Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! But not too cold. I can't wait!
from: "Merry" Ha Ha!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Christmas Week Activities

The Sathes arrived this week and we've lots of family fun time. Nik, Jay, Laila, John, Mary and I went to a go-cart raceway/arcade on Tuesday (sorry I don't have any good photos from that).

Before we left for Galveston, John played a little
soccer with his cousins and Uncle Nik

And yesterday, the Ferrises, Sathes and Gwynnes all drove to Galveston to the Lone Star Flight Museum, where we go to see some beautiful old airplanes. Tom regaled us with some terrific background stories for many of the aircraft.

Tom talking to Mary

John, Mary and Margaret posing in front of an airplane

Margaret and Mary pointing out the high-water
mark from when Ike hit Galveston

Then we drove to the Galveston beach and ran amok along the shore.

Mary and John running along the beach

Chris and Nik planning our next move on their iPhones

After playing on the beach, we all drove the Kemah Boardwalk. There, the kids enjoyed going on some thrilling rides.

Mary and John flying an airplane at Kemah

Holiday Performances by Mary and John

Mary getting into the Christmas spirit

Happy Holidays

Mary performed in her winter piano recital this evening and she did a great job, playing 6 songs with no sheet music. The sixth, "Deck the Halls," was a wonderful conclusion and helped get us all in the holiday spirit.

Meg's parents, Tom and Margaret, also attended the recital, which was held in a beautiful church decorated for Christmas.

Tom, John, Margaret and Mary before the recital

Chris and Meg

Mary performing

Mary listening to the applause

Mary bowing after her performance

John wearing his Santa hat

Mary's Big Week

Mary had a pretty exciting week. Watch the video above to hear her describe the highlights.

Grandma Trish Visiting

Grandma Trish and Mary at church

Meg and John at church

Grandma Trish, Mary and John in the front yard

Some recent photos from Grandma Trish's visit.

Happy Halloween!

John, Baba and Mary (aka Spider-Man, Pirate and Witch!).

Goal Oriented

Ever since the World Cup, John has become a soccer nut. He plays at home all the time -- in the hallway or outside in our front yard. And he'll play with whoever is available: me, Meg, Mary or any number of kids in the neighborhood. And he loves to practice and play with his team, the Meteors. This video shows John playing and loving the beautiful game.

Nini's 70th Birthday Celebration

Mary catching a foul ball at the Astros game

John's first Soccer game

The Canadian Meteors played their first match ever today, facing off against Switzerland (or Swiss Cheese, as their coach called them). John played a great game, winning the ball, defending well, and scoring a number of goals. Tom attended the game and snapped some great photos, which are below.

John dribbling toward the goal

After the game, high-fiving the other team

"Go Meteors!"

After the game - player and coach together.

Chalk + Water = Fun

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend started off right, with a trip to the West U. pool with Pa and Nini. We bought an underwater camera on the way and snapped some cool pictures.

Mary doing a handstand

Scaling the climbing wall

Leaping off the wall and into the water

Pa's entry into the pool from the slide

John swimming

John reaching for the camera

John's picture of Chris

Soccer Practice

John is starting soccer this fall, in a U5 league. I am his coach (along with another dad) and am trying to contain my excitement. Much to my delight, John actually loves soccer. He and I played in the front yard last night, first with some older kids from the neighborhood, then later with Mary.

Playing soccer in our front yard

John's team is called Team Canada. You see, each team in his league is named after a team from the World Cup. Canada, in case you didn't know, didn't qualify for the 2010 World Cup. So how did John's team get named after our neighbors to the North? John's team was the 32nd team formed for the league and the only team left from the World Cup was North Korea. The people in charge of John's league elected not to name a team after a member of the Axis of Evil and settled instead on the non-threatening Canadians instead.

The kids can also choose their own nickname. So far John's favorite suggestion is the Lightning Fire Cheetahs. We'll see what the other kids suggest this week at practice.

Mary's first day of third grade

Mary proudly walked to school today with the rest of the kids from our neighborhood (8 in all, including 2 new kids starting kindergarten). She is in the same class as Sully again, which both girls were very happy about.

Mary ready for school

Mary and Sully

Mary sharing her snow cone with John

Mary finally lost her tooth!

After months of waiting, Mary's top tooth finally fell out at camp today. Mary was relieved and excited to show friends and family.

Photos from California Trip

Mary, John and I traveled to California last week for long weekend of significant family milestones. We celebrated Baba's 70th birthday, Big Rig's 80th birthday, Grandma Trish and Rig's 30th wedding anniversary, and Aunt Lex's engagement to Maxim.


The kids were great travelers and we got to visit Alcatraz, go hot tubbing and horse-back riding. We also played A LOT of Uno. Some photos are below.

Baba and the kids on Alcatraz

Aunt Lex and John on the ferry from Alcatraz

Aunt Lex and Mary on Alcatraz

Aunt Lex and Maxim

Mary and her flower arrangement

Grandma Trish and Big Rig

Mary, John and Baba playing Uno

Baba is visiting this week and he and the kids have been playing a lot of games -- especially Uno.




The music, "You're My Best Poker Hand," is by T-Bone Walker, an old blues musician who was an influence on Jimi Hendrix.

World Cup Final

I have documented in this blog my affection for the Dutch team -- even though they hadn't been playing the total football they've championed since the 1970s. So when the final started, I was planted on my couch wearing an orange Netherlands jersey I bought on a trip to Amsterdam 10 years ago.

By end of the initial 90 minutes, I was so disgusted with the thuggish tactics of the Dutch players that I peeled off my orange shirt and put on a blue one instead. But then, when Iniesta dove to get Heitinga sent off in overtime, I removed my blue shirt and put on a USA jersey. It was a very disappointing final match, although Spain did play better soccer (or at least tried to when they weren't being hacked down Holland) and deserved to win.

As for the Dutch, the entire tournament was like a Greek tragedy for them. For decades, they had been praised by fans, journalists and pundits for playing lovely, attacking football. Yet they were denied again and again the ultimate prize: being crowned World Cup champions. So at some point during the last several years, they repudiated all that had made total football great and instead played like the Detroit Pistons of the late 1980s. I half expected to see Bill Lambier sitting on the bench exhorting the players to foul and dive and whine even more.

The new, thuggish strategy worked -- Holland got to a World Cup final for the first time in more than 30 years. But in a cruel irony, they found themselves playing a team that had embraced many of the principles of total football -- the Spanish. And ultimately, the Dutch were beaten by a team that actually tried to play soccer and were punished by the Soccer Gods for abandoning all that is wonderful about the beautiful game.

The third place game turned out to be a much better match than the final. Uruguay and my favorite player of the tournament, Diego Forlan, fell 3-2 to the Germans. FIFA did agree with my assessment of Forlan and gave him the Golden Ball award as the best player in the tournament. He's 31 and unlikely to play in the 2014 World Cup, but I'm glad he got to shine in South Africa as he almost single handedly (well, not single handedly; his teammate Suarez had a single hand that was also pretty important) got tiny Uruguay to within one game of the final.

Speaking of Suarez, I had no problems with his handball to stop the ball in the game against Ghana. Any player would have done the same thing and would have expected to be sent off -- which Suarez was. It was like a player in basketball committing a hard foul on a fast break to prevent the other team from scoring an easy layup.

What I find much more troubling that sort of blatant cheating is the more subtle act of diving. I hate it and think it leaves a much blacker mark on the game than what Suarez did. I said in the last World Cup and I'll say again: there should be post-match reviews of diving by players. If they are judged to have gone down with no contact, they should be given a yellow card after the game. 

My suggestion will probably not be implemented (Sepp Blatter is not returning my e-mails). But I do think that by the next World Cup, there will be goal-line technology to judge whether a ball crossed the line or not. There may also be extra officials, either on the field itself or on the sidelines, to help the refs get more of the calls right.

There was a lot to like about the 2010 World Cup. The late-game heroics by the US team. The emergence of Michael Bradely as a top midfielder. Tshabalala's strike against Mexico in the opening game. Carlos Teves' cannon (also against Mexico). Giovanni von Bronkhorsts' unstoppable shot against Uruguay. The plucky New Zealand team (who were the only team never to lose a game at this World Cup -- it's true). Some great individual players, like David Villa (Spain), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Kiesuke Honda (Japan), Carlos Puyol (Spain) and Wesley Sneijder (Holland).

But what the tournament showed me is that soccer is really still a team sport. Nearly all the "best" players in the world who were featured in the Nike "Write the Future" commercial had poor showings at the World Cup. The squads that played as a team tended to do more and go further than those who may have been too reliant on their big-name players. Of course, you've got to have great players on your team to go far, and the final 4 all had some fantastic players -- but most were not mentioned before the tournament in the same breath as Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi or Ribery.

The next World Cup is 4 years away -- that seems like a long time. Mary will be 12 years old and John will be 8 (note that both of them were born in World Cup years -- coincidence? I don't think so). But there will be plenty of soccer to fill up my free time between now and then, and much of it may be played by John.

He took to soccer like a fish to water, not only watching many of the games with me, but playing soccer in the house. We have a long hallway between his room and Mary's. John has spent hours kicking and dribbling a soccer ball from one end of the hall to another, shouting "gooooaaaall" when he puts the ball between my legs and into his sister's room. I'll be signing him up to play on a soccer team this fall. And I'm sure I will enjoy watching his games more than I enjoyed any of the World Cup games I've seen during the last month. It won't even be close.

Slippin' & slidin'

Baba and John watching the Dynamo game

World Cup: Final Match

I got half the final match-up right: the Netherlands got out of their side of the bracket (upsetting Brazil and beating Uruguay) but Argentina fell to Germany. Spain then got past Germany setting up the final match of 2 countries with rich soccer histories but no World Cup trophies.

There is an interesting history leading up to how these 2 teams play today. In the 1970s, the Dutch (led by forward Johan Cruyff) played what is known as "total football." It was a revolutionary style of soccer where the each player could play any position on the field. So a defender could surge forward and join the attack, while a forward could drop back and defend. The Dutch national team played this attractive, aggressive form of soccer as well as anyone but fell twice in World Cup Finals (in 1974 to W. Germany and in 1978 to Argentina). Their flowing style of play, coupled with losses in finals, made the Dutch teams of the 1970s the favorite team of romantic, intellectual soccer fans worldwide.

Cruyff later went on to play at the Spanish club Barcelona, where the club adopted the same free-flowing, attacking style of play. Cruyff later became coach of Barcelona. And since his playing and coaching days, Barcelona has been dedicated to playing a similar type of total football.

Many of the players on Spain's WC team currently play at Barcelona (Víctor Valdés, Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets, Pedro, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi and David Villa). Leo Missi of Argentina also plays for Barcelona.

So in the WC Final, the Spanish team will likely be playing a form of Dutch-style total football. Ironically, the Dutch team will be playing a more conservative style of play. In fact, some commentators argue that this Dutch team has defiled the tradition of total football and should not be counted on to carry on the tradition of past teams. Slate explains:

"This year's team, for all Wesley Sneijder's individual panache, has been even more stolid, relying excessively on Arjen Robben's ability to cut inside from the right. The Dutch have depended on Dirk Kuyt's lumbering work-rate, Mark van Bommel's spectacularly dirty midfield play, and a lot of sheer luck to survive, while their manager, Bert van Marwijk, has taken every opportunity to distance his squad from the legacy of total football. We're here to win, he says, nothing else."

As a long-time fan of the Netherlands, I have been rooting for them throughout the tournament. But watching them play is not as fun as I had hoped. The Slate piece got it right: they play a fairly conservative style, that allows its flair players (Sneijder and Robben) to conjure a moment of brilliance to win their games. And credit to them -- this has worked. Holland have not lost a game during the WC.

And I still think they will win on Sunday (2:30 pm EST, ABC). Their dual midfield enforcers (de Jong and van Bommel) will do enough to stymie Span's creative and elegant midfielders and Holland will nick a goal to win their first World Cup trophy. I'll be happy for the Dutch people, but I'd be happier if they had been able to do it playing total football.

---

My new favorite player is Diego Forlan. He was considered a bit of a bust at Manchester United years ago, but he's gone on to a successful career in the Spanish league and he put Uruguay on his shoulders and carried them to the semi-finals. He scored some wonderful goals and always played with vigor, style and energy. Plus he looks like Bjorn Borg's soccer-playing cousin. Meg even asked if I had a man-crush on Forlan. I had to plead guilty.

---

Finally, here's a great video from Nike that thanks the US team for playing like Americans:




Enjoy Sunday's final!

Waiting for the fireworks to start

Horseback Riding

All week for camp, Mary has been learning to horseback ride. She even has her own pair of cowgirl boots -- when we bought them a few weeks ago they looked brand new. But now, after week at the ranch about 70 miles outside of Houston, they look like she's had them her whole life. Mary's horse was named Taxman (because he was born on April 15) and she rode him everyday.

Yesterday, Meg, John and I drove out to the ranch to see Mary and all the other kids from her camp ride their horses in a performance for parents. Mary looked like a real natural and loved riding Taxman in front of all of us. You can see in the video how proud her face was during the whole thing.

The hardest part for Mary was saying goodbye to Taxman, as she showed some tears when she realized she wasn't going to get to ride him again any time soon.

World Cup: Semi-Finals & lots of videos

Soccer has continued to be all over American media this week. Landon Donovan was on the Late Show with David Letterman as well as the Daily Show with John Stewart.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Landon Donovan & Bob Bradley
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

The World Cup continues tomorrow with a match up worthy of a final: Brazil v. Netherlands. Brazil has won more World Cups than any other nation (5) while the Netherlands are considered the best country never to win the World Cup. Earlier this week, I predicted the following for the next rounds:

Uruguay over Ghana
Argentina over Germany
Spain over Japan (I got this wrong -- Japan lost to Paraguay on penalty kicks)
Netherlands over Brazil

I still think all of these predictions will be correct, but I'm feeling very uncertain about the Netherlands over Brazil. The Dutch have not lost a game, but neither have they looked like the best team in the tournament, which is how Brazil have been playing. This is a bit of a wish more than anything, but I'll stick with Clockwork Orange.

One of the greatest Dutch players ever was Dennis Bergkamp. Below is a wonderful goal he scored in the 1998 World Cup against Argentina. The goal itself is sublime -- watch his touch and perfect shot past the keeper. But listen to the Dutch announcer's orgasmic call of the play.



Speaking or orgasmic goal celebrations, if you haven't seen this it's a terrific video of reactions all over the world to Donovan's stoppage time goal against Algeria. (Some of these were shown in the Daily Show clip above as well.)



As for the US team, I still feel like it was a great WC, but that it could have been so much better. Winning the group was a big deal, but Ghana were beatable. And the tough part about the World Cup is that it's another 4 years until the next one. But the US has some good young players to build around and could be even better in 2014. Read here the take of the best American soccer blogger, Ives Galarcep, on US prospects for 2014.

ESPN's the Sports Guy had a good (but typically long) review of the US's run in South Africa. "When Donovan scored that Cup-saving goal against those spineless playing-for-a-tie-when-they-needed-to-win-by-two-goals Algerians, the moment resonated like no other goal in American soccer history. We didn't have anyone telling us how we should feel, what the implications were, what the moment meant. We knew what it meant. We wanted more games. We wanted our boys to keep playing. Someone scored. We celebrated. We jumped up and down. We ran around the room. We were alive for another game. For once in a fragmented sports world, we all happened to be rooting for the same thing."

And Grant Wahl nicely summarized the US team's World Cup for Sport Illustrated. "The U.S. would benefit from a little more skill and a little less emotion when the whistle blows for Brazil 2014. Teams that rely on emotion have a hard time maintaining it for an entire tournament, no matter how righteous it may be. Skill endures. In the end, this U.S. team did its fans proud in South Africa but has left them dreaming of what might have been."

Don't give up on the US team. And don't give up on the World Cup. There are some awesome match ups the next 2 days, starting with Brazil v. Netherlands tomorrow and continuing with Argentina v. Germany on Saturday.

World Cup: USA v. Ghana

Soccer is not really a game that lends itself to statistics. Time of possession, shots on goal, number of corner kicks are often indicators of how well a team plays, but not always.

Still, there was one number that struck me tonight that tells much of the story of the US's 2010 World Cup:

3 minutes.

That's how long the US team actually held the lead in all 4 of its games. It fell behind and rallied to tie against England and Slovenia. And it was tied for nearly all of the game against Algeria until Landon Donovan scored the game winning goal with about 3 minutes left in the game. And against Ghana today, the US fell behind again and never had the lead.

On the one hand, it's a bit remarkable that a team that rarely played from a position of strength (i.e., having the lead) managed not only to advance to the knock-out round, but to win its group.

But on the other hand, playing from behind or chasing the game-winning goal for 390 minutes was eventually going to catch up with the Americans. And today, they ran out of luck and gas.

The game today was a thoroughly winnable game. If the US played the entire game like they did 2nd half they very well may have won. But problems that plagued the team throughout the tournament came back to bite them today, and the team wasn't able to overcome them.

• The US gave away another early goal.
• Rico Clark had another sub-par day in midfield. Bradley recognized this and used Clark's yellow card as an excuse to sub him out.
• The US forwards failed to score. Bradley never found a suitable partner for Josy Altidore, who did well holding the ball and drawing fouls, but at some point your starting forward has to score a goal.

On balance, the US World Cup campaign should be considered a qualified success. Topping Group C and losing in overtime in the round of 16 is better that traditional powerhouses like France and Italy did. But this was a game the US should have and could have won. And Uruguay, who will now face Ghana in the next round of games, would have been a tough but beatable opponent.

The following players had a very good/great World Cup:

• Landon Donovan is in the zone right now. Some European club is likely to offer up piles of money to pry him away from MLS.
• Michael Bradley was a monster in the middle of the field. He ran tirelessly, won balls, distributed well, and was a threat near the goal. He may wind up in the English Premier League.
• Benny Feilhaber should have seen more playing time. He may also move to a bigger club.
• Josy Altidore, while he didn't score, was a handful for defenders every minute he was on the field. I lost count, but he may have caused more players to receive yellow cards than any other player in the tournament.
• Steve Cherundolo was arguably the US's most consistent player. He rarely put a wrong foot on defense and contributed to the attack effectively. 
• Maurice Edu seemed to fortify the US every time he was on the field.

These players were a mixed bag:

• Clint Dempsey did score the key goal against England, but that was really a gift from poor Robert Green. He did tons of work, on offense and defense, and had plenty of scoring chances. But I think most would have liked to see more from the US's most dangerous offensive player (besides Donovan).
• Tim Howard game up big in the England game and earned man of the match. And his pin-point pass to Donovan directly set up the last-gasp goal. But there a few times the US defense made mistakes and could have used a dramatic, acrobatic save from Howard.
• Jay Demerit played every minute of the tournament for the US had played in his typically hard-nosed fashion. But mental lapses led to more than one goal.
• Carlos Bocanegra played both left back and center back, but was not as steady as many fans would like their captain to be.
• Jonathan Bornstein is much reviled by many US fans, but he played well when called upon.

Bob Bradley's World Cup was also a mixed bag. It's hard to complain about the US team winning their group and advancing to the knock-out stages. But it's also hard to feel that different player selection might have improved the US's chances. Sticking with Rico Clark and Robbie Findley proved to be a mistake, and giving more playing time to Edu, Feilhaber and Herculez Gomez might have helped the team's ability to hold the ball, be creative and score more goals.

The World Cup may be over for the US, but there are plenty of other compelling teams and games still in store. Here's how I see the rest of the tournament playing out:

Germany over England
Argentina over Mexico
Netherlands over Slovakia
Brazil over Chile
Japan over Paraguay
Spain over Portugal

In the next round:

Uruguay over Ghana
Argentina over Germany
Spain over Japan
Netherlands over Brazil

Final four:

Argentina over Spain
Netherlands over Uruguay

Final

Argentina over Netherlands

And Diego Maradona will run naked through the streets of Buenos Aires while the Dutch suffer yet another World Cup heartbreak.

World Cup: Final 16

I'm not going to quit my day job. I only got both the advancing teams right in 2 groups 

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea
Group C: England, US
Group D: Germany, Serbia, Ghana
Group E: Netherlands, Cameroon, Japan
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Chile


I guess 10/16 isn't too bad.

Here are the remaining match-ups (remember that it's the knock-out phase; if a game is tied after 90 minutes, they play an extra 30 minutes; if it's still tied, they have a penalty kick shoot-out):

Uruguay

vs.

South Korea

-

Jun 26 10:00am (ET) on ESPN

United States

vs.

Ghana

-

Jun 26 2:30pm (ET) on ABC

Germany

vs.

England

-

Jun 27 10:00am (ET) on ESPN

Argentina

vs.

Mexico

-

Jun 27 2:30pm (ET) on ABC

Netherlands

vs.

Slovakia

-

Jun 28 10:00am (ET) on ESPN

Brazil

vs.

Chile

-

Jun 28 2:30pm (ET) on ESPN

Paraguay

vs.

Japan

-

Jun 29 10:00am (ET) on ESPN

Spain

vs.

Portugal

-

Jun 29 2:30pm (ET) on ESPN

The game to watch this weekend is clearly US v. Ghana. I would call this game a pick 'em. My heart says the US will win, but Ghana is tough to break down defensively. I wouldn't be surprised if it goes to penalty kicks, unless the US forwards start scoring (all the US goals thus far have been scored by midfielders).

But there are plenty of other mouth-watering matches. Germany v. England, for historical (both geopolitical and soccer) reasons, is a must-see. Argentina v. Mexico is a rematch of a thrilling 2006 World Cup encounter. Finally, Spain v. Portugal is another high-powered game.