Yesterday the Carolina Railhawks beat the Richmond Kickers to advance to the final four of the US open cup.  They will play the winner of the NE Revolution and Harrisburg City Islanders.  Here is the write up of the 1-0 win from the Railhawks website.  It would be pretty neat if the Railhawks could advance to the final of the US Open cup.  If a USL-1 team got that far in the tournament it would be great for the team and perhaps it would inspire ownership to look towards joining MLS.  I think that this is a great area for soccer, considering how many young people play, how many adult leagues there are, not to mention the Latino population around here which loves soccer.  The next US open cup match is September 4th.

Sorry, I know this place has been more political since I started back, but I have always just written what is on my mind, and politics has been bouncing around up there lately.  Dont worry there will be plenty of other stuff floating by sooner or later (I still need to write up a trip report of our backpacking to cold mountain).

So here is a link to some Cuban hospitals not featured on Moore’s “Sicko”: http://freethoughts.wordpress.com  I would like to see a documentary come out as an answer to Sicko which looks at the way things actually are.

Also I just thought I would mention how facebook has been coming in handy lately.  A local group of people around Mebane called “Soccer Saturdays” has been useful for getting people together to do stuff.  If you are interested in knowing when soccer games are getting together in Mebane (and probably other stuff too) then message me on facebook and I’ll get you into the group.  From then on you will see notes in your facebook inbox when things are getting together.

If anyone feels like they can make it in the MLS they now have a shot with the LA Galaxy, who are holding open tryouts. Of course everyone knows by now that they signed David Beckham to a ridiculously huge contract last week. I guess their intent is that they will surround Beckham with a bunch of high schoolers who they can pay 100 dollars a game. The fans will still flock to the stadium however, so they can catch a glimpse of David Beckham’s wife.

It has been one whole year since my first post to thebradlands, December 15th, 2005. I would like to thank my mom and dad, for bringing me into this world. Also my producer/ providor/ spellchecker/ factchecker Warren Myers. Of course I’d like to thank Jillian who has stuck with me through thick and thin and has helped me with my Spanish. And lastly all my fans who have made it fun for me to write knowing that you care enough to check by and read. Blogging has been a great way to vent my excitement in lots of different areas. Hopefully reading has energized you, and thebradlands has been an instrument to get you excited about life.

First of all, congratulations to Italy. I was very happy for all my Italian American friends, and I was very happy that they beat France. The 5 of 5 for penalty kicks was very exciting.

Also, here is a video of the ghana team practicing for the world cup. I think that is Pimpong sharing his personal expertise with the rest of his team mates. I would also like to see a video of some of the Referees prepairing for this World Cup. I am sure that it would involve blindfolds, a lot of looking the other way, and sneak peaks up at the instant replay on the big screen.

Here is something to debate. The comentators said that one of the linesman saw the replay of the French head-butt to the chest and relayed it to the center linesman who issued a red card. Technically there is no instant replay in soccer, so is that really right? Should there have been a red card since none of the referees saw what happened first person real time? If we say its ok in this case since it was so flagrant, then what if one of the referees glance up and notice they had the wrong call and reverse it on something not quite as black and white, like an out of bounds or a foul during play? How do you handle this technically since the fans deserve to see instant replays, and thats what those big screen TVs are for? Very interesting.

This is the day that has been awaited for four years by the entire soccer community (the world). Today the World Cup begins in Germany with a match between Germany and Costa Rica and a match between Poland and Ecuador.

Basically how this works is there are 8 groups, with 4 teams in each group. All of the teams in each group play all of the other teams in the group (six games per group) and the two teams with the best records advance to the next round. The US plays its first game on June 12th against the Czech Republic, and then it plays Italy and Ghana. We will need to win two of those three games two advance. Ghana isnt expected to be very good so we pretty much have to kill them. We then need to win one over either Italy (preferably) or the Czech Republic to advance. One thing that would be very nice is if Ghana beat either Italy or the Czech Republic, because its possible to end up in a 3 way tie if three teams end up with a 2-1 record and one has an 0-3 record. I am not sure what they use as a tie breaker but I think it might be whoever racks up the most goals.

So we shall see how the US does this year. For the record, the best that the US has ever done is advanced beyond the first round, and that has only happened once in 1994. They then were eliminated by Brazil, the eventual winner of the world cup. So we shall see if we can best that record, advance once again, and win it all for the first time in history. Go USA!