/
My word, the always-excellent Phil Ball and I have certainly have a lot in common when it comes to our taste in football, especially the Spanish kind. Phil wrote his article Curse Busters about Spain’s victory over Italy on June 23, and I posted my commentary “Justice for All” a day before, and followed it with “Begging to Differ,” in which I point out why Jamie Trecker got it (and always gets it) wrong.

Really, check out Ball’s article. The man knows Spain and Spanish football in and out, and I wish I could have watched the game with him. Some choice quotes that mirror things I said in my posts:

* The great thing about Sunday night’s game is that the Spanish played it faithful to their own instincts about football, as did Italy to theirs. In the end, for a change, the gods of fortune got it right.

* The referee was also doing his best to don a white shirt and officially proclaim himself Italy’s 12th man. And as expected, Spain took possession of the game and tried to win it, whereas Italy made a few vague patterns in the centre of the field and tried to hoof the ball to the awful Luca Toni…

* At least [Spain] tried to play football.

* The Spanish are romantics, and prefer to indulge in beauty (or something approaching it) on the football pitch…

* Spain were trying to win. It was Italy who were cheating – constantly interrupting the Spanish flow…

And much much more good stuff. The only thing we disagree on was substituting Torres for Güiza, a move Phil liked and I did not. But that means I’m in total agreement with the other 96% of what he said. Further proof that certain journalists talk sense while other so-called journalists just talk…

In other exciting news (for me at least) I donned my boots and played my first round of pickup in about six months, since injuring my knee playing indoor. The PA and PT people I’ve been seeing since March diagnosed me with having patellofemoral pain syndrome, which basically meant my kneecap was grinding when under strain and causing the sharp pain. I’ve been doing specific exercises to retrain the muscles in my leg to get the kneecap back on track and things have been going very well. I still get jolts of pain now and then, but for the most part I’ve been feeling good while working out.

I have an appointment tomorrow and, since I’ve been ramping things up, I figured I should give it a little test. I played for about an hour with complete success—in regards to knee pain anyway. I’m quite rusty, my touch is poor, and I was winded within minutes. (Doing 30-45 minutes on the treadmill 3-4 times per week doesn’t get you in shape for the frequent sprinting soccer requires.) But I did have a nice touch once in awhile and scored one nice goal, and so I didn’t completely embarrass myself. We played 4 vs. 4 which is pretty intense and there’s nowhere to hide, and there were two guys who were considerably worse than I was so I didn’t feel too bad. The problem is that when the legs go, everything goes…and the legs go awfully quick at 34.

Anyway, I’m quite happy that things went so well and I’ll be interested to hear what they say at PT tomorrow…

Current Mood: Bushed but Happy |