Miscellaneous Ramblings.... - Soccer

Euro2008 Starts Today!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sat, 7 Jun 2008 10:59:53 -0500

After many months of waiting and qualifying ( and the disappointment of England not qualifying), the Euro2008 tournament starts today. Another month of solid soccer watching on tap.

Adobe Lightroom 1.3.1 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:43:38 -0600

During the process of discovering that I was woefully behind in my picture developing, I found out that Adobe had released Lightroom 1.3.1. Changes include updated Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard support, problems from the 1.3 release fixed as well as additional camera support for the Canon 1Ds Mark III, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, and the Olympus E-3 as well as other new camera models.

Note: For those putting picture galleries on the web, JAlbum has also been updated to 7.4.1.

ManU: (Rightful) Champs Again!!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 6 May 2007 12:32:00 -0500

After biting my nails for the last 10 minutes of the Chelsea vs Arsenal match (which was very good - Chelsea fought to the bitter end), I want to say a big Congratulations!! to Manchester United for taking the EPL title!

2006 World Cup Comes To An End :-(

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 08:12:00 -0500

After months of waiting and anticipation, combined with a solid month of frenzied game watching, the world's biggest sporting event has come to an end. Needless to say, there were plenty of highlights (combined with some low points ) that make the Fifa World Cup the sporting event that it is.
One of the nice additions was the discovery of the World Cup Blog website. Every soccer match had a live blogger constantly giving a (often times very humorous) minute by minute commentary on the game. In addition, fans following the game from around the world could leave comments as the game was in progress. Kind of like being in a pub attended by people from around the globe (for better or worse ). Since I didn't have the funds to be in the FanZone in Berlin, this was a much cheaper alternative - definitely added some different perspectives to watching the game.
Some of the high points:

Germany's (new) offensive style of play
Watching Lionel Messi's (Arg) awesome dribbling skills
Seeing the resurgence of Zinedine Zidane (magical!)
Entertaining 3rd place and Championship games
US vs Italy match (at last the US showing some mettle)

Some of the low points:

Too many cards (anyone remember the Portugal vs Netherlands game?)
Too much diving and playacting
Seeing Zinedine Zidane get red-carded in the final game (you can bet the French papers will be talking about that for awhile)
Brazil getting knocked out in Quarterfinals (didn't see that coming)
US vs Czech Republic match (prayed that wasn't coming)

(Can't weigh in with the best games of the tournament yet, as I still have a couple of games left to get through on my {very hard-working} DVR).

USA's Third Match - Well.....

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:24:44 -0500

The US entered their third and final group match needing to beat Ghana and also have Italy beat the Czech Republic in order to advance to the second round. One of the two aforementioned objectives were accomplished - can you guess which one?
Again, in this game, the US put up a valiant effort (although I will be wondering until the 2010 World Cup why Eddie Johnson wasn't brought on earlier, especially with the US needing to score at least two goals). That very dubious call (which resulted in a penalty kick for Ghana) at the end of the first half certainly didn't help matters, but you certainly can't blame losing the game on that. One of the immediate fallouts from the US World Cup exit was the official retirement of Claudio Reyna from international soccer. I liked Claudio very much as a captain (very nice passing skills, something the US has really needed) and will miss seeing him in the US national team uniform.

USA's Second Match - Awesome!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 19:39:00 -0500

Needless to say, I was very proud of the spectacular effort that the USA team gave during the match with Italy. They showed tremendous heart and fighting spirit, especially being down to 9-men versus Italy's 10-men (the less said about the referee during this game, the better).
Now if US can only play that way against Ghana this coming Thursday......

{Of course, it didn't help matters that I was watching this match while the central air conditioning was out in my house - not to worry; the temperature only got up to 88 degrees }

USA's First Match (back to the drawing board) :-( !!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:27:40 -0500

What goes up, must come down....
At least that statement goes part of the way to describing how I felt about the results of the USA vs Czech Republic game today. Unfortunately, the US came out very flat. There were some good attacking chances for the US, but most of them came after Eddie Johnson was introduced as a substitute. The Czech Republic didn't play particularly well either, but they were able to capitlize early on two mistakes by the US which put them up 2-0 at the half.
Probably the most entertainment that I got out of the game was reading the World Cup Blog match play by play. Unfortunately, things will not get any easier for the US as they face Italy next - let's hope the US energy level dramatically increases in that game.

2006 World Cup: HDTV Style

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 9 Jun 2006 09:23:00 -0500

Today I had my first opportunity to view a soccer match in HDTV and in the words of my British friends: it was "feckin' beautiful"! To add to the charm, it was the very excellent Germany vs. Costa Rica match; a very well played attacking match with some superb goals scored (my personal favorite was the Torston Frings 40 yard rocket).

2006 World Cup Starts Tomorrow!!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 8 Jun 2006 07:30:54 -0500

After months of waiting and anticipation, the world's biggest sporting event gets underway tomorrow, with host Germany playing Costa Rica in the opener (unfortunately, it looks like Germany will be without one of their top players, Michael Ballack).
The USA doesn't start their cup play until June 12th.
In the meantime, here is a nice slideshow from the BBC showing the World Cup fever sweeping England.
(For the more IT-inclined out there, here is a group of interesting articles on what is needed, IT-wise, to run the World Cup).

Arena Announces US Squad for WC 2006

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 2 May 2006 08:33:34 -0500

After months of appraising players, Bruce Arena (US National Team Coach) has announced the 23-man roster that will be going to the World Cup in Germany. For the most part there were few surprises, but I was definitely surprised to see Brian Ching picked over Taylor Twellman (and so were some of the soccer pundits as well). However, I was happy to see that both Clint Dempsey and John O'Brien made the cut. Both of the players have some intangibles (Clint Dempsey: skill and no fear at dribbling at defenders; John O'Brian: very good penetration passes) that is usually in short supply.

Top 10 Signs That You Are An Avid Soccer/Futbol Fan

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 9 Apr 2006 06:23:00 -0500

Top 10 signs that you are an (overly?) avid soccer/futbol fan:

10. You can recognize the home stadiums of all the teams in the league.
9. You can easily name off the top six European leagues (English Premier League, Spanish Primera La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, France Ligue 1, Holland Eredivisie).
8. You start to recognize the various referees in the different leagues.
7. You can tell which league you are watching just by the uniforms of the referees.
6. You are familar with both the away kit and home kit of the teams.
5. You know the difference between the Champions League and the UEFA Cup (as well as what it takes to qualify for both competitions).
4. You know the nick-names of all of the teams in your favorite league.
3. You can name the managers of the all the teams in your favorite league.
2. Your Tivo/MythTV/DVR box disk is full with recorded soccer programs.
1. You have refitted your entertainment center (HDTV) to be (properly) ready for the 2006 World Cup.

Soccer Exhibition Matches: US National Women's Team Appearing!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 06:30:00 -0600

It looks like I'll finally get to see the US Woman's National Team live.
They will be playing an exhibition match against Sweden on July 15th at 5:00 pm CDT at the Blaine National Sports Center (it will also be broadcast live on ESPN2). (Also, Canada will be playing against Sweden on July 18th at 7:30 pm CDT).
These exhibition matches will be occurring as part of the annual Schwan's USA Youth Soccer Tournament.
You can go here to order tickets directly from the National Sports Center (this bypasses the Ticketmaster per ticket surcharge).

Firefox (2006) World Cup Toolbar

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 2 Feb 2006 11:04:00 -0600

In honor of the upcoming 2006 World Cup, I would like to provide a link to the Firefox World Cup Toolbar Extension. It has a search bar that allows you to search either the web or the FIFA web site. It also has a scrolling ticker with the latest Soccer news (of course ) as well as a handy "Go to" drop down menu button which contains direct links to Group Standings, Final Draw, etc.

HDTV Deadline Has Been Met ;-)

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 06:18:00 -0600

I have met my soccer world cup deadline of acquiring a digital TV. I am now the proud owner of a Sony 40" LCD KDL-VX40BR1 TV. After much debating between Plasma and LCD (and finally settling on LCD), this was the model that I had started to take a closer look at.
I don't have all of the outputs hooked up yet, but obviously DVD and Digital Cable (will take care of getting the HDTV box this week) have been hooked up. The DVD clarity (Apollo13, Lord of the Rings, etc) is pretty inspiring. The Standard Definition signal is OK (but not so bad that it is unwatchable, like I have seen on other big screen TVs).
Next items to purchase: matching TV and stereo stands.....
(what a Merry Xmas so far - much better than purchasing a furnace like I did last year )

P.S. My niece gets some credit for agreeing to go with me to look at TVs this weekend.

Willkommen USA Soccer Team (to the "Group of Death")

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 9 Dec 2005 16:39:00 -0600

The FIFA World Cup draw was held today, and the US got drawn into the "Group of Death" (for the non-soccer fans, the "Group of Death" is traditionally the toughest group of the eight groups).
Needless to say, it is going to be hard for the US to repeat 2002's feat of getting into the quarterfinals, with both Italy and the Czech Republic in our group.
(But) Go USA !!