The Royce Files

With the FIFA World Cup over we can all now go back to work. And I can bemoan fairly poor finale that pitted Spain against Netherlands. Although superb at times during the tournament, the Dutch decided to hack it out with Spain which culminated with 12 yellow cards, a sending off, and a Spanish victory. It appeared that Mr. Glasses may have scored for the Spanish. I never knew he played, but he cropped up and scored the winning goal. Not one to play favorites, he also played for the Dutch as well that evening. The evidence is below. Thank you Mister Glasses. I never knew what you could do. You may ask, just who is this Mister Glasses fellow? Good question. First he is an architect. But I'll let his video explain it. The 3rd place match between Germany and Uruguay was highly entertaining. In retrospect neither of these teams had the pressure and so played a freer game with plenty of goals. Though Germany were the victors, Uruguay's Diego Forlan nearly brought his team back...

The World Cup is fast approaching as most of the world knows. Well, this part of the world doesn't know it that well. They couldn't tell Lionel Messi from Clint Dempsey. The game stateside is still developing. It's adopted more American ways by eschewing relegation and embracing playoffs. Hence, why last season in MSL Real Salt Lake won the MLS cup despite having a losing record. Oh and Beckham and Co were on the losing end. Enough with the intro. This whole thing precipitated when DJ Segue had some questions concerning soccer this week. You see, he was confused why Barcelona won on Thursday night but Inter Milan go to the European Cup final. Well, its on of those insider things. The match was played over 2 games and the highest aggregate score advances. And if tied the goals scored away from home count more. Inter had 3 total goals to Barcelona's 2. The World Cup used to be played similarly during the early years of the tournament. Now it follows a league and knock-out...

Still covering football today. I found a blog post on a topic I was planning to write about- Ireland international  Richard Dunne  of Aston Villa. Not to be confused with Blackburn Rovers midfielder David Dunn although both men are having a decent campaign in the English Premier League this season. (As a side note Aston Villa and Blackburn were the first 2 Premier League shirts I bought years ago.) Anyways, praise to Richard Dunne. Man City decided to scrap their captain and fan favorite at the beginning of the season despite Dunne not wanting to leave. But the new owners must not have rated Dunne being a top defender and sold him on to Aston Villa to make way for a bunch of big money defenders. The City defense has suffered. Sorry, Micah Richards, but your form at the back has been bad. Meanwhile, over at Villa, Dunne has proved his mettle by becoming one of the league's top defenders helping Villa crack into the top three. I think I w...

Some of the very first entries of this blog in 2003 were about football of the association kind (soccer to the yanks.) I have occasionally written about the sport on the blog but have not for a long time. Probably because I don't have any photos to go along with an entry. Nonetheless, in the English Premier League we've got some fine competition this year. The usual suspects are at or near the top (ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal) but the league is not a one horse race.  A few other teams are poised to challenge the likes of the previous notably Aston Villa, Manchester City, Tottenham and yes, even Liverpool may be in the thick of the battle to top the table. 10 points separate 5th position City (and Aston Villa at 6th) from top Chelsea. ManU are 2 points off but Arsenal are 4 points off having only played 19 games thus far compared to the 20 the others have played. That's the numbers. Although Chelsea will be without their top scorer Didi...

I was downright ashamed of my team tonight. And we actually technically played very well. Unfortunately in the heat of battle some got bent out of shape and fair play slipped. We started the match without an official which got things a bit heated by half. We were actually playing a fairly free flowing game without one. I think we may even have been leading at one time. Second half begins and we obtain an official because the 1st half ended with some complaints. Then somewhere into the half the dissent begins to fly from my team (i.e. complaining and arguing calls.) Not really a good idea since the official was FIFA registered (a rarity in these parts) and FIFA had been proactive in the last few years in clamping down on dissent from the professional leagues down to the rec league. One of my teammates was ejected from the game and the field after using a slide tackle (not allowed in this league.) I didn't even stepped foot on the pitch in the 2nd half. It was a nuclear meltdown and...

O f all the places you would expect to see Sven, Fargo is the least likely. However the former England, Manchester City, Mexico, Lazio, Benfica boss made an appearance at the downtown movie house during the 48 Hour Film Project. I am not sure why, but maybe it was the best way to avoid being hounded over his sad departure from the Mexico job a few months ago. Sven is the fellow on the right hand side in the yellow jacket. I have included another images for comparison. Sven has quite a reputation- some good and some bad. He did all right with the England squad and managed to get the Manchester City side to win both matches with rival Manchester United but he has never ascended to the success he had in Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. Today is jobless but perhaps heard of the good job forecast in the Dakotas and decided to pay a visit. Actually it may be a good move if he joins up with a MLS side to avoid the squabbles of the press. Perhaps these backwaters would do him good. On another note...

This year's FIFA Player of the year, Kaka , decided to give his trophy to the church he attends in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In his own words I believe he said "I deliver this up joyfully to God, because he is the reason behind every victory." This act is not without controversy. Yes, he won the trophy but why on earth does it need to be on display at a church? And further for that matter, its a church which also has some controversy surrounding its leaders. Examining his life a little more I notice he is a devout Christian and had a life changing experience as a teen when at 18 he fractured his back in a swimming pool accident. He attributes his recovery to God. I guess the gesture is consistant with his other acts of attributing his success to God such as revealing a T-shirt emblazoned with "Jesus Loves You" after some games and prayers and gestures to the heavens post game. It seems he comes from a more demonstrative Christian tradition that tends to make others fee...

L ast year I made my somewhat untruimphant return to the football pitch. I joined my company's soccer team after being out of the sport for years. I kind of regret not playing in college when there was opportunity to play on a club team. I had other interests then. We completed the first term of the indoor soccer season winless. It is a pity because there were a few opportunities for victory. Last night's match was a real barn burner. We were up a against a rather athletic but slightly inexperienced side. We played them earlier in the season. Now we were at full strength with 2 viable strikers up front, Caroline and Bernardo. Our opposition came out with all guns blazing in the opening minutes. We were able to contain them for a while but then the goals spilled in. We were down 3 goals to none when our Mexican colleague, Bernardo, slotted one through to end our goal drought. Unfortunately, a few moments later one of our other strikers got booked for a slide tackle. According to...

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=462964&cc=5901 Well, Steve Ireland did not lose his grandmother after all. Although he did lose a child. I wonder what Roy Keane would have done to Mr. Ireland in this circumstance?

Just two months ago Manchester City was managerless without a hope to do anything in the upcoming season but roll over and play dead. Then along comes a controversial Thai political exile with lots of money who "buys" the club. Former England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson is brought in and the transformation begins. City has become a contender. Maybe it is too soon to say, but finally I can be glad to wear my City shirt. So far City are 100% perfect and that includes a victory against the big dogs across town- Manchester United. Time will only tell if this is a fluke. United were without Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo and new signing Tevez shot close but failed to hit the back of the net. Click here to read more about the City and United derby.

Despite losing nearly all our games, my company team had a great time playing indoor soccer this season. There was a goal drought for almost five weeks until we scored in all three* of the matches we played last week (*third game was a scrimmage). We actually won our last game because of forfeit- the other team did not show up. Instead of leaving we scrimmaged those who were still hanging around at 9PM. I managed to slot in a goal in the last seconds of the second half. The season was very taxing on my body although I typically played only about 15 minutes a game maximum. I'm still learning how to play better and am saddened that we did not get to join a summer outdoor league. For now I am hoping to improve my dribbling my having balls around my house.

M y intramural glory is faded glory if you look at it from merely the scoreline. The company soccer squad has yet to win a match and we haven't scored in over a month. However we have improved. For instance we have less own goals now. Unfortunately the scoreline continues to be 11-0 each Wednesday. I suppose you could call it consistency. Other improvements involve our defensive set-up. We are more organized at the back. The irony is that we still let the goals trickle in. What we lack is a natural playmaker. Somebody who can pierce through the defenses and give us some shot on goal. In the previous game I had 2 opportunities to score. However, my instincts were not attuned to the goal and play. Instinct is necessary to be good in the game. Without it your team will struggle to inflict offensive damage on the opposition. Playing together more has helped but practice would certainly improve it. Nevertheless, it has been a lot of fun despite the occassional aches the stiffness that f...

Last night opened my return to the pitch in competitive soccer. It was not very glorious. It has been nearly 20 years since I donned a jersey. A few years ago I played pick up recreational games with some internationals. My company squad lost handily to a group of Concordia College men and women who appeared to have much more experience than us. To be honest, they were better dribblers and passers although they lacked a bit of creativity in goalscoring. Nevertheless there were positives to this match. Our goaltender impressed me by making some stunning saves albeit he allowed 10 goals. To our credit we did score 2 goals. I played about 3 minutes out of 50 in sort of a mid-fielder stopper position and had an unfortunate ball go through me for a goal. For a group of mostly 30+ year olds with little to no experience we did well. However, it looks like we will switch leagues to be with competition more fitting to our age levels. In other intramural leagues, Team Unglaublich took to hard...

There is the Stanley Cup, the World Cup, the Sam McGuire Cup (for you Gaelic games fans), and the Nextel Cup but now the Vatican has added another sporting cup to the mix- The Clericus Cup . The only stipulation for this soccer competition is that you are a Catholic seminarian, clergy, or lay minister. I think you also need to live around Rome. Some of the teams seem to be organized around national origin. The Swiss Guards will be fielding a team, too. Italy's largest insurance company is providing sponsorship. I am not sure if clerical garb will be worn during the matches. Competition begins this week with the final in June. The Vatican also has other footballing ambitions which appear to involve fielding a side to compete in Italy's top league, Serie A. It probably would be a great boon to them since football is akin to a religious institution in places. The church and in particular to Catholic flavor has been involved in soccer before. Celtic and Hibernian in Scotland we...