mikl's socca madness is over

Okay, it's almost 2 weeks since my last post and nearly a week after the World Cup final, so I should give this some closure. The World Cup tournament has been held (almost) every four years since 1930. In 72 years and 17 tournaments only 7 nations have ever won the cup. This year after a tournament full of upsets and strong showings by teams with relatively little experience in the World Cup (South Korea had played in 5, including the last 4, but never made it past the first round; Turkey & Japan were in their second Cup ever; Senegal was in its first--all of them had very impressive showings), the final featured two of the biggest traditional football powers: Germany and Brazil.

Brazil defeated Germany 2-0. Brazil won (congrats to 6rady whose a 6razilofile) despite my enmity for them and the fact that I was doing that I'm crushing your head thing the entire time through all of there games. It really undermines my sense of omnipotence. drag.

Turkey & South Korea played a great game in the consolation match--one of the most enjoyable games to watch of the later rounds of the tournament in my opinion. It featured the fastest goal in World Cup history--Hakan Sukor scored for Turkey 11 seconds into the game. At the end the Korean & Turkish players linked arms and bowed to the 4 corners of the stadium, that was really something. The Korean & Japanese people were incredibly into the tournament, especially with the success of their teams. The Koreans, who made it all the way to the semi-finals developed a particular reputation. Anyway, I had a great month of watching it. The 2006 tournament will be held in Germany--the hours of the game will thus be a bit more manageable than the 11:30 and 4AM start times this year.

I've started kicking a soccer ball around myself again, for the first time in years. Though in the pickup game I was in on Sunday (after watching the new San Francisco Mime Troupe show in Dolores Park) I was schooled a bit; I guess if you don't play in 10 years or so it tends to affect your form.