Uh oh, Franck Ribery doesn't look too impressed up there! Let's all pretend
that it's a major case of jet lag and Franck's failure to pick up the
David Luiz Book Of Hospitality. To be fair, it must be dreadful stuck in a
training camp where you're forced to sing Birthday songs to the President, train in the sweltering
heat and not get to fist pump on the streets or wherever you'd like!
The Christmas break is over. This can only mean one thing: it's now time to put down the
panettone and get back to calcio! The Serie A season resumed this weekend – and no
holiday hangovers here; there was no shortage of action!
Perhaps still recovering from jet-setting-induced jet lag, Milan and Juventus, the league's
joint leaders, both seemed to be struggling to get back into the swing of things with difficult
wins against Atalanta and Lecce, respectively, on Sunday.
BEM-VINDO aaao Selecao Bootcamp, a tradition we have on the Brazilian National Team.
There are only two ways to get by the next few days soldier on and take it like a
man (boring) or spice it up and go crazy, David Luiz style! Of course, everybody
prefers the second one, especially when they'd rather be at home doing gloriously fun things like
barbecuing on Anderson's front porch in a sarong (here's looking at you,
Fabio!
I am in Philadelphia tonight for Real Madrid's third and final pre-season game in the U.S. The
team has been training hard in California and they have flown 3,000 miles to a very warm
Philadelphia for tonight's game.
More than 50,000 tickets have been sold for this game and the parking lots are full of Real
Madrid fans with them all anticipating another convincing Real victory tonight.
So, I know its a bit late, but I figured I'd get a short review of the season up (even though
its a season, one of many, that I would ultimately like to forget about)..
I guess it would be most appropriate to start from the beginning though in all honesty, I can
barely remember much from the first half of the season!
If off-season alterations surrounding the 2011 Premier Development League campaign for Baton
Rouge were not apparent before, this weekend saw both the squad and its supporters face them
properly. After two seasons in the Southeast Division of the Southern Conference, the club has been
returned to the Mid-South from which it began in 2007, playing principally Texas-based sides as
opposed to the Southeast's cadre of Florida teams.
This segment is a weekly recap of some of the more interesting, relevant, and entertaining
Revolution news as tweeted by members of the MLS world and, naturally, the Revs themselves.
This week, we have some pre and post game tweets from Shalrie Joseph, some airplane etiquette
with Zak Boggs and Darius Barnes, and some congrats to send out to the Alston family.
New York Red Bulls 2, Chivas USA 3
Chivas USA certainly surprised a lot of people. The New York Red Bulls were coming off a midweek
game against the NASL's Montreal Impact in which they lost 1-0. Heavy legs were evident , however
what seemed to hurt the Red Bulls the most was the lack of sharpness.
Rongen and his staff address the troops before training ... check out the new gear
Warming up under the watchful eye of strength and conditioning coach Robbie Elliott
A view from the stands
Cooling down in the ice tubs to help shake out the jet lag, and for a couple of players, jet lag
combined with 90 minutes on the weekend
To watch the U.S. team at training this afternoon, you wouldn't have thought they had gotten off a
plane less than nine hours earlier. Lots of energy, lots of tackling, shooting and great goals in
the 4 v. 4 along with plenty of sliding around on the wet surface. Rachel Buehler channeled her
best Wayne Rooney to score a cracker of a goal to end the drill, sliding to rifle a shot into the
upper right corner.
[caption id="attachment_1461" align="aligncenter" width="610" caption="Goalscorer Silva seems to
agree with me in his lack of excitement..."][/caption]
I think I would have preferred if we lost this match.
Not only because it would have been fairer on our opponents, but because a win conceals the fact
that we had a pretty crap match against an inferior rival.
Another day, another friendly, another possibility for embarrassment.
[caption id="attachment_1446" align="aligncenter" width="412" caption="And we've got posters and
everything, how exciting..."][/caption]
World Champions Spain will face Colombia today (Wednesday 9th of February at 21:30 CET) for the
first friendly of 2011 at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid.
After a less than impressive showing in the 4th round of the FA Cup on Sunday the Arsenal host
the Toffees at Ashburton Grove tonight in one of a seemingly interminable series of "must win"
league fixtures. After two helpings of Yorkshire pudding the FA Cup will now allow us to sample
some jellied eels at Brisbane Road.
Heather O'Reilly goes airborn to volley past Nicole Barnhart
Today was best described as "yuchy" in Chongqing as the U.S. team actually trained under
snowflakes. It wasn't sticking on the ground, but for part of the practice, it was in fact snowing
on a cold, dark and wet day in central China.
During the U.S. team's walk in the afternoon to shake out the legs and get some cool air in
order to help fend off the jet lag, there were some youngsters setting off firecrackers on the
street. The boys tried (and failed) to scare the U.S. players (not good on either their covertness
or fuse-lighting timing).
