My entire week/month/year was made yesterday by the result of this penalty shoot-out in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League. The video is pretty cool, it is two teams from England - Liverpool in red versus Chelsea in Blue. I thought it would be interesting to some besides me. Oh, and, for some reason, the beginning of the clip repeats itself after it's finished, so don't let that confuse you. As a special bonus for the Will Arnett fans, I think that the first player to kick for Chelsea (Robben) resembles the hilarious comedian.
For an extended version that gives the back story of all of the tension right before the penalty shoot-out and features the Champions League theme song in all its glory, check out this version of the video.
From Google to 9/11 to the iPod to the UN to YouTube to school shootings, big things happen in this country that just don't happen elsewhere. Despite much anti-Americanism talked about in other countries' cultures, countless aspects of our culture are imitated around the globe. Despite this, there remains many things that separate us from other countries, differences that seem to be incapable of explanation, and thus attributable to American Exceptionalism.
I'd like to talk about one of those differences, but on a lighter note, since it's Saturday, so I will talk about soccer. This is the national past time of almost the entire world except for America. To the rest of the world it's referred to as football. From the start America wanted nothing to do with this game, so much so that we invented our own sport and called it football, even though there's only like one player per team that gets to ever touch the ball with his feet in that sport.
Soccer has been on the rise in the US due to the recent achievements of the US national team at the last two world cups. It should get another boost this summer when one of soccer's most famous players, David Beckham, makes the move from Real Madrid to the US, where he will play for the LA Galaxy (this is a team in the US professional soccer league, which is called Major League Soccer (The MLS) if I have lost you).
Now since Beckham is the best-marketed player in the world a lot of Americans probably think he is the world's best player. Of course, everyone knows he is a good player (some would disagree but let's be fair), but not the best (no would would disagree with this except maybe Posh Spice). So if we're not getting the best player in our league, we might as well know about who some of the best players are, if for no other reason than that watching them is extremely entertaining.
So this post is to provide you with a look at one of the truly best players in the world today (if you already know about this then it's a chance to look again). Last Wednesday in northeastern Spain a goal was scored that people will be talking about for a long time. This goal was scored by Lionel Messi, of FC Barcelona. Hear his name. Take a good look. This could be the day. Anyway, I'm not a sports commentator so I think I've done introduced it enough. See for yourself.
