I know, I know, it’s pretty uncommon for me to mention anything football/soccer related on this blog, but what I saw yesterday on TV while I was working out was pretty amazing-if not strange.

South Africa is hosting the FIFA Confederations Cup, a pre-World Cup tournament which brings together the top teams from each continent, plus defending World Cup champs, Italy. It also serves as a dress rehersal for the organizing country, as South Africa will be hosting the FIFA World Cup next year.

The US Men’s Team looked to be dead and buried after losing 3-1 to Italy, and 3-0 to Brazil. There is no real shame losing to those two powerhouses, but the way that the US played poorly had soccer pundits here in the US shaking their heads at head coach Bob Bradley’s men. The third and last game in round robin group play should have been a get-the-subs-off-the-bench kind of a game. Then a couple of strange things happened: Egypt, the African champs, played really well in losing 4-3 to Brazil, and then the Pharaohs shocked the World Champs 1-0.  This created the very unlikely scenario where the US would have to beat the high-flying Egyptians by 3 goals, and Italy would have to lose by three clear goals to to Brazil. In international soccer, goals just generally don’t get scored in bundles like that.

Unbelievably, the above scenario really happened. The US, but having scored one more goal in the tournament than Italy, earned a ticket to Bloemfontein to play the Spaniards. The top ranked team in the world, riding a 15 match winning streak, with the likes of Casilla and Fernando Torres must have surely thought that Americans would be a mere speed bump on their way to the final against either Brazil or South Africa.

I could not believe my eyes as I watched the TV yesterday as Jozy Altidore-who plays his club soccer in Spain with Villareal-outmuscled a defender for a loose ball that he deflected past the goalkeeper Iker Casillas and the post for a 1-0 USA lead. Spain kept coming in waves. Tim Howard the US goalkeeper, who plays his club soccer in England with Everton, came up huge yesterday. He must have felt like a clay pigeon on a shooting range, as Spain outshot the Eagles 29-9.

Clint Dempsey, whose form has been uneven the last couple of years, scored his second goal of the tournament to close the door on Spain.

For the USA, one of it’s biggest wins. Certainly in terms of upsets, only it’s mythical 1-0 win over England in the 1950 World Cup and it’s win against heavily favored Portugal in the 2002 World Cup were bigger surprises.

The result shows again why sport can captivate us, when the totally unexpected can happen.

Clearly, the results by the US, and the swashbuckling, take-no-prisoners style of play by the Egyptians were the biggest surprises in this Confederations Cup.

France will be minus two key players in this weekend’s fixture in Australia: Sebastien Chabal and Matheiu Bastareaud. The former suffered a calf injury and is heading back to France. The latter got assaulted in Wellington, New Zealand after France’s 14-10 loss to the All Blacks this past weekend.

Apparently the French center, who did not play over the weekend, was alone (Somebody needs to remind this guy, that even though he is a big dude, being all by yourself in the middle of the night in any foreign country is NOT a good idea) getting out of his Taxi when he got jumped by 4-5 individuals. Tests were negative for any serious injuries, other than a cut that needed some stitches and a black eye. Clearly he was very shaken up by the entire experience.

The team management for Les Bleus have been trying to take the high road and avoiding adding any gasoline to a potentially volitile situation. Assistant coach Ntamack said

“This is a sport but when you are in an incident like that, it is always a shame. I don’t want to see a problem between Les Bleus and the New Zealand All Blacks and the New Zealand public.

“It’s just a bad incident. He hasn’t broken a bone or something like that. In rugby you have some stupid people (fans).”

The French Head Coach, Marc Lievremont, added “You have to denouce it, But that said, You cannot become totally pessimistic and alarmist-This could happen anywhere, in Perpignan, Paris or Biarritz to come upon 4 assholes who drank too much and give some guy who is alone a bunch of crap who iis by himself. It is out of the question to throw a rock at New Zealand and her supporters. It’s true that there were some incidents during the first match that were a bit surpsising for rugby fans (water bottles being thrown at players)-but I would like to consider this to be an aberration.”(This quote translated from L’Equipe)

Even though the French are saying all of the right things, and I am sure that Kiwi rugby fans are simply appalled and red-faced by the attack, there IS more than a little history that goes back between France and New Zealand, and it is not all rugby-related. There was the sinking of the Greenpeace ship “The Rainbow Warrior” in Auckland that ended up being tied in with French Intelligence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

During the 1990’s, French President Jacques Chirac was behind France’s effort to do above ground nuclear testing in the south Pacific, much to the chagrin of Pacific island nations like New Zealand and Australia, but the Kiwis were particularly vocal in the their protests to Chirac.

And  then there is rugby…

France has pulled off two spectacular upsets of the All Blacks in the 1999 and the 2007 Rugby World Cups-the last one where the All Blacks were prohibitive favorites. By beating the All Blacks last week in the first test, The French also saved some Northern Hemisphere pride in the process, given how poorly the Six Nations sides did against the Tri-Nations sides last November, and the loss to the Springboks by the British/Irish Lions this past weekend. For whatever reason, France seems to be the one European side that has gotten inside the All Blacks’ head.

The attack on Bastareaud certainly thickens the plot before the 2011 Rugby World Cup…oh yeah, and France will be in the same group as New Zealand.

Happy Father’s Day if you are a father reading this. I would especially like to give a shot out to a couple of dads who do my favorite rugby-centric blogs: Matt at www.greenandgoldrugby.com   and Barry at www.totalflanker.blogspot.com

Otherwise hoping you can have a good Father’s Day with your dad. For my wife, this holiday can be kind of bittersweet, as her dad passed away almost 14 years ago. I am lucky that I still have my dad around-he’s 70 now, and his health is not always the greatest.

Today I invited my dad, my brother and one of his son’s and my 92 year old grandmother to come over to my house. We’re having some fried Chicken from both Popeyes and from KFC. I know that seems like an odd thing to do, getting fried chicken from two different places, but I love the spicy chicken from Popeyes. I recognize that not everybody likes their fowl done flame-thrower style, so I got some extra-crispy and original recipe from KFC. (That’s Kentucky Fried Chicken, not a new football club)

I was lucky growing up in that I had multiple role models. My dad, my step dad and my maternal grandfather all had a huge role in the type of person that I became. To my dad, I owe my love of animals, my willingness to not burn bridges and make enemies. From my step dad, he gave me a hard kick in the ass to get out of the house and do sport, to give my best effort in school, to learn a foriegn language, as well as made me less of a picky eater and to enjoy a variety of different types of cuisine. From my maternal grandfather-the greatest man whom I have ever known-I learned how to be patient, how to be responsible, and how to take pride in doing a job, well-done.

Anyway, have a great Father’s day. Dinner is served.

My grandson Duncan turns a year old today. Boy, time goes fast. It’s been a unique situation that Duncan, along with his mom and dad have been living under our roof for the past year. It’s put me in the unique situation of seeing my grandson grow and develop every day. I guess now that he is a year old, he is no longer a baby, but he is not quite walking yet, so he is not a toddler. I guess he is in an “X” range for now. My two dogs, Buddha and Basil are both happy with the extra treats Duncan throws down or drops onto them from his high chair.

One thing for sure is that he is the type of baby who can lull parents into a false sense of security that this having baby thing is easy. Duncan’s dad, my son Ian, was a really good-tempered baby. Then when we had his sister, from the time Rachel was about 9 months, to the time she was almost 3, I had very serious doubts about ever enjoying a restaurant meal ever again. If possible, Duncan has been even more even tempered than even his dad was during infancy.

Ian and Andrea have another year of university study before they are done with their degrees and ready to move on to the next phase in their lives. That means we can watch Duncan grow from a baby into the Terrible Two stage. I would not trade this experience for anything.

If you are a Minnesota Viking or Buffalo Bills fan in American football, you know what it is like for your team to make the Super Bowl, only to come up short. Both teams have gone 0-4 on the big stage for the NFL.  If you are a Vikings fan under the age of 32, you have never even SEEN them in a Super Bowl, as the last one they lost was back in 1977, when they got smoked by the Oakland Raiders.

Spare a thought for the rugby fans from the Auvergne, in south-central France. Clermont-Ferrand is not just the home to Michelin tires, it is home to ASM Clermont Auvergne, who last Saturday at the Stade de France lost their tenth final in trying to lift Le Bouclier de Brennus. After Brock James and his teamates did a smash and grab by beating Toulouse IN Toulouse, there were more than a few people who thought that this just might be their year. When Nalaga scored a try early on, I am sure visions of a great party in Clermont were starting to dance in everybody’s heads.

It should be added that Maxime Mermoz and his Catalans had the weight of all of Catalonia on their backs, as it has been 55 years since they had lifted Le Bouclier de Brennus. After falling behind 7-0, the Catalans were able to regroup, play a very solid second half, and turn Clermont infractions into points and ball posession as they would win 22-13.

Poor Clermont Auvergne…still the bridesmaid, not yet a bride. As bad as it has been for us Vikings fans, I cannot even begin to imagine how gutted the fans in blue and gold had to be as they took the long trip back to the Auvergne. For Perpignan, I can only imagine the unbridled celebration that took place in the south west of France. (It should be added that with Barcalona’s win against Manchester United in soccer/football’s Champions League Final, Catalonia now has a second big peice of hardware with le Bouclier de Brennus…can they translate that into Heineken Cup glory next year?)

My young friend from Perpignan, Jean Bellier, had a very good week, not only did his favorite team get a chance to lift the Holy Grail of French rugby, but his team he plays with here, the Plymouth Panthers http://www.ballcharts.com/PlymouthPanthers (Our exchange student from last year, Rodrigo played with them last year) won the Minnesota U-19 championship in a dramatic win with a last minute drop goal to beat East Metro. Poor Jean did not get a chance to play in the final, as he had injured his rotator cuff in his left shoulder playing hooker for the Panthers.

Still, in talking with Jean last night, he had no regrets-yes, he would have loved to have played in the final, but more importantly, he had a chance to play here in Minnesota and he had a chance to meet a lot of kids from other schools who he never would have had the chance to meet. He is going to be going back to France in a couple of weeks.

Jean was at the house last night along with my South African friend Jacques and my friend Kevin(  a co-worker of my wife’s at her funeral home) to watch the British Lions beat the Natal Sharks.

It should be added that since the Sharks have had all of their best players pulled to play for the Springboks, the Lions essentially beat the Sharks B-team http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/8092839.stm. Brian O’Driscoll had a great game for the Lions, as did Welsh Fullback Lee Byrne. The Lions had a lot of troubles in the scrum(Particularly loose head prop, Gethin Jenkins) against this B-team. They are going to have to get those problems sorted out in a big way against the Springboks, because the Bok pack is bigger, faster and more physical.

I think there should be some decent games with the Lions and and the Springboks in a couple of weeks, but I just think the Boks have way too much team speed and athleticism, and as Al Davis used to say when his Oakland Raiders were great(a long time ago) “Speed Kills”.

We had my daughter Rachel’s graduation party on Sunday. I don’t mind saying that it was a helluva lot of work getting it done-even more so because we made the decision to throw out some nasty old carpet in the basement that was stinking from mold from past basement floods and the occasional dog accident-it really needed to get ripped out.

This meant moving all of the furniture around, buying new carpet and laying it down-my wife did a great job putting the carpet in-I don’t know how I should feel about my wife being so adroit with a carpet cutting knife. My son Ian and his fiancée, Andrea did a ton of work over the last couple of days helping to get the house in order.

One of the other things that made this graduation party unique is that my daughter wanted to have her horse Maverick be a part of the festivities. One of her friends brought him down to our house in New Hope, and Rachel gave a lot people rides up and down the street on her horse-including my grandson, Duncan, who two weeks shy of his first birthday got his first horse ride. I was even able to get up on Maverick-although he grunted loudly when I hopped on, was a good sport about having my 215 pounds/98 Kilos on his back… It was also great seeing some friends who I have not seen in years-in some cases more than a decade.  We bought a keg of root beer(for my readers not from North America, root beer is really not beer, it’s a non alcoholic soda that is very popular to American tastes-I have not met many Europeans who like it) and a keg of Summit India Pale Ale, produced in Saint Paul, Minnesota. (Even many of my non-American friends like Summit-we can produce decent beer in this country, however it is NOT anything that has “Miller” or “Budweiser” engraved on it) We did not kill off all of the keg of beer at the party, so as I am writing this at 1 AM, my son Ian invited several of his mates over to our house to finish off the beer.

I have to say that now that my youngest kid is done with high school and ready to get on with her adult life, I have to say that it feels good. No tears here-I feel like my daughter has the tools to be a success in whatever she chooses to do.

I don’t know if I have ever said it in this blog before, but I think of good parenting as working yourself OUT of a job. I know she will live at home this next year when she starts college, but it certainly is a watershed moment in a parent’s life when their youngest child gets their high school diploma and then try to figure out what to do in this thing called life.

As for me, I have some Summit Ale to polish off before bed…I can’t let Ian and his friends have ALL of the fun.

It has been a really hectic couple of weeks, I have really had no time to blog, which has been frustrating because there has been a lot to write about.

My daughter Rachel graduated from her high school, The Main Street School of Performing Arts, in what was probably the best graduation ceremony that I have ever seen-and after having sat through the graduations of my son and 12 of our AFS exchange students, I have seen quite a few. Rachel’s graduation took only an hour-only 36 kids graduated from her class (it’s a small charter high school), but the quality of the entertinment was amazing-that should not be a surprise since it IS an arts high school, but I was really, really impressed.

One of the other great traditions in this country, is once you graduate, you have a huge party. In Rachel’s case, it will be tomorrow. We tore up the old carpet in the basement, bought new carpet, and have just been trying to get the house put together for the people that will be coming for Rachel’s open house.

It is hard to say what I think about my youngest one having graduated from high school now. I am not feeling any meloncholy or sadness-quite the contrary-I feel like my wife and I have done a pretty good job giving her the tools to grow up, she took the baton and ran with it and has done a very good job for herself.

Way to go, Girly-Girl…we are ALL proud of you.