, too much sci fi.) Then on a close up they looked like regular people.

During the half of this game I started penning my “What the hell players? Start scoring some goals. None of this own goal (Denmark), penalty kick (Ghana), butterfingers goalie (USA) crap either. I want some really nice goals, like Germany,” manifesto.

But then Brazil came through with a couple. That Maicon goal was AMAZING. And NK got a great one, too.

I thought Brazil was going to sail through a lot easier in this game.

Game 15 Honduras v. Chile 0-1

Missed it. Sorry guys.

Game 16 Spain v. Switzerland 0-1

SPAIN I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU.

You were very handsome while you lost, however.

Game 17 South Africa v. Uruguay 0-3

Wow. I’ve never seen a goalie thrown out on a red card. Is there any sporting duty worse than being #2 goalie and being tossed into a game in the 80th minute to try to block a penalty kick? I really wanted him to block it because that would have been cool.

– – –

Tomorrow’s a big day. I have Argentina playing at 4:30am. (Yes, going to try to watch it). Then a regular work day and then a Timbers game after work. SOCCER!

Yes, it is a lot of soccer but it’s only once every 4 years and makes me really happy.

Library in Amsterdam

Coverage is brief tonight because Monday is my long day and I’m about to keel over.

I probably would have gotten up to watch the Netherlands v. Denmark game (4:30a) but since I was feeling off last night I figured it would be smarter to get my sleep.

I watched the Italy v. Paraguay at the office.

I have clearance to watch soccer at the office. I just need to watch my time and either work early or late or use leave, or any combination of those.

Our TV gets a million channels including a half million public access. There was even a channel showing a poetry society.

There were tons of channels selling things including this gadget where you could make all kinds of fancy meals in minutes. There is a ton of stuff you can make in minutes without a gadget if you don’t count the prep.

The channels are all goofy and there’s channel 61.2 and 62.3 and then 101.1. I’ve never seen anything like it. Also it was like the channels had to load, like webpages. So I was shuffling through impatiently trying to decode this stupid TV.

Finally I had to give up and I was all pissed because I’d have to watch it on Univision which I’ve done before and it’s not that bad but dammit! That was back in the olden days when you didn’t even get all the World Cup games live.

Of course I left the commentary on because why not and I can’t understand anything they’re saying but it all sounds super exciting. And then Paraguay scored and the guy did his GGGGOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL! And it so worth it. If you have no idea what I’m talking about here’s an example.

Italy is one of my favorite teams and I’m glad they tied it up but I liked the way Paraguay played too.

Tonight I went to yoga and my teacher tried to burn my arms off. They are so tired I was having trouble scrubbing my dinner dishes.

I hurried home and fired up the Netherlands v Denmark game. Netherlands is another one of my favorite teams and Denmark looked great too. I watched the first 70 minutes and then used the FF because I need to go to bed.

I didn’t even see one minute of Cameroon and Japan. Sorry guys! I’ll watch the highlight show tomorrow.

Your reporter seems to have a touch of the crud so today’s report will be half-assed because my head hurts when I sit in front of the computer. (And I mean actual crud, not like from drinking too much and eating too much junk while watching soccer.)

Serbia v. Ghana

One of the commentators has taken a cue from me and described a player’s “blond mop” and suggested he looked more like he should be in a rock band. I can’t remember the player’s name but I agree, and probably a 70’s band. Judas Priest perhaps.

Also Serbia has a player named Stankovic. Also their goalie looks like Antonio Banderas.

Ghana was fun to watch. Their fans were very entertaining.

Algeria v. Slovenia

I watched this game last and didn’t get a lot out of it. I seem to saturate at 2 games. Slovenia has a sort-of Charlie Brown stripe on their jerseys. This was the first game of the day and the sun was shining in the stadium. The Slovenian goalkeeper had a baseball cap on to shield his eyes. I had about a half-second of disconnect when I saw the baseball cap: something looks wrong here.

Germany v. Australia

Both teams are extremely nice to look at. The only thing that would have made it better was if Michael Ballack’s face was on the German jerseys.

This was my main game of the day and it was a good one if you were rooting for Germany.

I like the Australian team and thought they played great in the last World Cup and I was a little bummed that they played so poorly today. And I though the red card on Australian Tim Cahill was a little harsh.

But Germany was fantastic. And it was nice to seem them do so well in their first game.

At one point the commentator make a remark about a yellow card and said at least the other team got a fruit cake out of it. I was like: fruit cake? I’ve never heard that lingo before. I knew they didn’t really get a fruit cake although it was a funny image, someone running to the other team with a fruit cake after yellow card has been issued. It took me a second to figure out he said: free kick. From now on I’m going to call free kicks fruit cakes.

Non-Soccer Tidbit:

Ben & Jerry’s has a flavor of ice cream called Magic Brownies. Raspberry ice cream with brownies in it. I’ve never seen it before and I had to buy some for Bob. I tried some last night. I could have eaten the entire carton.

Sheesh. It’s hard to roll out of bed and go straight to the TV for a game. I better get used to it.

I had time to make a cup of tea and I sat down right when the game started at 7am. My eyes were only half open during the first half.

At the break I made more tea and got something to eat so for the second half I felt more human.

Here’s a liveblog of the game. Scroll down to 24:19. There’s a hilarious photo of Mexico’s coach Javier Aguirre. He reminds me of a cartoon monster or something. I can’t quite place it. He also has a lot of tension in his neck.

I don’t have a lot of comments. Two good games. Lots of cute boys.

I hate the buzzing horn of doom:

The sound is from the vuvuzela, South Africa’s answer to the Thunderstick. By itself, it’s just a small plastic trumpet that probably cost less than a dollar to make and creates no known musical notes. But when thousands of people toot them simultaneously, you get a loud, incessant hum that makes the entire stadium sound like it’s being attacked by angry bees.

At least I’m not there in person.

Is it just me or did both sets of commentators seem obviously biased in favor of one team over the other? Aren’t they supposed to be neutral?

In the first game they made it sound like the Mexicans were assholes for trying to win. Yeah yeah, history, South Africa. I get it but it’s not like Mexico traveled all that way just so they could play a part in South Africa’s feel good story.

In the second game they kept talking about how whenever France tried to score, some Uruguay player would be in the way. I’m no expert but isn’t that the game? Damn those buzzkill Uruguayans not standing back so France could win. Near the end of the game the commentators conceded that if Uruguay managed to score, they would have earned it.

I wonder who will be calling the USA v England game tomorrow. I hope it’s not my mortal enemy Dave O’Brien Oh look, here’s the list. The Internet is the closest thing to magic we have. No Dave O’Brien. Dammit. It would have been so fun to complain about him.

Oops, more soccer coverage.

This is the highlight reel from the US v. Australia warm-up game.

Totally worth your time.

Edson Buddle A US player. This is the type of story I LOVE during Wold Cup.

Here’s a clip of Spain v. Poland in a warm-up game.

A lot of people ask me what team I’m rooting for. I love the sport. I want to see any great game.

My top two teams are Germany and USA.

After that, I love a lot of European teams: Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal and my sweetheart team: Spain.

I love South America, especially Brazil and Argentina.

I love Central America, especially Mexico. African teams are always exciting.

I try to watch every team at least once.

I’m in love with the whole thing.

I thought the game started at Noon but at 11:00a I had my brunch fixins spread out on the counter and laundry half sorted for the wash and the dishwasher open and half emptied and I thought I’d turn on the TV real quick to just see and turns out we were already 5 minutes into it. I didn’t even have my Italia soccer jersey on.

I abandoned everything I was doing because soccer must be watched. You can’t finish emptying the dishwasher and come back later because you might miss something.

About 15 minutes into it I decided that I could not listen to that imbecile Dave O’Brien for one more minute and I wanted to try Univision. But I didn’t know what number it was and I scrolled through the channels and saw something in the 700s that said World Cup so I clicked on that and it was the high definition channel. We don’t have HD but it was widescreen and it would have been nice to know that existed about 63 games ago.

It still had yammering Dave but apparently when you put your TV on HD the remote control takes on a life of its own and me, being on the slow side, had to click every button and remove the batteries to try to troubleshoot the problem with zero results. So now we’re 20 minutes into the game and I’m overwhelmed with anxiety because my remote won’t work and I can’t manually change channels back to the original broadcast because it will take too long and I might miss something critical in the game.

Finally at the half I got out of remote hell and switched to Univision for the second half. Univision is awesome. Even though my Spanish vocabulary is limited to words you find on a Taco Bell menu, I felt like I understood exactly what they were saying. Plus they were so excited about it. And the commercials were way better, too.

The highlight of the second half was when Zidane went down with an injury around the 80th minute and Cannavaro stepped in front of the camera and adjusted his shorts (rear view) which involved hiking way them up for an excellent leg/butt view. I almost passed out. They should make a calendar of that.

I don’t know what to say about that whole Zidane red card business. Sorry way to end a career. I don’t care what the other guy said. Also I meant to mention earlier that I don’t like those blue Italy uniforms. That dark blue swatch around the arms looks like a big pit stain. At least they won. Yay, Italia.