Levi's Stadium: The good, the bad, the ugly.

This weekend Alfie is watching Manchester United play FC Barcelona in the International Champions Cup. I'm green with envy! These are two of the biggest football clubs in the world, and even if only a portion of their first team plays, it's going to be an amazing match. Hopefully he'll get to see the (un)holy trinity of strikers -- Messi, Suarez, and Neymar -- match skills against Van Persie, Rooney, Mata, and more. What's more, they'll be playing in one of the best new stadiums around: Levi's Stadium.

Practice makes Perfect: Introducing the Skills Bros Jr

Ball control is one of the most basic soccer skills, and my boys have been practicing keepy-ups (kicking the ball up with one or both feet without letting the ball touch the ground) since they were in first grade.  I remember when doing 5 keepy-ups was a challenge. They were so frustrated and impatient to do more, but Alfie and I reminded them of their experiences with the Shred Sled -- that they would only improve with practice.

So they practiced.

My favorite World Cup 2014 commercials

Football is not a sport that lends itself easily to commercial breaks.  The clock never stops, not for time outs, not even for injuries, and certainly not to switch from offensive to defensive to special teams.  Sponsors have to content themselves with signage on the field, on player jerseys, and on-screen placements beside the match score.  Fortunately, the payoff is enormous; the 2010 World Cup final was seen by over 1 billion people, so it's worth spending the time and money to create a memorable World Cup ad. With YouTube, Facebook, and social media, companies don't even have to buy ad time to get their message across. If an ad resonates, it will go viral.

Companies have been scrambling to take advantage of World Cup fever, with dozens of soccer-themed commercials airing since the beginning of June.  Even those who are not official sponsors of the World Cup have joined the bandwagon -- their ads don't mention the World Cup or show the official, FIFA World Cup logo, but their intent is clear.  As a soccer fan, I'm loving all of it!  Here's a list of my 5 favorite World Cup ads (so far), as well as a longer list of World Cup ads that are worth watching:

USA vs. Azerbaijan, pre-World Cup friendly

It's FIFA World Cup season!  The opening match (Brazil vs. Croatia) is schedule for June 12, and I'm so excited.  For the next 6-7 weeks we'll be glued to the TV -- we've even scheduled our road trips and long vacations to make sure we'll have access to a TV (or a pub) to watch each and every match!

It ain't over till it's over (plus extra time...)

If there's one thing I've learned from watching soccer, it's that the game isn't over until the final whistle blows.  One of Alfie's and my pet peeves when watching soccer games is seeing fans leave the stadium before the game ends.  Usually that happens when one team is down by a few goals and there doesn't seem to be much hope of them catching up.  No doubt they can't stand to see their team lose, and they want to get a head start on the outbound crowd.

How teammates become friends

This past weekend the boys went on their first-ever overnight soccer tournament, the NorCal State Cup for U9 boys in Davis, CA.  Davis is less than 2 hours' drive from home, but their team had four games spread out over 2 days, and 2 of those games started at 8AM (7:15AM if you count their warm-up time) so everyone agreed it would be best to stay at a motel on Friday and Saturday night.

I love watching their games, but with the holidays approaching and The Pea's Nutcracker rehearsals going and with our trip to the Manila looming on the horizon, taking a whole weekend off for soccer seemed excessive.  Then we all came down with colds and flu the week before, so everyone was stressed out trying to recover.  3Po and Jammy shook off the virus by Thursday and I scraped through on Friday, but Alfie had to miss the whole thing, which was a huge blow since he's their biggest fan.  The team hasn't been playing too well either, so I was not optimistic as I drove off, leaving a miserable Alfie and an ecstatic Pea (ecstatic because didn't have to go) at home.

London 2012: Olympic Football

When we purchased our tickets to Olympic football (soccer) a year ago, we had no idea which teams would be playing.  We made our choice based on the stadium (we wanted to spend some time in Wales to see Cardiff and the Millenium Stadium) and the price (the quarterfinal match was within our family-of-5 budget, and we figured that the crappy teams would have been weeded out by the quarterfinals, so we'd get a decent match).  So it was a delighful surprise to find out that Team GB had been placed into Group A, and that we would be watching the winner of group A play in our semifinal.  And when Team GB actually did win the lottery, we felt like we had won the gold medal already.  We'd only be watching one match -- and it would be Team GB!  We were already looking forward to the event, but now our excitement had reached fever pitch.

See soccer grow

As a soccer fan, it really makes me happy to see the way the level of soccer is improving in the US. Our women's national soccer team is ranked #1 worldwide, and our men's team has qualified for the last 6 FIFA World Cup tournaments in a row, making it to the 2nd round in 1994 and 2010, and to the quarterfinals in 2006. Frankly, Alfie and I think it's only a matter of time before the US wins the World Cup.

Abby Wambach, American Hero

The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup has just finished, and Japan are the new women's world champions. We've been following the tournament for a couple of weeks, and I'm one of the many fans disappointed that Japan beat the US for the top prize. Alfie and I were really hoping the US Women's Team would win, first of all because they deserved it (not to detract from Japan's performance, they were amazing and I was really impressed with their Barcelona-esque passing game, but the US played a better game), and second because it would have meant so much to the development of soccer in the US. When Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain et al won the World Cup in 1999, they became heroes and role models for girls all across the US, and had this team won the tournament, soccer would be poised to become more popular than ever. Americans love a winner, and a win would have guaranteed front-page news, tv interviews, Wheaties boxes -- and a resurgence of interest in soccer -- for a long, long time.

Soccer, Don't Stop!

3Po's and Jammy's soccer league season ended last weekend, and there's more than a vacancy in our Monday, Wednesday and Saturday schedules -- there's a a hole in our heart. Okay, that's overdramatizing, but 3Po and Jammy are really are going to miss those practices and games. The soccer bug has bitten them hard, and they're really sad about not being part of a team any more. Getting a shiny trophy and a snazzy pin at the last game (which, to add insult to injury, was canceled due to the rain) was small consolation for the prospect of being deprived of soccer games throughout the winter.

World Cup Fever

We're now in the early stages of Round 2 in the FIFA World Cup 2010, and things are more interesting than ever. What with the Jabulani and the vuvuzelas, the Italians and the French, the referree blunders and sore-loser coaches, this World Cup is turning out to be just like a soap opera. And then there are the matches, the nail-biting, nerve-shredding roller-coaster matches that truly showcase the beautiful game at its best. No wonder we can't look away. Here are some signs to show that our family, kids and adults alike, are truly hooked on this World Cup:


10) We've been eating dinner in front of the tv while we watch games that were Tivo'd earlier in the day.

9) We try to sleep early so we can get up in time for the next day's 7:00AM game.

8) 3Po and Jammy no longer play Webkinz Ninja Fighting games with their Webkinz stuffed animals -- they play Webkinz Soccer.

7) Jammy wants to meet Landon Donovan.

6) The Pea gets the off-side rule -- and has been seen screaming at the TV when she thinks there was daylight between the attacker and the defender.

5) 3Po went to bed the other night sobbing, all because USA had lost to Ghana.

4) The kids can recognize the flags of Uruguay, Paraguay, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ghana, South Africa, and other nations that they didn't even know about until this World Cup.

3) The kids can draw the flags of Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, Serbia, and all those flags with the complicated crests in the design.

2) The kids can even pronounce Uruguay and Paraguay without missing a beat.

And the number-one sign that we've caught World Cup Fever:

1) We timed our flight to the UK to make sure we wouldn't miss any matches -- we leave for the UK a couple of hours after one quarterfinal (Match 58) and arrive at Heathrow the next day with just enough time to grab our bags, pick up a rental car, drive to Alfie's parents' place, pour out a cup of tea and settle down to watch the next quarterfinal (Match 59).


Viva la beautiful game!