Nice efforts, Brazil and England

I can't even begin to imagine how badly the brazilian team will get slaughtered in the media after their awful 1-0 loss to France. I just hope one writer out there writes the "DON'T HIRE CARLOS ALBERTO PERREIRA TO BE THE NEXT USA COACH" and somebody at US Soccer reads it and takes their advice. Absolutely terible. The greatest attacking talent we've possibly ever seen musters up zero offense against the aging, everybody-hates-each-other French, and what's worse, the Brazilians looked and acted like it was a meaningless friendly.

As for England, they didn't disappoint me. Before the game, Kathi's boyfriend Flo asked me who I favo(u)red. I told him, "Well, I want England to win....but they usually lose in the best way possible and I can't take my eye of it, so I wouldn't mind that eithyer." Of course, this England game (or most England games) would have been better watched in a condensed highlights package instead of sitting through 120 minutes before the inevitable penalties. The highlight was easily Wayne Rooney getting a red card for stamping on a Portugal guy's genitals (giving Portugal a one-time only free pass out of the overreaction to a foul jail). At first, I thought it was for his harmless shove on Man U teammate (and alleged not close friend) Cristiano Ronaldo, who has a good career carved out as England's villain for the next few years at least. But the replays exhaustively showed Rooney's stomp over and over to the point where the only man you'd wish that on was Rooney himself (and maybe any Italian player).

The penalties were gripping, and it was predictable that England would lose. I figured it was because they had the worse goalie, Paul Robinson, who tried to take flapping for the ball to a new level (note to any European club looking for a goalkeeper: why not look at Americans more? We can actually catch as a people) and reinstilled the point that English goalkeepers are generally in a poor state. But it was the poor penalties taken by Lampard and Gerrard. Neither team really wanted to win, but England showed their heart and wanted to lose just a little bit more. Cristiano Ronaldo (who's Ronaldo name is great because his dad admired Ronald Reagan and named him after the former president) sealed the deal and accepted a sentence of years of hatred from English fans. On a side note, David Beckham wants to come to MLS in 3-4 years. Great, I'm really looking forward to that day. That'll be wonderful for the league's product on the field.

The game was fun to watch at Fan Fest in Munich. It'll be the last one I'll be able to see there, but I have a lot of great memories: the awful Mastercard cheerleaders that perform at halftime of each game, the video of Pele saying "Munich, you are great!" and the wonderful selection of all kinds of food and beer available, not to mention fans of so many different teams. Which I should add, I'm disappointed in myself not for going back there after Brazil-France and laughing at all the German fans wearing Brazilian flags and with their faces painted. Ahh, four more years.