How Time Flies!

"On my planet, this is how we introduce ourselves."

Tim Holt and Pat Walsh, you guys are geniuses. The Vice President of the USL and host of "The Soccer Show," respectively, were the only 2 I spoke with who predicted an Italian victory a little more than a month ago. Give your selves a pat on the back, gentlemen, ya' done good. I didn't do too poorly myself, finishing 2nd overall in The Washington Post's fantasy challenge. Maybe I get a t-shirt or a hat...

As for the game itself, you can pretty much get a recap of everything form the hundreds of other papers and website, so I won't go into too much detail other than offer these thoughts:

1. Did the referees use the replay monitor yesterday to see what Zidane did to Materazzi? If they did, then they just introduced instant replay to soccer, something FIFA has yet to embrace. However, they might be forced to if the referees admit they didn't actually SEE Zidane assault Materazzi.

2. Zidane is an idiot for losing his cool once again (remember, he was suspended for 2 games in '98 for deliberately stepping on an opponent during a group stage game), but would France have even gotten to the Final without his amazing displays against Spain and Brazil? I think not.

3. When you have the best defender in the world (Cannavaro) as well as the best goalkeeper in the world (Buffon), winning a World Cup shouldn't surprise anybody.

4. Guys, keep your pants on!!! The last thing I really wanted to see during yesterday's celebrations was Gattuso's marble sack as he was jumping up and down. Imagine Shaq or Tom Brady doing that after winning a championship...the horror, the horror!!!

5. It wasn't a great game, but probably still the best one since '86 when Maradona and company beat West Germany 3-2.

So what do we do now? I'm not sure what to do with myself now that I don't have 3 games per day to watch. Guess it's back to the grind of MLS, which isn't so bad, especially since I'm covering a team like DC United, who don't look like they'll lose another game this season. Plus, I'm going to keep doing this blog. After today, I've got 1 more column in me about this Cup (the long-promised "coaching blunders" column), and after that I'll try to update this thing at least 3 times a week with various soccer news, insights, and stories you all have hopefully come to expect from me.

With that, let me give you my All-Tournament team. I'll go with a 3-4-3.

Goal: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy)
Defender: Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
Defender: John Terry (England)
Defender: Philipp Lahm (Germany)
Midfielder: Zinedine Zidane (France)
Midfielder: Andrea Pirlo (Italy)
Midfielder: Juan Riquelme (Argentina)
Midfielder: Michael Essien (Ghana)
Forward: Miroslave Klose (Germany)
Forward: Thierry Henry (France)
Forward: Fernando Torres (Spain)

2nd Team
Goal: Ricardo (Portugal)
Defender: Liliam Thuram (France)
Defender: Juan Pablo Sorin (Argentina)
Defender: Rafael Marquez (Mexico)
Midfielder: Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany)
Midfielder: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal)
Midfielder: Franck Ribery (France)
Midfielder: Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina)
Forward: Lukas Podolski (Germany)
Forward: Ronaldo (Brazil)
Forward: Arjen Robben (Holland)


See you tomorrow!