Unsatisfying season opener (FCM II)

FCM II 1-1 Höpfigheim

After handing out an early goal (4th minute) it was a hard battle with one victim on our side. He was hit on the head during a header and had an immense bleeding. I drove him to the hospital where they had him stiched up. During that time we tied the score 1-1.

We had some other chances to score the winning goal, but failed. So it’s us in the midfield of the table…unsatisfying to say the least…

Not in squad on sunday! (FCM II)

Ouch…I didn’t anticipate that, but I guess it’s a logical decision due to my recent (and current) groin strain and the connected problems – especially if you’ve got a reservoir of 20 people ready to dress up (after all only 11 + 3 can play anyway).

I guess I will use the spare time (team meeting is always 1.5h prior to the game) for a little extra sleep and relaxing time – always gotta look on the bright side ;)

Day 1 and 2 results are in…

Day 1: 25 points
Day 2: 25 points
Total: 50 points

That puts me into 11th place in our Super League (out of 17 players)! I think it’s time to do some trades as Mr. Joe Price’s Flid FC is already running away with a score of 71 points (31points, 40 points)… :-( ;-)

Tabletop Football

I don’t know if you already knew, but I’m a passionate tabletop football (“Kicker”) player. Yesterday evening my mate Kai (see links: mates) went to our favourite pub Cafe Provinz (german description on Wikifun.de) . It’s an quite amazing pub with a lot of different people ages 16-40+.

A while back we met Hans there, he’s a member of a band called “Helle Hefe”, one of the best players in the Cafe and one of our biggest rivals when it comes to tabletop footie – but don’t get me wrong: we’re playing for fun and get along real well…but yesterday evening we had a real streak of bad luck…(we do a summary (overall standings) each time we play and we lost 1-9 ).

A little “Cafe” rule check

  • Games are played 2 vs. 2 if not stated otherwise
  • Games are played to 6, if a match is 5-5 the next goal decides (closest result 6-5)
  • A challenge can be put forth at any time: the loser of the current match leaves and the challenger tries to beat the team already in play
  • The new challenger pays if you run out of balls (3 games = 1 Euro, 1 game = 11balls)
  • Trash talking is allowed, but be careful not to write cheques with your mouth that your arms can’t cash in ;-)
  • Depending on the players involved a 0-6 game loss may result in the need to buy the other team a schnaps

Are you interested in it?

As I’m reading the news on heise.de a news bit about the plans of NBC to start an e-sports television channel in germany hits my eye.

It makes me think…do they really believe that broadcasting computer- or console-game matches will generate enough attention and hence advertising revenue? I guess they do…and I think it isn’t a bad idea at all.
There’s already a six hour show on NBC in germany called Giga which is quite good in covering hardware, software, new things on the net etc. A few weeks ago they had a e-sports special where they broadcasted live from the world-championship (at least I think it was that or maybe it was just an event considered to be the world-championship) featuring CounterStrike, WarCraft III, Pro Evolution Soccer and some other games and I gotta say: it was really interesting, although it’s hard to follow special tactics in some games (especially WarCraft III with all their babbling about “fast expansion” and all the special characters) especially if you aren’t playing the game yourself.

I think e-Sports is up and coming and if the moderators learn that there aren’t only experts watching it should be really interesting…

Day 1

I think I didn’t do all that good :-(

The first official scores won’t be available until tomorrow, but after looking over the results I think I’ve only scored one goal through Jimmy Hasselbank…not good…

…maybe I should have gone with the complete Arsenal midfield…all of them scored right away :-(

I’ll keep you all updated…

Horizontal Bar Final (Olympics)

I’ve never seen anything like it so far. Okay usually I don’t care for gymnastics whatsoever, but this evening I was watching the men’s horizontal bar final. After and almost perfect routine (with a difficulty of 10.0) Alexey Nemov of Russia was waiting for his results…and after the jury proclaimed his result the whole crowd almost exploded with a choral of whistles which lasted for almost 10 minutes.

The jury counseled again and added 0.04points to his result, but he was still in 3rd place (which didn’t seem appropriate at that time)…so the chorus of whistles continued and continued until Nemov himself stepped up to the mat again and waved the crowd and asked them to settle down – and that’s what true sportmanship is!

I’m really curious what will be in the news about this…

Affalterbach II 2-1 FCM II

Last friday was the last friendly match of my football team FC Marbach II (=second team) before the new season starts this sunday (29.08.2004). I couldn’t play due to a minor groin sprain, but I’m confident that I can pickup training again on wednesday and I’m hoping that I’ll be on the squad on sunday…

USA vs. Germany (Women’s soccer – Olympics)

Oh my! What a match, what a fight!
The wrath of the US women’s soccer team :(

I don’t know if you had the chance to watch the match, if not: you really missed something. I gotta admit that the US-Team was better almost the whole ninety minutes, but we were lucky and scored the tying 1-1 in the 90+2nd minute.

So extra time here we come…and we’re already down again 1-2 after a beautiful goal by Heather O’Reilly (assist Mia Hamm)…and that’s that…USA 2-1 Germany. We put up a good fight but it wasn’t enough today…congrats US…

Now it’s time to recover and win the match for bronze!

My starting line-up

Goalie:
Howard – Manchester United

Defenders:
Henchoz – Liverpool
Riise – Liverpool
Ferreira – Chelsea
O’Shea – Manchester United

Midfielders:
Robert – Newcastle
Scholes – Manchester United
Euell – Charlton

Strikers:
van Nistelrooy – Manchester United
Hasselbaink – Middlesbrough
Kezman – Chelsea

The new season has started…

Follow the quest of Ingoal’s Invicibles on their way to glory?!

I’m competing with Joe Price (see mates for their sites) and some of his english mates for this year’s crown in the FLID FANDANGO QUANGO Super League…I guess it’ll be an interesting “fight” till the end…we’ll see if I can repeat last year’s success (I finished 2nd in last years Super League)…

If you’re still thinking: “What the hell is he talking about?” please read the following explanation…

A little info on the game itself
In this fantasy footie game you get to pick your (hopefully winning) eleven…you pick:
1 Goalie
4 defenders
3 midfielders
3 strikers

You can “buy” them for a predetermined value, but you gotta make sure that you don’t exceed your 50 million pound budget (or else your squad won’t score any points). To react to events like lack of form or injury you’ve got 24 trades that will allow you to change 24 players in total for the season. But be careful and don’t waste too much trades in the beginning as it’s a long season.
To make things more interesting you can create your own super league (password protected) and compete with mates!

Points are awarded as follows:

All Players

•	Appearance (full match)	+2
•	Appearance (part match)	+1
•	Goal scored	+5
•	Penalty missed	-5 (including FA Cup shoot-outs)
•	Key contribution to a goal	+3 (including own goals)
•	Sent off	-5
•	Booked	-2
•	Own goal	-3

Goalkeepers/Defenders

•	Clean sheet (full match)	+4
•	Clean sheet (part match)	+2
•	Penalty save	+5 (including FA Cup shoot-outs)
•	Goal conceded	-1 (not including FA Cup shoot-outs)