UNCLE CHRIS

My brother and his wife welcomed their first baby to the World on July 10th:


I am telling you, at 30 minutes old, this kid has a really strong grip:


Two days later, my best friend and his wife welcomed their second girl. This picture was taken at about 210 minutes old:

Paty might look like a natural, but trust me she is very nervous right now. Both the girls in this picture are probably a little nervous!

I guess Grace is a little nervous as well:

Brugge Weekend

Welcome to Brugge:

The land of canals and extreme backyard decks:

We spent our last weekend together in Belgium in Brugge. The city is called 'the Venice of the north'. That moniker is a stretch, but not much. The city is beautiful. While they still have cars in the city, the canals are an unmistakable mark of the city. This city used to be one of the biggest trading cities in Europe. From what I read, Brugge was the largest trading city in Europe for a period of 50-100 years in the middle ages. But the fact that it is about 10 miles inland on a canal from the North Sea was its eventual undoing. The canals leading to the city were rapidly silted over and most of the commerce moved to Antwerp instead. Thus the city's population declined by over 50% in a generation. What was left was a backwater city with former delusions of grandeur. And what for us the tourist is the most authentic Middle Ages town in Europe.

Brugge is a very manageable walking town, there is no metro. But to circle the ring road, essentially circling the city, would be about a one hour walk. A very good place to spend a weekend or two.
There are two main squares in the center of Brugge, both are very European town center type places. Some pictures:


Again, canals are a big part of this city. We took an intimate boat tour of the city. Paty, myself and 38 of our closest friends:


The canal has a thriving population of swans, pretty birds:

And every town in Belgium large enough to appear on a map has to have a traditional Belgium brewery. Shockingly enough, Paty and I found the one in Brugge. It was quite nice and the beer was really good. If you happen to find yourself in West Seattle at Casa de Tobin, you to can have a beer out of one of these glasses as I brought a few home:


Brugge also is home to a really famous statue. It is called Madonna and Child. This marble statue is in the church that has the really high spire you see in the background of a couple of these pictures. It is famous as one of the only pieces of art by Michelangelo outside of Italy. This is a legacy of the century of fame that Brugge enjoyed.

We watched the World Cup debacles that were England v Portugal followed by Brazil v France in Brugge. The atmosphere even in this little tucked away town was great for the World Cup games. Still an amazing amount of English fans everywhere. The English travel and support their team better than any country in the world. On Sunday morning after a late night commiserating both the England and Brazil loss, this is what we stumbled upon:

This guy is finishing second in the annual Brugge Marathon. It is safe to say that he was not among the people out reveling or lamenting the night before World Cup quarterfinals! Paty thought it would have been great if I did the race also. But as you can see from these pictures, there is about 40 pounds of me extra that would not have been pleasant to drag around the 26.2 miles.

World Cup thoughts

With the first two off days of the tournament upon us and only 8 teams left I figured it was time to give my thoughts on the first 48 games played.

First of all the Germans. They have fully embraced the tournament. This may come as a surprise to some (most) of you, but this was a big concern. No game did more for this tourney in retrospect than the 4-2 Germany win over Costa Rica to start the tourney. It set the tone for an offensive tourney. It also showcased a new ball that was the talk of the first week. Since then the players have adjusted and it seems so have the goalies. A lot more goalies are punching the ball clear or conceding corners instead of attempting to catch a knuckling shot. That is what this ball does more than any other in history. If you hit it solid, with no spin then the ball will knuckle. Witness the second Czech goal on Kasey Keller for a perfect example of this. But if you hit the ball with a curve it will curve, a lot. Probably slightly less than the Euro 2004 ball that you might have noticed has never been used since that one tournament. But that was the tournament that introduced this 'fused' panel technology. No seems on that ball or this ball. I have a feeling that when we resume league play, the Nike ball will still be used by most of the big leagues. It still curves when you curve it, but it seems to be slightly more 'fair'.

Speaking of 'fair', we come to the referees. While there has been a few games that have single handedly tried to make a mockery of the World cup; Italy v USA, Italy v Australia Penalty in the 93rd minute when there should have been zero stoppage minutes and the 16 yellow card TRAVESTY that was Portugal v Netherlands second round game all come to mind; I blame FIFA more for the refereeing problems than I blame the referees. FIFA instructed the refs to crack down on two footed challenges, dissent and time wasting. Is it a surprise to anyone that the debacle that was the US Italy game was witnessed by none other than Sepp Blatter himself, the king of FIFA. Do you think that the referee was trying to impress what amounts to his boss by following directives handed down from FIFA before the tournament? Because make no mistake, there are two competitions going on here; the one that the world tunes in to watch is to see who plays in the finals, while the other is between the referees to see who is going to ref the final game. To achieve that pinnacle of their career the refs have to follow FIFA’s directives to the letter. Again is it any surprise that the US Italy game ended 10 v 9 men when you now know that the Uruguayan referee was just trying to impress his boss's boss's boss?

But I digress, on to the tourney.

In the early rounds we had some great games, Argentina's 6-0 slaughter of Serbia and Montenegro immediately comes to mind.

Mexico had an absolute gift of a draw starting off with Iran and then Angola. Then they were thumped by a depleted Portugal team that caused them to finish second in their group with only 4 points. Thus setting up the showdown, which they lost, with Argentina. This just goes to show you how important the draw is and how important it is to get one of the eight 1st seeds. The USA missed out on that seed by hundredths of points to Mexico. Too bad, we would probably still be playing with their draw.

Of the 16 teams to advance out of the group stages, 10 were European. This goes to show you how important the 'home continent advantage' is. The final 8 includes six European teams, with only Argentina and Brazil crashing the party. Of the eight #1 seeds going into the tourney, only Mexico and Spain are out. Spain lost a tough game to France in the second round. The only reason they met this early is France managed to only qualify second in their group with Switzerland, Togo and South Korea.

Of the eliminated teams, both Australia and the Netherlands deserved much better. The Dutch had a young attacking team; Robert Van Persie looked as good as anyone in the first stages of the tourney. While some people have criticized their coach and national legend, Marco Van Basten, how can you criticize the coach for the 16 yellow card and 4 red card debacle that was their second round game against Portugal. I don't think that any coach has a plan for 9 v 9 football.

The English have gotten an absolute gift by now getting to play Portugal without their field leader, Deco, their other central midfielder, Costinha, and without a fully fit Christian Ronaldo. This is the English's best chance to win the World Cup in our generation. Everything is lined up for them this year and a limping Portugal is a team they should beat. This is the World Cup where England has the right mix of players to lead them to the cup. A young stud forward that can create chances out of anything, Rooney. Beckham is still playing like Beckham, this will probably be his last World Cup as captain. But he is the undisputed leader of the team. Their main problem is that Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard are both great players that play basically the same position. This is a good problem to have. Their goalie situation has seemed to sort itself out, and the defense looks solid with John Terry and Rio Ferdinand. They even have cover if one of them gets in card trouble with Sol Campbell on the bench.Post match notes, England choked. That is the only way to put it. Portugal looked lost without their Deco and Costinha. Portugal never really threatened until the very end, even when Englad was down to 10 men for the last 30 minutes and the 30 minutes of extra time. England had at least three golden opportunities to put open shots on frame and they either wiffed or hit them directly at the goalie. In what has sadly become a trend, Englad lost in penalties. They have lost 5 of their last 6 penalty shootouts in major competitions. By missing three of their four kicks, they missed more kicks on Saturday than Germany has missed in their last six shootouts combined over the last 30 years of major competitions. The bright spot for England was Owen Hargreaves again. He was the only one to make his penalty kick and he played great throughout the game. Maybe he was fresher then his couterparts, Gerrard and Lampard, due to a shorter Bundesliga season and less European committments. But whatever the reason, he looked like the most dangerous player on the England squad. I can't stress what an opportunity that England squandered by losing the pentaly kicks, becuase later that night Brazil was eliminated by France.

The only problem is that they have Brazil sitting in their way with a likely showdown in the semi-finals. This is a Brazil team that has EVERYTHING. Combined the starting team they are playing have over 800 caps. They have experience everywhere and young talent at every position backing them up. How would Brazil's second 11 do in this cup? I wouldn't bet against them. Their only pitfall could be sticking with an aging player or two when they have younger players with much more pace on the bench. Emerson has been an icon for them, but Gilberto Silva has shored up the defense when he comes in. They have won all four games so far and we haven't even heard from the FIFA and UEFA player of the year, Ronaldinho. Both of Brazil' central midfielders, Ronaldinho and Kaka, are 26 years old. The peak time for an international football career. And with Ronaldo playing more like Ronaldo than Rotundo, they are going to be tough to beat.

The Brazil v France game is not going to be a cakewalk for Brazil. France managed to turn back the clock 8 years and beat Spain in the second round. Zi Zi is still not done. And the last time they played in the World Cup it was THE WORLD CUP FINAL, France 3-0 in Paris 1998. So this is not a sitter for Brazil. That being said, every English fan will be cheering for France.

The game of the weekend is also the first game to kick off the Quarterfinals. Germany v Argentina. The way both teams have been playing, this could be the final. Germany is playing with an attacking style that we have never seen from Germany. Their defense is a little suspect, and I doubt that they will be able to contain Argentina's 'next Maradonna' Lionel Messi. The Polish strike front of Lukas Podolski and Miroslov Klose is going to create chances for Germany. With Germany's best player of his generation, Michael Ballack, behind this strike duo they are going to score as well. This could be the match of the tourney, but I am going to have to go with the home field giving Germany the edge in a 3-2 barnburner. Jens Lehman gives up two goals for Germany and is still talked about as the man of the match, he is the difference.
Post match update, the Germans did win as predicted, but the score was tied 1-1 after regulation and then they won in the penalty kick shootout making their first four shots, while Argentina went 2 of 4. Argentina's coach lost this game for them. They have the undisputed best young player in the World in Lionel Messi, age just 19, and he did not make it on the pitch for this game. This is a player that all year at 18 years old is a regular starter for Barcelona, the best club team in the world right now. Also, Jose Perkerman, choice to try and sit on a 1-0 lead and subbed in Julio Cruz instead of Messi or their other great striker in Saviola. Pekerman should leave the stadium in a cab because he has already been fired as the coach of the team. Watching the game it was pretty obvious that if they played 10 times with Argentina's attacking lineup, Argentina would probably win 8 times. But the Germans gutted out the win and were brilliant in the shootout.
Post, Post match update, Pekerman has "quit" within the hour after the game.
The other quarterfinal today is Italy v Ukraine. This should be Australia versus Ukraine. The Aussies really got a bad break whit that penalty call in the 93rd minute. Another question to raise is where did the 3 extra minutes even come from? When that was announced I turned to the Aussie sitting next to me and could not figure where that number came from. The second half had no injuries and no goals. If the referees did extra time right, then they would not have had to blow the game with a penalty three minutes after full time.

That being said, I think that Italy is going to win a snorer 1-0. The Swiss-Ukraine nil-nil draw after 120 minutes was the least exciting game of this tourney. Even the shootout failed to compel with Ukraine making 3 or 4 and the Swiss putting a bagel on the board in a World Cup shootout. Pathetic. Thus, the winner of the Argentina v Germany game is going to get a deservedly easier route to the final then the other half of the draw. Although Italy has still only conceded one goal, to the USA!
Post match update, the Italians won 3-0. Italy scored in the 6th minute and except for one flurry where Italy's goalie Buffon was all world, they did not look threatened. As soon as the little Ukraine flurry was saved, Italy scored the second goal with in the minute and the game was effectively over. GO GERMANY in the semi's. Neither Germany or Italy looked like cup winners today. I think both England and Brazil got another gift by having Argentina eliminated.

So to summarize, I have Germany versus Italy and Brazil versus England in the semi finals. If I have to pick a final I will go with Germany holding on against the winner of the other semi final, England. I do not envision the German losing a seim final played in Dortmund. That arena has more home field advantage than any other in Germany. It is called the 'concerthall of soccer' as 80,000 people are right on top of the pitch, no track to negate the noise. Germany is undefeated, 13-0-1, in Dortmund since 1930. Only because I think that the German players will take the home field advantage to heart. This is a team that the German nation has quite suprisingly embraced wholeheartedly.

Games in Cologne

We were in Köln for the Germany v Sweden second round game. This is where we watched the game. The atmosphere was crazy; the Germans really have now bought into their teams chances.


After Germany beat Sweden, it was Mexico's turn. So Paty did the quick change and we set out to find a beer hall with a good TV set up.

We found a great beer hall with a projector set up that was top notch. Since the German game had recently ended, the place was starting to clear out. So we secured a primo location. As game time got closer it got really crowded and we met some local Germans that we watched the game with. Continuing a theme of the trip, they were confused as to what an American was doing in Germany. They believe the stereotype that all Americans hate 'Soccer'.


The next day was the England v Ecuador game; I decided to don the US colors once more. This would lend my support to 'Ingerland' via association.

We decided to watch this game at the fanfest, as the English were out in force as usual. The atmosphere in the fanfest was great, until the weather turned what would charitably be described as ominous.


The pictures on the top are from just before kickoff, notice the team lining up on the screen. The picture below is from the 60' mark of the game as the TV went out for a few seconds just as Beckham scored the free kick.


Paty trying to find shelter under the beer trailer with the English before the onslaught:

About 5 minutes after these pictures were taken it started raining, HARD. For those of you that were at my wedding, we would call this Cancun Rain. Basically the fanfest almost completely cleared out. Part of that is because the lightning knocked out the TV signal for about 5 minutes. I think the organizers got the TV back up by basically using an antenna for the local signal as when they got it back up, the game was now in German and in widescreen format where before it was in HD and English. The fanfest quickly filled back up when people realized the worst of the rain had passed and the game was back on. We braved the storm packed into a coffee shop close by. But not before getting completely soaked trying to hide under an eve. There was no hiding as the rain was coming sideways, thus you almost needed to take shelter in a tunnel to be dry. Overall it was an extremely memorable night watching football in Germany with the English.

Cologne Post

I have been planning on doing a Cologne post for a while now, as we spent 8 nights in Köln (as it is called in German) on two separate trips.

Cologne is famous for holding the German version of Carnival, so the town is really set up to hold an event like the world cup and all that comes with it. There are walking streets everywhere and two huge squares. The squares are where they set up the fan fests. One fanfest was situated in the shadow of the Dom. The Köln dom is by far the largest building in Köln. It is said to be the third most important Cathedral after St Peters and St Marks. Here are a couple pictures:


Since the US was eliminated, I decided my new favorite team is whoever is playing France. Togo was playing France in Cologne on Friday night. Thus:



The inside:

Typical walking only street, part of the atmosphere. This was early in the day and so no one was around but later these streets were full until well after we had retired for the night:

The city is filled with beer halls, all the beer they serve is Kölsch style beer. It is really good, and pretty light. As we found, their marketing slogan should be: " Kölsch, the beer to drink when you are drinking more than one!" As we consumed tremendous amounts of the stuff and while it would definitely get you drunk, no one in our group ever got a hangover. One of the cooler things about the beer halls here is that the beer comes in small skinny tall glasses; most are 0.2 liters (about 8 ounces). This meant the beer was always fresh and cold. Very important during the heat wave that braced Germany for the duration of my time there. But they constantly exchange your empty glass for small ones. The only way you can get them to stop bringing beers is put your coaster on top of your glass to signal 'no mas'.

Picture of the fanfest with the dome in the background.

These people were pretty upset to lose to a girl and an American, but lose they did as we represented the table soccer players of America with dignity:

We arrived for the second trip to Cologne on Thursday afternoon. The same day that the US was going to take on Ghana. I quickly located an Irish bar that was going to show the US game and the Italy Czech game on separate screens. As this was the third match of the group the games were being played concurrently.
I was so excited for the game that I painted my face with red, white and blue stripes. Donned my US Soccer jersey, USA hat and tied my US Soccer warm up jacket around my waist.


Unfortunately, it didn't help.

One of the reasons for us to come back to Cologne was that Paty's sister Lucy and her husband Raul were there as well. He works for Coca-Cola and they were on a sponsors trip to the World Cup. They went to the Mexico-Portugal game and then the Mexico-Argentina game. We met them for Thursday night and all day Friday between their teams two losses. Although they might have witnessed the goal of the tourney in the extra time loss to Argentina.

Seeing Raul buying and wearing the fake hair to get in the festive mood is about as likely as Paty buying sunglasses at Wal-Mart, but it happened. Shows you how festive the mood was in Germany.

Being as the US was now out of the tournament I decided to adopt as my new favorite team, whoever is playing France. Thus:

Italy's opponent has now been added to my supporting list as the Australia result on a 93 minute penalty kick was lamentable.
Now since the French were taking on Togo in town on Friday, they were everywhere when we arrived on Thursday. We were having a few beers in the run up to the US game in a beer garden. There was a big group of probably stinky French supporters at a table near us. Someone kept making this rooster noise at random intervals. When ever the noise happened, all the French would stop what they were doing and cheer loudly. About 20 minutes after this sort of annoying us, I was trying to find whoever was making the noise and there it was:


They had an actual rooster with them! After that the noise didn't bother us so much, now it was only the French themselves.
The French have roosters, the Togoleese have stilts:


Overall, Cologne was a blast. We saw the Germany round of 16 game against Sweden from Cologne as well. I will do a separate post on that as this is getting quite long.

Australia Italy World Cup Game

I made it with no incidents from Cologne to Kaiserslautern. I parked the rental car about a 10 minute walk outside of what amounts to downtown Kaiserslautern and walked into the downtown area. I needed to find a hotel and game tickets.
This took me a total of 45 minutes, reaffirming my belief that there is always one ticket available for games.
This ticket cost me 200 Euros:

Unfortunately it was in the Italy section as the ticket says Federazione Italiana, and the name on the ticket is Giuoco Calcia. I guess I look like a Giuoco. Actually all the fears about your ticket needing to match your passport were overblown, it was never a problem.

The Aussies really showed up big time for this game. In the city and in the stadium I would estimate that there was at least a three to one Aussie to Italian fan. Now a lot of those fans could be displaced Americans like me or maybe Germans or English that just don't like Italy. But whatever the case, there were a ton of Aussies and the atmosphere before the game was incredible. Here are a couple pictures of downtown Kaiserslautern:

The Aussies had totally taken over this square. They were selling beer from four taps that I could see around this square. For the hour that I was here, I never once saw them turn off the tap. One cup would always be replaced by the next.

Now long time readers of this blog will remember that I thought that the US soccer fans came of age in this tournament. The same thing is true for the Aussies. This picture is of two Aussie fans with Hiddink 06 on their back. The front of the T-shirt has a shadow portrait of Hiddink's face. Now the impressive thing is that Hiddink is the coach of the Aussie team, not a player.

The city of Kaiserslautern has only about 100,000 residents. It is by far the smallest host city. But it is part of a bigger area called the Rheinland-Pfalz area. This is also the area where most of the German wine is produced. They are famous for Rieslings, but also make Pinot Noir and Sekt (champagne). The wine area set up this little wine garden in the middle of the warm up craziness. It was actually a pretty cool area set right next to this old church.

Being as the temperature was in the low 80's and muggy, I decided it would be a good idea to try the local Rieslings:

This guy was selling bracelets for 1 Euro each and while no one was purchasing, he would juggle. He was really good, I watched for a few minutes and not even a hint of dropping the ball.

Being a small city has it advantages for Kaiserslautern as the fan zone area was set up about one mile from the stadium. They called it the 'magic mile'. It was basically a one mile long party street with street vendors that everyone walked along to get to the stadium. They also had two fan fests set up in the city. The stadium is in the background on top of the hill.

Line up before kickoff. The anthems were cool again, but nothing like the USA game that gave me the goose bumps.


The Aussie official section, everyone has the jersey. Also, there was at least 2000 small blow up kangaroos. I was surrounded by Aussies in the official Italian section, again it was surprising how many Aussie supporters showed up. The lady next to me also paid 200 Euros for her ticket; she was Australian working in Riyadh that had flown up for the game.

Here is the rubbish PK that decided the game in the 93rd minute with a 1-0 escape for the Italians. The Italians really did not deserve this game at all. In person the PK foul looked like a dive, on the replay later it still looked like a dive. Tough result for Hiddink's crew.

This church is across the street from my hotel, the hotel that the Kaiserslautern tourist board found me is in the city of Landstuhl. Really close to Ramstein Air Force Base, a large American influence in this town. It was about a 20 minute drive from my parking spot in Kaiserslautern.