jamespr's WebLog : Soccer

MEDC World Tour : Day 2, Berlin (June 4th)

jamespr — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 16:00:00 GMT

We arrived in Berlin yesterday evening and were met by an extraordinarily polite driver to take us to our hotel. He gave us a flavor of the history of Berlin, which of course is best known for "The Wall". As a born and bread West Berliner, he had some strong (but still polite) opinions of how the wall coming down has changed Berlin. Even though the fall of the Berlin wall was a moment of great positive moment in history and represented to some the fall of communism, it seems that in Berlin it had a negative impact. According to our driver, there is still a great deal of distrust between East and West Berliners. The influx of people willing to receive lower wages has changed the financial climate of Berlin meaning that many young people are trying to move away after studying in the city.

I haven't seen the remains of the wall yet but we did drive past a church bombed during World War 2. For me, that really brought home how terrible war is and how lucky I am that I've never lived somewhere in active conflict. Seeing what I expect was once a magnificent building as an empty, broken shell was most sobering.

After settling into our hotel and freshening up from the long journey, Robert, Sean and I set off in search of food. Unfortunately for Sean and Robert, I happened to switch on the TV and discover that there were Football/Soccer World Cup qualifiers being played across Europe so I diverted us to an Irish Pub in Europa Center. How is it you can ALWAYS find an Irish Pub? We caught the second half of Eire vs Israel which was quite a match. Lots of theatrics from the Israeli goal keeper to waste time which backfired somewhat when the 4th official awarded 7 minutes of extra time - I think I once saw 8 minutes but 7 is extraordinarily unusual.

After the football, we set out to find some food. We settled on Italian.

Euro 2004 and "Soccer"in the US

jamespr — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 19:44:00 GMT

With the European Championships going on in Portugal it's not an easy time for a Soccer fan to be living in the United States. Fortunately I've been able to watch some matches on Pay Per View including England get mugged by France and England play Switzerland.

I was talking to some golleagues about Euro 2004 and was explaining how the residents of participating countries are living, eating and breathing football until the tournament is over. Then it occurred to me, I couldn't think of a sport in which the whole of America gets behind a single team. So Pop Quiz ... what sports do Americans united behind their national team?

Spurs ... now I'm scared

jamespr — Sat, 24 Apr 2004 05:59:00 GMT

Yuck, one point in eighteen and my soccer team are slipping toward the relegation zone. For anyone who doesn't understand the English soccer leagues, it's split into four divisions. The top division having the best teams and the most money. Spurs have had an AWFUL run of games and are just 6 points behind the drop zone (bottom three teams). I'm watching the rest of the season from behind my hands.

Spurs Crashed Out of the Cup

jamespr — Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:34:00 GMT

It's been a while but I couldn't talk about it for a while. Spurs were beaten 3-4 in the FA Cup in a remarkable match. We went into the second half 3 goals up and Manchester City had had a player sent off.

We lost 4-3.

They scored in the last minute.

That's why they call it the beautiful game.

Looking on the bright side we've been unbeaten since and have scored 11 goals in 3 matches.

Spurs Draw Manchester United in the Fifth Round of the Cup

jamespr — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 01:22:00 GMT

I guess the title says it all. Assuming we can get past Manchester City in our Fourth Round replay we get to face the big one - Manchester United - in the next round. That's not as doom and gloom as it sounds. Anyone can win on a cup day and that's the beauty of the FA Cup. I mean, what other professional sports competition pits Chelseas $180m worth of stars against Scarborough, a cold windoy town in the North East of England? Add to that the fact that the Scaborough pitch is like a mud bath and that the Scarborough players are only semi-professional footballers and are carpenters, electricians and policeman the rest of the time and you begin to appreciate the beauty of the FA Cup. On this occassion Scarborough couldn't be the giant killer and could only manage to lose 1-0. Still, by rights they should have been thrashed 20-0 so in many ways it's still a good result. For more on the FA Cup draw visit :

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=289525&cc=5739