Rodrigo Moya

I have been always a football fan (and player when I was much younger), but in the last couple of years or so, I stopped watching games because I usually just fell asleep while watching them. Compared to other sports I like (cycling, basketball, motor racing, etc), I find football very boring, except for a few games once in a while. But for this Euro 2008 that finished yesterday, I decided to try watching first only the Spanish team games, and, if I didn’t fall asleep, maybe try with others. So I just watched the 3 Spain’s games in the 1st round, the 1/4 finals against Italy, and then the 2 semifinals and, yesterday, the final. I have to confess I really enjoyed those games, specially the 2 semifinals in general and the 2nd half of the Spain-Russia in particular.

But, even though I might be back into watching more football games in the upcoming season (at least until I fall asleep again ), there are some things in football that I wanted changed many years ago and that, as I’ve witnessed during these last few weeks, haven’t changed yet:

• First of all is the referees. As in all sports, they make mistakes, that’s normal, what’s not normal is that such mistakes can have such a huge impact on the final result (media here in Spain usually even have an alternative standing with the points lost/won by each team from referee’s mistakes). So, why the UEFA/FIFA or whatever don’t do as in other sports, where video replays are used when referees are not sure? Of course, I’m not saying the referee should stop the game to watch the replay for every doubtful play, as is done in some sports, but there could be a group of judges watching the game on TV, with special cameras, and just communicate via radio with the referee. Also, there could be more referees on the field, like in basketball, for instance, where there are 3 in a much smaller playing field. I’m starting to think nothing is done to fix this so as to allow the media to talk after the games about the referee’s mistakes, which is what the media do most of the week while waiting for the next game, at least here.
• Lots of team play very deffensive, and that makes some games as boring as watching your hair grow. I used to like a lot football back in the days of Johann Cruyff’s FC Barcelona Dream Team. The best was Barcelona, playing very offensive, and so the rest of the teams copied the playing style, and it was very common to have very high results, like 7-3, 4-3, 5-4, etc, etc, which make the games, at least for me, very attractive to watch. So, why not do again like in other sports, where the rules are more dynamic, and are changed to cut the very defensive styles and make the game more offensive? That happened a few years ago, for instance, on the NBA, the scores were getting very low, so they added/changed a couple of rules to make the game more offensive. I would really like to have, in football, a much less restrictive off-side rule, there would be many more scores and make the games more attractive, since you can’t be too defensive if you are losing 2-0.
• Spanish people got totally crazy last night, with lots of injured people and even one death in Madrid, as I’ve heard on the radio this morning. 2 years ago, the basketball team won the world championship, and, AFAIR, there were no problems, people went to receive the team to the airport and just cheered at them while they were driven across the city, so, why does this always happen around football? I guess it’s got nothing to do with the sport, just that it’s the most popular one around here and it attracts all kinds of weird people.

Anyway, congratulations to the Spanish team for this win, specially because this is the only thing that unifies Spaniards, the football national team. Before and after this Euro Cup, people did/will complain about the other regions’ people, and some did/will even say they don’t feel Spanish at all, but these days, with an European champion team, everyone likes Spain, yay for football nationalism!

I’ve been recently taking lots of pictures that I haven’t blogged about, so here is the first post about them.

To start with, last Sunday I went to Cascante, 50 kms from my place, to watch the Basque-Navarre Supermotard championship.

I didn’t take many photos, because I met there with a few friends, and we left early to drive some kms around in our bikes.

Even without superstar Pau Gasol (injured at the semifinal), Spain won yesterday the FIBA World Cup, for the first time in history. This outperforms the silver medal won in Los Angeles’84, the most outstanding success of Spanish basketball until yesterday (and which I also witnessed, 22 years ago).

The real final was the semifinal against Argentina (75-74), and the final was much easier than expected (70-47), with Greece totally unable to score against the splendid Spanish defense. The game was a bit boring in terms of emotion, since Spain was so superior since the beginning, but this allowed us, Spaniards, to enjoy the victory many minutes before the end of the game.

One of the good things also has been that, for the first time in history, a Spanish TV has been broadcasting all games (not only Spain’s games, as in previous years, but *all* games), which is something already done in more “boring” sports (like football Let’s hope the TVs take notes so that we can watch more Spanish league games in the upcoming season (last seasons it’s been only 1 game per week, 2 if you leave in some regions).

Another thing to note about this championship is the bronze medal for USA, another disappointment for NBA basketball. Even though they have the best players, they keep forgetting that basketball is a team game, and that now the difference between FIBA and NBA players is not as big as many years ago (when USA brought university teams and won almost always the gold medal, or when the splendid Dream Team in Barcelona’92). This makes it impossible for them to beat real teams (like Greece, Spain or Argentina) without doing team play. So let’s hope this makes a good lesson for them, so that we can see the best NBA-based team in Beijing’08, which is what we all want, even though that would mean no gold medal for Spain or any other country.

It was mostly clear, before the start of the 2006 FIBA World Championship, that Argentina, USA and Spain were superior to the other teams. And so far, that’s what has happened, maybe with the inclusion of Greece. Although happy for the Spain’s way to semifinals, I must confess it hasn’t been as funny as other championships, since Spain has been so superior to the teams they’ve played against that games were without emotion. Fortunately Spain is the real dream team in this championship :-), so there were lots of spectacular plays.

Next Friday, the moment of truth will come, Spain-Argentina. A pity, since a final between Spain and Argentina is what I would have liked. After that, either USA or Greece in the final.

After all the disqualifications for doping, and Armstrong’s absence, it looked like this year’s Tour de France was going to be boring. But no, not only wasn’t it boring, but it’s been, in my opinion, one of the best Tours in the last few years, with the final podium decided in the last day, contrary to what’s been happening in the last 10/15 years (insulting superiority from Miguel Indurain first and then from Lance Armstrong).

Also, very nice to see people that were not favorite at all, like Oscar Pereiro, picking a place in the podium today in Paris. Only 59 seconds kept him away from what would have been a very big surprise, since he was expected to work for Alejandro Valverde. Let’s hope the doping problems end in this lovely sport so that we can continue to see spectacles like this year’s Tour.

Yay, Pau Gasol has been selected to play the NBA All Star Game! Not that the game is too important, but it confirms Gasol between the best players in the league, and hence, in the world.

The B sample test of Roberto Heras confirmed the doping It is indeed quite strange, since the sample is from the last important stage (a time trial), when he had almost 5 minutes of difference with the second rider, so, even though Roberto is worst in time trial than Denis Menchov (the 2nd), I’m sure he was not going to lose 4/5 minutes. So yeah, quite strange why he would have used doping that day when he had all set for winning his 4th Vuelta, if he really did. Or maybe he didn’t?

In any case, bad news for cycling.

Yeah, Dirk Nowitzki did it, and scored the winning basket in the semifinal against Spain. And today, in the game for the bronze medal, France just ran over Spain, in a very bad game of the Spanish players.

On the final, happy for Eugenia to see Greece win the gold medal, with an incredible performance by the Greek team, and specially by Theodoros Papaloukas.

I like a lot watching sports, but I’m not too passionate, except when it comes to the Spanish national basketball team. And today it was one of those days it’s nice to remember. 101-85 against Croatia in the quarter final of the Eurobasket 2005 that is taking place in Serbia & Montenegro, in a great game, with an overtime forced by Fran Vázquez in the last seconds, when all seemed lost for Spain.

All seemed to indicate Spain was going to take the same route as the other 3 first round groups’ leaders, all of them eliminated in the quarter finals in very ugly games (it is indeed curious that the 2 best teams, from what we’ve seen in the quarter finals have been Spain and Croatia, since the other 3 games were, well, “of low quality”), and the game started the same way, with Spain scoring only 11 points in the first quarter. But fortunately, the Spanish players reacted and won one of the best games I’ve seen in years.

Only bad thing was when the Croatians lost their nerves in the last minute of the overtime, following a foul on Gordan Giricek, when the crowd (Serbian) started to shout “Serbia, Serbia” (I guess there are still a lot of wounds to be closed between Serbians, Croatians and Bosnians), and the Croatian players and coach started to insult the referees. Bad end for a great game.

And tomorrow, semifinals against Germany. Let’s hope Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t break our hopes

What a great performance today from Alejandro Valverde, Paco Mancebo and Mickael Rasmussen in the Tour, who have been the only riders, in a long time, to go with Lance Armstrong up to the end line. But Alejandro’s performance has been specially great, since even though it’s already known he is a rider with a bright future, nobody expected him to perform so well in such a difficult stage as today’s, in his first Tour de France. Let’s hope he can continue this way, and make us, spaniards, forget about all the disappointments (Iban Mayo, Carlos Sastre, Joseba Beloki, and, specially, Roberto Heras).