Soccer!
My cousing Israel Alkon bumped into none other than biggest soccer star ever, Diego Armando Maradona, on his recent trip to Argentina. I can’t believe he’s taller than Maradona (it gives some people I know hope).
This beats hands-down my Luis Perez Kodak moment, and at the same time leaves me with only 1 degree of separation of the greatest soccer god in history (sorry, Pelé, but you don’t have your own church).
Anand Narayanan received his prize for winning the FIFA World Cup 2006 Polla. Congratulations Anand! He finished 10 points ahead of me. I was 9th.
Click to see the full size photo and you’ll notice that Anand has also won an air hockey tournament and belongs to the world famous Austin soccer team the NI Eagles.
After a month of non-stop World Cup soccer Italy takes the championship for the fourth time. Congratulations to them. Cetrulo is thrilled. I’m happy for him.
But I don’t care.
What I do care about is that after a shameful start in La Polla I was able to recover and finish 9th out of 81. See for yourself. This means I beat my uncle in a head-to-head bet and I proved to Alejandro del Castillo that my soccer knowledge vastly exceeds his own (as if that needed to be proved). Impressively, if you count only the second round, then I would have finished second out of 81. Anand Narayanan wins, but we all know he’s just very lucky ever since he shaved off that mustache.
All in all, I watched 46 out of 64 matches in this World Cup. That’s a lot of fútbol my friend. And I must frankly admit I’ve had enough. I am ready to move on to something else. Such as the Mexican Soccer League.
On April 29 I wrote about my new World Cup sticker album. A little over a month later I am happy to report that I’m 14 stickers short of completion. Check my Progress Tracking page… maybe you can help me!
On a related note, I received the following letter from Modena, Italy last week:
That’s right my friends… the most sought-after sticker is finally here: Marcos Kirsch
Rumor has it that for 10 of these you can get one of Maza Rodriguez.
And now, decide for yourself: Who looks angrier, Marcos, or superstar, legend and crack Guille Franco?
I want to officially announce the Fifa 2006 World Cup Polla.
This is a pool/game/contest for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. I’ve been working on this for the last few days. The website is online and the relevant parts of the system are fully functional (i.e. submitting results).
The idea is that anyone who’s interested pays $10 USD (cheap, cheap, cheap) and predicts the results of the games in the World Cup. You get 1 point for guessing just the winner (or if it’s a tie), 2 points if you guess the exact score. All the money is handed to the winner(s). I don’t make a cent out of any of this.
Feel free to check out the site, and start submitting your results for the First Round. When the World Cup begins, everybody’s results for the First Round will be published to make things even more exciting. The site will be updated with new things, such as statistics tracking and maybe a online forum so that Tawil can publically trash-talk Yoni.
Also, feel free to invite any of your soccer-loving friends. The more, the merrier.
As long as we’re in the subject, I’m doing pretty good with my album, but if you can, I appreciate the help. And expect lots of soccer-related posts for the next two months.
Every four years, the world gets ready for the big party. And every four years, millions of soccer fans buy the Panini Wold Cup Official Sticker Album. I now I’ve been doing it with my brothers since 1982, and still own the 1986, 1994 and 2002 editions (I need to look for the rest).
For the 2006 World Cup in Germany the italian company Panini published the album as usual. They sell it all over the world…. except in the U.S.A. (or at least I haven’t seen it, correct me if I’m wrong). This makes things a whole lot harder. Still I press on and I am in the process of completing mine. Since buying the sticker packets must be done long distance, and trading duplicates with friends is hard because they all live in a different country [Editor’s note: Marcos has friends in this country, they just didn’t get the album], I have created a small webpage where people can track my progress (becuase YOU care!).
Yeah, it seems like it was a lot of work and makes me look like an obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive childish nerd. In reality, you wouldn’t be that far off the truth… but seriously, I promise it wasn’t bad.
Moi, Arturito, Mauri and Abrahamcito drove into town from Monterrey last night. They bought a whole box of sticker packets for me and some more for themselves. I need to paste them and record the duplicates so that I can send them down with them on Monday to my agent in Mexico. He has all the right contacts in school.
And now, presenting the My Panini World Cup Sticker Album Progress Tracking page. As of right now, I have 39.86% completed.
[UPDATE 5/2/2006] Now that didn’t take long… Moi started his own album, and made my script look pretty.
Photos taken by me during that horrible Mexico VS Colombia match last year in Houston are now featured in the very famous polish website stadiony.net – prezentacje stadionów piłkarskich.
Cool… go check it out!
It was a beautiful day at Estadio Universitario where Monterrey beat it’s arch-rival Tigres in their own home (2-1, goals by Sergio Verdirame and Luis Miguel Salvador) and mathematically sent them to the next division. Half the city cried, and the other half realized their town had just become a better place.
Yesterday, as I was walking aimlessly in the International Terminal at Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez in Mexico City, I bumped into the Mexican National Team on their way to play against Ghana.
All the other players ran ran away at the sight of a drunken fan, but thankfully Mexico’s (and Monterrey‘s) star midfielder Luis Ernesto Pérez was too busy buying a milkshake and couldn’t escape. Here’s the proof:
By the way, did you know you could buy Indio beer for $29 pesos and then walk around with the bottle in the airport? Neither did I. What a pleasant surprise!
