Soccer is great

Soccer is great. It is the deepest of sports and can be enjoyed on so many level. I love the individual skill of players. The passion of fans. The unity of the teams. I love the management side and the tactical battle of coaches. The drama of send off's and player stouches. The ludicrousy of sudden gaffes. The celebration of victory. The glory of goals.

There's been some great football recently. First poor Boro got trashed 4-0 in the Uefa Cup Final. But it was 1-0 till the end, and had Viduka scored with his point blank shot which was saved, or been given what looked a clear penalty moments later, it could have been so different. In the end Seville then got another goal, and then 2 more quickfire to kill off the contest. It was great to watch from a coaching perspective too since the style of the two teams couldn't be more pronounced. Boro played physical, hard running, direct (long ball) football. While Seville were far more cultured and patiently built up intracate attacks based on team and individual skill 1v1.

Last saturday we played UC in Men's. They were nothing great, and we put together 2 good halves of football (opposed to 1 good, 1 bad in the previous two games) and won convincingly 5-1. I sooo almost scored the best goal of my life - striking a deep cross hard and true arrowing to the near post corner only to be hacked off the line. Oh well, next time!

The FA Cup Final was the pick of all the matches. Went down to the Trivia Night at the RSL before hand which was fun - I won the Moonwalk Contest! ;) Then charged off to Hawkins' to watch the game. It was pretty quiet at Adam's place, but the game was so good it wasn't quiet for long. 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3! And West Ham hearts were broken when Liverpool triumphed on penalties. High drama throughout, the underdog was never behind, and all 3 goals were poorly kept by Pepe Reina until he saved West Ham's terrible penalty attempts! Gerrard's 36yard stunner on the stroke of full time was unbelievable and will go down as one of the best FA Cup goals ever in one of the best FA Cup Finals of all time too!

Women's was a cruel re-enactment of that match, twice taking the lead, and twice pegged back by our frailty at corners! Oh well. A point is a point!

The Champions League Final promised to be an even better star-studded spectacular between the 2 most attractive teams in Europe! And it was, for 20 minutes. And then that silly fool Lehmann had himself sent off, and then the game as a contest of attacking football was over. Arsenal is too well drilled a team to not know what to do, and promptly closed up shop for the rest of the match while a decidedly lethargic Barcelona led by a largely ineffective Ronaldhino kept the ball and occasionally tried to attack. Henry on the other hand was magic for 75 minutes but eventually even his seemingly limitless reserves of stamina were drained at the end of a punishing season. None the less Arsenal were a worthy team and took the lead through a thumping Campbell header, and could almost have recorded a famous victory had Henry's early shots slipped past Valdes, or Ljungberg's late effort done so. In the end, Henrik Larsson proved his class from the bench, slipping in both exquisite passes to unlock the Arsenal vault and put Barca 2-1 up. Painful to watch, as Arsenal played so well and before the send off looked the better team.

Today, Men's recorded another big win, best so far, but in bizzare circumstances in a game that almost had it all! Jay got the scoring going, slipping the ball beneath their poor goal keeper. His second was a well positioned tap in after a shot was fumbled. Then Ian managed to score an own goal after finding himself heading the wrong way and unsure of what Hugh in our goal intended. After the break we created a host of chances but couldn't find the breakthrough. Tate headed over from within the 6 yard box after a spectacular cross, Pat also headed wide after a superb dead ball was delivered to him on the edge of the 6 yard. Eventually Croxy got a decent double, Tate forced a farcical goal past their hapless custodian, and then capped a display of increasing quality with a fine stabbed finish to our best move of the game involving 4 players playing clever hast triangles past the opposition from half way!

Tomorrow I head to Cooma for my first proper 'away' trip with Women's. Normally I would fancy us to record a comfortable win against this team new to the division and encountering difficulty in scoring so far. However they have the home ground advantage, which is rumoured to be a large field, with only 11 players and no goal keeper! The odds are considerably against a positive result, none the less - as described above, a great percentage of soccer is heart, passion and the will to win.

*****
I should add, there are disappointments too. Training this week was tough. The Men continue to react with hostility to new concepts, but are slowly and surely integrating it into their play. Women on the other hand had poor turn outs and are to inexperienced to understand the new tactical concepts at all. Also I got stomped once on each foot at men's training, despite barely participating at all, and the wednesday stomp managed to bruise my foot pretty badly and ultimately forced me to cut myself from the team card for todays game. Losing sucks. I've lost and deserved it this season. Last year my girl's lost on penalties after playing their guts out. And the lost at the same time last season after being 2-0 up and throwing it away in overconfidence and lack of passion. Any one of these could happen tomorrow :S and maybe, just maybe, we will have a remembered victory!

Bugger. We got done in 4-0. The girls played proudly though and went very close until the very end when the score blew out.

Karma

How can I not have a secreted belief in Karma? A nebulous concept, I cruise through life, afloat on a stream of many currents. I enjoy the ride and conserve my energy, looking ahead from time to time inorder to paddle furiously when my path strays down the way least desired.

A month or two ago all my bad luck came at once. Now I am riding high. It appears I arrested my slide into academic failure just in time. I decided not to spend $100 on new shoes, turned down another $100 for Aus v Greece tickets in Melbourne. And now that money will help fund the trip of a life time, our tickets are paid and receipted! Mum was trying to frustrate my efforts when she realised I might miss exams. I gambled and it paid off it seems. Exam timetable was released late this afternoon and my final exam ends at 11.30am Thursday 15th June, 3 days before Australia kicks off against Brazil in Munich on Sunday!

Imagine if I had have got tickets in the first round? I was considering dropping Uni this semester to save, but now it looks like I will pull off both goals!

Maybe it's not karma or fate. Maybe I'm just exceptional at finding the silver lining, preparing myself for all eventualities, and ready to bear the brunt of my mistakes on the chest and stay upbeat.

Yesterday after hearing the news all I could do was think of all the planning aspects. Now that the tickets are confirmed, my timetable is set - I know what lies before me and can finally get excited! And I am - very - excited now! I sure hope it is a perfect trip. For that I will have to work non-stop until departure, and study with every spare minute to make sure I nail those exams, cause there won't be any Sups to sit in Germany.

Dream Land

I'm sick. Couldn't sleep. Kept waking up to cough my lungs out. Early in the morning on jumps the news on the radio. Leeds are through to play-offs? Wow, I'll have to check that when I wake up.

Then the call comes. Mike? What does he want. World Cup tickets? Exqueeze me? He says he'll send me the email.

My mind starts turning as I get out of bed. Will I have time? How will I get the money? Sure enough sitting in my inbox:

The tickets for Australia's match against Japan have been exhausted so you will see from your invoice that you have been alloted tickets to the following first round matches:

Socceroos vs Brazil in Munich on June 18, 2006 &

Socceroos vs Croatia in Stuttgart on June 22, 2006

FFA Travel has until this Thursday to finalise all names for these tickets with FIFA so you have until midnight Wednesday May 10, 2006 to upload your credit card details or to cancel these tickets.

Wow.

Winning Ways

Winning is great. I love to win. Winning is great.
Men's started the weekend with a 4-1 win over Lanyon to get our first points on the board. The performance was good, but only just after we threatened to throw it all away at half time. Nonetheless something to build on.

Women's did even better. Completely dominating their opposition who beat us 4-2 last week in a meaningless friendly. 1-0 against at the break after they scored on one of only two counter attacks was harsh and I was hoping we wouldn't rue not scoring in the half we had the strong wind to our backs. But a cunning formation and style adjustment saw us take only 10 minutes to resume the domination and eventually put 3 past their amateur but born lucky goal keeper! Huzzah!

Incidently, the opposite feeling to winning, is doing the line, in the miserable windy, cold, rain. That sux!

I wonder if I can get both teams to Grand Final appearances this year... I've found my challenge.

Red is NOT the colour of winners

LOLS!

Athletes are superstitious enough as it is! Shame on New Scientist for encouraging that.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18625005.300.html

I don't know too much about rugby, but isn't it true to say that in recent times Australia (green and gold) followed by England (white w/red trim) have dominated Rugby? Certainly the All Black Kiwis have been amongst it too.

As for soccer, I do know a few things about that! Man Utd (red) has now gone 2 seasons without a trophy and got crushed 3-0 by the back-to back champions Chelsea (blue). It's true in the past English Football has been dominated by the Big Red 3 however (Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool). However the strongest teams in the other top leagues are often a mixture although there are certainly some reds. Bayern Munich (germany) has dominated forever and will continue to in red, however in Scotland the old firm of Rangers (blue) and Celtic (green and white stripes) have won virtually every trophy between them. Italy's top team is the Old Lady of Juventus (black and white stripes) however AC Milan is one of the greats on the game (red) however they consider their famous White away strip to be lucky and have won 4 of their European Cups in it! Also in Italy Inter make up the blue and black striped side of Milan (however it is true that they are the less trophy laden half, the same can be said of the red/blue divide of Man Utd and City in Manchester). Finally in Spain, despite red being the national colour, arguably the strongest of the European leagues is certainly not a sea of red. The great Los Meringues of Real Madrid are known by their brilliant all white strip (incidentally it was a tribute to a great english team of a previous era, and later Leeds, an english team would return the compliment by turning all white in honor of Madrid!). Current spanish top dogs, Barcelona are in the Champions league final in their customary Claret and Blue stripes. Valencia can only get as close to red as their orange wardrobe will allow, while past contenders Deportivo are decked in blue and white stripes! (that pun was worth of an english sports rag!)

The article goes on to describe the performance of Red teams at Euro 2004, a curious argument since that tournament provided one of the great under-dog victories when unfancied Greece (in white and blue) went all the way to the trophy! This and scoring 1-0 for virtually all their fixtures (extra goals don't count for extra points in football silly journo). While on the subject of national teams, lets look at the successful strip colours there! A simple run down of the list yields, Brazil, Czech Republic, Netherlands, USA (holy moly!), Spain, Mexico, France, Portugal, Argentina and England. In that top 10 the colours run, Yellow w/blue, White w/red/blue (this year Orange), Orange, White w/blue/red stripe, Red, Green, Blue, Red, White and Blue stripes, and White w/red (red away strip). Of the 2 red home strips, neither has won a major tournament, and indeed Spain and Portugal are forever reminded of this fact! Only England has won a World Cup (THE premiere sporting trophy) with red a predominant feature in their strip, and then only in their away strip! Italy, amazingly out of the top ten, are all blue this year.

Hope this works out any superstitions you had and will let you play your best in ANU's fabulous Blue and White!

JULIAN