Day -495. WorldCup2018
I may be all over the place today with my thoughts. On weekends, Saturday's especially, I find myself thinking about what I'm going to write all day. With so much going on, I can't seem to decide on one thing. So here goes.
Aston Villa. I'll get this out of the way quickly and it comes with an admission and confession. Their promotion story is turning into another relegation story. After another loss today, the bottom of the Championship standings seem closer than the play-off spots. I can't tell you for sure as I cannot face actually looking at the table. I have so sub-consciously given up that late this evening I came across their result by accident. I was out all day with no opportunity to be online and even though I knew they were playing late today I completely forgot to check their result. This would not have happened prior to this season. It is a shocking state of affairs in my support for them.
In Italy, Napoli beat Bologna 7-1. It was their biggest ever away win in Serie A. Two players, Hamsik and Mertens, scored a hat-trick. The best part for me though was on social media. It really has added a fun, live dimension to football. This was the tweet from Bologna's English twitter account after the sixth goal:
"72' Ok come on now, we've had enough. Hamsik with a screamer for his hat-trick. You can take him off now."
And after the seventh:
"89' Nobody ever scores seven, it's unrealistic but sadly true. Mertens with the goal. Restart the console, TV or whatever."
It's better than actually watching! If you're on twitter look them up (@BolognaFC1909en). They play again on Wednesday.
Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. Why? Because it takes place on a Sunday. I'm not an NFL fan, mostly because I don't like the ratio of idleness to actual play and because it all seems so planned. The coaches, all 15 or 20 of them, are constantly drawing sketches of where their players should be and calling time-outs to let the players know that their right foot wasn't pointing in the right direction. I jest, you know, all you NFL lovers. It's not my thing but I know it is the best sporting day in the year for a lot of people.
The NFL draws massive crowds. So does the World Cup. But they are not the biggest crowd-pullers. They are both behind Rugby's Six Nations tournament which had an average attendance of 72,000 last year. Football is restricted by smaller stadiums but NFL's massive American stadiums attract less fans than rugby. Surprising, I think.
Burkina Faso beat Ghana 1-0 in the Afcon 3rd place play-off match today. It's the match that nobody ever wants to play and few care about but I knew this result before Aston Villa's. A sign of my disillusionment. Tomorrow Egypt play Cameroon in the final. My symbolic money is on the 44 year old hero. El Hadary.
I mentioned yesterday that television coverage of football in Canada is erratic and it depends on competing sporting events as to how much we get to see. Today was not a blanket football day across the two networks that show English football. One of them had curling all day on four of it's channels. Curling. All day. I do not complain. It's all to do with demand and where the money comes from. I know what country I'm in and I'm sure there were many who enjoyed a day of curling as much as I enjoy a day of football.
I've had hockey on in the background as I was writing this. Toronto vs Boston. From 4-1 to Toronto to 4-4, has now turned into 6-5 to Toronto with a minute left. I can only imagine how much fun the administrator of the Bologna twitter account would be having with this.
I may be all over the place today with my thoughts. On weekends, Saturday's especially, I find myself thinking about what I'm going to write all day. With so much going on, I can't seem to decide on one thing. So here goes.
Aston Villa. I'll get this out of the way quickly and it comes with an admission and confession. Their promotion story is turning into another relegation story. After another loss today, the bottom of the Championship standings seem closer than the play-off spots. I can't tell you for sure as I cannot face actually looking at the table. I have so sub-consciously given up that late this evening I came across their result by accident. I was out all day with no opportunity to be online and even though I knew they were playing late today I completely forgot to check their result. This would not have happened prior to this season. It is a shocking state of affairs in my support for them.
In Italy, Napoli beat Bologna 7-1. It was their biggest ever away win in Serie A. Two players, Hamsik and Mertens, scored a hat-trick. The best part for me though was on social media. It really has added a fun, live dimension to football. This was the tweet from Bologna's English twitter account after the sixth goal:
"72' Ok come on now, we've had enough. Hamsik with a screamer for his hat-trick. You can take him off now."
And after the seventh:
"89' Nobody ever scores seven, it's unrealistic but sadly true. Mertens with the goal. Restart the console, TV or whatever."
It's better than actually watching! If you're on twitter look them up (@BolognaFC1909en). They play again on Wednesday.
Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. Why? Because it takes place on a Sunday. I'm not an NFL fan, mostly because I don't like the ratio of idleness to actual play and because it all seems so planned. The coaches, all 15 or 20 of them, are constantly drawing sketches of where their players should be and calling time-outs to let the players know that their right foot wasn't pointing in the right direction. I jest, you know, all you NFL lovers. It's not my thing but I know it is the best sporting day in the year for a lot of people.
The NFL draws massive crowds. So does the World Cup. But they are not the biggest crowd-pullers. They are both behind Rugby's Six Nations tournament which had an average attendance of 72,000 last year. Football is restricted by smaller stadiums but NFL's massive American stadiums attract less fans than rugby. Surprising, I think.
Burkina Faso beat Ghana 1-0 in the Afcon 3rd place play-off match today. It's the match that nobody ever wants to play and few care about but I knew this result before Aston Villa's. A sign of my disillusionment. Tomorrow Egypt play Cameroon in the final. My symbolic money is on the 44 year old hero. El Hadary.
I mentioned yesterday that television coverage of football in Canada is erratic and it depends on competing sporting events as to how much we get to see. Today was not a blanket football day across the two networks that show English football. One of them had curling all day on four of it's channels. Curling. All day. I do not complain. It's all to do with demand and where the money comes from. I know what country I'm in and I'm sure there were many who enjoyed a day of curling as much as I enjoy a day of football.
I've had hockey on in the background as I was writing this. Toronto vs Boston. From 4-1 to Toronto to 4-4, has now turned into 6-5 to Toronto with a minute left. I can only imagine how much fun the administrator of the Bologna twitter account would be having with this.
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