A Sports Report

I have a guest commenter today. Her name is Char and she made me have chills today. And then she made me cry. I hope there are more happy tears this afternoon. I'll be watching. 2:30. Go USA!

Here is Char's sports report:

Three Minutes.
I was 3 minutes away from never watching soccer ever, ever, never again.

Setting the scene.....USA's last World-Cup group-round game aired live in the morning of a work day - so I DVR'd it. The first 2 USA games also were not at convenient times in our life schedule, so they were recorded. I eventually watched both of them in their entirety, but each several days after the fact with the knowledge of the outcomes. I enjoyed them both, and enjoyed not stressing over the result......however for game 3 I wanted to experience that stress. Believe it or not in this day and age, I successfully managed to avoid the internet, avoid work colleagues who know what real football is, and avoid the radio on the ride home. The mumblings about a possible earthquake that afternoon nearly caused me to buckle on the internet thing - but, I held out..........

So here we go, wilson (the cat) and I sitting down 11 hours after gametime to watch Game 3. USA had draws in our first 2 matches, so we pretty much needed a win to advance out of the round. Algeria had good defensive possession skills - and a few really good chances to score.......but in general, USA looked stronger and had more good chances. But none were going in. Scratch that - one DID go in, but the ref ruled it off-sides. A replay showed conclusively that Dempsey was NOT off-sides, so for the second game in a row - USA had a legitimate goal recalled. And in both cases it would have been the go-ahead goal.

At the end of 90 minutes, the score was nil-nil. 4 minutes would be added of stoppage time. The other simultaneous group game also nearly over, and if both results held, USA would be knocked out. Going home. Without a loss. With consecutive games of bad calls that would have resulted in 2 wins, and winning the group overall. How could I ever invest any more time watching a sport that allows such injustices to occur? Now in 3 more minutes I'd delete the recording, and permanently block the DVR from ever recording soccer ever, ever, never again.

And then this happened:




when's the next game? :)

ps - perhaps I should block the DVR from recording tennis. This week one dude beat another dude 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68. (5th set is not a typo).