Soccer for the U.S. Sports Fan - American Rules -
| 'Super' Mario Gomez of Bayern Munich/German Nat'l Team |
After the Champions League semifinals, Germany has become the obvious choice to win the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Typically, in world Soccer circles, the European countries get more adulation and favoritism among critics than the South American countries.
As it stands now, each NBA playoff team has an idea of who they play in the next round.
Some teams are still battling in the first round, but the second round matchups are set up in a firm tournament format. The one seed plays the winner of the 4-5 seed matchup, while the two seed plays the winner of the 3-6 winner.
Once upon a time, Spider-Man lived on the Soccer field. The years were 2003-2005. He lived through a magical, goal-scoring forward who played for the Ecuadorian National team, a team that eventually made it out of group play in the 2006 World Cup, only to lose 1-0 to England in the round of 16 on a Beckham free kick.
30-Somethings are dominating the NBA these days. They're everywhere, making their presence felt in crunchtime.
Almost every team in the 2013 playoffs has at least one 30 year-old plus player making a difference:
Ray Allen, Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem, Chris Anderson, Shane Battier/Miami Heat, Jason Kidd, Pablo Prigioni/New York Knicks, Kevin Garnett, Jason Terry, Paul Pierce/ Boston Celtics, Kirk Hinrich, Carlos Boozer/Chicago Bulls, Chauncey Billups/LA Clippers, Tayshaun Prince/Memphis Grizzlies, Kyle Korver/Atlanta Hawks, Andre Miller/Denver Nuggets, Nick Collison/OKC Thunder, Pau Gasol, Antawn Jamison/LA Lakers and Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Matt Bonner, Tony Parker/San Antonio Spurs.
Dwayne Wade is day to day with his knee, but it shouldn't matter too much versus the Milwaukee Bucks. The Heat are expected to dispatch the Bucks in game 4 and await the Brooklyn Nets/Chicago Bulls winner.
The Nets/Bulls series could go the distance of seven games as many 4 versus 5 seeds playoff series do.
Customer service is the fabric of society. The fundamentals for customer service have been firmly established in the United States for the retail, restaurant and hotel environments. People have a good idea for what is pretty good customer service and the not so good customer service.
The Youth Whisperer Handbook-18 Applications to Improve Behaviors in Young People has been published and is available for purchase.
Zach Greinke of the LA Dodgers is scheduled to make 21 million dollars salary this season. A.J. Smith was his catcher Thursday night when Greinke plunked Carlos Quentin of the San Diego Padres and Quentin subsequently charged the mound, ending up breaking Greinke's collarbone.
There is a lot of research suggesting being gay is hereditary. Interestingly, much of the research has been conducted on subjects assuming their parents as heterosexuals (see Epigenetics Underlies Homosexuality).
The results have indicated strong gene links from parents will cause a son or daughter's sexual orientation and tendencies (see Chromosone Linkage Studies on this page).
What happened Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the first legs of the semifinals of CONCACAF Champions League confirmed what many pundits already thought: Mexico's First Division, Liga MX, is a higher quality soccer league than MLS.
Two of the top Mexican clubs went in as visitors to play the Seattle Sounders and LA Galaxy and each won their respective match.
Hercules Gomez, the rising U.S. National Team star, booted in the only goal to help his club, Santos (Laguna) of the Mexican 1st Division, win the first leg of its Semifinal in CONCACAF Champions League.
The Seattle Sounders fared well at CenturyLink Field Tuesday night, but the biggest highlight belonged to Gomez.
The first report from the 1250am ESPNSA Radio show 'The Blitz' was that Manu Ginobili would be out 3-4 weeks and would miss the rest of the regular season.
Later in the show, the two deejays, Jason Minnix and former All-Pro Dallas Cowboy linebacker Dat Nguyen, chimed in with more 'breaking' news-saying a source was indicating that Manu would be retiring at the end of the season.
The Miami Heat are working towards quite a feat in trying to break the record for most consecutive wins this season. The record of 33 games was set by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers.
If they get the record and win this year's championship, the Heat will undoubtedly be recognized as one of the greatest teams in NBA history.
On a day when four Texas college basketball schools had a chance for an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament, it turns out none were able to win their respective conference title game. Texas went 0 for 4 on Saturday and more than likely 0 for Texas for the tournament.
It went down like this.
The year of parity in college basketball seems to have skipped over the state of Texas. The schools in Texas are below the average of the average.
It doesn't appear any Texas major school will make it in. Baylor, Texas, A&M, Tech are all having down seasons.
Could it be the powerhouse state will be without any entries in this year's tournament?
Both the Sounders and Galaxy were able to put to rest last year's disappointing losses as favorites in the quarterfinals round of CONCACAF Champions League play with impressive aggregate wins in this year's quarterfinal rounds over rivals Tigres of Mexico and Heredia of Costa Rica.
