I'm Taking Issue With Something, EURO is Done, and Donte Greene is Going to Outerspace

So, congratulations to the Spanish for their breezy, though partially-referee-aided victory over Germany for the chip yesterday. Torres' goal in the 33rd was all the scoring needed, although the Red Fury could have probably put in 3 more. No Villa was no issue for the Spanish, who seemed to have an easier time on the attack with the addition of Fabregas to the starting lineup, and switching to a 4-1-4-1 that let Torres poach more easily instead of having a focus on setting the table. Casillas was solid in net, and made his biggest play of the match when he put his hands in front of a cross that would have been an easy header for sub Kevin Kuranyi, aka Antoine Laconte, who also played defense like he was looking for the booking. Roberto Rossetti was helpful to the Spanish cause, as he seemed to let play go when Spain had fouled but was more stringent with the Germans. Rossetti did nothing to David Silva for his minor headbutt, but FIFA may take issue with it at a later time.
Donte Greene was a Grizzly on Thursday for a little while, but he ended up a Rocket. When he was a Memphis Grizzly, all I could think of was "Wow, what's going on at that bowling alley in Baltimore right now?" and "Can you imagine how stupid he looks as a one-and-done warming the pine for the Syracuse ALUM Hakim Warrick?" But then he got moved to Houston, where he will compete with Steve Novak for the right to back up Shane Battier. The sad part is that he will be sitting behind Steve Novak, who is a much smarter player and a way better shooter. So the joke is STILL on you, Donte.
And finally, to wrap up Post #101 ("DAMN YOU, MACINTOSH!"-Carl Quigley), I bring you this tidbit from another stupid ESPN promotion built to fill up time and hypnotize you slowly to join the ESPN army and take over the Western Hemisphere: Titletown USA! So, which town is the biggest winner? I could give a shit about it, although a bunch of motherfuckers from Boston will talk your ear off about the Sawx, C's, Bruins, and the Pats and a bunch of other ridiculous championships that I really could care less about. Anyways, San Francisco is entered into this 20-municipality fray, and ESPN user jcap24 wanted to share this tidbit about why the white side of the Bay is the best:

The San Francisco Giants have five WS titles ('05, '21, '22, '33, '54), 20 NL pennants, six West division titles, one wild-card berth.

A championship can only count towards your Titletown resume if it was won after the team moved to said Titletown, so the San Francisco Giants can take credit for 0 World Series titles, 3 NL Pennants, 6 West Division Titles, and one wild-card berth. With this, the WWL has to play judge and ask us to disregard all facts relating to events occuring before 1958, but like the bloody finger that the prosecuting attorney pulled out of his pocket, most people will remember this fact. Maybe a more democratic ideology will benefit the ESPN in that plot to take over the Western Hemisphere. More HD capabilities would probably help too...you know, with the whole hypnotizing thing.

The Battle of Dudes with Morristaches

As you can see from these Luca Toni and Iker Casillas faces, I have become an inspiration to world class footballers who decided to 'stache it for this final Euro quarterfinal. I like both players, but this match's Adam Morrison High As Balls at Rage Against the Machine's Reunion Show Faded Moustache Player of the Match Award goes to Casillas, who ended a pretty much completely boring game with two great saves of penalties by De Rossi and Camronesi. The Spanish seemed to outplay the Italians for most of the match. Toni was not very impressive in his poaching job, and for some reason, with Del Piero in for Aquilani and coupling up with Luca, Italian long balls were being directed towards the smaller and faster Del Piero instead of the taller, fatigued Toni.
(Side note: If Luca lets the 'stache bloom during the Bundesliga, we have to refer to him as Luigi, because Mario Gomez is already referred to as Super Mario).
So now, with three runners up and a very intriguing rematch of a group stage romp, I, your good friend Pappy Chalmers, after looking my friend in the eye and telling him Russia would come out on top right before kickoff, I try to make it possible for you to determine how to make a bookie owe you money with this complete bullshit analysis that Dennis Hopper probably uses so he won't have to depend on a drunk Mickey Jones to not put in a terrible bet:
Turkey vs. Germany
I spent my last fall writing a paper about the role of the Turkish population in Germany, where many are not allowed to acquire citizenship but fill many menial jobs in the German economy. Their role could possibly change if they are able to upset the German side on Wednesday, but it will be tough with Germany in great shape and Turkey missing many key parts such as Nihat, their starter and leading scorer, is out with a thigh, and so are five of his teammates and keeper Volkan stupidly knocked down Jan Koller for no reason. And Recber Rustu is still old, even though he is a god damn Turkish icon a la Fender Rhodes. So, don't go for the big money, and take Germany 2-0.
Russia vs. Spain
Last time these two played, it was the first Group D match and Spain blasted them 4-1. But the Rooskies are a changed squad. Andrei Arshavin is weaving through defenses like an elderly woman through an afghan, and has potential to become the biggest Russian transfer after the tournament with Arsene Wenger looking to bring him into Emirates for the Gunners next year. Spain hit a rough patch in their offensive destructive path against the Italians, but they had to deal with Buffon waiting for their shots. Igor Akinfeev, who started and won the UEFA Cup Final at the age of 19 with CSKA Moscow, is playing pretty hot right now and will be a great test to Villa and the rest of the Spanish attack, and Casillas will turn out to be the toughest test for the Russians so far with his adroit saves of those two Italian penalties (they would have been in this game had Gattuso and Pirlo not had yellow suspensions). In the end, I just don't think Akinfeev is Lev Yashin, so the Spanish advance with a 2-1 decision.
I have a couple of questions for Marco Van Basten:
-What happened to Kuyt at halftime? Could you wait until someone breaks the tie to put in Van Persie?
-Why did you put in Heitinga for Boulahrouz? That lost the match with his terrible marking of Pavluchenko on that first goal and just general terrible-ness.
That is it. Can't wait for these semifinals, and the NBA DRAFT IS ON THURSDAY. My open letter to Donte Greene will be released Thursday afternoon, and he probably won't like it.

The Group of Death Resolves Itself and Boston Loses Another Finger To a Ring

I'd like to start this post off by saying that one of the most important parts of this blog while your dear friend Pappy is in the Delaware Valley is Comcast with their okay internet and excellent cable services. However, they charge exorbitant fees, and they do something that Time Warner never does in Syracuse: have 24 straight hours of a service outage. The funny part to me is that while this storm that supposedly took out service for so many people was occurring, nothing happened to my cable service. But 2 days afterwards? Of course it will take out your service. The logic is beautiful.
However, not as beautiful as the beautiful game (futbol (soccer)) was yesterday, and the Euro action was pretty ugly. In order to prevent the throwing of games, both games are played concurrently, so I joined a friend at a West Philly bar and got to watch both on big screens right next to each other, but it was still tough to pay attention to both at the same time.
The Italians took their dives, as Luca Toni did in the 24th inside the box, drawing a red card for Eric Abidal that probably should have been a yellow for Toni. Andrea Pirlo, who probably has the most accurate foot in the world right now, easily put the penalty past Coupet, and Italy was set to coast. This was especially easy because Ribery, France's best midfielder, fell to injury in the 10th. It looked like a Zidane break where he would get off the stretcher on the sideline, squirt water on his leg, and go right back on. But it was actually a REAL injury. Samir Nasri came in for him and proved to be pretty terrible, as he was replaced by Jean Alain Boumsong in the 26th. A deflected De Rossi free kick closed the scoring in 62nd, and the Italians marched on with barely a hint of trouble, which was a Karim Benzema shot that barely missed. France did what its army regularly does in war and what it's soccer team does once every two or three tournaments: disappear completely. They only managed one goal in this tournament. I don't know what type of shape Zidane is in right now, but his national side needs him pretty badly.
So, one uncompetitive side in the France-Italy match meant that the Romanians needed to pull off a win against the less offensive Dutch oven which was weaker due to a big chunk of their starting lineup that destroyed the French and Italians resting for the quarters. Not much going on in the first half, although the Romanians did put on some pressure. However, the Dutch showed that they could attack well even without their best players, and Huntelaar in the 54th and Van Persie, who seems to have recovered from the injuries that limited his time at Arsenal this year, in the 87th, dashed Romanian dreams of advancing to the quarters.
To round out the day, the NBA Finals concluded in Boston as the Celtics mauled the Lakers 131-92 for the franchise's 17th. Boston could do no wrong (33:7 Assist:Turnover ratio, 32-37 from the line, 13-26 from 3, 43-87 from the field, and Sam Cassell didn't play), and Kobe looked like a giant poop. Paul Pierce is your Finals MVP to no one's surprise. So now, we look to next year. Right now, the early consensus is another Lakers-Celtics Final, but it could play out completely differently because of one factor: Andrew Bynum. He is a top 5 big man in the NBA when healthy, and if he can put in at least 70 regular season games, the Lakers will probably be able to keep their roster together (Ronny Turiaf's contract expired, and Vujacic could go where the money is that the Lakers can't pay him) but could make a trade this offseason in order to improve. The Celtics will also have the same roster minus the probably retirements of Sam Cassell and PJ Brown, whose role will be filled by "Big Baby" Davis. This is what the NBA wants: a rivalry between the two most storied franchises in the league, with players remembering last year. The Spurs are going to try to return to glory, but they have never looked so bad getting eliminated (They took the Mavs to 7 games in 2006, but a paltry, basically uncompetitive 5 against the Lakers? I don't think so.). I'm sure Donaghy will be in Arkham Asylum like the Riddler at the end of Batman Forever, being asked by Bruce Wayne why the series didn't go seven, and Donaghy telling him that Stern wanted to make sure no one knew he did actually pay off the referees. Well, we'll see what happens next year if 2 big market teams, 1 from the East and 1 from the West, make it to the conference finals. I'm pretty sure they'll both make it to the NBA Finals, but that isn't my business...shit, they found me; I'm fleeing like Jerry Fletcher in Conspiracy Theory.

Europeans Overreacting to Soccer? You're KIDDING ME!

Austria got their first point ever in a Euro tournament as they managed to draw with Polska yesterday on a with the help of a very suspect penalty call by English referee Howard Webb. Polish fans are pretty crazy about their soccer, especially with the national hero status of coach Leo Beenhakker (he received the order of Polonia Restituta, which as a Dutchman is pretty impressive as only two other foreigners have been given the award, one being Douglas MacArthur), despite the fact that his teams seem to always come up short in every group stage or just don't show up at all (he managed to not qualify for the 1986 World Cup while managing his native Dutch side). But his hero status has made many step up to support his side, including the Polish Prime Minister. Luckily he is back to being calm, but with the open European borders, I could see him driving over to Austria to go postal on some soccer officials.
In other Euro news, the Group of Death, Group C, begins the second leg of games today. France-Netherlands will cause me to leave work early, but I will be keeping my eye on Italy-Romania. Questions to be answered by these games include:
-Will France and Italy recover from terrible performances?
-Is the Netherlands back (to 1988 form of domination)?
-What is the deal with Romania?
We shall see what changes to the lineup Italy makes, probably towards a more counterattacking style as in the World Cup. They got caught in the Dutch counter a few too many times in that first match. And France? Thierry and Vieira would help get more offensive, but the Netherlands is on fire. There isn't a Zidane to turn it on right now, so Ribery and others will have to step it up. And how much better is Coupet than Barthez? Waaaaaaaaay better.