On Monday night, I sat in section 417, row 12, seat 7 at Yankee Stadium. It was a good game. Arod and Posada each hit 2 run shots, Ivan Nova pitched well through 6 and then the bullpen finished the game with 3 scoreless innings. Overall, it was a generally lovely experience. Except for the idiots and morons in my section.

Continue Reading

Via Darren Rovell’s Twitter comes this amazing new product, which may get rid of stadium beer lines forever. How does it work? Why don’t the cups drip after it’s done? Will it make the draught beers at MSG taste less like old cantaloupe?  I don’t know! But I am willing to find out.

-Section: 201, Row:BB, Seat:10

It’s the NBA Draft live from the Garden. I finagled a Credential. Yes, I am in the vast minority of people here tonight who will be using the word finagle.

So far, I’ve learned that I’m taller than Mark Jackson, Mike Breen, and Jeff Van Gundy. Also, Danillo Galinardi and his family are in a rush. They nearly ran me over coming in. At least I think it was them. It may have just been a tall, rude, European family.

Also fun: Watching fat old sportswriters flirting with the hot NBA communications staff, and thinking they have a chance in hell. The WI-FI sucks. It keeps knocking me off line, and my laptop battery says its about to die. We’ll see what happens.

Continue Reading

Started this game a few minutes late as I arrived from a side trip to a local attraction (have to see some of the historical attractions at some point). Then caught this first game in my hotel room while packing for my Salzburg train the next morning. Did not sense much action at the fan mile for this game either.

I mean should be a no brainer that France clobbers the one man team Mutu of Romania. Right? Well not so. Basically the French were surprisingly weak on attack, but then maybe that should not be a surprise. Without Zidane, they clearly don’t have many offensive threats in the midfield. Malouda is fast and has good professional experience, but he has no one to work with on the left. If he uses his holding midfielder Makelele; it is a lost cause. Great defender, but not a threat as a passer in tight spaces. Or crosses. Patrick Viera missing is another loss on the offensive front. And look, you got to love Ribery. He is very skilled and a workhorse, but he simply had no one to move the ball forward to without Viera or Zindane. France have strikers (Anelka/Benzema/Henry) to get the job done, yet they are lacking the set ups from the midfielders. Also, with Sangnol, Gallas, Thuram, Abidal (and Mak in front), they still have one of the best defenses in the world. As for Romania, let’s face it Mutu is all they have. The only reason why they got some chances in 2nd half was because France’s aging defenders got a little tired. Anyway, for France to have a shot to win the Euro this year, they need Viera back and have to replace Malouda with a better midfielder (say Flamini?).

Continue Reading

OK-so here I am in Innsbruck waiting to see what kind of football supporters Austria have-surprisingly quite a few came out, but they were like I expected. All cheers, had no real celebration, chants, or gimmicks. They looked like they just wanted to get dressed up a little bit, put a little paint on and go to a good party. The Croats, on the other hand, were coming out of the woodwork. Don’t know why there is a big community here (with game being played in Vienna). The Croats had some pretty scary haircuts but their women were pretty attractive. So the game was typically what I expected in the first 20 minutes. Croatia showed they have the midfielders and strikers that could move the ball forward at will and score not just a goal, but a pretty goal. Even though they ended up winning on a warranted PK, Austria got rid of the home opener jitters after 20 min. and exploited Croatia’s biggest weakness-DEFENSE. This is their Achilles heal and even Austria (who is ranked the worse team in Euro) showed how vulnerable they are. If Croatia, does not fix this, they will again dissapoint-even with all of the talent. They should still be able to get through with only Germany as other strong team in group.

Continue Reading

I/Footie Fan am in Innsbruck, Austria. Which will host some of Group D games with Sweden, Spain, and Russia. It the 3rd largest city in Austria and is located on a river that runs through the Swiss Alps.

Anyway, I arrived here on Saturday right before the 6pm game. The city has a organized a Fan Mile which is a street festival all throughout the major city streets, with jumbo viewing screens at certain squares.

Although Saturday’s opener were Group A games not played here; the streets were packed for the first game Switzerland vs Czech Republic. Although the Swiss are Austria’s neighbors to the east, the locals did not seem to care who won (you would think the 2 worst teams would have supported each other and are only in the finals due to hosting). In the first game, the Czech controlled most of the game but when Jan Koller was subbed the Swiss seemed to get the better of the Czech Republic and put a couple nice opportunities together that almost got them a point. The biggest event in this game is Alexendar Frei of Switzerland got injured (out for the remainder of Euro)-without him they have even a more impossible chance of getting through the group. He was the country’s only shot at scoring goals as they are a defense-only capable team.

Continue Reading

I’m off to Europe in a couple of hours for on-the-scene Euro 2008 reporting. I’ll be joined by our Greek soccer-fanatic contributor, who will be in different cities than me. I’m looking forward to the 30 hour flight and 3 transfers from San Francisco.

The tournament begins Saturday June 7th. Look for more international coverage here over the next two weeks.