I shelled out CHF8.– for Zattoo for this month so that I can watch the Olympics on my own schedule. It’s pretty sweet, especially for hockey games.

USA/Czech Republic & Canada/Latvia

Zattoo keeps a 7-day buffer for over 100 channels. You can actually watch for free, but you don’t get HD and you have to watch extra, Zattoo-specific commercials. The Olympics coverage is remarkably commercial-free, at least on the Swiss (Swiss-German, German, French and Italian) and Austrian channels. The German channels have more... [More]

BelgiumBermudaLithuaniaGermanyRussiaSloveniaTongaFranceIrelandItalyLithuaniaUnited StatesUkraine

The Super Bowl takes place way too late on a school night for all but the most ardent fans on this side of the pond. This is not to say that there are no such fans over here. The Germans and British both had full coverage, with the British channel Film4 having gotten Terrel Davis and Mike Carlson to assist the Scottish announcer Colin Murray, who started off slowly but got steadily more hilarious as the game unfolded into a slaughter of Denver by Seattle. There were plenty of people willing to... [More]

The first round of the EM—which stands for Europameisterschaft[1], which means European championship in German—is over. The qualifying teams are mostly predictable, with all of the usual suspects making it through to the quarterfinals—France, England, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal—as well as the Czech Republic and Greece thrown in. Greece won the whole thing with an excruciating defensive style in 2004 and the Czech Rpeublic is often quite solid, so not really a surprise.

Some of the... [More]

Another NFL season is upon us. The Jets—weary, beleaguered, eternally unrewarded warriors—once again trudge to the line of scrimmage. The New York Jets: Week One by Morgan Meis (The Owls) has sports writing that borders on poetry:

“His name is Darrelle Revis and … [i]t is his fate to be the greatest cornerback, the greatest. He is so good that he erases himself. Did you see him during that first game, on Monday Night Football even as the fog lifted? No, you didn’t see him. That’s because his defensive genius... [More]”

Just a quick note on Contador’s behavior in the Tour de France when he took advantage of Schleck’s mechanical failure on a mountain stage. Schleck caught Contador napping and managed to break free of the group with only Alexander Vinoukorov managing to keep pace. He was free and clear of the group and riding like a man possessed; it’s hard to say how it would have ended, but it certainly looked like Schleck was about to build on his lead over Contador.

Instead, his chain dropped and clamped... [More]

I missed the second half of this game because I was watching the Tour de Suisse racing through my home town. In catching up on the news, I discovered the the U.S. had been robbed of a game-winning goal! Or so Facebook and Reddit told me. A search for videos on YouTube turned up several links to videos showing the goal in question: the play was not offsides and no U.S. player committed a foul (to the contrary, it was the Slovenians who were all over the U.S. players).

It seemed quite clear-cut:... [More]

In Switzerland, you can now watch the world cup live online in three different languages (German, French and Italian). It’s very good quality and easily good enough to watch the match. Compared to 4 years ago, it’s absolutely incredible. With a 5MBit connection at the office, we can easily spare some bandwidth to pull down the live stream and stay up-to-date as we work.

Apparently, we’re not alone in doing so.

This afternoon, during the Netherlands – Denmark match, we couldn’t log on to... [More]

Fans would give up food, jobs for World Cup glory? (Reuters) is a tremendously fluffy and stupid article. Did they actually interview people or did they just make this shit up based on gross cultural stereotypes?

“It found that a majority of English respondents – 93 percent – would give up food for a week to see England win, while some 70 percent of Italians would give up their job for an Italian victory.

“Americans were most willing to sacrifice their homes, while South Koreans were most ready to... [More]”

Short Track (or How Sports Works for the uninitiated)

Short track speed skating got the short shrift right up until the end from Eurosport. Apparently, there was a bit of a controversy with one of Apolo Anton Ohno’s races. More details are available in the article, Apolo Ohno Disqualified in 500 Meters, Wins Relay Bronze (Fanhouse)

I didn’t see the video because of the blanket NBC hatred for non-US residents and the NBC stranglehold on video content from the Olympics.

That does not prevent me from... [More]

TV Coverage

The only reason anyone can niggle about anything about TV coverage is because it does so many things right.[1] And, if you don’t like what Eurosport is showing, switch to another channel that’s showing something else. Other channels, like ORF (Austrian), the triad of Swiss channels (SF, TSR, TSI), and ARD (German) are also showing nearly nonstop coverage. You may not get it in a language you understand – and you may have to adjust your sleep schedule – but if it’s happening, at... [More]

American football is not static and undergoes rule changes from season to season. One such change is documented in the article Best Intimidating Answer to a Legitimate Question, in which stiff-arming has been considerably curtailed for the 2009-2010 NFL season. Marion Barber can proudly and rightly claim to be almost the sole reason for the change, though he doesn’t seem too put out by the upcoming limitation on his technique.

“Barber made a habit last year of violently stiff-arming potential... [More]”

This picture from The Year 2008 in Photographs (Big Picture Blog) is absolutely mind-blowing:

“Kerby Brown rides a huge wave in an undisclosed location southwest of Western Australia July 6, 2008, in this picture released November 7, 2008 by the Oakley-Surfing Life Big Wave Awards in Sydney.”

Italy 2 – France 0

The vaunted Italy–France matchup went awry early for France as Franck Ribéry injured himself on a bad tackle and had to leave the game in the tenth minute.[1] Then, with their offensive duo of Henry-Ribéry cut in half, Eric Abidal pulled Luca Toni down in the box, giving Italy a penalty kick and earning himself a red card. Pirlo converted the penalty to put Italy in the lead 1–0. Italy looked quite strong and confident on the attack, using a good passing game through the... [More]

Germany 1 – Austria 0

This match was horribly boring; watching the first half was like watching a cat play with a mouse, as the Germans gave the Austrians a long leash to see what they could do. Austria was clearly outmatched, but they collapsed to an ever-exciting nine-men-in-the-box formation at the slightest hint of offense from the Germans, which made it hard for Germany to capilatize or even create chances. So, it wasn’t surprising that the lone goal came from a scorching free hick by... [More]

Switzerland 2 – Portugal 0

Switzerland was already out and Portugal had benched many of their star players[1], but the Swiss came out still hunting for their first win in EM history. The Portugese had the game well in hand throughout the first half and both teams had a couple of decent chances. The replacement goalie for Switzerland was the old hand Patrick Zuberbühler—”Zubi” to everyone here—who made heavy use of his good friends the goalposts, as usual.

In the second half, the impossible... [More]

Spain 2 – Sweden 1

Spain and Sweden were relatively evenly-matched, with Spain going into the lead early on a corner kick. Ibrahimovich evened it up for Sweden in the 35th minute and, from then on, all was pretty much quiet with no real chances for either side. The only events of note were a pretty obvious bodycheck by Sweden in the penalty box that didn’t impress the referee at all[1] and a relatively obvious handball—again by Sweden and again in the penalty box—that also didn’t get called.... [More]

Italy 1 – Romania 1

It just wouldn’t be Italy if they didn’t require certain teams to win and other teams to lose and goal differences to be just right in order for them not to be mathematically eliminated. The game was exciting enough, with Romania having a few chances, but Italy having quite a few more—they just didn’t capitalize as often as they should have. As usual, they had one goal taken back—a nice header by Luca Toni—on a poor offsides call, but that’s become so standard that... [More]

Germany 1 – Croatia 2

Instead of the Germans, it was the Croatians that were extraordinarily well-organized and put together play after play on the net. By the end of the first half, the Germans were showing their frustration after nearly every offsides call and after every defensive error, both of which occurred often. The referee was a bit yellow card-happy against the Croatians, handing out eight of them in the first half—sometimes for tackles that got a lot of ball and almost none of... [More]

Portugal 3 – Czech Republic 1

This match marks the first equalizer of the tournament, with the Czechs pulling even not long after Portugal shot into the lead. The first half stayed relatively even, but the start of the second half was dominated by Portugal’s offense, which failed to crack the well-organized defense of the Czechs for twenty minutes before Ronaldo put his side’s second one in on a low scorching shot.

Christiano Ronaldo is the Portugese star and it’s amazing to see his... [More]

Spain 4 – Russia 1

It was a miserable day in Innsbruck, but the steady downpour didn’t seem to have much of an affect on either side. There were more fouls early in the match, but far fewer once nerves had settled.

It started out as a pretty evenly-matched contest with both sides showing flair and imagination in controlling the midfield and penetrating the penalty area. Much to Russia’s chagrin, however, it turned into a Spanish clinic on goal-scoring. The Russians didn’t play poorly nor... [More]

France 0 – Romania 0

Beni Thurnheer, whose in-game exclamations usually tend towards the annoying, put it perfectly with this turn of phrase: “Ein unglaublich langweiliges Spiel aber auf einem sehr höhen Niveau”. In English, that’s “An unbelievably boring game, but played on a very high level.” Both sides were good and showed strong defense, but it was a ninety-minute snooze-fest. The French coach walked onto the field after the final whistle, clapping slowly; it was hard to determine whether... [More]

At the end of two days of play, both hosts—Switzerland and Austria—have had a chance to play and both, as expected, got zero points for all their effort. So far, the usual suspects—and those rated higher in the FIFA rankings—have won their games, though not without a struggle and not without showing weakness in the form of a soft game or what looked like squads that weren’t ready to run the full ninety minutes.

If a squad can’t play ninety minutes in a Swiss June like this one—15°C... [More]

Sportswriters Swoon Over DC Ballpark by Dave Zirin (Common Dreams) brings news of the opening of the new baseball park in Washington DC in a deal that moved the Montreal Expos south to the USA. Apparently, the mainstream media coverage was nothing short of effusive—gushing, even—about the new stadium, which was almost wholly financed by taxpayer money. From the article:

“$611 million of tax payer money in a city that has become a ground zero of economic segregation and gentrification. $611 million over majority... [More]”

The next Olympics will be in China—everyone who’s anyone knows that by now. Some objected to the selection of China a long time ago, citing human rights violations; some objected to the selection of Russia for the next winter Olympics for similar reasons. None of the objecters seem to understand that the marketing—which emphasizes a wholesome gathering of nations striving for peace through competition—is wholly separate from the business of the Olympics, which emphasizes making money for... [More]

In the world of club sports, advertising is everywhere. Though the US has thus far resisted the urge to plaster corporate logo all over its players, Europe has long since capitulated to this lucrative source of financing. Ice hockey teams look like a unicorn ate too many jelly beans and threw up rainbows all over the ice—potheads would love it if the guys just wouldn’t move so quickly. Football[1] players look marginally better, their team owners usually restraining themselves to a single logo... [More]

Steve Yzerman retiresSteve Yzerman has retired from the NHL. He played for the Detroit Redwings all 23 years of his career, leading them to 3 Stanley Cups and 21 playoff appearances. He’s even got an Olympic gold medal, which he won with Canada when they could still play international hockey. ‘Captain’ forever has a place in hearts of Detroiters tells his story.

“There’s not a statistic for heart, but Yzerman would be the unquestioned record-holder. Through the years, he’s had five knee surgeries and lost all his... [More]”

The last couple of days have been pretty lackluster for football, from the Holland–Portugal disaster, wherein 16 yellow cards and 2 red cards were dished out to the two out-of-control teams, to the Italy–Australia and Switzerland–Ukraine games, which treated us to over 200 minutes of scoreless football. 200 minutes of master class in defense and all of the buzz today is about diving in the penalty box. The day before, Germany took an early two goal lead and sat on it for a further boring 80... [More]

The team should be congratulated for demonstrating such character. –Luis Figo

Ivanov did this 4 timesThe article Four off as Portugal send Dutch home (Eurosport) covers a match that looked more like ice hockey on grass than World Cup football. You have to have seen the match to realize just how ironic the quote above is, coming from Luis Figo, who was part of an extremely vicious Portugese side against the Dutch last night.

The two sides—both capable of very fine football—quickly became more concerned with producing and... [More]

The U.S. Bows Out With Honor (Time) highlights the last match in the 2006 World Cup for the United States, including the critical defensive error by Claudio Reyna that led to the first goal for Ghana and the questionable penalty call in the 3rd minute of extra time in the first half.

Questionable? No…that’s not it. Ridiculous? That’s more like it. Bruce Arena has this to say about it:

“I think we’d all agree it wasn’t a good call to have that in the 47th minute, after our team worked so hard to get... [More]”