I went and saw the Disney/Pixar movie, “Up” last night with my wife and my daughter. http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/up/tale.html No Surprise that Pixar has another winner along the lines of “Toy Story”, “Cars” and “Ratatouille”.
What I was not expecting was to be a blubbering mess during the movie, and finding myself feeling very nostalgic and thinking a lot about [...]

Wow, it has just been insane trying to blog with my work schedule. There has been so much going on for the past couple of weeks, it is hard to decide where to begin.

Awhile back, I commented on the alleged assault of French National Team Center Mathieu Bastereaud in Wellington, New Zealand after the French lost to the All Blacks,14-10. Turns out that he was not beat up by a group of thugs. The story keeps changing, but the first story was that he got drunk and fell in his hotel room, and that is how he got the bruises and the gash on his face that needed stitches. Now the story is that he got into a dust-up with one of his teamates who felt the need to knock the 20 year old rising French star down a few pegs.

I think in view of all of this, that might explain why the head honchos in the French delegation were not so quick to castigate Kiwi fans nor the citizens of Wellington. Turns out, they must have known what was going on all along.

The US men’s national soccer team played 45 great minutes in the first half of the Confederations Cup final against might Brazil. Goals from Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan put the US up 2-0 at halftime. In the second half, Brazil showed that to beat them, 45 very good minutes is not enough, as they roared back to score three goals in the second half to win this compelling match-and just gut the plucky American side who had improved so much in their last 3 games of this tournament-a dress rehersal for the South Africans for next year’s FIFA World Cup. (3-0 win against African champs Egypt, 2-0 shocking win against defending Euro champ Spain, and now this  game against Brazil)

Clint Dempsey got the Bronze Ball as the third best player in this tournament. I think though, that American midflielder, captain and the man most Mexican soccer fans LOVE to hate, Landon Donovan was the overall best player in this tournament for the US.  (Goalkeeper Tim Howard of Everton had a very good tournament as well)

To the credit of the American players, they are no longer happy with “moral victories”. They want to win each time they go out there, irregardless of the opponent. Still, after opening losses in this tournament to Italy and Brazil by a combined score of 6-1, this tournament is good progress for coach Bob Bradley and his men, who have to get ready for a World Cup qualifier in the high altitude, smog-infested, gringo-hating atmosphere of Mexico City at the Azteca Stadium against Mexico next month.

The British/Irish Lions just played their second match last week in South Africa in Pretoria against the Springboks. The Lions had not looked great in early games in this tournament. They needed to really up their level of play against the defending World Cup champs to avoid a series defeat.

The Springboks won 28-25, and clinched the series in what can only be described as an epic game. It had controversy (A blatant eye gauge in Luke Fitzgerald and an illegal shoulder charge against the Lions), great play, unbelievable hitting (Both Lions Props got knocked out of the game, one with a broken cheek, the other with a separated shoulder) and a dramatic win in the end of the Lions on replacement fly half Morne Steyn’s roughly 50 meter penalty as time ran out. There is much to pick apart in this game, but in the end, it was a great game of rugby played in pristine conditions at Loftus Versfeld. In the past 12 months, I can only think of a few games that might have been more compelling than this one: The All Blacks at Munster during the fall tours, Leicester’s overtime win against Cardiff in the Heineken Cup, and two of the Six Nations games involving Wales, both losses for Gavin Henson and his mates, the loss to France in Paris, and the loss to Ireland at Cardiff. This Springboks-Lions game may have had all of those beat-and to think that it’s a game with no trophy or title on the line-just two sides with history and a lot to prove to each other could produce an unbeleivably compelling game of rugby.

Ian McGeechan, the Lions coach, is going to have to somehow patch together a side that is physically beat-up and probably more than a little demoralized after losing the series. He needs to somehow put a team together and motivate them for this Saturday’s final test against the Springboks at Coca-Cola Park (the former Ellis Park) in Jo-Burg this Saturday. If the Lions can come up with a similar effort-and if Ronan O’Gara decides to avoid ill-advised up and unders and then taking out the ball carrier in the air like he did this past Saturday to set the Boks up for Steyn’s heroics, the Lions can at least salvage a little bit of pride as they leave South Africa.

I know the British press was pretty tough on the Lions early on during this tour-and they probably deserved it-but this game from this past weekend was a classic, that showed just how spell-binding this game of rugby can be.