FanNation

SoccerNation Summer Shootout Tourney

Hey guys I have decided that I need to go ahead and get some of this mess sorted out.  I also would like to announce to you that thebasketballguru has decided to let the winner of this tourney be the Rep. for soccer on the FanNation Guru Tourney.  This is going to be huge and the winner will enjoy the experience and will TD against the best of the best.  Here are the people that I have so far signed up:

1. Keeper

2. Stauff

3. jeevs

4. Bigalke

5. ctsubasa- Who does the naturalization of Brazilians hurt the most? The Brazilian natl team or the players from the other countries where the naturalized players evolve?

Can Romania do it?

Tomorrow is the day of truth for all 3 of the 4 Group C teams.  And for that other team that seems to crush everyone (Holland), this day will be huge.  Whoever the Dutch end up finishing ahead of is very important because they could end up playing that same team one more time in the Semi-Finals.  The reason I feel that the Dutch really have to watch it is simple.  For an example, I will use the NFL.  Do you remember when the Giants played the Patriots at the end of the regular season?  The Giants came out and then didn't back down to the Pats.  Even though the Pats won the game, the Giants put all kinds of pressure on them and in doing so they proved to themselves that they were a great team and this ultimately this led them to the Super Bowl.

Wonder Match in Zurich

Oh my, what a match between Italy and Romania!  The first match was all open-ended stuff.  The Italians were trying to use their big man Luca Toni for headers while the Romanians were countering quite quickly and often.  The Romanians also used set pieces well but at the end of the first half all I could say was Lobont and Buffon.  The two keepers came up huge time and time again.  But we were going to have to wait until the second half to see how this one turned out.

Vastic goes on a Beer Run!

Today, I have been pleased.  Not because Germany lost or Austria got a last second draw, but because of the biggest referring decisions in the history of the European championship.  As I had stated in an earlier blog, I am fed up with people pulling and pushing all over each other in the box on corners and free kicks.  I applaud the official for this move by calling the yanking down of an Austrian player.  As I have said before, this behavior isn't needed in football or really any game.  To me, this is right up there with diving and pitching hissy fits the whole game.  After this I will certainly hope that teams will quit the crap.  If a couple more refs will call this, we will see a stop to this and we will be back to the old way of fair corners. 

Alarming Signs at EURO 2008

In this short blog, I'm going not going to be looking at any fancy stats and I'm definitely not gonna use any big words from what is really a very small vocabulary anyway.  Rather, I'm just going to get to the point even though my technical communication style throws me off track.

One big thing that is bothering me is the refs.  It isn't really the referring that is bothering me, it is just how the refs are calling these games in one particular area of the field.  Now, today in the Italy/Holland match the ref let a whole lot of stuff go.  Now that doesn't bother me but what does bother me is that all the refs are way too different in these big tourneys.  One ref goes to the book quick, one waits, one doesn't call anything, one calls everything.  This isn't Lakers/Celtics, I don't want to get into this but I will.  FIFA, or UEFA, or whoever is really controlling the ref situation should step up and make these refs call the status quo in every match.  Everything doesn't have to be at one extreme but it should be somewhere in the middle.  If this can't be stopped these tournaments will end up ruined much like the WC match between Portugal and Holland in 2006.