Free Blog...

This is officially my last blog post for the semester, and since I have not used my free blog I thought it would be convenient to do so now. Over this semester, I have enjoyed english class a lot, a statement I thought I would never say myself for I have never liked english classes. I did not appreciate reading and writing in the past, maybe because english is not my primary language. But now, it doesn't feel as bad. I think mrs. Stoklosa did a good job implementing fun activities that made us learn and have a good time altogether.

But liking reading and writing were not the only things I learned over the course of the class. Almost everyday real life situations were broght in play, and we really had to think and make descisions on our own. I feel like I learned some life lessons, and I know a little bit more about society than I did before. I also feel a little more prepared to face life now, even though I still have a lot to learn. Another great thing that I learned was test stuff. I mean like SAT and FCAT stuff. I feel better prepared with the tips that I learned and I will use them when taking these tests.

Soccer in America

As the last week of blogging is here, I wanted to sum up the purpose of my blog. In the last couple of decades, soccer has been growing more and more on America. It is obviously not at the popularity level that other sports like football, baseball, and hockey are, but it is growing. People in the U.S. now actually now when the world cup is and they might even watch a couple of games. Over the years, great soccer players have tried to bring the popular game to U.S., players like Pele, Beckham and Valderrama, who are among the world's greatest ever, come to U.S. to play and try and popularize the sport. Through my blog I try to do some of the same, try to bring soccer news to my peers so that they will be informed and maybe even start liking the sport. The U.S. system for youth soccer is great, and has currently much of the worlds best 14-16 year olds. Although most of these kids are not American, they will probably obtain American citizenship and will some day maybe play for the U.S. team. Who knows, maybe in the future the U.S. team will be one of the best teams...

World Cup draw

The world cup draw, event in which the teams qualified are put into different groups, took place last friday. The groups are overall evenly matched, but as always there are some easy and some harder groups. The group of death, which is thought to be the most difficult group, includes two of the world's best teams, Brazil and Portugal. Both of these teams are full of superstars, but some of the squad shine brighter than others. In Portugal, the undisputed best is Cristiano Ronaldo, who after a month of absence came back and has made his presence felt, he is a great player and could make all the difference in a game. In Brazil, the resurgence of the likes of Ronaldinho and Ronaldo have caused attention to go towards them.
On the other hand, is the easy group. This group includes Italy, Paraguay and two other teams that are not known for their great soccer. I feel italy will have no problem getting first in their group, and will go all the way through to win the World Cup for second time in a row. Last time around, defence proved to be everything, with the champions italy only con

Champions League

This last week was the last matchday of the group stage of the Uefa Champions League. The groups, even though a little shaky at first, came out as everyone had hoped, with the top guns on top where they belong. Teams like Real Madrid, Ac Milan. Barcelona, Inter, Arsenal, Man unt. and other of the biggest culbs in the world made it through to the next round.
My question is who will win? Now your decision is a little easier to make, because there are only 16 teams left on the competition. My personal favorite as much of you know is Real Madrid. In their game, Cristiano ronaldo came back from the injury in a big way, by scoring two goals, and one of them an incredible free kick. In other news, Messi, the young star of Barca, also scored an amazing goal, but got hurt in the last seconds. He has an ankle injury and will be out for only about two weeks.

World Cup

This past week the last spots for the World Cup were booked through the last match-day of world cup qualifying. Of the big teams that still had some work to do and were unsure of their presence in South Africa in 2010, most of them made it through. Out of the top guns France, Portugal, Russia, and Uruguay, only Russia failed to qualify and gave their spot to Slovenia. As for the other 28 remaining spots, only squads capable of winning the World Cup are filling them, teams of the biggest stage like Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, and England among others. The question is place today is who do you think is going to win it all and come out victorious next summer in South Africa? Most people tend to go with the big names, the ones before mentioned like Italy and such, but could this be the year of a new-comer? The year in which finally an African team will win it? I personally think Italy are going to win, but what do you think? Comment and let me know!

Real Madrid-Barcelona

This upcoming weekend is going to be by far the most exciting match-day of the Spanish League and maybe of all soccer so far this season. What is the big occasion? The top two teams in Spain, and questionably of the whole world, will face each other in "El Clasico," name given to the game between Real Madrid and Barcelona. What makes these teams such world powers is that in them are the best three players, for most people. In Real they are in the form of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka, and Messi is who plays this role in Barcelona. The last time these two teams played each other, Barcelona came out on top by a score of 6-2. However, this score does not indicate with exatitude how this rivalry really is, for the games are always close. This is like Yankees-Red Sox of soccer, and it is going to be an exciting one this year, so tune in to see it. Also, leave your comments about your opinion on who is going to win this one.

Real Madrid

By now, some of you might have realized that Real Madrid are my favorite futbol team. So I am bringing the latest news on them. Over the summer they signed Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who is arguably the best soccer player on the world right now. Real Madrid are in some what of a crisis, they are doing good in the Spanish League, but they just got knocked out of the Cup by a third division team, and suffered a real scare last weekend when they saw their 3-0 lead being dimished to 3-2 and almost got tied by their city rivals on a game they won with much nerves. All of this, however, can be attributed to one cause, Cristiano Ronaldo being injured for about the past month. Ronaldo is the top scorer of the Champions League and one of the top in the Spanish League, and Real are really feeling his absence. He also going to miss the desicive two-legged match against Boznia with his country Portugal in the World Cup qualifiers. This injury is not a major one, but in the case it was, economically Real would not have been affected with the payment of the treatment, since right before the season they insured his legs for 100 million Euros, in case that he suffered a major injury. Check this article for this crazy spending: