Tag: Sports

  • UPDATED: Euro Cup 2024 – Day 1 to Day 4 – A Casual Fan’s Impressions

    We are now pretty much through the first round of Group Stage matches, and the Euro Cup is playing out pretty much the way I thought it would go. No huge surprises, or stunning upsets, but it is still early. As such, in my very casual fan way, here are my impressions of what has gone on:

    Day 1:

    Germany v Scotland

    There were two surprises in this match. First was the Red Card, which was deserved, but shocking that in the first game of the whole tournament a red card was handed out. The second surprise was the own goal by Germany, as it looked like they were about to complete a rout of Scotland with a clean sheet, but oops! In the end, Germany played like the home team, expecting to win the Cup.

    Day 2:

    Hungary v Switzerland

    Sorry everybody, I had errands that I had to run, so I missed it. I had a feeling Switzerland would win though.

    Spain v Croatia

    So, Spain has a chip on its shoulder and went out there to make a statement with their win. The story everyone wants to talk about is Spain’s 17-year-old starter Lamine Yamal, who got an assist in the match, and though he looks like a baby out there, he certainly knows how to play like a pro. What I saw was a squad that, like Germany, is expecting to win the Cup.

    Italy v Albania

    I was excited to see this Italian team, as they did win the last Euro Cup, for on the whole, it’s a completely different team. I think I read that only seven players remain from the 2021 team. I wasn’t very impressed with them, even though they did win. Now, either Italy isn’t as good as people say, or Albania is better than what most think.

    Day 3:

    Poland v Netherlands

    Thanks for nothing FS1! Sure, I would love to watch Euro 2024, but I don’t have FS1 so that didn’t happen. But, I was expecting the Dutch to win.

    Slovenia v Denmark

    Again, FS1 sucks. But, I was excited that Christian Eriksen got Denmark’s first goal of the tournament. (Eriksen was a Tottenham player, so I have a soft spot for the guy, and also, he had a cardiac arrest during the Euro Cup in 2021, which was shocking and scary as shit to watch happen live. Eriksen’s a fighter – recovered, returned to professional football, and earned a spot-on Denmark’s 2024 team.) But Slovenia tied the match. I would love to tell you more… but I don’t get FS1…

    Serbia v England

    This was the match I was looking forward to. I’m pulling for England, which might also mean that my support has doomed this team. I believe in the hype, and if you do that, then you left that match feeling a tad let down by the Three Lions. Sure, they won, but it wasn’t a rock-solid performance. Defense was shaky, and it looked like England had a hard time getting the ball to Harry Kane. Thankfully, Bellingham is there.

    Day 4:

    Romania v Ukraine

    Don’t know… As the match was on some channel that I don’t get… Romania won.

    Belgium v Slovakia

    Also, on a channel I don’t get. But was surprised that Belgium was shut out.

    Austria v France

    Looking forward to this. France has a good shot at taking the Cup, as they are always competitive. It’s starts in a few minutes, so I might update in a bit.

    UPDATE:

    Austria and France was the Euro Cup match I had been waiting for. That was fun and dramatic, heartbreaking for the Austria own goal, and then there was Mbappe getting a broken nose. If I was Austria, I would feel pretty good about myself, or as good as I could feel by losing to France because of an own goal. Austria played well against one of the best teams in the world, and they had several chances to score. As for France, I am sure they are holding their breath to find out had bad Mbappe’s nose is. I’m sure he’ll be back for the knockout stage, but then that means France needs to get to the knockout stage without him. Either way, Group D will be very exciting to follow.

  • I’m a Soccer Dad, Now

    This past weekend, the wife and I reached a huge milestone in our parenting adventure; we attended our daughter’s first soccer match. Actually, it was a mini soccer tournament between different elementary schools, which meant that we sat through seven, ten-minute matches. (It was co-ed teams that played five on five.) Though the day was colder than we expected, we had a good time watching, and the kid’s team came in second place.

    But getting back to the point – the kid is now at the age where she is playing sports that have games. This isn’t like the sports classes we put her in when she was little, where the kids learn how to dribble a basketball, or pass a soccer ball. Nope, she’s on a team that plays games, therefore these kids will experience winning and losing, and all the emotions that come with that. It is a bit of a rite of passage.

    And that passage has begun for some of the families there. When the tournament started, and teams began to be eliminated, kids started crying. By my observation; all the crying was coming from the boys. Even on my daughter’s team, when they lost the final by one goal, everyone was disappointed, but only the boys sat down and cried.

    My kid, and she is very competitive, wasn’t happy at first, but once the sting of losing wore off, she started getting more philosophical about the whole thing. She told us that second place was better than how the four other teams did, and getting to the final is pretty impressive. It also helped that she went home with a medal, which was her first, and is hanging up on her wall.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Playlists, Sports with the Kid, and Playing Pretend

    (When you stop believing…)

    I used to take making mix tapes, mix cd’s and playlists, very seriously. And on the flip side of that, I really treasured receiving mix tapes from friends. There is a shoe box of mine, packed away in our storage space, that contains a mix tape from my high school girlfriend, which is still the most eclectic collection of music I have ever been gifted. Having made mixes for close to thirty years, I admit that there are a handful of songs that appear on nearly every iteration I create. I have landed in a playlist rut, one of my own making, as you can only mix songs you’ve listened to, and if you aren’t adding material to the source to draw from, variety becomes stagnant. I should go back to listening to albums all the way through again.

    The kid wants to watch sports with me this weekend. College basketball would be the obvious choice, but you’d be wrong. She wants to watch soccer. She recently join a team and now wants to submerge herself in as much soccer as possible. The truth is I’ll take any extra time with the kid. I just need to find out if a women’s league is playing Saturday.

    I’m 47 and sometimes I still pretend that I’m in a rock band.

  • Making Brackets

    I don’t follow college basketball. Most years I couldn’t name a single college player, but this season I do know who Caitlin Clark is. Even though basketball is my family’s sport, I never was a huge fan, and I’m an awful player.

    But I do love March Madness, the NCAA Tournament, the whole thing. As I am writing this, I have the BYU v Duquesne game on; it’s halftime. For like a month, in my head, I am a basketball expert – I know everything! I understand the pick n’ roll, trap defense, what adjustments teams need to make at halftime.

    (Working from my bed this afternoon)

    Making my brackets is what really pulls me into this time of year. Yes, I did say brackets. I make a couple of them because the ESPN app is easy to use. The first one is my legitimate bracket where I do try to pick as many winners as possible. Then I do a fun one where I just pick stuff randomly. This year I added an all underdog bracket, and then I did an all top ranked bracket; I just wanted to see which bracket would do better.

    What I do miss is being in an office at this time of year. Mind you, I worked in theatre and arts organization offices so there weren’t many sports fans to begin with, but there were a handful of us. We few would make brackets, put them up at our desks, and help each other cover so we could watch games at our desks or in the break room. It was a fun time of year to getting away with not working.

  • Ode to the Cowboy Fan

    Did you see that game yesterday? That humiliating game where Dallas shit the bed to the Green Bay Packers? That game? Yeah, that was awful, and embarrassing.

    Ung… here comes another few years of rebuilding. Possibly a new quarterback and a new head coach. Which sucks.

    I get why all other NFL football fans hate Cowboy fans. Yes, we are cocky with nothing really to show since 1996. But we sure act like we will win the Super Bowl every year, and there is an endless joy in watching us Cowboy fans break down in tears in the first round of the playoffs, year after year, after year, after year…

    And I was angry at that Cowboy team yesterday. I sat through 18 weeks of a season, with solid play from the defense and uneven play from the offense. But through all of it, at least that team didn’t lose at home. Home field advantage meant something, and coming into the playoffs in ranked 2nd, all of their games, save possibly one, would be at home. No, nope, not at all… they choked. Time came to show up, and they all ran away…

    My friend had the best line last night; “Green Bay better go on to win the Super Bowl, proving that no team stood a chance.”

    I can respect that logic.

    But here I am, Monday morning after the worst loss in Dallas Cowboy Playoff history, and I am forced to muster the energy to mutter, “Next year… We’ll get ‘em next year.”