Posted in Football/Soccer

Group of Death

One of the matches that a lot of people were looking forward to was the Germany-Portugal one. These are two of the teams in Group D aka the “Group of Death”. (The other two teams in this group are USA and Ghana). After all, Germany is one of the best national teams in the world (unfortunately, I am not exactly a fan of their team, honestly) and Portugal has the best player in the world (Cristiano Ronaldo, who helped Real Madrid win La Decima last month when they won the Champions League for the first time in 12 years). Well, it didn’t get of to a good start for Portugal. They gave away a penalty in the first 15 mins. Later on in the game, Pepe was sent off for headbutting Thomas Muller, which was a dumb move by Pepe. Germany was up 3-0 at HT. Portugal ended up losing two defenders to injury so Cristiano Ronaldo, who wasn’t 100% fit, ended up playing the whole 90 mins. It got worse for Portugal, Muller got his hat trick and Germany won 4-0. I know a lot of people will say that this proves Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t such a good player, but 1)he wasn’t completely fit and 2)his teammates weren’t exactly doing such a good job either, esp at defending. Next up for them is USA on Sunday. it’s just my bad luck that I will miss that match thanks to work *sigh*

The US also played today. They played against Ghana, who had beat them in both the 2010 World Cup and the 2006 World Cup. Over the last few weeks, leading up to the World Cup, people have been complaining about Jurgen Klinsmann’s decision to leave off Landon Donovan off the World Cup squad. Many wondered if the US had a chance without him. The US got off to a great start when Clint Dempsey scored within the 1st min. His goal was the fastest in US history and 6th fastest in a world cup. Unfortunately for the US, they ended up losing Jozy Altidore to injury, though they haven’t said how serious his injury is. The US was up 1-0 at half time. In the second half, both teams had more chances. Ghana brought on two very good players, Kevin Prince Boateng and Michael Essien. Ghana scored the equalizer with less than ten minutes to go and it looked like this match would end in a draw, much to the disappointment of USA fans. However, thanks to John Brooks, who was subbed on in the second half and playing in his first World Cup ever, who scored a header, the US finally beat Ghana. Game ended 2-1. Next up for the US is Portugal. Germany is at the top of the group, followed by the US, Ghana, then Portugal in 4th place.

Next match I will be watching is Brazil-Mexico. Looking forward to that. I hope the refs are fair this time and don’t favor Brazil. No, I’m not a Mexico fan, I’m just a football fan that wants to watch a good match.

Posted in Football/Soccer

My (Very Late) Reaction to Spain winning Euro 2012

I know the Euro 2012 final was 3 weeks ago, so why am I writing this now? idk, I meant to write his right after Spain won, but….I kind of procrastinated a little lol. Well, I guess I can write about it now. At least I;m writing about it in the same month 🙂 First of all, I was beyond happy for Spain, I love 80% of the team, like 15% of them, and the other 5%? well, the other 5% are Barcelona players =P lol I actually like Iniesta though.

 Although I had been rooting for Spain from the beginning, judging by the qualifiers, I really did think it would be Germany and Netherlands at the final. Despite this, I picked a Spain-France final. I was very shocked (but happy) that Netherlands didn’t even make it out of their group. I thought Germany would win the group (which they did) and Netherlands would be second. I’m happy it was Portugal who made it out of the group though. They have some players I like Cristiano Ronaldo, Miguel Veloso, Fabio Coentrao, and even Pepe (only cause he’s a Real Madrid player lol).

I was also surprised to see Russia lose in the group stage. I had picked them to win their group. Main reason I wanted them to go to the next round? Andrei Arshavin. I like him, he’s a good player, even if he is an Arsenal player =P I was disappointed that Sweden lost in the group stage. Esp cause Zlatan is one of my favorite players, even if he did leave Milan for PSG =( He did help Sweden beat France though, which I hated cause that meant Spain and France would meet in the QFs instead of the final. Can’t be too mad though, he scored a great goal.

I knew Spain would make it to the final, so that wasn’t too surprising. I was a little surprised to see Ital there, esp since they had to play Germany in the SF, I knew they’d be able to beat England, despite the fact that majority of the English players and media were all, Italy is going to be easy to beat -.- So glad Italy proved them wrong. It started off as a good final, unfortunate for Italy, that they lost a player due to injury and had to play 30 mins or so, a player down. Spain was incredible though. Idk which goal was my favorite- David Silva’s, Juan Mata’s or Fernando Torres’. Imo, they were all pretty great.

It was great to see Spain win, not only cause I like them, but I love what comes after a win. That’s right, their celebrations. Which means we get to see their airplane videos/pics, bus videos/pics etc. We also get to see them dancing, singing,  drunk Xabi, and much more. That day, and the few days after, I went on tumblr and twitter and saved so many pictures and videos of them haha it was a great day 🙂

Posted in Football/Soccer

Euro 2012 Eye Candy Part 1

Here are some of the footballers from the Euro that I thought were cute/handsome/good looking/hot/etc. Enjoy! 🙂 btw, I’m including players who were called up, but might not have played any minutes or played very few minutes while their team was in the tournament.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)

Joe Hart (England)

Ibrahim Afellay (Holland)

Fabio Coentrao (Portugal)

Miguel Veloso (Portugal)

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden)

Mats Hummels (Germany)

Andrei Arshavin (Russia)

Mario Gotze (Germany)