Beckham Beats Ecuador
England 1, Ecuador 0.
I probably should have known this, but England's national anthem is "God Save the Queen." (Well, I did know that.) What I had forgotten was that it is set to the same music as "My Country Tis of Thee." When it began playing, I was like "Land of the Pilgrim's pride"? That's weird. Oh yeah, duh.
It was not quite as exciting to watch The Great Beckham play as I'd hoped it would be. Evidently, he's not so much a great football player as he is a phenomenal kicker. Beckham can put the ball where ever he wants when ever he wants. This is what it means to "Bend it like Beckham." I am very proud to say that I witnessed this mighty bending skill today on my second day of football watching.
The experts weren't too sure who was going to win going into the game. It was in the low 90's in Germany today, so England was expected to wither in the heat during the second half. Ecuador had to face playing in Germany's "heavy air" since many of them are used to playing high in the Andes. (Though at least two of them play in Qatar - a tad hotter than Germany.) In contrast, it was 70 degrees in London today.
Again, one team seemed to outshoot the other. This time it was England making all the goal attempts. The only one that found the "back of the net" (don't I sound like a real football fan?) was a free kick from Beckham. He kicked over the wall (of guys) and made the ball drop just into the corner of the goal. The Ecuadorian Kepper was nowhere near the correct spot to catch it. Becks was just a little happy about it.
Not long after this shot, Beckham found a nice little spot in the middle of the field and heaved up his lunch. The match continued around him. ABC replayed the moment a couple of times. It was nice and initmate - just Beckham and 2 billion people.
England advances to play the winner of today's second game, which is ...
Portugal 1, The Netherlands 0.
So again, I had to decide who to root for. I sided with Holland because I flew through there on my way to and from Moscow. No better reason, right? And their fans seemed so happy, all decked out in orange.
Well, that happiness did NOT extend to the field. 4 players got red carded. And I found out that these red carded players can not play for the next round of the World Cup. If their team advances to the next level, they can come back in. I also learned that a player does have to get a red card if they already have a yellow card. And the yellow cards from one game stay with the player through this round. (The next round being the semi-finals.) But the good news is that one of Portugal's best players, guy a named Deco, was red carded. England won't have to face him.
But wow, you should have seen how crazy this match was. Players were fouling each other all over the place. There were yellow and red cards flying all over the place, a record setting 16 in all. The ref looked like he didn't know what was going on. Guys would flagrantly foul each other and then their teammates would come up and head butt another opponent. It was dirty. Thankfully the fans didn't get in on the action. The commentators seemed to think that this ref wouldn't make it to the next round. I wonder how he'd feel about getting his very own red card?
Here are a couple of shots:
That's gonna leave a mark
Oof
Get up, you faker
I also learned that while the match clock technically doesn't stop for any reason, lost time is accounted for in the end. At the end of each half, they add back an unspecified number of minutes to account for the time spent giving out cards, throwing players out, breaking up fights and getting injured players off the field. In the previous three games I'd watched, I'd seen them add between 2 and 3 minutes. They added over 6 minutes to the end of the second half because so much time was used up with silly antics.
Hello, my name is Horse N. Buggy. I think I'm addicted to soccer.
I probably should have known this, but England's national anthem is "God Save the Queen." (Well, I did know that.) What I had forgotten was that it is set to the same music as "My Country Tis of Thee." When it began playing, I was like "Land of the Pilgrim's pride"? That's weird. Oh yeah, duh.
It was not quite as exciting to watch The Great Beckham play as I'd hoped it would be. Evidently, he's not so much a great football player as he is a phenomenal kicker. Beckham can put the ball where ever he wants when ever he wants. This is what it means to "Bend it like Beckham." I am very proud to say that I witnessed this mighty bending skill today on my second day of football watching.
The experts weren't too sure who was going to win going into the game. It was in the low 90's in Germany today, so England was expected to wither in the heat during the second half. Ecuador had to face playing in Germany's "heavy air" since many of them are used to playing high in the Andes. (Though at least two of them play in Qatar - a tad hotter than Germany.) In contrast, it was 70 degrees in London today.
Again, one team seemed to outshoot the other. This time it was England making all the goal attempts. The only one that found the "back of the net" (don't I sound like a real football fan?) was a free kick from Beckham. He kicked over the wall (of guys) and made the ball drop just into the corner of the goal. The Ecuadorian Kepper was nowhere near the correct spot to catch it. Becks was just a little happy about it.
Not long after this shot, Beckham found a nice little spot in the middle of the field and heaved up his lunch. The match continued around him. ABC replayed the moment a couple of times. It was nice and initmate - just Beckham and 2 billion people.
England advances to play the winner of today's second game, which is ...
Portugal 1, The Netherlands 0.
So again, I had to decide who to root for. I sided with Holland because I flew through there on my way to and from Moscow. No better reason, right? And their fans seemed so happy, all decked out in orange.
Well, that happiness did NOT extend to the field. 4 players got red carded. And I found out that these red carded players can not play for the next round of the World Cup. If their team advances to the next level, they can come back in. I also learned that a player does have to get a red card if they already have a yellow card. And the yellow cards from one game stay with the player through this round. (The next round being the semi-finals.) But the good news is that one of Portugal's best players, guy a named Deco, was red carded. England won't have to face him.
But wow, you should have seen how crazy this match was. Players were fouling each other all over the place. There were yellow and red cards flying all over the place, a record setting 16 in all. The ref looked like he didn't know what was going on. Guys would flagrantly foul each other and then their teammates would come up and head butt another opponent. It was dirty. Thankfully the fans didn't get in on the action. The commentators seemed to think that this ref wouldn't make it to the next round. I wonder how he'd feel about getting his very own red card?
Here are a couple of shots:
That's gonna leave a mark
Oof
Get up, you faker
I also learned that while the match clock technically doesn't stop for any reason, lost time is accounted for in the end. At the end of each half, they add back an unspecified number of minutes to account for the time spent giving out cards, throwing players out, breaking up fights and getting injured players off the field. In the previous three games I'd watched, I'd seen them add between 2 and 3 minutes. They added over 6 minutes to the end of the second half because so much time was used up with silly antics.
Hello, my name is Horse N. Buggy. I think I'm addicted to soccer.
1 Comments:
It's really funny that you're into "football".
It's even funnier how happy a grown man like Beckham can get over a game...
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