Fuzz In My Pockets News

Italy Coach Marcello Lippi: "This is the most satisfying moment of my life."
~ ~ ~ ~
The World Cup Final
Italy 1-1 France - Italy wins 5-3 on penalty kicks after the game & extra time ended in the tie score.
Match Reports:
-Grahame Jones for the Los Angeles Times
-Camille Powell for the Washington Post (Excellent!)
-Steven Goff for the Washington Post
-Jere Longman for the New York Times
-Craig Smith for the New York Times (on France's sense of embarrassment)
-Roger Cohen for the International Herald Tribune
-Rob Hughes for the International Herald Tribune, on Zizou and the meltdown
~ ~ ~ ~
Du Nord Man Of The Match: Marco Materazzi
-Easy to hand out. He gets called for the foul that drew that first PK for France, which turned out to be kind of a dive by Malouda. Then he gets redemption by blasting that driving header into the back of the French net to tie the match. Later he provokes Zidane into that bizarre and wicked headbutt. And finally he bags one of the game-ending & World Cup winning PKs himself. I hate the man, but cannot deny his massive influence on the championship.
~ ~ ~ ~
As much bile as I have spewed at Italy over the past month, I have to let it go today and say congratulations. With all those insane distractions going on it's obvious that it drove the players closer together and molded them into a very tight team. As far as I am concerned Fabio Cannavaro deserved the Golden Ball. So du Nord will give him the award on our behalf.
~ ~ ~ ~
Beyond all that, I just sit here and watch this over and over again, asking WHY? (from the BBC feed)
-And here is an angle that was not shown on TV that clearly show MM spouting off.
~ ~ ~ ~
Then they still gave the Golden Ball to Zizou. Obviously the voting took place before the final, which makes no sense to me at all.
~ ~ ~ ~
Seems like the perfect time to bring back an old chestnut. (Thanks BQ)
~ ~ ~ ~
See the best goals of the World Cup (from FIFA). Including, my hero Fat Ronny scoring his great "step-over" goal v Ghana. Maxi Rodriguez's "chest-trap and volley" game winner v Mexico. Clint Dempsey hammering home the only USA goal of the tournament v Ghana. Joe Cole's fantastic "chip-shot" goal v Sweden. And to me (the best of them all) Esteban Cambiasso's goal for Argentina v Serbia & Montenegro - sadly you don't get to see all 24 passes-in-a-row that Argentina connected before he hit it, but it's still special. (Post & Link Fixed - thanks to all of you who tipped me off to the errors.)
~ ~ ~ ~
Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald sums up the USA's portion of the tournament: Just a bad World Cup
~ ~ ~ ~
This is a must read article! Oakland A's Owners Lew Wolff and Mike Crowley (behind bringing MLS back to San Jose), and their baseball teams General Manager Billy Beane attended the World Cup in Germany for 10 days. Beane enthusiastically shared some of his thoughts with the Bay Area newspaper the Contra Costa Times. "Without question the best sporting event I've ever witnessed. Nothing else is even close." Very good stuff!
~ ~ ~ ~
MLS games this past weekend:
-Houston 3-1 Chivas - Preston Burpo finally has a poor game in the Chivas goal and Houston makes them pay dearly with 3 goals that could have been avoided.
-Columbus 0-1 DC - Eskandarian blasts a free kick through a terrible Columbus wall for the only goal, and then later Eskie gets involved in a little-kids-bumping-and-shoving-match that gets him ejected! Foolish! Columbus left it way too late to mount the comeback.
-Dallas 2-1 New York - Dallas keeper Dario Sala made several huge saves to keep his team in the lead after they had scored two great goals and then seemed to go to sleep defensively. Both starting strikers for Dallas went down with injuries during the game - Carlos Ruiz did a number on his hamstring, and Roberto Mina messed up his knee.
-Chicago 1-2 New England - Dempsey & Ralston combine with footwork magic for the first NE goal. Twellman uses his reputation to draw three defenders and then applies his own back heal trickery to free Andy Dorman who cranks home NE goal #2. Nate Jacqua curls home a gorgeous goal for Chicago. After that the home team pours on the pressure with shot after shot, but cannot find a way to even the score.
-Colorado 1-0 Kansas City - Clint Mathis rises from the dead to score in stoppage time and hand KC their 5th game without a win.
-Los Angeles 2-0 Salt Lake - 3 straight wins, 4 straight clean sheets. Frank Yallop is proving that he knows how to get the job done. Also, this is the third straight match with the same line up, something Steve Sampson could not grasp as being important even when you are losing. As far as RSL is concerned, how does their coach John Ellinger have a job today? Salt Lake are terrible.
~ ~ ~ ~
DJ Walker with his always awesome Stream Of Consciousness writing from Saturdays Dallas v New York match.
~ ~ ~ ~
I also want to point out that Los Angeles' second goal against Salt Lake developed because of absolutely fantastic defense played by LA's two forwards Hercules Gomez and Landon Donovan who applied tons of pressure and forced RSL into a terrible pass which Josh Gardner picked off and easily slid home. This should be a training video on how to play defense from the front on back.
~ ~ ~ ~
Columbus will play English team Everton on July 26. You can see the match on ESPN2 at 6pm central time.
~ ~ ~ ~
The Washington Post with a feature story on DC United first year midfielder Devon McTavish (is that an Irish name or what?).
~ ~ ~ ~
First Division weekend scores and an upcoming match:
Montreal 1-1 Vancouver
Virginia Beach 2-2 Puerto Rico
Atlanta 1-0 Virginia Beach
Rochester 1-2 Charleston
Toronto 1-0 Charleston
Tuesday
Montreal v Toronto
~ ~ ~ ~
The Struggle, The Youth, The Hope - the Washington Post with a video story on where the USA is at, where we need to go, and how to get there.
~ ~ ~ ~
Lastly, I got an email with a World Cup joke from an old friend (Hey Mike!) who said he heard this on Conan O'Brien's show during the cup: "Actually, Mexico snuck into the 2nd Round through a hole in the fence."