Jan Blurr's World

Goodbye and Hello: On the move

2008-07-17T16:56:00.002+02:00

I decided to move this thing to another website so if you want to keep track about what I write take a look here: http://janblurr.wordpress.com/.

MLB Allstar Game: Now I know why it's called the "Midsummer Classic"

2008-07-16T14:41:00.004+02:00

Well, you have to give credit to the Americans for at least one thing: they know how to put up a great show and celebrate things. Although for European ears the ever present glorification of their home country might sound a little odd, but nonetheless they know how to great an atmosphere where everybody who is watching the event feels at least a little touched.
So I tuned in for the annual MLB Allstar Game last night which was scheduled to start at 2 am MET in the morning. Little did I know they were honouring quite a few people before the first pitch. There is no equivalent in football/soccer to the Hall Of Fame system they have in professional sports over there, so it's hard to describe it to people not familiar with the matter and it's even hard to understand for me who is just learning about baseball and its history. Anyway, there were a lot of people on the field, they were annoucing each starting position seperately and at the position's place on the field quite a few Hall of Famers were greeting the Allstar players.
The biggest fuzz though wasn't about the players, it was about the stadium. Yankee stadium is in its final year and will be torn down after the season. So some of the Yankee greats of former times like Yogi Berra threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Yankee players and managers involved in the Allstar game. Everything accompanied by very dramatic music and a commentary sounding like the spectators were witnessing the coronation of a king or some other event of global importance. That's what I meant with creating atmosphere. Baseball is a sport which might be starting to spread around the world but in the end it's an American thing. Sure, they play ball in other countries as well and it might be big in Asia and the Caribbean, but for the rest of the world it's this strange sport from the States. But when you watched the broadcast it felt like the whole world was watching.
The game itself was very interesting. Scoreless through four the National League struck first with a solo homerun by Colorado Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday off L.A. Angels pitcher Ervin Santana. The first two pitchers for both teams (Cliff Lee/Indians and Roy "Doc" Halladay/Blue Jays for the AL, Ben Sheets/Brewers and Carlos Zambrano/Cubs for the NL) had dominated the first innings. The NL doubled their lead one inning later when Lance Berkam (Astros) scored teammate Miguel Tejada on a sacrifice fly. Still one inning later the game was tied at two. To the delight of every scriptwriter a Red Sox player hit a 2 run homerun in the 7th to tie the game at Yankee stadium. The Red Sox players were booed when they were introduced to the crowd before the game and this shot by outfielder J.D. Drew might have been the only time a Red Sox representative was cheered briefly by a New York audience. Both teams scored in the 8th inning and the game was going to extras. The last innings of the AL team were pitched by both Jonathan Paplebon of the Red Sox (8th) and Mariano Rivera (9th) of the Yankees. The audience let Paplebon know what they thought of him, booing him, chanting Riveras name and "Overrated".
So after the 9th inning I just had to go to bed because I just wasn't able to stay awake. The game itself dragged on into the 15th inning when Justin Morneau (Twins) scored on a sacrifce fly by Michael Young (Rangers).

This was an exciting experience although I didn't manage to stick with it until the end. It's a shame there's nothing like this in European football but then again there is nothing like the Euro championships or the World Cup in baseball, although they are trying to establish something like it with the World Baseball Classics.

Meneguar, Woods @ Kulturbunker, Cologne

2008-07-15T11:27:00.001+02:00

I guess that's what you call "to chill out" at a show. Yesterday saw yet another wonderful BBQ at the Kulturbunker in Cologne-Mülheim. The 50 Food Combo did this before and it's always a very nice and tasty experience. Some people showed up, they had tables and chairs on the rooftop and everybody was in a good mood. The food was great, although I only dug into the grilled veggie stuff. Oh, and there was a show taking place as well.
I can't remember the name of the first band, from what I heard they were German and played what I would consider to be old school screamo. You have to be considerate with how you label musicn nowadays so everybody understands what you are talking about, right? Had I said "screamo" everybody below the age of 25 would have thought this meant those horrible chartbands who play this crappy metal stuff with screaming vocals, hard and loud guitars and face paint all over the place. No, this band tried more to sound like the mid to late 90s version of screamo. Quiet parts which burst out into chaotic riffs with desperate screams (hence "screamo"). Still I didn't really get into it. That kind of music was never really my cup of tea and I am not that knowledgeable when it comes to grading performances like that one yesterday but I somehow felt bored.
That changed with the second band, Woods from NYC. Their setup for the show looked very interesting. Most of the instrumentation was simple: drums, guitar, bass, singers. But there was one guy who stood in front of a table with lots of technical equipment like foot pedals and - and that was what surprised me most because I'd never seen anything like that before - a mixing thing where you had two tapedecks instead of two turntables. Most of the time it was plain and simple yet wonderful and nice popmusic which because of the voice reminded me a little bit of Neil Young. But when they got into those long and epic parts which they streched on and on and on, that's where it got really interesting. The sounds the tapedeck guy created where fascinating. I could have watched this and listened to it for hours, but at some point they had to stop unfortunately. Great band, although I don't think this will work for me on a record.
Meneguar were up next and they blended into the middle of the two previous bands. Slightly chaotic with a hint of nice melodies. This wasn't your average chaoscore, this was a little bit more interesting. This is music I can listen to perfectly while watching the band play, but I don't think I'll ever buy a record. It had the groove and the melodies for a nice concert experience and that was enough for me yesterday. Combine that with the atmosphere for the BBQ outside on the rooftop, the company of nice people and friends and there you have a perfect summer evening in Cologne. What else can you wish for?

Almost forgotten along the way: H2O

2008-07-14T10:43:00.004+02:00

I guess everyone experienced something like this at least once. There is this band everybody is talking about and all your friends encourage you to buy the record this band has put out recently. You then go and get it, you like it, but somehow it just doesn't stick with you. You bury it somewhere deep in you collection and after some time you start to forget about it. The band gets bigger, but because of the first impression you had of that band, you don't really bother to even listen in to their new records. The band plays shows every now and then in your hometown, but you don't bother to show up there because of the first impression you had years ago. And thenm, after years of ignorance you finally see the light because you gave their latest record a chance.
See, this is what happened to me and H2O, a band I always filed under the category of a rather boring and average attempt to mix punkrock with the attitude of New York Hardcore. I know that a friend of mine made a tape recording of their first 7" for me and that was some time in the middle of the 1990s. The sound was okay but I didn't really see why the band got so much attention. It was average punkrock and I assumed that people only liked it because the band was from New York and was in some way connected to the big names of the NYHC scene. In addition their band name sounded a little to preachy to me, a guy who was preferring beer to water at that time. It was all too stereotypical and cliché. So I never really bothered to go and see them play live, it was too expensive anyway as that was the time when the bands started to become too big for the small clubs and moved into bigger venues which brought along higher prices for the tickets. To cut it short, I never bought a record and I never went to a show by H2O.
And now after more than 10 years I got my hands on their latest record "Nothing To Prove" and I have to admit that I am impressed. Although I still remember the voice and even though the music sounds familiar this is something I never imagined. This record got me right from the start. Great music, pumping beats, there's atmosphere in every song. Party tunes all the way. And what makes this even more enjoyable is the guests on the recording. Sick Of It All's Lou Koller and Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba are the voices I recognized right away. This record truly proves that this band has nothing to prove. To noone, not even to me. I missed out on something over a long period of time and I happily admit my mistake.

Fortuna Cologne gets the spot in the new NRW-League!

2008-07-12T13:29:00.002+02:00

Oh what a day. When I received the news (German) on Thursday I was stunned. The objection of VfL Leverkusen, last season's Verbandsliga Mittelrhein champion who were denied a spot in the newly established NRW-Oberliga because certain requirements haven't been met (stadium too small, financial basis unstable, etc.), was rejected by a court and this means Fortuna Cologne will take the spot reserved for the Verbandsliga Mittelrhein champion as runner up to Leverkusen. Fortuna had only drawn the final game against Leverkusen on the last day of matchplay and ended up in 2nd place.
It has been 35 years since Fortuna earned their last promotion to a higher league. In 1973 they went up to the Bundesliga, the only season they played at the highest level of football in Germany. To this day the club takes pride in the fact that they were the best team to get relegated. They only stayed one year and since 1974 they had played in the newly established 2nd division 2. Bundesliga for more years than any other team. They still lead the all time table of all teams who ever played in the 2nd division. There were chances to once again play 1st class football, but the failed every time they tried. Things came to an end in 2000 when the club was relegated to the 3rd division. From there on things went downwards and it all ended up at 5th level Verbandsliga and even there Fortuna was frequently facing the threat of relegation. So all my football life I have only witnessed my favourite club going down one level after another, so this means a lot to me. This is the first time I can celebrate. Although I (and I believe that is true for all the other guys who come to watch the games) would have liked to settle this on the pitch instead of in front of a court. What a celebration we would have had in June had the club won the match back then.

Whatever, Fortuna will play in the NRW-Liga and that's all that matters now. I am very, very happy.

In The Backyard Of The Record Collection (10): Black Train Jack - No Reward & You're Not Alone

2008-07-08T12:00:00.004+02:00

There are some records that stick with you throughout time and you always like to listen to them every once in a while. Most of the time you recall the memories you made while listening to the music, sometimes you use it as a means to get rid off your frustration or simply for a change of moods. As I am writing this a person who has become a very good friend of mine will return to her homeland in just a few hours and when I get back home from all the farewell ceremonies I think I will once more put up Black Train Jack's records which always put a smile on my face every single time I listened to them.

I first saw the band play at a festival which was part of one of the first PopKomm exhibitions in Cologne in the early ninties. At that time I was hardly aware that there was other music in NYC apart from hardcore. That was everything for me and my friends. Hard, fast, loud, that was all we needed. So by the time we got to the show we had to realize that the first band already started. That was Ryker's who became the coverboys for German hardcore over the next few years. They were impressive, still we were there to see our heroes in Sick Of It All. But it was this happy-go-lucky singalong band with those nice melodies which stuck in my mind after the show. Yes, Black Train Jack managed to converted an audience of angry young men ready to let go of all of their frustrations in a huge moshpit into smiling, laughing kids who celebrated a huge party. I'm not sure if the majority of the people in attendance were familiar with the band - I wasn't - but it was awesome and it felt right. I still treasure the t-shirt I bought at that concert, although it starts falling into pieces.
A friend gave me a copy of their debut "No Reward" (1993) shortly after the show and it instantly became one of my favourite tapes. I have to admit though that it was hard to find my way into the music. But the way they change from rather hard and stomping riffs to wonderful yet simple melodies is brilliant. The intro is classy and I just realized recently with my growing interested that the used Lou Gehrig's famous retirement speech for the intro. What even more refreshing - today as well as it was back then - is that the lyrics are so positive it is very hard not to have a grin on your face. I guess my favourisong on the first record was "Leapfrog", I always liked those catchy guitar leads. Although it took me some time to find out that this song was sung by their guitarist who - something I found out a lot later - was in the great Token Entry before this. That's another thing which really distinguished the band from other groups. They were singing, I mean, their singer was capable of doing things with his voice I never really heard in a punk band. A cover of Bob Marley's "One Love" really completes a nearly perfect album. Be it fast numbers like "Guy Like Me", stompers like "This Is The Way", it all fits and creates a wonderful and positive atmosphere.

A year later they released their follow up "You're Not Alone" (1994) and with this one they reached an even higher level of positiveness (does that word exist?). The title says it all, right? This record will never ever let you down, no matter how hard you try to discard it. The opening track "Handouts" is pure happiness. The guitar lead is so catchy and wonderful. "I've seen you up, I've seen you down, I've seen you half dead on the ground...", I still get goosebumps when I listen to this. So simple, yet so great. Yet another coverversion on this one as well, this time "The Joker" by Steve Miller. Great songs like the fast "Lottery" or the thumping "The Reason" and on and on and on. And then they saved the best for last. "That Reminds Me", sung by guitarist Ernie again, starts off with a rather weird guitar intro which is then joined by an even stranger bass line but when they all join together it makes perfect sense. "I can't stay now, because I'm going home". I have been listening to this song hundreds, maybe even thousands of times and I never grew sick of it. Which is the same with these two records.

I managed to see Black Train Jack once more play live at Cologne, this time a headlining show at the "BüZe" in Ehrenfeld. I had to choose between them and a young and upcoming from the Stated called Green Day who played at another club in town. Still I went to see Black Train Jack once more and I think that was one of the best decisions I ever made. The place wasn#t sold out, maybe 150 or 200 people. But when the band entered the stage everybody was happy. I have never seen so many people smile during a show. Everybody was singing along, the whole room was moving and by the end of the night you could see satisfied and happy people leave the place with a smile on their faces. This is a picture I will always associate with this band and I am thankful I was able to experience this.
Unfortunetaly they never returned to Europe and I never heard of them again for quite some time. They played one of those farewell shows for CBGB's and I think The Gaslight Anthem drummer Benny told me that they still play shows in the New York area.

It seems I am not the only one who thinks highly of this band...

Euro 2008 Day 19 (Final): A win well deserved

2008-06-29T12:43:00.003+02:00

The days leading up to the final kick off of this Euro were obviously dominated by news surrounding the German team and the big shock came on yesterday afternoon. German captain Michael Ballack seems to have injured his calf muscle (strained or something like that) and now the whole country seems to wait for news on if he will be able to participate in the final tonight. This somehow feels like when everybody was waiting for some word out of Vatican city when John Paul II. was acing death.
Ballack had injured his calf before the 2006 World Cup which caused him to miss the opening match against Costa Rica, leading to headlines about "the calf of the nation" in the tabloids. The tragic lies in the fact that Ballack never won a big final throughout his career. In 2002 he was taking a shot at three titles with his club Bayer Leverkusen, blowing all three chances by losing the national championship on the last matchday (a 2-2 draw at Unterhaching with an own goal by Ballack), losing the national cup final in Berlin against Schalke 04 and losing the Uefa Champions League final in Glasgow against Real Madrid. He has won some titles during his stint with Bayern Munich, but the big European/International title is still missing in his collection.
Another traumatic memory might be missing the World Cup final in 2002 after recieving a yellow card in the semifinal clash with South Korea (Germany would eventually lose the final 0-2 against Brazil after a horrendous error by goalkeeper Oliver Kahn).
So with Ballack being in the prime of his career right now he desperately seeks this one title which will define whether he was a good or a great player.
If he really has to pull out there's numerous options and those are all discussed by the 82 mio coaches around the country. How about substituting him with Tim Borowski, who has always been labelled a "Mini-Ballack". Or what about changing the system back to a 4-4-2 with Bastian Schweinsteiger as the setup man for the strikers in centre.
What most people seem to forget is that Germany are facing the most complete team of the whole tournament. I haven't seen a match by Spain so far in which they didn't
look like they were in complete control. In Germany everyone seems to think that because Spain are favourites Germany will be able to upgrade their game considerably easy, just as they did against Portugal. And because they are missing David Villa up front the German defense won't be dealing with a huge threat. This completely disregards the fact that Spain played most of their games before the tournament with a 4-1-4-1 system, the same one they played in their awesome second half against Russia.
Well, we just have to wait and see, don't we?

Germany vs Spain 0-1 (Final)
There we have it, Spain - after 44 years without a title - won the final of this year's Euro championship and they well deserved it. Germany only had 10 to 15 minutes in which they were able to compete at the same level and then Spain took them apart completely. Even if I was rooting for Germany I still like to watch the Spanish game with balls reaching their destination at pinpoint accuracy. Does this team have any flaws at all? The goalkeeper is extraorinary, the defense is solid, the midfield is just pure magic and the striker is brilliant. And the best thing is, they are all still very very very young. This team could win it all over the next few years. Their only problem ist they have to do it without their coach and "grandfather" Luis Aragones. he will resign and head for Turkey to coach a club in Istanbul (which one of the three big names simply escapes me at the moment. It could be Galatasaray).
As I said, Germany never stood a chance. People will now question the decision to let Ballack play, they will debate if it was okay to start the match with only one striker instead of two, but in the end I don't think it would have made any difference.
After the game me and a friend took a walk towards the inner city of Cologne and while we were on our way we were passed by lots of cars with German flags. It seemed that because the Spanish victory was so clear everybody thought they might as well just celebrate the 2nd place for the German team. It was nice to see German and Spanish fans dance through the night.

All in all this was a whole new level from what we had seen two years ago at the World Cup. While defense was the main concept back then this year it was all about attack. Teams like The Netherlands or Russia were wonderful to watch and the best team of all - Spain - took the cup home. This will be a memorable experience!

Top 14 Rugby Final: ASM Clermont Auvergne vs Stade Toulousain

2008-06-28T21:55:00.003+02:00

One of the greatest rivalries in French sports might well be the one between ASM Clermont Auvergne and Stade Toulousian. Clermont-Ferrand, a small town in the Auvergne region has never won one national championship in the club history and to make matters worse they have lost a lot of finals against their arch rivals from Toulouse. They have reached the finals eight times and I was lucky enough to be in Clermont in 2001 when they played their semifinal match. At that time my sister was studying in the town and me and my mother were visiting her. While we were walking through in inner city in the evening after dinner we were wondering why all the streets were deserted. My sister explained then, that everybody was watching the semifinal. When the match ended the whole town erupted into one huge party and people were running around in yellow and blue, the club's colours.
Now, while they haven't won a national championship ASM Clermont Auvergne have made a name for themselves in European club competition, winning the European Challenge Cup twice (1999, 2007). Stade Toulousain meanwhile represent the top class of French rugby. Along with Stade Français they dominated the French Top 14 League.
So tonight's final saw Clermont and Toulouse face each other once again and with the ongoing professionalism in rugby that match featured a lot of top class players. Clermont had French international winger Aurelian Rougerie, Napolioni Vonowale Nalaga from Fiji or World Cup John Smit from South Africa, although the latter sat on the bench at the start of the game. Toulouse featured Cédric Heymans, Yannick Jauzion, Jean-Baptiste Élissalde from the French national squad, Tongan No.8 Finau Maka or All Black Byron Kelleher. All that class put on some brilliant passing performances on the pitch as well as some tight defending. The first half ended in a draw (10-10) and after the restart both teams had huge chances, but it was Toulouse who broke open the tie with a penalty and a try after almost one hour (10-20). Clermont desperately tried to claw their way back into the game and after a penalty they were in stricking distance once again (13-20), but some poor defending led to yet another Toulouse penalty (10-23) and this buried Clermont's dreams of the title once and for all again. Their quest will continue and so will Toulouse remain their nemesis for another year. The final score was 20-26 after another penalty converted by Toulouse in the final minute and a try by Clermont with the final whistle. It was those two penalties that cost them.

It has to be noted that All Black Daniel Carter, who probably is the world's best fly-half at the moment, will transfer to France for the next season where he will play for USA Perpignan. This alone will make the club a contender for the title.

Deny Everything @ Bauwagenplatz, Cologne

2008-06-28T15:50:00.002+02:00

It has been quite some time since I have been to two shows in one week and it has been even longer since I have seen two very good shows in just a few days. First there was the wonderful evening with our Greek friends from Düsseldorf at the "Sonic Ballroom" and then on Friday Troisdorf's best dancers Deny Everything were celebrating the release of their new 7" EP "Speaking Treason" (YoYo Rec.) with a concert at the "Bauwagenplatz".
It's always quite a gamble with shows at this location, you just never know what will happen. I'v seen some very boring stuff there, I've seen shows which were stopped because somebody felt discriminated, I've seen legendary performances by bands like Yage or Hanns Martin Slayer. And Deny Everything's performance will live on with the better ones'. The evening was perfect to hang around at the area which is covered by the "Bauwagenplatz" with all its caravans. The Sunshine Bar Building seems to have been renovated since the bar area now is a lot bigger (which led to the service being much quicker than before, at least that's how it felt for me). First up was some band whose name escapes me, but they didn't sound that good anyway. Typical punkrock with German lyrics, nothing special really. Just ordinary and so not worth mentioning at all.
The complete opposite can be said of Deny Everything. Although one can argue that it might be a little retarded to name a band after a song by the Circle Jerks, but they just know how to create a wonderful atmosphere for a hardcore show. This was what it is supposed to be. People were having fun without kicking each other's heads in. There was a mosh pit, there was a circle pit, but everybody was looking out for each other. Truly positive atmosphere there. The audience was having fun, the band was having a lot of fun, the music was brilliant and when it all ended shortly before midnight everybody left with a smile on their faces, something I hadn't experienced in a long time. In fact the last time I witnessed a positive hardcore show like this one was alomost 14 years ago when Black Train Jack played at the "BüZe" in Cologne-Ehrenfeld. Which reminds me that I should write something about the fabulous Black Train Jack records some time soon.
But coming back to Deny Everything, this is really proof for hardcore coming back to Cologne. With bands like them, Cobretti (who will release their album soon), Kingdom and so on, with concert groups like Hit & Run, there is a lively scene that slowly brings back what was going on around here 15 years ago. What's even more fun is to recognize that this "scene" is highly entertaining on the one hand but also aware of politics and actions. So it's not like the divisions which took place during the late 90s anymore and that's very nice to see.

Euro 2008 Day 18 (Seminfinal 2): Royal performance by Spain

2008-06-26T23:18:00.005+02:00

The most important thing about last night's game is that it seems that everything stayed quiet all through the night. Although there some scuffles here and there it looks like the Turkish and the German fans celebrated together. In Cologne a group of stupid hoolings wanted to start a riot at some bar in the inner city but that was surpressed by the police quickly and so everything stayed calm. After all the rave and hype that preceeded the match it is relieving to see that nothing happened. Turkey was the better team after all and Germany did what they are known for: never give up. This is what most of the European newspapers lined out that germany are the team to beat. Although I hate to look back at times when a German team played horribly but still won this team looks a little different. At least they have to potential to put up something outrageous. When coach Jogi Löw points out that the team who will take the field on Sunday will definetely look different everybody will believe him. The problem is that no one knows what the team will look like. Will the put up a stellar performance as they did against Portugal. Or will they play like in the match against Croatia. No one knows and so it is anybody's guess how they will perform in the final on Sunday.

Russia vs Spain 0-3 (Semifinal 2)
Brilliant stuff by Spain. With tonight's performance they simply outclassed Russia. The first half didn't look like it was able to hold up to the promised fanfare everybody was waiting for. This might have been due to the weather with the heavy rain pouring down on the players and somehow Russia looked a little more convincing than Spain then. But after the break the tables had turned and when Xavi broke it open with his goal the floodgates were open for good. Spain was playing like a true champion and I always find it amazing how this young team can dominate an opponent. Everybody was expecting Russia to look way different from what they had shown in the group match, but it turned out to be a copy of what we had seen a few weeks ago. Russia tried to hold up with what Spain was playing and in the end they failed to deliver. Even when top scorer David Villa had to leave the pitch with and injury they were still combining in midfield and looking for a way to put the ball to their lone striker Fernando Torres.
This will be a tough task for Germany on Sunday. Spain looked hungry, Germany looked tired and worn out. If they pull themselves together Germany might come through but I have my doubts about the German defense trying to stop the Spanish short-pass game in front of the penalty box.

Euro 2008 Day 17(Semifinal 1): Blackouts, Comebacks and the effect of the "22 men play football and Germany always win" rule

2008-06-25T19:36:00.006+02:00

This game is so big, it even made the headlines in the USA (New York Times article). I failed to grasp any excitement on the street today although there were quite a few people dressed in jerseys of either Germany or Turkey. The radio was reporting about the game the whole day, all of Germany's newspapers were writing about it, I guess the TV was all over it as well. This will be huge. I wonder if there is a single person out on the street tonight. I would really like to see this, but I won't be leaving my place in front of my television set.

Germany vs Turkey 3-2 (Semifinal 1)
Hilarious, ridiculous, absolutely not from this world. What a game, what a chaos. Let's wrap things up a little bit.
Germany started poorly, absolutely no self-confidence, this was a huge step back from the boost they had against Portugal. Turkey was in complete control and it was only fitting they went ahead 1-0 after some chaos in the German defense. Philipp Lahm, who played a poor game most of the time, was outplayed on the Turkish wing, the header or shot hit the crossbar and then Ugur made a complete fool out of Arne Friederich and Jens Lehmann, the latter looking like a clown trying to catch a hot kettle. But Germany responded quickly. Bastian Schweinsteiger seems to have found his groove and he was responsible for the equalizer only 4 minutes later. With this - and a bloody fight head on between Sabri and Simon Rolfes as well as a highly disputed tackle against Lahm in the Turkish penalty box - the game went into the half time break.
And while the action on the pitch was mostly not worth mentioning for most of the second half the off pitch action was hilarious. Numerous blackouts, both on TV and radio caused by a thunderstorm over Vienna where the media centre is located, turned this into a guessing game. When the picture came back the second time it was just right in time for Germany's second goal, a header by Klose and some really poor goalkeeping by Rüstü. But the Turkish team hadn't earned their reputation as Europe's comeback kids for nothing. They equalized only 8 minutes later with a goal by Semih after a wonderful cross by Sabri, who made Lahm look like a schoolboy on the right side. Speaking about Philipp Lahm, he had his moment in the last minute of offical play when he scored the winning goal after a brilliant one-two pass on the right side. This will send this country into a huge party and I hope that both of the supporters will join into one huge festival of football. Turkey has every reasion to hold their heads up high as they have been the better team over most of the match. Had they won this no one in the German team would have had the right to complain.

It was interesting to watch this at home again as the reactions in the apartments all around my flat could be heard very clearly. In the first half the cheers were a little surpressed and with every blackout the moaning and cursing got louder. When the 3-2 was scored a huge roar erupted which almost sounded like a stadium cheering for their home team. This wasn't the high class football displayed by teams like Russia, Spain or The Netherlands, this was the meeting of two teams who had shown enormous willpower in the tournament. Not a beautiful sight, but exciting nonetheless.

Great comment on the BBC's live blogging site (found on allesaussersport.de):
"If there’s one team that knows more about winning a match in the last minute than Turkey, it’s Germany. Master v apprentice."
That sums it up brilliantly.

Free Yourself @ Sonic Ballroom, Cologne

2008-06-24T23:47:00.001+02:00

This one almost slipped away under my radar as I only took notice of it when I was reading a newspaper supplement at my parents' house over the weekend. Free Yourself have always been a band who I hold very dear. I can't quite remember how we met but the boys have been so kind to me to let me accompany them all across Germany when they played shows over the weekend at the end of the 1990s. They were always featured in Düsseldorf's Blurr Magazine and that's where I heard about their 7" first. I got a hold of a copy at a show in Cologne. I believe Snuff and Kick Joneses were playing at the Rhenania and Milto had set up his small table with a few copies of Blurr magazines and some records, one of them being Free Yourself's debut single. I think I bought all three Blurr Rec. products that evening and I also remember I had to leave early because I was still going to school in 1995. But the 7" completely blasted me away. Four great tracks with music I never heard before. I was so happy to ctach a glimpse of a live set at the first annual Fanzine meeting in Neuss where they played a few songs after they won the football tournament there. Good memories.
Over time we became friends and I started to join some of their weekend tours. The best one would be the trip to Minden and Bremen where they played with Winnipeg's finest Painted Thin in 1997. The three day trip with Greece's Stateless In The Universe (1999) was also a memorable one. The highlight came when A Modest Proposal were asked to join a four day tour which would take us through the south of Germany. Oh my, that was fun. We even managed to cover a song by Free Yourself for our show at Freiburg's KTS. I was also extremely grateful when Spiro asked me to become the new bass-player for Free Yourself when Kay left the band, an offer which I had to decline since I wanted to play with my own guys a little more.
So after some time Free Yourself just faded away. They never really called it quits and somehow there was always the chance for another show in my neighbourhood. That chance came yesterday and, oh yes, it was a blast. First up it was very nice to see so many familiar faces at a show again. This was almost like someone had stopped the clock and we were all taken back 10 years. So many old friends showed up to make this a memorable experience. The band looked slightly older - of course - but they still had it. I was even able to remember a few lines from the songs and so I was singing along some of the Greek lyrics. This was great. I didn't go inside to watch Oiro who I had seen quite a few times in the past few years, so instead I took the chance to catch up with what happened to the guys in Free Yourself over the past years. I hadn't seen Kay in a long time so it was a great pleasure to talk to him again. And I even managed to obtain a copy of their new three track CD which includes the wonderful song "Kuss", a song they already played in 2000 when we played with them.
It has been quite a while since I felt so good at a show.

Euro 2008 Day 16 (Quarterfinal 4): Spain finally comes through

2008-06-22T21:37:00.007+02:00

What a contrast it has been weather-wise to the happy days two years ago. I can remember that it was a horrible May in 2006 and my boss at the internship I was doing back than was never tired of announcing his weather forecast for the upcoming World Cup. "I say this, when the tournament starts we will have sunshine all the way". And he was right. It's been completely this year and today it seemed like the end of the world when the rain came down. The humidity is aweful and I#m sweating like I played two hours in the sun.
Everybody seems to have fallen in love with Russia yesterday, the reactions have been jubilous. Whoever will win tonight's game will face a very tough task.
Meanwhile in Germany everybody's focused on Torsten Frings' rib. He suffered an injury in the game against Austria and was out for the quarterfinal tie with Portugal. Now everybody's wondering whether he will miss yet another semifinal clash. Although I don't see any problems if he can't join the action on Wednesday. His replacements Simon Rolfes and Thomas Hitzlsperger did just fine. Still, all this is the top headline on the news all day. Sometimes this country feels like a looney bin.

Spain vs Italy 4-2 pens (Quarterfinal 4)
Everybody was talking about this one to be the most promising match-up of all quarterfinals, but honestly I didn't see it that way. One always had to remember although Italy has all the skill it needs to put up a brilliant performance, their first and foremost aim is to destroy. Their defending is superb and they know what their strengths are. Also when you look at Spain in this tournament they were showing great stuff but still they were always very calm and controlling. The German commentator was complaining about the quality of the game but I was thrilled about the passing of the Spanish team. There were times when there was only Spain and no Italian player had a chance to get close to the ball for minutes. It is highly entertaining to watch this young squad put up their game. David Villa and Fernando Torres worked great up front, the midfield with David Silva always looked like they knew what they were doing and what luxury it is when you can replace Xavi and Andres Inesta with the likes of Cesc Fabregas.
On the downside Italy fell back into their acting abilities with the players falling down like they had been struck by lightning. I hate to see this, especially when they do this to stop a counterattack. And when you have a crappy referee like Germany's Herbert Fandel who always wants to be the centre of attention a game can become rather disgraceful.
Italy just looked old, very old. It just isn't enough to have a top striker like Luca Toni up front, you need to feed him the ball. That just didn't happen.
Spain will now face the formidable Russian side who were less destructive than the Italians today. This might be a killer game. I'm really looking forward to this.

Euro 2008 Day 15 (Quarterfinal 3): Slow start and great finish

2008-06-22T00:20:00.006+02:00

I went out of my habit of watching the games in the safety of my apartment and met up with some friends at a bar. Usually I don't really like to watch games in public, mainly because I am really annoyed by the other people who are present at the place. Ever since the World Cup two years ago everybody seems to think of themselves to be an expert on the field of football. Which is fine, I think so, too. But the problem for me is that when you watch games at bars or restaurants, you always have the majority of people acting like they know everything when they have no clue at all about what is happening on the pitch. It's those people who don't care about football when it comes to club teams, they only come out of their homes when the national team is playing. So basically you sit there and try to concentrate on the game at hand and there are numerous conversations around which are just getting on your nerves. Now I now I sound rather arrogant when I say this, but that's the way I feel.
So me and my friends started the evening with a nice dinner and a bottle of wine which was a nice way to get going. We then met up with some other friends at a bar right around the corner, which set up a screen outside on the street. A cozy place, still a little uncomfortable seating, my back was really hurting after the game. During the match me and a friend where really annoyed by one red-haired girl sitting in front of us who was talking about anything except football. When everything was finished we went to a small plaza to finish off the evening there. Nice day.

The Netherlands vs Russia 1-3 a.e.t. (Quarterfinal 3)
Absolutely brilliant, wonderful, great! Russia simply outclassed The Netherlands in the 2nd half and in extra time. This was seen by many as the tie between the two best teams of the group stages. Still the game didn't live up to the expectations in the first half. Somehow both teams just didn't seem to find their groove, although Russia looked a little bit more lively than the Dutch. The Netherlands always tried to pass the ball right through the middle of the tight Russian defense, completely neglecting their wings. Russia capitalized on this mistake, and after every turnover they passed the ball quickly up front to their fast strikers Andrey Arshawin and Roman Pavlyuchenko. They had another threat in Denis Kolodin who missed only by inches with shots from 30 m twice in just a few minutes. The Netherlands were completely out of it. Ruud van Nistelrooy was a lone striker up front with no assistance from the midfield, both offensive midfielders Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart didn't have it tonight.
And so the game went into the second half and the Russians seemed to tune up a few more gears. High speed combinations on the wings and the Dutch defense was in huge trouble. The 1-0 scored by Pavlyuchenko was a wonderful expample for one-touch football and they had quite a few chances to score more goals. In the end, when you fail to score your opponent will get back at you and so The Netherlands equalized 5 minutes from time after a freekick and a header by van Nistelrooy. This gave them hope for extra time but they were completely taken apart by Russia there. Just as much as the Dutch players looked to be getting more tired the Russians looked healthier, faster, quicker, more awake. When Dimitry Torbinsky scored the 2-1 four Dutch defenders were standing around him and with van der Vaart sleeping it was a very easy goal to score. The 3-1 was yet another error in the defense when they missed out on a throw in which was picked up by Arshawin who scored through the legs of Edwin van der Saar.
Russia deserved this and it's not like this came out of nowhere. They always showed flashes of what they are able to do and I think they can go all the way. I had them on my list of dark horses for th championship title before the start of the tournament, but I didn't expect them to perform this well. And they are even missing another great striker in Pavel Progrebnyak.
This Euro 2008 is really getting interesting. No group winner went through to the semifinal and it's up to Spain to prove this streak wrong against Italy. Yet compared to the World Cup 2006 which was dominated by defensive play this Euro 2008 is great offensive all out attack all the way.

Euro 2008 Day 14 (Quarterfinal 2): Turkish Comeback Kids strike again

2008-06-21T00:35:00.002+02:00

This game was highly anticipated in Germany not only because it would determine who would face the national team in the semifinal. No, Croatia and Turkey both hold special places in German football history. Croatia gave Germany their only loss in the group stages and the games between those two teams have always been close. Turkey is even more special because of the large Turkish community in Germany. I had a small conversation with a customer at the store I work in yesterday who congratulated me on the German win against Portugal (something I don't really like to accept, since I don't refer to the German team as "we" like so many other people here). Anyway, he also wanted Germany in the semis and now we both got our wish.
For the game a friend of mine came around because she wanted to watch the match with me. We ended up missing almost all of the action while talking and talking and eating Japanese Udon noodles...

Croatia vs Turkey 1-3 pens (Quarterfinal 2)
What a boring game at least judging from the view scenes I caught a glimpse of. There was a huge chance for Croatia's Ivica Olic in the first half when he tried to copy Mario Gomez by hitting the crossbar from ridiculously short distance, but that really was it. While talking to my friend I tried to pay attention, listening for changes in the commentator's voice, but he didn't really have to get excited. This was heading for extra time and that's where it became interesting. Let's be honest, who would have thought Turkeky would come back after Ivan Klasnic scored the lead for Croatia in the 119th minute? But don't turn your back on this Turkish team because they are always out to prove you wrong. Only a minute later they equalize and then they win the whole thing in a penalty shootout, although they are missing their No.1 goalkeeper Volkan Demirel who was sent off against the Czech Republic with a red card.
Still if Germany can recall the performance they showed against Portugal this shouldn't be a problem for them. From what I'm reading Turkey will miss a lot of players from injuries and suspensions. But, you'll never know. As I said before, don't write them off before the final whistle.

Euro 2008 Day 13 (Quarterfinal 1): 2006 all over again. Schweinsteiger remains Portugal's nemesis

2008-06-19T19:29:00.010+02:00

Yet another piece about all the flags on cars, balconies and especially on people. Today I was going home at around 4pm but had to leave the house once more to pick up the birthday present for my mother. My walk to me around the campus of the University of Cologne and I was rather surprised to see so many people walking around in Germany jerseys there. When I got home and entered the lift four people jumped in, dressed in Germany jerseys, wearing black-red-gold scalfs and face paint, you name it. This thing seems really to be getting out of hand. Or is it just getting normal? I have to be honest, it's not just a German thing, it's all over Europe. people are going crazy when their team plays, they come out in masses to support them and wear their national colours. So is Germany becoming what some people here would consider to be a normal country? Well, I still don't like the fact the half of the population (according to a recent survey) would love to see flags being raised for the whole year. This is way too much for me. Still it's just half of the population, I would have figured it's way more.
On the positive side I like it when people sport more than one flag. There is a lot of cars driving around the city with a German and another European flag. Turkey has the most, mainly because there's a lot of people with Turkish origin live here. In second place would be Italy, I think. Still there are some weird combinations. I saw a car with a Turkish and a Greek flag which, when you consider the history between the two countries, is quite remarkable. And, oh my, The Netherlands and Germany? You gotta be kidding me?! That car still has all four tires? Lucky guy. I reckon quite a few people would go bezerk when they see a car dressed up like that.
So, to end this let me just say that I find it very remarkable that the immigrant communites have a German flag waving on their car, something a few years ago would be considered to be highly unusual. Maybe that's the thing when people talk about Germany is becoming more of a normal country. The immigrant communites seem to slowly accept Germany as their - at least second - home and maybe the Germans start to acknowledge the immigrant communites a little bit more.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying a nice game of baseball with the Yankees playing the Padres on Interleague play. It's another outing for pitching wonderboy Joba Chamberlain and right now the commentators a going crazy over a play he made while covering home plate. Did I meantion the Hanshin Tigers are still winning and remain at the op of the Central League? And the Red Sox just won't give in even though they seem to lose one starting pitcher after another. Somehow it#s nice to watch a slow sport like baseball as a contrast to all the football madness going on at the moment.

Germany vs Portugal 3-2 (Quarterfinal 1)
Huge upgrade from the last game's performance by the German team. This looked much more like the football invented by Klinsmann and Löw again. And finally a great outing by Bastian Schweinsteiger, a player I usually love to hate for his sometimes egoistic style of play. Portugal somehow didn't look convincing at all, a huge setback from what they had shown in their group matches. Cristiano Ronaldo never looked like he was in the game and their short pass play ended at the German penalty box almost every time. The changes the German coaching made compared to the game against Austria looked good, this time this was almost a 4-3-3, although some would see it as a 4-2-3-1. Still I can't understand why they set up Miro Klose to play the lone striker up front. That's the perfect role for Kevin Kuranyi who brilliantly shades the ball from the defenders and is a workhorse as a one-man attack. The defending midfielders positions were played really well by Thomas Hitzlsperger and Simon Rolfes and although they didn't do much offensively their defending was good, to say the least. A great team effort by Germany and this fuels the hope for a cup final berth because with a performance like tonight's they should not fear neither Croatia nor Turkey.
One has to mention though that there was a foul play by Michael Ballack before the 3-1 and Portugal's coach Luis Felipe Scolari was right to complain about it. I wonder what German newspapers would have written had a Portugese player scored the winning goal that way. It would have been conspiracy theories all over again.

Fortuna on the verge of being promoted to the NRW-Liga (Fifth division)

2008-06-18T19:47:00.002+02:00

The news broke rather silently but Fortuna Köln finally got the license for the NRW-Liga which means that they will be rewarded the promotion spot they lost in their last game of the season against VfL Leverkusen. Still things are not that safe. Leverkusen objected to the ruling and now the whole thing is back with the sports law courts. Honestly this is dragging on for far too long now. the teams need to prepare for the next season and even if there aren't the ridiculous amounts of money involved that are being dealt with in the top leagues it's still shameful. The players need to a security, as does the club and the coach. Right now the officials are making complete idiots out of themselves.
The facts are clear:
* Leverkusen doesn't seem to have the money to keep up a team in the NRW-Liga
* Leverkusen doesn't have a stadium fit for the NRW-Liga

Both of those rule out a place for them. Fortuna has all that and still they have to wait and wait and wait. This is just ridiculous.

Euro 2008 Day 12: We're all set and ready to go

2008-06-18T19:19:00.004+02:00

There has been only one topic in the the German media and that is the suspension of coach Joachim "Jogi" Löw after the game against Austria. Here's a small recap: towards the end of the first half Löw and his Austrian counterpart Josef "Beppi" Hickersberger were arguing with the 4th official about them being hindered in doing their job. While Uefa thinks this argument got a little out of hand both coaches insist that they had nothing going on their and were just angry with how the 4th official was dealing with them. The accusation, according to the Uefa officials, is that both men were wandering around in their coaching zone. I beg your pardon, what's that chalk marked cage good for if not to walk insde of it? The reasoning is hilarious and it just feeds the German media's conspiracy theories. Remember what happened after the World Cup quarterfinal between Germany and Argentina? After the final whistle their was a short but intensive fight between the two teams which led to Germany's Torsten Frings to get a suspension for the semifinal clash with Italy. German media was raving about the Italian journalist who supposedly gave the footage which showed Frings giving an Argentinian player a slap in the face, calling this an Italian conspiracy against the Germans. This led to a huge wave of ressentiments against Italian citizens in Germany, people called for a boycott of Italian foods and products and other silly stuff. While all that fuzz was completely out of place two years ago I can't understand Uefa's decision this year. Both coaches confirmed they had no argument and that they were only talking to the 4th official about how to use their coaching zone. With today's decision to ban Löw from the field he will not have any access to his team right from the time when he enters the stadium. Although one could argue if this really is a setback for the German team, the decision still sounds silly to me. Just like a kids' fight...

Spain vs Greece 2-1(Group D)
The stream died after a few minutes but from what I heard when it finally came up again and what I read on several blogs and minute-by-minute reports on newspaper sites this wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the previous outings of the Spanish team. A lot of players were substituted and the second tier got a chance to prove themselves. Spain are through with three victories and will now face Italy- This will be interesting since Italy are known for their bullet proof defense and Spain could have the means to go right through it.

Russia vs Sweden 2-0(Group D)
I always had Russia on my list for one of the surprises of the tournament. This is a young side, they have an excellent coach in Guus Hiddink and the success of their club teams on a European level prove that the country is on the right track again. High speed passing with lots of players with individual skill and I wonder why they broke down in the second half of their match against Spain. Sweden was helpless, it seemed and as one of the oldest teams in this tournament it is only fitting they go out after the group stage. Russia move on to play The Netherlands and this could an exciting match-up as well. Two flashy teams with great players who are always looking to attack. Could be a blast. We have to wait and see...

Euro 2008 Day 11: Notti magiche...

2008-06-17T22:37:00.004+02:00

After a few weeks in which I had been sidelined due to working hours I was finally able to chase a ball on the pitch again today. Boy, I am exhausted. I always ask myself how I was able to run so much while I was younger. Well, somehow tobacco and alcohol must have taken a small toll. Anyway, I was lacking everything and after 10 minutes I was really huffing and pumping for air. Still we (that is FC Poll United 04) were able to secure the ball really well, thanks to our rather unskilled opponents. I think the final score was something like 6-4 for our side, but that doesn't really matter. It's just for fun and I hope by next week I will be a bit more like my usual self on the pitch

France vs Italy 0-2 (Group C)
What a lame match. I think you can break this down into two important situations. One: Franck Ribéry's injury after onyl 8 minutes, looks like he fractured his leg. This was not only the neckbreaker for France but this will surely have Bayern Munich manager Uli Hoeness' blood pressure rising. Anyway, Situation two was the penalty which was given to Italy after a foul play by Abidal in the penalty box. And because he was the last man of the defense he was sent off and that was it for the French side. Since Italy is one - if not THE - best defending team in world football resistance was futile for France. They had a few shots on goal, but there was no real danger. Only one shot by Benzema looked like it was a threat to Gianluigi Buffon's goal. So Italy will now play against Spain and I wonder how the band of old boys will fare against the young and hungry Spanish team.

The Netherlands vs Romania 2-0 (Group C)
One is very fortunate when he can substitute players like Arjen Robben, Robin van Persie or Claas-Jan Huntelaar in a rather worthless game. What potential. Romania didn't look like they had a chance. The Netherlands are clear favourites to win the whole thing. Period. And you know what? They would deserve it.

Euro 2008 Day 10: Enough of "Cordoba" ... finally

2008-06-16T22:17:00.004+02:00

I got a phone call from a friend from Canada on Sunday and I was rather surprised to hear that the Euro games are also shown in a country which usually is known for its ice hockey players. My friend told me they show all the games live and as a recording in the evening. Seems like the use a British feed, which is rather funny since England isn't playing in the competition. She told me that a colleague of hers who is of Chinese origin really likes the german team and that that colleague is especially fond of Michael Ballack. Strange things really do happan.
On the German supporters front things just get worse. Across my backyard several German flags are hanging out of the windows and right before the start of the game there were people chanting slogans on the balcony. I simply hate those guys in their stupid white shirts.

Austria vs Germany 0-1 (Group B)
Oh my, what a desaster. This isn't a team anymore. Although Germany won - as expected - there was absolutely no life in this team. Somehow every single player seems to have lost his talent after the first match. No movement, no inspiration, no ideas, no life.
The only one performing at his usual self was Philipp Lahm, but the rest of Germany was simply horrible. Michael Ballack and Torsten Frings were not present at all. Once they had the ball it was already gone. And both of them are considered to be leaders in the German midfield. The offense was not on the pitch. Mario Gomez, a brilliant striker and Germany's footballer of the year for the past season is completely out of it. Miro Klose is out of form since the beginning of the year, Lukas Podolski scored three goals in the previous two matches but wasn't effective at all. And you can't say anything about the defense because they weren't really tested by the Austrian strikers. There were scenes when the player with the ball had no options at all, the whole team was standing. STANDING! Absolutely no effort to run into positions in which you could recieve a pass. So what's the ball handling player supposed to do?! This was a huge step back and remended me every bit of what Germany was playing under the regime of Erick Ribbeck (1998-2000), an era mostly remembered for assistant coach Uli Stielike's horrible plaid jacket. Everything Germany so brilliantly did during the past two years seems to be gone. One wonders what will happen when Germany crash out of the tournament against Portugal in the quarterfinal. And that will surely happen with a performance like this. Will coach Jogi Löw resign? And if he does, who will succeed him? All the things, the revolution started by Jürgen Klinsmann in 2004, all those things will be gone for good and Germany will be back to their mediocre self. I have to say, I am a little bit afraid of the future...

Croatia vs Poland 1-0 (Group B)
Croatia put up a B team against Poland and although they changed nine players compared to the match against Germany they still seem to have dominated the game. This will be a tough task for Turkey in the quarterfinal but if you have seen the games against the Czech Republic and Switzerland you know that anyhing can happen when that crazy team is on the pitch.

Euro 2008 Day 9: Cordoba everywhere

2008-06-15T20:27:00.005+02:00

As promised it's all over the place. Damn, how many times did I have to listen to this nervewrecking radio broadcast from the 70's. You know, those broadcasts still done by phone? The German media is so predictable. I was also watching the press conference of the German team today and it is always astonishing how they make a fuzz out of nothing. The reporters ask questions, the coaches and the players answer and in the end nothing comes out of it. The only hardly important information was that both Lukas Podolski and Philipp Lahm are both set to play in tomorrow's match against Austria. but apart from that it was just hot air all the way. I mean, if you ask Michael Ballack if he feels pressured by the expectations what would you expect him to answer? Of course he will say that he doesn't feel any pressure. Goddamn.

Turkey vs Czech Republic 3-2 (Group A)
Wow, this one had it all. What a thriller!! The outset was clear, both teams needed a win, a draw would result in an immediate penalty shoot out. Which is why the match was really close and intense. The Czech Republic scored first on a goal by Jan Koller (a header, what else) and Turkey didn't look very convincing in the first half. There was no movement at all up front, but that changed in the second half. Still the Czechs scored again and went up 2-0. but then they made the mistake to barricade themselves in front of their own penalty box and so Turkey came closer and turned the game in the closing minutes. Two goals by Nihat before injury time were enough for them to secure their quarterfinal spot against Croatia. There was mayhem in added time when Turkish goalkeeper Volkan was sent off after shoving Jan Koller, but the Czechs weren't able to capitalize on the Turkish lack of substitutes, since they had used all of their three subs already. Oh boy, this will be a long night for the Turkish comunity in Germany.

Switzerland vs Portugal 2-0 (Group A)
A nice way to end the tournament for the host from Switzerland. Although you have to admit that Portugal wasn't playing with full strength. I was watching this on a live stream on my computer with just half of my attention, because the other game was so exciting. It seemed that Portugal had the better chances in the first half, but Switzerland capitalized on poor defending for the first goal and was rewared a penalty for the second one. Portugal will be the opponent of the second place team in Group B, which will either be Austria or Germany and I see both of them having huge problems with the Portugese team who have shown wonderful skill and technique in their first two matches.

JDrama: The season wrap up (spring '08)

2008-06-15T12:13:00.006+02:00

CHANGE
Seems to be the big thing in this season as it is yet another Kimura Takuya drama. This time he plays the son a member of parliament whose father and brother die in an accident which leaves him as the natural successor. Problem is that he hates politics and wants to continue teaching at an elementary school. But he gets persuaded, wins the by-election and through some misfortunes and accidents becomes the new prime minister of Japan. This is rather unrealistic, of course, and the message the series is trying to bring across is rather blunt. But the way they portray the new prime minister as someone who listens to the people and cares for their sorrows and worries is done very nicely and not too obvious. There are some funny moments as well, and it is especially nice to see some members of the cast of "Hero" act together once again (Kimura Takuya, Abe Hiroshi, Fukatsu Eri). I enjoy watching this. (7,5/10)

Zettai Kareshi
Cyborgs, robots, machines and their quest to become human. Sounds familiar? Well, this isn't a Star Trek Data like story and the Frankenstein moments don't come in that often. Here we have a company who developed a lover robot to please all the needs of young women nowadays. Aibu Saki is a temporary worker at a sweets company who by chance runs into the people of the robot factory after she was rejected by the guy she secretly was in love with. Model 01 turns out to be a rather dumb but nice cyborg who tries to please his girlfriend all the time. This leads to some hilarious situations at her workplace, with her parents, at her favourite bar and so on. A nice manga adaption with nice actors, although at some points it gets a little bit out of hand. Still I liked this series a lot. (7/10)

Muri na Renai
A music business manager (Sakai Masaaki) who just celebrated his 60th birthday falls in love with a younger actress (Natsukawa Yui) who works several part-time jobs to get by. She herself has to look after her wannabe writer ex-boyfriend (Tokui Yoshimi) who just dropped by at her place because he's out of money again. This somehow sounds like a boring story but the way the actors portray their characters really brings this to life. It's not overly chaotic, but the speed and "action" is great and the dialogues are funny. If you are looking for agood laugh you should turn to this one. (6/10)

Osen
Another drama about food. Well, not food in particular, but more about the Japanese way of cherishing and celebrating their way of presenting an consumning food in a nice atmosphere at a traditional restaurant. This story is about a young chef (Uchi Hiroki)who is fed up with modern style cooking and remembers a restaurant from his childhood whose owner invited him to train there. When he arrives at the place he finds out that the owner has changed. The person in charge now is a young proprietress (Aoi Yu) who seems to be very fond of alcohol. But he soon discovers that there's more to good cooking and making great dishes than just skill.
I always like these food orientated dramas because I really get hungry when I watch those. This is one of the better ones as the story is nice, there's some twists and turns and the cast is very good as well. (7/10)

Hokaben
Ueto Aya as a lawyer? Sounds rather strange to me. I always had her filed under young and hip characters who don't really care about rules and norms. Well, there's some of that in this series as well, but she seems to be a little bit more serious here. She plays a lawyer who just got employed by a huge law firm which concentrates on business clients. Ueto's character wants to help the weak and has herself transferred to the "pro bono" section, a rather lowly part of the company. Her boss (Kitamura Kazuki) there seems to be rather unmotivated and lazy, but he comes to help her and is always there to give her important clues and sometimes even teach her a lesson about life.
This falls in the same vein as "Change" as the main message is that there needs to be hope in society and you have to help people in need. But this series being another manga adaption it's also a bit more flashy. I just watched the first couple of episodes, but it looks interesting anough to continue watching it. (6,5/10)

Battery
Hooray, another Baseball drama. I have been waiting for this ever since I finished watching "H2" (and I have watched "H2" over and over again). unfortunately the subs are a bit slow so I was watching this without any translation. This one isn't about a high school team, if I understood it correctly, but these kids are playing in a middle school team. Takada Sho plays a catcher who is fascinated by a young pitcher (played by Nakayama Yuma) who is throwing a very hard fastball. Throwing so hard that noone is able to catch his pitches he gets frustrated and doesn't expect much from the town his parents brought him and his younger brother to. But Takada tries everything to persuade him and together they form the new battery of their school team.
Although the story sounds rather interesting from the outset the actors ruin this a little bit. Everything seems to be rather stiff and there isn't any emotion in it. This looks like a series made for promotional use only and with main actors like this it has to be considered a failure. (4/10)

Puzzle
Puzzle is one of those episodic dramas where there is no story which gets told over all episodes but instead each episode stands for itself. In this one a teacher (Ishihara Satomi) and her students (Yamamoto Yosuke, Kimura Ryo, Nagayama Kento) always set out to solve a riddle which might lead to some money or prize, something very important to the greedy teacher.
The episodes revolve around a classic whodunnit plot with the teacher and the students solving it in the end. Nothing special really, but there are some funny moments and at some points the acting is just hilarious. What makes this rather strange is that a young actress like Ishihara Satomi is supposed to play a teacher in her 30's and this doesn't work out really. (5/10)

Around 40
A slightly more serious story about three women in their mid- to late-thirties. Amami Yuki plays a psychiatrist who always hangs out with her friends, a housewife and mother (Matsushita Yuki) and a journalist (Otsuka Nene). Both of them always talk to her about marrying but she doesn't seem to find the right man. This changes when the character of Fujiki Naohito gets a job at her hospital.
This is a nice difference from all those series aimed at young people. The pace is slow which allows the chracaters to develop nicely. (7/10)

Kimi Hannin janai yo ne?
Yet another of those episode based dramas, just like "Puzzle". In this one a rookie police officer (Kaname Jun) who has a lot of money from his family and an aspiring crime story writer (Kanjiya Shihori) team up to solve cases. All in all this gets a little bit to chaotic at times and what makes this rather unexciting is that you know right from the start who is the criminal because it's always the person the rookie officer falls in love with at the beginning of each episode. So in that sense it's no classic whodunnit story but rather a "how was it done?". It is a funny series, of course, but not overly funny. One thing that's slightly interesting and what keeps me at watching this is that there seems to be some overriding storyline which tells something about what happened in the past of Kanjiya's character. Flashbacks suggest she might have suffered some kind of trauma or shock.
Average stuff. (5/10)

Rookies
Another baseball drama and this one is way better than "Battery". In this one it's all about a baseball club at a high school who had to pull out because they were involved in a brawl a few months ago when one of their players hit the opposing pitcher with his bat on purpose. Those scenes are rather drastic with blood dripping and so on.
Ever since the team members lost interest in school and sports and are just goofing around at school, creating disturbances and wreaking havoc. Enter Kawato Koichi (Sato Ryuta), a higly motivated teacher who had some troubles in the past himself. He is struggling to convince the team members to get together again and create a goal. He wants them to aim for a spot in the famous Koshien tournament.
This has a lot of the usual teacher-student movies which all seemed to have started with "GTO", but I really like the baseball aspect in this. The students characters are nicely developed, the acting is good and the story is told in a nice pace. It's especially interesting to see Nakao Akiyoshi again since he was in "H2" as well. Although his character is completely different in this series (and that'S not because he was a catcher there and is an outfielder here).
I really like this one. (7/10)

Gokusen 3
Speaking of "GTO", here we go again with what seems like to be one of the most popular television series in Japan in the past few years. I first got in touch with the Gokusen universe when I was watching the anime series and I really liked the first season of the drama series. The second season already felt like a rather lukewarm remake, although the acting really made up for some loopholes in the script. But this one should really be the last one. Nakama Yukie is there for her students again, who sit in the same old dirty classroom all day without any motivation to do anything for their graduation. Hopeless cases all over again. What's slightly different here is that there are two class leaders (Miura Haruma, Takaki Yuya), but that is solved rather quickly. The head teacher (Namase Katsuhisa) is there as well, there's also the Yakuza family and Yankumi's object of desire is played by Koizumi Kotaro this time. If you liked the previous seasons you will definetely like this one again, although it is getting a little rusty. I wonder if they will go for another one or if they will shoot a movie next. (6/10)

Hachi-One Diver
I am not really into chess, although I sometimes watch a special program they show on German TV. So I don't have any clue about shogi, the Japanese version of what in the western world is known as "the royal game". Here we follow the life of a former professional shogi player (Mizobata Junpei) who now roams the streets of Tokyo to make a living by playing for money. When he gets defeated by a girl (Naka Riisa) in Akihabara he is completely devastated and he's in an even greater shock when he finds out she works as a maid who visits her customers to clean their rooms. She helps him to get back on track and to find his own way of playing shogi.
Another manga adaption which you can clearly recognize when you take a look a the costume Naka Riisa has to wear. There are some rather naughty scenes as well, but this makes it a bit more funny as well. I don't know if I miss out on things because I don't know the rules of shogi, but this feels a little bit like a grown up version of "Hikaru no Go". (6,5/10)

Ryokiteki na Kanojo
An adaption of a Korean hit movie remade for Japanese television and they got a big name with Kusanagi Tsuyoshi for this one. He plays a scientist at a marine laboratory at a university who one day runs into a woman (Tanaka Rena) who wants to be a writer. This meeting changes his life as the woman not only turns out to be rather crazy but she also moves into the apartment next to his one and completely turns his calm and relaxed life upside down.
I like the way they start the story on a very funny and happy note and than slowly turn it into a more serious drama. The cast helps to create a nice atmosphere and although there are funny outbursts of comic relief the way the script tells the story of the couple finding their way towards each other is nice. I had fun watching this. (7,5/10)

* Winter 2008 Wrap Up
* Fall 2007 Wrap Up
* Summer 2007 Wrap Up
* Spring 2007 Wrap Up

Euro 2008 Day 8: Defending champions out, Spain advances

2008-06-14T12:38:00.008+02:00

After all the football craze it was nice to get a small break this morning while watching some NPB action. The Nippon Ham Fighters from Sapporo played the Yakult Swallows at home and it turned out to be a fascinating pitcher's duel. Sweeney (Fighters) was throwing a no-hitter until the 6th while Kawashima (Swallows) carried a perfect game into the 5th inning. This was an interleague match up just as the MLB resumed its interleague play yesterday. I was watching a little bit of Red Sox vs Reds and Yankees vs Astros as well. Red Sox starting rookie pitcher Justin Masterson was very sharp again, but his opponent was just a little better. Those series will continue tonight so if it turns out that some of the Euro games are boring I have the chance to change the channel.
Getting back to what happened last night The Netherlands are now clear front runners for taking home the cup after the final. Their performance was outstanding and was praised almost everywhere. Meanwhile in their quest for answers for the loss against Croatia German tabloid "Bild" dug up a potential transfer of striker Mario Gomez which they think is disrupting team harmony. The interesting thing is that this transfer is only reported by "Bild" and its affiliates. I never found anything about this anywhere else. Which might mean that this is a fluke. Still this might point to a very important matter: the role "Bild" is playing all around the national team. Before the 2006 World Cup reporters of said newspaper were banned from the team hotel, but this seems to have changed now. There have been countless stories about players and "Bild" journalists trying to benefit from one another. The player gives out some information, the journalist writes in favour of the player. Dirty business. I do hope this is not the case this time. Cologne based tabloid "Express" meanwhile senses tension between the coach and the captain. This doesn't look too promising.

Sweden vs Spain 1-2 (Group D)
Spain winning ugly is an unusual sight but with this win they are through to the next round which should give this young side some confidence for the things ahead. Fernando Torres scored early, but Sweden equalized after some poor Spanish defending with a goal by Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Spain should have been rewarded a penalty shortly before the break, but the referee had a different opinion. When everything seemed to settle for a draw David Villa struck again. He is now on top of the goal scorers list with 4.
I wonder what impact the loss of Carlos Puyol will have on the defense which didn't look very stable in the first two games. Seems he had some problems with his footing.
Sweden was a big disappointment to me as they didn't really have an answer when Ibrahimovic was substituted after the break. They still have a big chance to go to the next round but this would put them most likely in a tie with The Netherlands and I am sure they won't survive this clash.
This was one of the more mediocre games, but it was still far better the then some of the group matches we've seen during the World Cup 2006.

Greece vs Russia 0-1 (Group D)
I presonally find it always very disappointing when two teams who have or are supposed to have a huge technical skill deliver such a horrible performance. This was average at best. Both Russia and Greece weren't very convincing. For Russia it was a step back from their match against Spain although this time they came through for the win. Greece meanwhile looked better than their stone age play with a three man defence against Sweden, but they just didn't create any chances. There was an article in German left wing newspaper "taz" today remarking that you need the right mixture of young and old players to win such a tournament and that the Greek team just failed to make a clear cut after their sensational victory in 2004. What made them strong back then today was their biggest weakness. The defense is just not there anymore. Players like Traianos Dellas and Georgios Nikopolidis overperformed at the last Euro and today they are just normal players. So the defending champions are out of the competition and this means we won't have a repeat again. No team was able to defend their title.

So after the second day of matchplay I have to say that the overall performance of the teams in the matches looks a lot better than what we have seen in the 2006 World Cup. It is not as static and boring but instead most of the teams were looking for a goal right from the start. Although the defense looked strong in most matches, there were plenty of offensive highlights. At this moment The Netherlands look like the hot ticket to win it all, but don't count out teams like Germany, Portugal or Spain. Even Italy and France still have a chance to come though to the next round. Huge disappointment for teams like Switzerland who invested a lot of years in this tournament and now have to leave empty handed.
I really hope I won't have to listen to this "Cordoba" stuff tomorrow that much. It's been everywhere, on the radio, on TV, in the newspapers. I'm sick of it.

Euro 2008 Day 7: Oranje bouven

2008-06-13T18:03:00.005+02:00

The aftermath of the German defeat against Croatia was just as predicted. Everybody's talking about the game against Austria now. And what's extremely funny as well is that in Germany the whole population thinks of themselves as rather calm and rational people but when it comes to football they go completely nuts. Normally television stations and newspapers always have funny features about how football is percieved in other countries and then they make fun of how e.g. the English fell about their football or how religious the Italians are about their calcio. But, frankly speaking, it's no different around here. They public was overjoyed after the game against Poland and it was only a question of rather how many goals Germany would score against Croatia instead of whether they will be able to win or not. Now, after the 1-2 loss everything has gone to black again and everybody is depressed, frustrated and down.
Now although I consider myself to be a Germany supporter I find this situation rather funny. It is always a good thing to just hang back a little bit and contemplate what's going on around you with a clear mind. I feel that's something not a lot of people in this country are capable of doing.

Italy vs Romania 1-1 (Group C)
Ever since the World Cup semifinal at Dortmund in '06 it has become a favourite pasttime of German citizens to wish Italian football teams all the worst there ist in the world. Germans are especially picky when it comes to dirty tactics like dives and hidden fouls which they think are the things Italy uses to win. Still in this match one has to admit that there should have been some decisions in favour of the Italian side and that they should have won this.
It was a thriller right from the start. Both teams needed a win, they had to settle for a draw. In the first half Italy missed a handful of big chances, one of which scored but was denied because the referee saw an offside position of Luca Toni. After the break Romania suddenly scored first and then Italy responded within a minute. Then Romania get a rather strange penalty decision which is saved by Gianluigi Buffon in a ridiculous way. My personal man of the match was Fabio Grosso who in Germany will forever be publich enemy number one because of his late heroics (a.k.a. the winning goal against Germany in 2006). He was all over the place. He was bringing the balls into the Romanian penalty box and he was great at defending in his own half. There was one scene where a Romanian player had a clear chance for a goal when Grosso came flying in to block the shot. Great stuff.
This was not the hard defending Italy who were only looking for one goal and then they would pull all men back to their own box. No, this was all out football at its best. And with a team playing along as the Romanians did today such a match becomes great entertainment. It would be a pity, just as German TV colour analyst Mehmet Scholl said, to see an Italian side like this crash out of the competition after the group stage.

France vs The Netherlands 1-4 (Group C)
The Netherlands are tearing everything apart at the moment. I have to admit that I didn't see them as strong as they are performing right now. Usually Oranje has a record of falling apart during an international competition and they didn't look very convincing in the run up to the Euro. But what they have shown in their first two matches is simply astonishing. They took Italy apart with clinical precision and tonight they crushed France, a team who just doesn't seem to find their rhythm at the moment. Once The Netherlands get rolling there is no way stopping them and with those two games they are now the hottest bet to win the whole thing. Just think of it: they had Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie coming from the bench. Now know this is the Euro, but still those are resources not every team can rely on. Give credit to the French though, they never let go and tried to stay in the game. But it seems their golden generation (how many golden generations are there anyway?!) is heavily missed. There simply is no one to replace the great Zizou. Franck Ribéry might be a great player, but he's just not the magical playmaker Zidane was. Now it's a final against Italy and there we are again. Remember Berlin?

Euro 2008 Day 6: Watching from a distance

2008-06-12T20:54:00.007+02:00

It seems that the aweful weather took a turn up north and ended up in Cologne because it was pouring all day today. If you have to rely on your bike to go somewhere that can be hard at times. So I was soaking wet when I arrived at work today.
The big news came from England and one could get the impression that they wanted to remind the rest of Europe they are still there. Portugal coach Luis Felipe Scolari will be the new manager at Stanford Bridge next season which means that Chelsea FC will have another top level coach again. This is interesting because I don't think that the timing was so great. I wonder how his Portugese team will react to the news since I cannot remember anything about him cancelling his contract with the Portugese FA. For Chelsea it's as good as it gets. They have a new coach who is considered to be one of the best in the business and if you saw the Portugese victory over the Czech Republic you know why. Maybe Chelase will change their style of play in the next season and move from "score-one-and-defend" to a more spectacular football which certainly would suit some of their players better.

Germany vs Croatia 1-2 (Group B)
This was a funny one since I didn't get to see anything. Well, hardly anything. I had to work until 8 pm and the game started at 6 pm, so I head to rely on the radio coverage which was only broadcasting tiny bits and pieces every few minutes. There was, however, a television set outside the restaurant across the street which gave at least some idea of what was going on in Klagenfurt. When the game started some kids were lined up around it, one of them swining a German flag. So the funny thing was that I was only to spot in which direction the game was heading. I could see the penalty boxes and the middle line, but that was it. no ball, no players, the damn thing was simply too small. But I was able to hear the reaction of the guests which ranged from "oooh", "aaah", "nooo", "damn", and so on, with little screams of high pitch voices which belonged to the children outside. Now I seldomly have the chance to observe German fans in full effect since I decided to watch German games at home instead of a bar or some public place. The main reason being that I am simply annyoed by the idiots who show up to watch the match. And when the break arrived you were able to spot all cliché guys in the crowd. Horrible. Which was why I somehow found myself grinning because Croatia were up 1-0 at half time. There's people in jerseys, people with flags on their faces, people carrying flags and so on. But I never really get the impression the people bring all that stuff because they like the team, but instead they want to show off their nationality. And that's the part I hate. I guess I am slightly oversensitive, but I just cannot stand hordes of Germans running around in their national colours.
I have no idea if the game really was that horrible as the radio commentary described it, but I am really looking forward to the final match against Austria. That should be a nice showdown.

Austria vs Poland 1-1 (Group B)
I was already writing about this match while they were still playing in Vienna and it all looked like Austria were packing their stuff as well. It really looked like both host nations were out of the competition after the group stages. Poland had scored an offside goal in the middle of the first half and Austria didn't look like they were able to respond at all. But then they were awarded a penalty in the 92nd minute and Ivica Vastic scored the equalizer. Austria had enormous chances in the first 30 minutes, three times there were Austrian players running at the Polish goal with noone in their way to stop them. Each time they failed miserably. This leaves them with all chances to advance to the next round. Now if - and those are a lot of "if's", but anyway - Austria win against Germany and Croatia beat Poland in the final games, Austria are through. This would mean that Germany has suffered another "Cordoba". Cordoba - in Argentina, mind you - was the scene of a historic defeat the German team suffered against their natural rivals down south. Going into the 1978 World Cup the faces Austria in the second round and went down 2-3, the final goal by Austrian striker Hans Krankl being shown on TV over and over again since. The German media right from the start of the tournament reminded viewers and readers of this and now they have it. There's a chance for another "Cordoba". The last matchday is looking to be very interesting.

Germany vs Austria 2-3 (1978 World Cup, Cordoba, Argentina)

Euro 2008 Day 5: Water games in Basel

2008-06-11T21:50:00.004+02:00

I won't be able to watch the Germany match tomorrow afternoon because I have to work and this leaves me in a rather annoyed state. I will try to find a radio station which broadcasts the entire game so while I won't be able to see any pictures I would still be fortunate to listen to a rather decent commentary since all German TV commentators have proven themselves to be completely incompetent and clueless. I am always impressed (and equally annoyed) about how many mistakes they make in 90 minutes of talking. Although there were some bright spots where you have to give some of them credit - I am especially thinking about the first Dutch goal against Italy and the offside debate which raged on in Europe after it - they usually lose, especially to their British colleagues, with their horrible style of speaking and their lack of facts on players, clubs and rules. Sometimes you get the impression that they never had kicked a ball in their entire life.

Portugal vs Czech Republic 3-1 (Group A)
On paper this looked like the top match in this group and it kept its promise, at least from what I was able to see because I had to leave after the start of the first half to meet up with my sister to discuss the birthday present for our mother. Portugal went up 1-0 early after a wonderful combination which was complete by Deco, who somehow pushed the ball over the line in his third try. One touch football at its best. The Czechs responded with a fighting spirit and were rewarded after a corner. Milan Baros is by far the better choice up front because when Jan Koller in playing the Czech Republic is far too easy to read. There will be a long ball into their opponents half and then Koller will try to lay it off to a teammate. Defenders should adjust to this pattern rather easy. Baros creates much more danger.
But this game had it all, maybe it was even better than Spain vs Russia yesterday. Because both teams were on level ground. Now I cannot say anything about the second half because when I tuned back in Portugal was leading 2-1 and it was already the 75th minute. Still the final goal was beautiful as well. With this Portugal will surely advance to the next round as the group winners which will make them likely opponents to Germany in a possible semifinal and that would be a repeat of the 2006 third place match.

Switzerland vs Turkey 1-2 (Group A)
This was intense stuff. The story leading up to this game started three years ago when both teams met in a World Cup qualifiying playoff match which ended in an all ot brawl after the final whistle of the seconf game in Instanbul when quite a few players were going after each other on the pitch and in the hallways of the stadium. Although everybody involved tried their best to play down the issue this was looming over the match all the time. And it was intense right from the start. And just when you thought it couldn't get any better it started raining cats and dogs which led to some very strange scenes on the pitch. You have to give credit to the players though since despite all the controversy surrounding the game they stayed calm and delivered a thrilling performance. Switzerland went ahead 1-0 in the first half after a beautiful counterattack which was concluded by Hakan Yakin, a Swiss born player of Turkish origin. Turkey responded in the second half and from there on it was a thriller. Switzerland had huge chances but it was Turkey who scored in injury time which still gives them hope for reaching the next round. Switzerland are out of the competition now.
This wasn't the brilliant high class tempo football we have seen by teams like Portugal or Spain. This was more like the English grinding their way to victory. Did I say it was intense? This was fighting football and when it is played like this it is really fun to watch. I feel a little sorry for the Swiss team, they should have at least got a draw, but it wasn't meant to be.

Euro 2008 Day 4: Spain on a rampage

2008-06-10T20:22:00.006+02:00

When I was riding my bike back home from work yesterday afternoon I came across a street corner where an Italian sports bar is located and it seemed as if the owners decorated the whole place in red, white and green. Cologne has a rather large Italian community so it is not very surprising to see the enthusiasm on the street. Lots of flags, lots of posters and jerseys. But as easy as they get excited just as easy are they frustrated and depressed. When I was asking an italian customer about his thoughts about last night's game he just replied "I am a European, what the hell have I to do with Italy?!".

Russia vs Spain 1-4 (Group D)
This was a demonstration of strength, technique and power. Spain simply outclassed Russia right from the start. It almost looked like the ball was moving on a string in between the Spanish players. The offense is so beautiful, it almost feels like looking at an artwork done by a famous painter. Fernando Torres and David Villa left the Russian defense shattered. The first to goals were world class. The way Torres spotted the by far better positioned Villa was fun to watch and the pass by Iniesta for the 2-0 was brilliant. Xavi was outstanding, he was everywhere. After the break they started to get a little arrogant, forcing their style of play onto the Russians and by doing so forgetting their target to score another goal. They eventually did so (again by Villa), but they looked vulnerable in the defense. Spain always does well when they start a tournament, they are always on the list of favourites but then they fail miserably in the knock out stages. I wonder what it will be like this time. They team looks far more mature, although it still is pretty young. There were some indications of rifts, e.g. when Villa was too lazy to get out of his offside position while a counter attack and his teammates gave him an earful. But the way they responded after the 3-1 was world class again. They could go far this time. The Guardian has them as finalists against Germany. That would be highly interesting.

Greece vs Sweden 0-2 (Group D)
I had my doubts if this match was to continue what was to see in the previous game, especially when you remind yourself of how Greece won the cup four years ago. Strong defending would be a little too much of a euphemism. And I did not know what to think of Sweden since they had not shown much promise in their matches against Germany recently. So after a starting period of around 15 minutes the match settled into a very hectic and nervewrecking mood in which bioth sides tried to minimize the number of mistakes by simply doing nothing at all. It was a little better than the sleeping pill delivered by France and Romania yesterday.
German media was only talking about Greek coach Otto Rehagel, a German coaching legend, who is known for his short, yet playful comments on football. One of them was "Modern is he who wins", which he coined after the championship final in Portugal. Yet Rehagel is known for his conservative approach on tactics and when you keep in mind what Russia and especially Spain had shown earlier this will be a very tough task indeed for the Greek team. The Swedes should be ready as well as they did not look very promising either. So after day one in group D it looks like Russia and Spain will be on course for the knock out stages.

This concludes the gams of the first round of play and if substract France vs Romania and Greece vs Sweden the matches were played much more offensively than the group stages at the World Cup two years ago. Which is something viewers can only be happy about. The surgical knife skills which Spain used to penetrate the Russian defense, the high speed counter attacks of the Dutch, the efficient team effort by the Germans, the glorious effort by the Austrians, all this made a lot of fun to watch. I hope this tournament continues this way.

Euro 2008 Day 3: The Dutch "Wonder of Bern"

2008-06-09T17:05:00.008+02:00

Since one of the hosts of this year's Euro is Switzerland the German media keeps on reminding their viewers that there was another competition which took place there some time ago. Yes, it's the inevitable "Wonder of Bern" again and again. Although I always encourage people to dig up the stories most of the people have forgotten over the time, the World Cup winning team of Germany in 1954 has long established itself in German football lore. Every child knows by now that the name of the commentator for the German national radio was Herbert Zimmermann, who screamed his famous line "...aus dem Hintergrund müßte Rahn schießen! Rahn schießt! Tor! Tor! Tor!" ("...from the background Rahn might be able to take a shot! Rahn shoots! Goal! Goal! Goal!"). I might have missed one goal there. There has been a movie two years ago which portrayed the team to a certain extent, although the far more interesting storyline was how a German family was trying to find their place in past-war Germany. Helmut Rahn, nicknamed "The Boss" scored twice in the final against Hungary, the best team on the planet at that time. Everybody knows that it was "Fritz-Walter-Weather", rain the whole day long. Everybody knows by now that the Germans had their secret weapon given to them by adidas owner Adi Dassler, shoes with exchangeable sticks underneath. All of this is known and they told the story hundreds of times by now.
So, what I am trying to say is that I am fed up with always being reminded of the same boring, though glorious past of the German team. It almost sounds like the English whining about how they haven't won anything in the past ... how long is it now? Oh, yes, 42 years.
The German media is going crazy over the performance of Lukas Podolski in last night's match. Well deserved, if you ask me. He was all over the place. The British press meanwhile in one of their (in)famous plays on words labelled him "Good Luk". Brilliant.

Romania vs France 0-0 (Group C)
Let's be honest, this was boring as hell. I guess there always has to be at least one game in the group stages which doesn't excel the expectations some people had before the start. France have all the talent of the world to completely take their opponents apart and yet in the past few competitions they didn't really get going. Their group phase at the World Cup two years ago was like a mill grinding corn, slowly and painful and only after the knock out stages began they started living up to their potential. The games against Spain and Brazil were high class and showed what that squad is capable of doing. Now that the old boys are gone or injured it was up to the young guns to fulfil their promise and they didn't do that. Franck Ribéry played an outstanding season with Bayern Munich and yet in this game he failed when he tried to run through the Romanian defense. The strikers in blue were also a huge disappointment. Former prodigy Nicolas Anelka, who celebtrated his magic at highbury almost 10 years ago, was taken out of the game by the defenders and the next big thing from France, Karim Benzema, didn't have any chances at all. This was really poor stuff. You cannot blame Zinedine Zidane's sucessor Samir Nasri though as he was thrown into an already aweful game.
There wasn't anything to expect from the Romanian side although some people had them as the dark horse in the so called "group of death". Still with a performance like this I cannot see them advance to the next stage. It's one thing to stand at your own penalty box with seven or eight players, but you have to at least try to score a goal.
This looked like two teams who were only out on the pitch for one thing, a goalless draw. There was no movement, absolutely nothing. A huge disappointment.

The Netherlands vs Italy 3-0 (Group C)
And there we have it. The first huge surprise of the tournament. I have to admit I was not quite sure of what to think about the Dutch team who have a reputation to fall apart in times of pressure. With Italy coming in as the reigning World champion this was a tough task. But the way they responded was absolutely outrageous. They did not really take Italy apart, but all it needed were a few great attacks and there were the goals. The first one was quite controversial, but considering what I found on the net it seems to be true that if a defending player is lying behind his own goal line he is still considered to be in play so Ruud van Nistelrooy's goal was correct. The second one was pure brilliance. A wonderful counterattack which took apart the Italian defense like a surgeon during an operation. This was high class.
Italy was not giving in though, but they failed to create any threatening chances. I think their main problem is playing with Luca Toni as their lone striker up front, a system which is too much alike to what the Czech Republic plays with Jan Koller. It is way too see through.
The best match of the tournament so far. The Netherlands are now a force to be reckoned with.

Euro 2008 Day 2: Convincing start for Germany

2008-06-08T19:56:00.004+02:00

Even more annoying flag sightings, this time right across my backyard on a balcony on the top floor. A huge German flag. Boy, I'm pissed. What's not surprising is that there have been slight squarrels between German and Polish fans in Klagenfurt with 17 arrests. German newspapers report that the German side was chanting anti-polish and racist slogans. All this comes as no surprise since tabloids from Poland had very mean and brutal headlines over the past week which led to retaliation from Germany's biggest tabloid "Bild". We'll just have to wait and see what will happen after the game. When both teams met during the World Cup 2006 there were some of the worst riots during the tournament.

Austria vs Croatia 0-1 (Group B)
On paper this looked like a sure win for Croatia and they went ahead early with a penalty after a foul against Ivica Olic. But from the 30th minute on they seemed to lose control of the game. Austria organized themselves and created quite a few chances. In the 2nd half it was only red-white-red. Croatia was begging for the equalizer with no effort to score a second goal. This was simply disappointing. A team who has so much skill standing in their own half and defending all the time. The player who impressed me most was Ümit Korkmaz who will go to Eintracht Frankfurt for the next season. When he came into the game Austria suddenly became much more stronger over their right side. That was something the Austrian team was missing in the beginning, all their attacks came way too often through the middle of the pitch. In the end, they deserved a draw but they simply weren't able to get clear shots at the Croatian goal. I don't see the German team have any problems with both sides, but we still have to wait how they fare against Poland.

Germany vs Poland 2-0 (Group B)
A good start into the tournament for the German team. The first half was awesome, albeit because of the Polish team putting up a good clean fight. Chances on both sides with the clearer ones for Germany which eventually lead to the first goal by Lukas Podolski. The play over the wings was extraordinary, I haven't seen a German team play a game on the sides so well in a long time. Both defensively and offensively defenders Marcell Jansen and Philipp Lahm alongside with their offensive counterparts Lukas Podolski and Clemens Fritz were great. In the first half they were dominant. The defense started to crumble a little bit after 35 minutes, but the chances Poland created weren't very convincing.
After the break Poland got more of the game while one could see that the German wingers were at their limit. Still the German attack was always a threat. There was one scene in the middle of the 2nd half when Germany took the ball in their own defense and started to flow, passing the ball over short distances, then suddenly stepping up a level and starting a promising attack over the right side which lead to a great shot by Michael Ballack which eventually was saved by Polish keeper Artur Boruc. The second goal put an end to all Polish dreams, by then Germany was in complete control.
What was annoying - as always - was the German commentary, but I have stopped to look for anything better from German TV stations. It's plainly disgraceful.
Germany are in first place of their group and looked very confident. I didn't watch the Portugal match, but this showing tonight was worthy of a contender for the title.

The Gaslight Anthem @ Werkstatt, Cologne

2008-06-08T16:39:00.002+02:00

I had been looking forward to this evening for a long time and then it was over a little bit too fast. I was working in the morning and had to rush to a rehearsal afterwards so there wasn't any chance to grab something decent to eat by the time we arrived at the "Werkstatt". The weather was fine, quite a few people were there and before we knew it our good friends of The Gaslight Anthem came out of the venue and the time turned back a few months. It was almost like they never left. I really enjoyed talking baseball with Benny again.
The show was fabulous. The whole band seemed to be in a very good mood and everybody looked like they were having a lot of fun. Although Alex (bass) seemed to be a little annoyed by the artificial smoke cannon. New songs, old songs, even songs of the upcoming record which will be out after this summer. Oh boy, I can't wait to get this goodie.
No one of the crew seemed to be interested in Fall Of Troy who played as the headliner for the night. Judging from their fans I didn't miss much since one dork was yelling their name while The Gaslight Anthem was playing. Those fanboys can really be a nuisance.

It was one of those special nights that don't come around to often and especially since I don't have that much money to burn. Somehow I didn't go to a lot of shows in the past few months so it felt really good to hang out with my friends for a nice summer evening. The only thing on the downside was that this was the opening day of the football Euro championship so I wasn't able to watch the second game of the day. Nevermind. Great Entertainment. Hopefully I will make it to another show.

Euro 2008 Day 1: Huge setback for the hosts and an expected win for one favourite

2008-06-08T13:05:00.005+02:00

To be honest, the tension wasn't rising for me over the past few days. Somehow I was still in some state of shock after what happened in the final game of the Verbandsliga. Maybe this will change when Germany take action today, but I will just have to wait and see. The number of flags pinned to cars and hanging out of windows is definetely increasing over the past week and it is slowly reaching a point where I will be really annoyed by the sight of black-red-gold everywhere.

Switzerland vs Czech Republic 0-1 (Group A)
I missed the opening ceremony which is a good thing since all the heck with dancers, singers and other unimportant and surely not football related stuff is something I have no interest in. When I arrived home after a rehearsal session with A Modest Proposal me and our singer sat down and watch the game. Or at least we tried. There wasn't really that much happening on the pitch and the only things I remmeber of the first half was a shot by some Swiss player from far range and the injury of Swiss striker Alexander Frei. This is extremely sad because Frei just recently recovered from a knee injury and was doing pretty well in the closing matches for Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga.
His teammates looked like they were trying to get the win for him in the 2nd half and the created some chances, but it were the Czech team to score the only goal. The Czechs weren't convincing at all and you could really se that they are lacking the creativity of Pavel Nedved and Tomas Rosicky. All in all it was to a certain extent a typical opening match with both sides still trying to find their pace.

Portugal vs Turkey 2-0 (Group A)
This seemed to be different for the match between Turkey and Portugal, but I have to be honest: I didn't see a single moment of this one, because I was out watching The Gaslight Anthem play in Cologne. From what I've read and heard it must have been a pretty convincing victory for Portugal although Christiano Ronaldo - who everyone expects and predicts to be THE star player of this tournament - didn't seem to have his best day. His teammates stood up for him and secured the win, which gave all of us a quite night. Because every time a Turkish side wins something the community completely loses its mind and starts going crazy. So this leaves Portugal in first place after the first day and they seem to look like a sure shot to advance to the next round.

It wasn't meant to be: Fortuna lacks one point for promotion

2008-06-01T20:15:00.004+02:00

I have never been the biggest enthusiast when it comes to cheering from the terraces. Of course I get excited and I yell stuff at the players, but I never felt close to those cheerleading sections in the stands of the stadium. I also haven't been very emotional about the results of my team. Of course I checked the games section of the newspaper or the team's website when I wasn't able to go, but I never really took it to heart. Maybe that's because my club never gave me anything important to cheer about. Important - in this sense - means the chance for promotion, a chance to win a cup, something like this. There were numerous chances, but somehow it never boiled down to that one final match which would decide everything. It was always done before we had the chance to compete.
Fortuna Cologne has always been my team ever since I begged my father to take me to a match against Eintracht Braunschweig in 1988. Two years earlier the club squandered its chance for promotion in a three game series against Borussia Dortmund. They won their home match 2-0 and lost at Dortmund 1-3 with the deciding goal being scored in the final minute. The deciding match was lost 0-8 because half of the team were down with the flu. Three years earlier they lost the final of the german cup competition in a close match against city rivals 1.FC Cologne. Fortuna was the better team back then but they lost. I somehow think I know what it must have felt like to be a Boston Red Sox fan before 2004. We have always been close, but we never made it. We had our joyous moments when we beat our rivals in the 2nd division in 98/99 twice (4-2 and 3-0). But that's it.

So today we had the chance. It came down to the last match and the whole city was buzzing. Fortuna (61 pts) was to play against VfL Leverkusen (62 pts). Fortuna needed a win, Leverkusen a draw. The match was moved to Sportpark Höhenberg, the home ground for Viktoria Cologne. And the people were pouring in. Remember, this is 5th division german football. And the turnout was more than 6.000! What a crowd. What a match.
Right from the start it was clear that Leverkusen wanted to settle for a draw. Fortuna wasn't creating any chances instead they were lucky they didn't have to concede a goal. After the break Fortuna got in control, hitting the post and the crossbar, getting their chances, keeping the hopes of their fans alive. And only a few minutes from time the scored. They scored! Oh what a joy, oh what a roar. I don't know who I hugged but I tried to catch as many people around me as possible. We were on cloud nine ........... and then we fell. Hard. Brutal. A deflected shot bounced in front of a Leverkusen striker who scored the equalizer in the 90th minute. Although evrybody says that you never experienced a crowd fall silent so instantly this was what happened. I was stunned. Speechless. Shattered. Broken. At a loss for words. The injury time was like a trance. I am still completely out of myself. I feel nothing. We came so close and yet here we are with nothing in our hands. It could have been the party of a lifetime. Our first promotion in 35 years. And now we have to start all over again.
The biggest hope, my biggest hope, is the support. The people refused to go home until the team came to them. Those guys were completely devastated. One player was crying. Honestly crying. The whole atmosphere was so gloomy. The train ride back home was so silent. Completely different from when we arrived there.

I think I will need a few days to get over this. But when I am I will look forward to the next season.

Verbandsliga: Let's go f*ckin' mental, Fortuna wins again!

2008-05-26T16:46:00.004+02:00

Usually when sporting events are pretty close calls german media tends to label those games "directed by Hitchcock". And one could not describe it better when it comes to Fortuna Cologne's last home game this season. The situation before the game was clear: Fortuna was in 2nd place with 4 points behind leaders VfL Leverkusen. Leverkusen was playing in Alfter who had only lost two home games. So all we needed was a win against Borussia Freialdenhoven and a loss to Leverkusen at Alfter. When the game started the atmosphere was almost like 10 years ago, when Fortuna was still playing in the 2nd division. 2.100 spectators, cheerleaders accompanying the players onto the pitch, chants, banners, flags, everything. Still the game started porrly. Fortuna was behind early (14') and from that point on it was a very onesided affair. The equalizer came after 22 minutes when Rachid Boullal scored a volley screamer after a header from Marc Böing. The score stayed like this until halftime and when the news spread that Alfter went up 1-0 against Leverkusen the mood was suddenly getting better.
in the 2nd half things looked good. Until Fortuna lost Yannick Moudoute. He kicked away the ball after commiting a foul and then he complained which led to another yellow card. So here we were, down to 10 men and still tied at 1-1. Things didn't look good, but all of a sudden it was only Fortuna playing. True, Freialdenhoven was approaching Fortuna's goal every now and then, but there was never any immediate threat. Instead Fortuna missed quite a few chances themselves. Then, in the 84th minute Kevin Kruth scored and the whole stadium errupted. In the meantime people were notified that Alfter was leading 2-0 against Leverkusen and there we were. It all comes down to the one final game. The last game of the season. VfL Leverkusen will host Fortuna next week to decide who will be promoted to the new Oberliga NRW. Leverkusen can settle for a draw, Fortuna needs a win. And, oh boy, have they won in the past few weeks. They are at eight in a row now and while the team was celebrating with the fans you could hear people say "only one more, guys, only one more!".
I have the feeling that I am witnessing something very special. This is a special team and what they have achieved up until now is already impressive. If they get promoted they will become immortal. Only one more.

Champions League Final: United have done it again

2008-05-22T12:23:00.005+02:00

The fourth final since 2001 which was decided in a penalty shootout and the funnny thing for the Germans is that those were two english clubs going at it after extra time. England always has the image of failing in a penalty shootout as they had done so very often in the past, especially on the national team level. But let's start from the beginning.
You can break down the match in to different intervalls. The first half was completely dominated by Manchester United who controlled Chelsea for most of the time and went ahead 1-0 on a header by Christiano Ronaldo (26') who scored following a very nice combination on the left side which led to a beautiful cross by Wes Brown. They should have gone up 2-0 only minutes later when Tevez (with a header) and Carrick (with a shot from 12 m) found their master in Chelase goalkeeper Petr Cech (35').
There really was nothing to see of Chelsea. The attack was taken out of the game by Manchester, Drogba, Joe Cole and Malouda didn't create any chances, the midfield wasn't in charge at all, although the german TV commentary always praised Michael Ballack for his efforts. The equalizer came as a bit of a surprise only seconds from half time. Lampard scored on a deflected ball (45').

But this all turned around as soon as the teams came out for the 2nd half. Now Chelsea was dominating the game, pressing Manchester back into their half and even striker Wayne Rooney had to help out in the defense. Chelase created a lot of chances and while the german TV commentary was all praise for Ballack one should not forget the efforts of the lone striker Drogba, who got close to scoring when he hit the post (78'). But there weren't any goals in the 2nd half so the game went into extra time. from there on the game got a little ugly, mainly because there were a little too many breaks in the action. A lot of players went down with cramps causing the referee Lubos Michel to stop the game very often. Still both teams were looking for their chances with Chelsea having the better ones, the biggest coming from Lampard who hit the crossbar (94'). There was turmoil in the 2nd half of extra time after some fighting on the field following an argument between Vidic and Drogba which saw the Ivory Coast international sent off with a red card (116'). But that was it, they were going to penalties.

Ronaldo was the first to miss and he did so with his very own arrogant style. When you shoot a penalty the run up to the shoot has to be one fluent motion, you are not allowed to stop in between. Now what do you think is Ronaldo doing? He stops half way to irritated Cech who the blocks the ball. I simply get annoyed when Ronaldo does something like that. He is such a talented player but I simply hate his arrogance. Chelsea should have won this had only John Terry scored. He was the last of the five Chelsea players to shoot the penalty and he only hit the post. Anelka then missed his chance and by doing so he was giving the tile to Manchester who once again are champions of Europe. Congratulations.

An exciting match which lost a bit of steam in the closing minutes and in extra time, but the will power of the players and the intensity was always there. The most annoying thing to me was the german commentary. It is a real nuisance to listen to those idiots talking about stuff they don't know anything about. Most of what they say is about sthings which are not taking place on the pitch. Hey, let's be honest, I want to hear a comment about the game, not about something which happened last evening in the players' lounge or whereever. German TV will never get this.
The other big story was Michael Ballack who is still waiting for his first win in a big final match. He lost with Leverkusen in 2002, he wasn't in the World Cup final that year because he was booked in the semi against Korea and now he lost with Chelsea. A friend of mine is really worried that this might affect his performance during the Euro 2008. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

German Bundesliga: The Season Recap

2008-05-22T11:54:00.003+02:00

So this season is finally over and Bayern are champions again. Who would have thought...
There weren't any really big surprises apart from Nürnberg going straight down to the 2nd division after they had won the german cup a year ago. The almost did the same thing 40 years ago, when they were relegated after winning the championship, the only club to do so in the history of the Bundesliga. Having said that Bielefeld is staying in the Bundesliga which, I think, will be of some relief for other teams because I don't see Bielefeld strong enough to stay on top. Moving up the ladder the race for the Uefa-Cup was a close one. Four teams had a chance, but in the end only two remained. Hamburg and Wolfsburg will represent Germany in next year's competition while Stuttgart will test their luck in the UI-Cup and Leverkusen will have to watch it from afar. Apparently they are so frustrated at Leverkusen they immidiately fired coach Michael Skibbe, which is something I cannot understand at all. That man has built up something there, bringing in a lot of young players and having them play some really exciting football. Now having him kicked after a season which didn't earn the club a spot in international competition is way too much.
Speaking of changes, Borussia Dortmund finally got rid off coach Thomas Doll and that was the best that could happen to the club. Doll stepped down at his own will after a more than mediocre season with the appearance in the german cup final being his only accomplishment. He completely ruined the team, though I have to admit that some of his players are simply not fit for Bundesliga football.
Looking forward to next season I don't really see that many changes. Bayern will make it again, I think. Behind them there will be Schalke and Bremen (just as this year) and behind those two there will be two other teams out of Wolfsburg, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Leverkusen, maybe one surprise team as well. Somehow this is getting a little boring...
The final table:

1 Bayern München 34 22 10 2 68:21 47 76
2 Werder Bremen 34 20 6 8 75:45 30 66
3 FC Schalke 04 34 18 10 6 55:32 23 64
4 Hamburger SV 34 14 12 8 47:26 21 54
5 VfL Wolfsburg 34 15 9 10 58:46 12 54
6 VfB Stuttgart 34 16 4 14 57:57 0 52
7 Bayer Leverkusen 34 15 6 13 57:40 17 51
8 Hannover 96 34 13 10 11 54:56 -2 49
9 Eintracht Frankfurt 34 12 10 12 43:50 -7 46
10 Hertha BSC 34 12 8 14 39:44 -5 44
11 Karlsruher SC 34 11 10 13 38:53 -15 43
12 VfL Bochum 34 10 11 13 48:54 -6 41
13 Borussia Dortmund 34 10 10 14 50:62 -12 40
14 Energie Cottbus 34 9 9 16 35:56 -21 36
15 Arminia Bielefeld 34 8 10 16 35:60 -25 34
16 1. FC Nürnberg 34 7 10 17 35:51 -16 31
17 Hansa Rostock 34 8 6 20 30:52 -22 30
18 MSV Duisburg 34 8 5 21 36:55 -19 29

Going down one floor in the 2nd division you had some last minute drama on the last matchday. While almost everything was clear on top with M'gladbach and Cologne having secured promotion at the bottom of the table there were four teams fighting for survival. Former top level club 1.FC Kaiserslautern pulled themselves out of it by beating a team from Cologne who looked as if they had too much party after their promotion last weekend (3-0). So it had to be Kickers Offenbach, who lost to Osnabrück who are now joing Paderborn, Jena and Aue in what will be the new third division of german football next year. Meanwhile perhaps the biggest surprise was the promotion of Hoffenheim, a very small village in the south of Germany. Backed by the financial powers of Dietmar Hopp, the man behind computer giant SAP, this club went all the way from the pits of amateur football to the first division. Hopp, who actually played as a striker for Hoffenheim when he was young, achieved this not only by spending some money but also because he hired the right people for the coaching staff. Ralf Rangnick, former coach of Schalke, Hannover and Stuttgart is in charge and behind him there is Bernhard Peters who coordinates the training regimes for the youth teams. Peters, a former national hockey coach for Team Germany, was also in the mix for the german national football team before the World Cup in 2006, but was not considered, much to the anger of Klinsmann. So now those two are working in Hoffenheim and they brought this village of around 4.500 inhabitants to the Bundesliga. Which annoys a lot of those traditionalists who would rather see big clubs with a lot of history and big stadiums play on the top level. Still Hoffenheim earned it and, to be honest, I'd rather watch some decent football by a small club than see struggling big clubs who are simply not delivering. Welcome Hoffenheim.
The final Table of the 2nd Division:

1 Borussia M'gladbach 34 18 12 4 71:38 33 66
2 1899 Hoffenheim 34 17 9 8 60:40 20 60
3 1. FC Köln 34 17 9 8 62:44 18 60
4 1. FSV Mainz 05 34 16 10 8 62:36 26 58
5 SC Freiburg 34 15 10 9 49:44 5 55
6 SpVgg Greuther Fürth 34 14 10 10 53:47 6 52
7 Alemannia Aachen 34 14 9 11 49:44 5 51
8 SV Wehen Wiesbaden 34 11 11 12 47:53 -6 44
9 FC St. Pauli 34 11 9 14 47:53 -6 42
10 TuS Koblenz 34 12 11 11 46:47 -1 41
11 1860 München 34 9 14 11 42:45 -3 41
12 VfL Osnabrück 34 10 10 14 43:54 -11 40
13 1. FC Kaiserslautern 34 9 12 13 37:37 0 39
14 FC Augsburg 34 10 8 16 39:51 -12 38
15 Kickers Offenbach 34 9 11 14 38:60 -22 38
16 Erzgebirge Aue 34 7 11 16 49:57 -8 32
17 SC Paderborn 07 34 6 13 15 33:54 -21 31
18 FC Carl Zeiss Jena 34 6 11 17 45:68 -23 29

Which still leaves open who will be promoted to the 2nd division from the Regionalliga as there are still some matchdays left on their schedule.

And, of course there are the final two rounds on Verbandsliga level where Fortuna Köln is trying to get into first place to earn promotion to the new NRW Oberliga. Fortuna are four points behind leaders VfL Leverkusen who have to play at 13th place VfL Alfter who play their home games on ash which will be tough. While Fortuna take on Borussia Freialdenhoven (6th). If Leverkusen loses and Fortuna wins then we will have a real final at Leverkusen on the last day of the season as Fortuna will travel up north to take on the leaders. It's going to be close. If you're capable of understanding german here's a page where you can follow the action.

KölnCampus: College radio in Cologne

2008-05-16T11:25:00.005+02:00

There had been an urgent need for an independent radio station in Cologne for ages and since the local college radio station "KölnCampus" went on air a few years ago it's fun to listen to the radio again. Although the program is far from perfect the main difference to the established corporate and public radio stations is the choice of music they play. And that's where it really gets interesting.
Cologne is dominated by the WDR, the public radio and TV station Westdeutscher Runfunk". They air five radio programs and one TV broadcast. Their radio stations range from youth orientated programs ("1Live") to spoken word programs (WDR5) to a station for the music of, well, let's say elder people (WDR4) to an information based program for everybody else (WDR2). "1Live" was my preferred choice over the past few years although it's rather hard to listen to it because of the crappy chart music they play. Still when the clock changes to 8 pm their program suddenly becomes better with lots of in depth broadcasts about bands, famous people, they do reports on all kinds of topics and they have the german version of John Peel in Klaus Fiehe whose Sunday evening program is really worth listening.

What "KölnCampus" did was introducing a whole new load of bands to the airwaves. Sometimes the mixture is rather strange because when they don't have a program in the studio they have a computer streaming a shuffle mix of the music they have. Which leads to rather abrupt and weird combinations. Like havning a classic rock song first which is followed by a hip hop song which is followed by a hard trance track which is followed by a country song which is followed by a grindcore stomper. You get the picture.
Today though they have an hour of hardcore and punkrock tracks and that's pretty neat because I got to listen to some bands I had never heard of before or some bands I had long forgotten. That's what I really like about the station. Sometimes the really dig deep to bring up stuff which reminds you of something and then you can continue from there. This is the playlist up until now (it's still running as I write this at 11:44h am):

11:43 raised fist you ignore them all
11:40 agnostic front dead to me
11:37 bubonix fashion tattoo
11:33 Refused The Shape of Punk to Come
11:30 propagandhi anti manifesto
11:28 no fun at all catch me running around
11:25 millencolin twenty two
11:23 good riddance united cigar
11:21 bad religion against the grain
11:19 pennywise i get around
11:17 nofx whats the matter with parent..
11:15 anti-flag you can kill the protester...
11:11 against me white people for peace
11:09 lagwagon know it all
11:06 far from finished disaster
11:02 be your own pet love your shotgun
11:00 distillers, the drain the blood

Great stuff. Maybe it's the overture to tonight's Hellfire Radio broadcast, the punkrock show on "KölnCampus".
There's the chance to listen in via livestream which can be found here. I don't know the capacity of the bandwidth but for me it worked fine every time I checked it out.

Home sweet home

2008-05-16T10:43:00.004+02:00

It was always rather funny to listen to those rap songs in which the lyrics describe the surroundings of the rapper, how he grew up, how hard and tough his life was roaming the streets of his hometown district. And maybe it was always funny because the cities and their disctricts were always somewhere else. There are songs about my hometown Cologne, but those were either pretty weird and bad (as in wanna-be gangsters singing about their oh-so-tough part of the town) or they were referring to other parts of the city I never lived in.
Now while listening to our local college radio station I came across a song which deals with the south side of Cologne, exactly the part of the city in which I grew up in. The video below is kind of interesting to me since it shows a lot of streets and places I frequently go to and I think the breakdance action was shot at the "Adler" memorial which is roughly 200m from where my parents live. I am in no way an expert on hip hop, but I found the chorus rather boring, still it's a nice song and a fine description of what life was and is like on the south side. Take a look:

O-Flow feat. Kurt Hustle aka Retrogott - Köln-Sued

There can be only 23: Germany's national coach chooses his team for the Euro 2008

2008-05-16T10:23:00.035+02:00

(1:55 pm)
The press conferences continues and I will drop out for now. They just have the usual questions which won't be very interesting or productive in any way. Thanks for tuning in, have a nice day.

(1:49 pm)
There's the question about who was the player who wasn't reached via phone, but Löw doesn't want to answer. Why?

(1:47 pm)
Those are 26 names so three players will have to pack their stuff before the tournament starts. I personally think that one of them will be Trochowski since he wasn't convincing in any of his appearances with the national team.
The press now ask about the Hildebrandt affair. Although this isn't nearly as huge as the stand off between Kahn and Lehmann before the World Cup it is quite a blow. One will have to see how he copes with this decision.

(1:44 pm)
Let's try to straighten things out a little bit. The rumors about Hildebrandt were true. I wasn't following the spanish league that much, but it's only natural that Adler and Enke would follow up since they have been the best goalkeepers in the Bundesliga this season.
As for the defense I was a little surprised about Westermann. When he played on the german team he was, frankly, not playing well. I would have preferred Manuel Friedrich (Bayer Leverkusen). But since the central defenders will be Mertesacker and Metzelder (or should we call them M&M?) I suspect he won't be playing that much anyway.
Marin is quite a surprise in the midfield section, as is Odonkor. Jones was rumored to be on the squad but he always talked way too big to the press so he wasn't quite sure. I don't know if I like the idea.
No surprises for the strikers, although I wouldn't have picked Neuville since he is simply too old.

(1:39 pm)
Here we go, this is the squad:

Goalkeepers:
Jens Lehmann (Arsenal London), Robert Enke (Hannover 96), René Adler (Bayer Leverkusen)
Defenders:
Christoph Metzelder (Real Madrid), Peer Mertesacker (Werder Bremen), Philipp Lahm (Bayern München), Arne Friedrich (Hertha BSC Berlin), Marcel Jansen (Bayern München), Clemens Fritz (Werder Bremen), Heiko Westermann (Schalke 04)
Midfielders:
Michael Ballack (Chelsea FC), Thomas Hitzlsperger (VfB Stuttgart), Simon Rolfes (Bayer Leverkusen), Thorsten Frings (Werder Bremen), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern München), Piotr Trochowski (Hamburger SV), Tim Borowski (Werder Bremen), Jermaine Jones (Schalke 04), David Odonkor (Real Betis Sevilla), Marko Marin (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Strikers:
Miroslav Klose (Bayern München), Lukas Podolski (Bayern München), Mario Gomez (VfB Stuttgart), Kevin Kuranyi (Schalke 04), Oliver Neuville (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Patrick Helmes (1.FC Köln)

(1:29 pm)
Hm, as Löw notes one player didn't have his phone with him, as it seems. So he doesn't know if he's in or if he's out. That's kind of interesting. Now everyone can speculate who that player is.

(1:27 pm)
Nice trivia fact: Germany hasn't one a match at a european championship in the past 12 years (last win came in the final 1996)

(1:22 pm)
Felix Neureuther used to ski and play football with Bastian Schweinsteiger and since his name was dropped so often in the past 5 minutes one can be sure that his name will be on the list.

(1:19 pm)
Right now press coordinator Harald Stenger is talking to the Neureuther-Mittermaier family who are promoting the Ski World Cup 2011 which will take place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

(1:15 pm)
Oh, Phoenix have Sven Pistor, WDR2's host for the radio coverage of the german Bundesliga, as the expert in the studio. That's interesting.

(1:12 pm)
Since there will be the final round of matchplay in the german Bundesliga tomorrow none of the players will be present for the nomination. Instead there will be children from a local community who will wear the jerseys with the players' names, at least that's what BR3 is reporting right now...

(1:08 pm)
Germany's team manager Oliver Bierhoff just revealed on BR3 that there will be more than 23 names on the list today.

(1:04 pm)
BR3 does its very own predictions. Although I have to admit that the names all make sense. Still why not wait for Jogi Löw to announce the squad. I really find it funny if it turns out that some of the predicted names were wrong.

(1:00 pm)
Most of the other TV stations join in. ARD and ZDF will broadcast the nomination in their "Mittagsmagazin", the bavarian state television channel BR3 has its own program since the Zugspitze is on its territory.

(12:52 pm)
The other names filling up the 26 player roster lead to wild speculation. Germany's biggest newspaper and tabloid Bild thinks those names will be Oliver Neuville and Marko Marin (both Borussia Möchengladbach). Marin is one of the biggest talents in german football. Still under the age of 20 he's a very good midfielder/winger with lots of technique and speed. he would be just as much of a surprise as was David Odonkor before the World Cup in 2006.

(12:39 pm)
The big question which moves the inhabitants of Cologne is whether 1.FC Cologne striker Patrick Helmes, who will move to Bayer Leverkusen for the next season, will be on the roster. Cologne tabloid Express thinks it's true.

(12:25 pm)
The actual press conference will take place some time around 1:15 pm. In the meantime Phoenix is still showing this official Uefa magazine. This will give me some time to take a shower since I got up a little late today. And I am happy that our local college radio station is providing me with a nice mix of punk, hardcore and other stuff over the past hour. You can listen to the live stream if you click here. The shuffle stream will go on until 1:00 pm. I will post something about "Kölncampus" later this day.

(12:12 pm)
There are some rumors about Löw nominating 26 players on a first run and then he will downsize the team to 23 at the date on which he has to name the final squad. German newspapers Die Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung have reports

(12:08 pm)
Let's be honest, it's horrible to listen to Franz Beckenbauer nowadays. Well, actually it was always terrible. He's now talking about the 1972 Euro winning team.

(12:00 noon)
The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that Löw will not rely on goalkeeper Timo Hildebrandt. Instead he will go for René Adler and Robert Enke. If that is true it's quite a blow for Hildebrandt.

(11:56 am)
Phoenix is now showing some offical program by the Uefa about the Euro. They concentrated on the German team, so I am not quite sure if Phoenix cut it to size. It's rather funny to listen to Jürgen Klinsmann talk in English.

(11:48 am)
Phoenix is on air. The studio decoration is rather spartanic and funny. A german national team shirt, a ball with the flags of Switzerland and Austria. And that's it.

(11:35 am)
I choose to watch the whole thing on Phoenix, a public TV station mainly broadcasting parliamentary debates and documentaries. But from time to time they tune into football, especially with big tournaments coming up. They have days dedicated to one topic, for instance. So some day they show classic football matches for hours and hours. Apart from Phoenix I read something about 7 TV stations broadcasting live. So don't give me anything about Germans don't take football like the fans in southern Europe. Germans are just as crazy and obsessed as any other big football nation.

(10:28 am)
Since Jürgen Klinsmann took over the job of Germany's national coach things have changed quite a bit. Most of the talk was about the changes made in the training regime with new methods adopted from american professional sports. But there has also been a change in how the German FA, the DFB, presents itself in public. The unveiling of the players who made it on the roster of the World Cup team in 2006 was made into a huge show with video clips, short portraits and so on. So this year for the Euro 2008 they are taking it to another level (quite literally). This year they will present the team on top of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. I will update this post as it happens.

Fan friendly sports action

2008-05-16T10:15:00.004+02:00

In a time when football players in Germany get booked for climbing on fences to celebrate a goal with their fans (which is one the most ridiculous rules in the whole of football) it is always nice to see that some sports still take pride in close contact to their supporters in the bleachers. Here's the footage of a nice play by Manny Ramirez against the Orioles. Ramirez was chasing a long ball, caught it, climbed the wall to high five a fan, spin around to get the ball to 2nd baseman Dustin Pedroia and they get the double play at first. This was fun to watch. The game was eventually won by the Orioles who came back from a 3-0 deficit to turn the game around with a grand slam home run for the final score of 6-3. Anyway, here's the clip:

Bundesliga - Day 33: Two decisions on the last day of play

2008-05-11T20:52:00.004+02:00

VfL Wolfsburg - VfB Stuttgart 4:0
MSV Duisburg - Bayern München 2:3
Hansa Rostock - Bayer Leverkusen 1:2
Hertha BSC - 1. FC Nürnberg 1:0
Energie Cottbus - Hamburger SV 2:0
Karlsruher SC - VfL Bochum 1:3
Arminia Bielefeld - Borussia Dortmund 2:2
Werder Bremen - Hannover 96 6:1
FC Schalke 04 - Eintracht Frankfurt 1:0

Most of the season is settled now that there is only one day of matchplay left on the calendar. Bayern are champions and that's what most of the public said at the start of the season anyway. The same goes for Schalke and Bremen in 2 and 3 so there is some sort of boredom. 4 teams are still in the race for the two remaining Uefa-Cup spots, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leverkusen and Wolfsburg are all tied at 51 points, that should be interesting next week. The real fight will be in the cellar though with Nürnberg and Bielefeld battling it out. Nürnberg has to win, Bielefeld's goal difference is horrible so a draw won't help them.

Meanwhile downstairs in the 2nd division 1.FC Cologne gained a promotion spot today and now the whole city is going crazy. And because tomorrow is a national holiday I suspect they will keep this up the whole night. Honestly if they hadn't made it they would have been the laughing stock of the nation for the next few seasons. They pumped an enormous amount of money into the team and still they weren't able to come up with decent results over a long period. I wouldn't be too surprised if they go down again. after the season.

The most important matches for me will be played in the 5th division though. Fortuna Cologne will face city rivals FC Junkersdorf tomorrow and if they win this their chances for promotion will be saved at least for another round. After their glorious win over Spvgg Wesseling-Urfeld everybody around the team is confident that they can come up with the results they need. And if now 1st place VfL Leverkusen struggles over the next few games we will have a final showdown at their homeground on the last day of the season. What more can you wish for. If the really go up one league this will be their first promotion in 25 years. Is there a better way to celebrate that anniversary?

Fortuna vs Wesseling 6-0: Oh, what a night!

2008-05-03T11:43:00.002+02:00

It was one of those special evenings when everything just seems to fall into place. Just a perfect night at the Südstadion. The weather was brilliant, the crowd who showed up was huge (at least for 5th divison football standards) and the atmosphere was great. And what better way to start off the game than with a goal for your favourite team after only 2 minutes (Daniel Blankenheim scoring on a header from Marco Stasiulweski). To be honest, I was rather afraid going to the match. The last game I had seen was the disastrous 0-4 loss against local rivals Viktoria Köln and since then I was slightly boycotting the team. But ever since I stopped going to the matches they put up an enormous winning streak. This coincided with the launch of the project where fans can own their football club (www.deinfussballclub.de), an idea picked up by german director Sönke Wortmann from the english original www.myfootballclub.co.uk. So Fortuna was doing fine and although I was slightly superstitious I showed up for Friday's match against Spvgg Wesseling-Urfeld, a team from a small industrial town just a few kilometres south of Cologne.
As said, the game got off to a great start and from there on Fortuna waas in charge. I can hardly remember a match in which they were so dominant. Wesseling only had one shot at the goal of Günther Schumacher, albeit a dangerous one. But the offense was clicking and by halftime the score was up 3-0. Rachid Boullal scored the 2nd after a wonderful solo dribbling (40') and Stasiulewski, after missing a huge chance only minutes before when he hit the post, made it 3-0 (45').
With such a lead the crowd went for their halftime enjoyment (buying a beer at a nearby liquor store) and was looking forward to some more brilliant football in the second half. They had to wait for 20 minutes though, but then captain Stephan Glaser exploded. He was great in the first half when he had two chances where he went through the Wesseling defense like a hot knife through butter, as they would say in Germany. This time he got the ball in the right corner of the penalty box, took out two defenders and slotted the ball in the far left corner of the goal (64'). He even scored another one 20 minutes later after a brilliant pass from Kris Morton (87') and the final blow came from Morton himself with the final whistle (90'). Wesseling was absolutely no match for the boys in red.
The crowd then refused to leave until their heroes walked down the line of outstretched hands hi-fiving everyone there. So every now and then it's one of those very special nights where everythings seems to fall miraculously into place. The singing didn't seem to end and everybody, I'm sure, is looking forward to the next home match. There is a webpage which posts some game summaries with videos a few days later (in german), so I'm really looking forward to watching the goals over and over again.

Official Homepage game report

Bundesliga - Day 30: So that's it then...

2008-04-29T09:27:00.017+02:00

Eintracht Frankfurt - Borussia Dortmund 1:1
Hamburger SV - FC Schalke 04 0:1
Karlsruher SC - Werder Bremen 3:3
Hannover 96 - Hertha BSC Berlin 2:2
1. FC Nürnberg - Arminia Bielefeld 2:2
FC Energie Cottbus - FC Hansa Rostock 2:1
VfL Bochum - MSV Duisburg 1:1
Bayern München - VfB Stuttgart 4:1
Bayer Leverkusen - VfL Wolfsburg 2:2

So the german championship seems to be decided by now with Bayern winning comfortably against Stuttgart last Sunday, they now are 12 points ahead of the 2nd place and with only four more games to play they should take the title this year. So a rather boring season is coming to an end, at least when you talk about the top of the table. When you look down to the bottom it's a completely different ballgame. There are still five teams in contention for the three relegation spots and they do everything they can to stay down there. Last weekend Nürnberg looked like they were about to finally leave the cellar of the Bundesliga when they were leading 2-0 against Bielefeld at halftime. Cottbus were 0-1 down against Rostock, Duisburg looked good against Bochum leading 1-0. 45 minutes later the tables had turned and verything was back to take one. This is the only exciting stuff happening in this league at the moment. Funny trivia fact: A few minutes from the final whistle on Saturday all matches expect one (Hamburg vs Schalke) were tied.

In the 2nd division of german football, the 2. Bundesliga, it seems that no team really wants to get promoted. Borussia Mönchengladbach seem to stay out of trouble at the moment, but they only drew this weekend and Hoffenheim seems to ressurect themselves. Cologne plays their usual up-and-down form which noone seem to understand. They play great matches and then a week later they look like a completely different team. If they manage to get promoted they will go down again at the end of that season. Right now it's M'Gladbach, Hoffenheim and Mainz on the three lucky places at the top of the table.

Way down the slope at Verbandsliga level, Fortuna Cologne finally started a winning streak and is now in third place, only behind local rivals Viktoria Cologne and VfL Leverkusen. It seems that all the promotion for the project www.deinfussbalclub.de finally seems to pay off a little bit as the attendance figures have risen slightly over the past few home games. around 1.000 people showed up which is quite a lot for 5th division football in Germany. The president, Klaus Ulonska and Sönke Wortmann, the man who started the project, have been going to lots of events and talkshows lately. They even have a story in THE german football magazine "11 Freunde" this month. And although I really don't know what to make of the whole thing it still feels good that a club like Fortuna is getting a little more attention. Past weekend's game against Hennef was won 2-0 and seemed to have been a lucky win with the second goal scored in added time.

So with the excitement gone from the Bundesliga the eyes of german football fans turn elsewhere, to England, for example. Last weekend's clash between Chelsea and Manchester United was an interesting one from the german perspective, since Michael Ballack is that captain of the german national team and the audience doesn't get that many chances to see him play over here. Most of the action takes place on pay-per-view TV so the chances to see him on free TV are limited to the top games in the Premier League. The way he presented himself must have been very reassuring for the german fanbase. He scored twice and looked like the "leader" most people expect him to be during this summer's Euro championship in Switzerland and Austria. The 2-1 victory over ManU brought back some excitement to the English championship. Both teams are now level on points and only the goal difference puts ManU up front at the moment.

And while I had the chance to watch a J-League game I really found it interesting of how the fans in Japan participate in the game. They are singing constantly, something which also happens in baseball. This may sound like they are trying to hard and some people might even say that this is all because of the strange discipline and collective thinking of Asians in general, but just to hear the crowd sing in the match between Urawa Red Diamonds and Consadole Sapporo was very refreshing. Urawa was down quickly, then equalized, got behind again, scored another equalizer and finally went in front in the second half and all the time the crowd was there singing and chanting. So there wasn't any real difference from a european game. There was though with the goalkeepers. Both didn't look good at all so it might be a good idea to get someone like Oliver Kahn to go to Japan. Although he already might have abandoned that idea in favour of staying in Germany.
The level of play was rather decent although I have to admit that I am a bit biased when it comes to japanese football. I really like their way of playing a very fast and technical football, they try to play like Arsenal. Something they can't accomplish, that's true, but it's nice to watch. The level is definetely higher than the one played in the american MLS. The season over there is just getting on the way so it might be a little too early to make predictions. The Reds got off to a lousy start and it seemed they were just continuing from where they left off at the end of last season when the suffered a meltdown losing the championship to Kashima Antlers on the last day of play. But they regrouped and now seem to do just fine. The last goal of the match against Sapporo was a wonderful counterattack with former Frankfurt and Hamburg player Takahara Naohiro laying up the ball for teammate Edmilson (4-2).

NPB: How to stay up-to-date with the action

2008-04-29T09:03:00.003+02:00

It's pretty hard to follow the action in the japanese NPB league, especially the games in the Central League, since there seem to be no streams for any of the matches. And when there are they are strictly limited to a japanese audience. In times of teams and sports looking for new chances of revenue and income all the time that can be considered to be rather anachronistic, I guess. Sports like football and leagues like the English Premier League seem to be willing to do anything to draw new crowds to their games and they even discussed an extra day of play at the end of the season in foreign countries, so the fans in Asia and elsewhere can watch there stars live instead of on the screen.
Now I know and take into consideration that baseball isn't a game like football and the only countries paying a huge attention to it are the US, the carribean states and some countries in east Asia. But still it's kind of sad that people interested in what's happening in the NPB get left out if they don't live in Japan.
I for my part would find it extremly interesting to watch a game of a Hanshin Tigers - Yomiuri Giants series, because of what I have read about the rivalry between the two teams. The only thing to do is to watch some wort of live ticker on the website of one of the teams or check the result elsewhere. I finally managed to memorize the kanji which are used for the different teams, so i now can read the table on the NPB homepage.
You can read the articles on some of the english sites of japanese newspapers afterwards, but it will always take a few days before the articles get published.
In the Tiger's case there is a great blog which keeps track of what's happening with the team where you can find a lot of information. But pictures can be rarely found anywhere.
Sometimes though some footage finds its way over here thorugh places like youtube so I was pretty thrilled to find the final inning of the final game of the series there (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Hanshin were down 2-3 and turned it around against the dominating Giants closer Marc Kroon, who holds the record for throwing the fastest pitch (161 km/h) in the NPB. The noise at Koshien is deafening and I always find it interesting how the baseball crowd sounds younger than, let's say, a football crowd. Their voices seem to be a little bit higher.
Anyway, it's nice to at least get a glimpse of what is happening over there. It's better than nothing.

DEL Finals: Cologne lose it but the doubts remain

2008-04-21T22:47:00.005+02:00

So Kölner Haie lost Game 4 of the finals on Sunday in dramatic fashion. The whole series remained at a dealock in almost every single game and these must have been the closest playoffs I have ever experienced in my entire life. Of the eight teams who made it to the post season at least six might have had a legitimate shot at the title. So the final series ended with a 3-1 victory of Eisbären Berlin, who, alongside with Adler Mannheim, dominated German ice hockey over the past few years.
Still some doubts remain because of the player who scored the winning goal in overtime last weekend. Florian Busch was exposed of missing a doping test soem time ago, a fact which under the laws of the national anti-doping agency leads to an immediate supension. Still the German Ice Hockey Federation DEB does not submit itself under the rules of the German national sports court and in this particular case it just didn't act. What happened was that Mr Busch got a visit from some inspectors of the NADA (National Anti-Doping Agency) on Maqrch 6th who are supposed to pay visits to athletes on an irregular basis without announcing that they are coming over to check on them. When the player Busch opened the door he excused himself, saying that he isn't able to perform a doping test right now, because he was, at the time, "in a situation of enormous stress". One has to wonder what that might have been? There was the case of a Belgium cycling professional who was asked by doping inspectors to perform a doping test when he was busy with arranging the funeral for his son who was killed recently. Now that's what someone would call a situation of enormous stress. But according to some newspaper articles Mr Busch didn't look like that apperently. He delivered a test hours later and that test was negative, of course.
There is some kind of concern regarding the anti-doping practices of the German NADA, especially when you keep in mind what happened in cycling over the past few years. German athletes had a record of using performance enhancing drugs in the past, and most of the success the athletes of the former GDR was built on a state financed program which encouraged athletes to use such substances. Sometimes athletes were even injected those drugs wthout them knowing it.
To my knowledge this is the first time this happened in ice hockey but it is extremely worrying how Eisbären Berlin chose to deal with the situation. The result won't be revoked and Eisbären are the champions now, but a bitter aftertaste and some doubts remain.

Edit:
What'S written in this article (in German) is that theer seems to be some action from the side of the NADA. Obviously they are not satisfied with the outcome and they are still waiting for the DEB to give them a reason why they let Busch play in the finals. They will refer the case to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and that body has the right to bring the case to the world's sport court CAS which can rule on the matter. So there might be something coming at the Eisbären in the future...

Red Sox and Hanshin Tigers get a good start into the new season

2008-04-21T10:29:00.004+02:00

And once again here's proof that a baseball game should be watched until the final out. I tuned into the coverage of Red Sox vs Rangers from Fenway yesterday and although the match itself was pretty close and interesting I somewhat lost interest and started doing other things while listening to the commentary and occasionally looking at the screen. Rangers went ahead 2-0 early and even extended that lead to a 5-0 advantage later in the game. The Red Sox left a lot of baserunners stranded over the first 6 innings and they weren't looking they they would be able to make a comeback this time. Now in football when a team is 0-5 down the final minutes of a match can become really boring because both sides know that nothing will change until the final whistle. When first watched the Japanese drama series "H2" which is about high school baseball in Japan the main character says one sentence while playing the first game for his new team. They are a few runs behind and the opposing pitcher is trash talking to him pointing out that restistance is futile, he's already lost the game. "Let me show you the benefits of a game with no time limit". There certainly are some. What happened in Boston was that the Sox scored two in the 7th and then rallied to score 4 more in the 8th, the final one being a bases-loaded walk. I guess that's something I really like about the sport. That you have to be aware until the very last out of the game. There's always the possibility that something happens which turns around the game in favour of the other team.

Meanwhile in Japan the Hanshin Tigers are on a run. They lead the Central League 15-4-0 while their fiercest rivals, the Yomiuri Giants are second to last with a 7-12-1 record. Seems like we are in for some surprises this year although it's still very early in the season. There is a great blog which keeps track of the Tigers games regularly.

Polar Bears, Germany's new national mascots

2008-04-17T22:37:00.005+02:00

For quite some time now Germans are stark raving mad about polar bears. Yes, polar bears. Those artic predators. Still most people would consider them to be very cute at a young age. It all started with a polar bear baby at the Berlin zoo which was seperated from its parents after his birth. There was one animal welfare activist who said in a newspaper article that the poor animal would be better off if it was killed which caused a huge uproar by the nation's biggest tabloid, the Bild-Zeitung. So the media caught on to the story and suddenly the small polar bear was a front page celebrity. Named Knut it soon got the masses streaming into the Berlin zoo to take a look at the little guy. Thsi went on for quite a few weeks and I really was glad when it finally all died down and the media attention shifted towards other things.
But then the Nuremburg zoo pulls out Flocke, the next polar bear baby and the whole thing repeats itself. Not with the scandal about the bear being better off when it is killed, but still there are tons of people roaming the cages in Nuremburg only to get a small glimpse of that white fur thing running around. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse there's another polar bear baby, this time at the Stuttgart zoo. Frontpages, etc, you know the story. There's even documentaries on news television stations and I believe there was even a documentary which was shown at cinemas.

Old Firm Derby: Now that's what you call football

2008-04-16T22:17:00.005+02:00

There are a lot of rivalries in sports, especially in football. Those London derbys in England, Manchester united and Liverpool FC, in Germany there's the "Ruhrpott" derby between Schalke and Dortmund, the Munich derby, the Rhineland derbies involving Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach and Cologne. In France you have Marseille and Paris and of course there in Madrid versus Barcelona in Spain. In Southamerica you have the Fla-Flu in Brazil or River vs Boca Juniors. But nothing, absolutely nothing beats the intensity of Rangers vs Celtic in Scotland. There are numerous legends and stories revolving around those matches between the two archrivals in Scottish football. What makes it even more fierce is the politcal and religious stance between the two clubs and their supporters. When you watch the Old Firm on TV you have the impression you are right in there with the crowd, something which rarely happens to me when I watch a football match. The noise and excitement of the audience is there. Always.
So when the two big teams met again tonight at Celtic Park it was no disappointment again. After Celtic went up 1-0 in the first half after a beautiful strike by Japanese midfielder Nakamura Shunsuke Rangers equalized in the 2nd on a goal by Nacho Novo. The game went from side to side, from one penalty box to the other. Some time in the 2nd half Rangers goalkeeper McGregor injured himself and was limping over the pitch for quite some time. He had enough energy to save a penalty though which came after a Rangers player cleared another Nakamura screamer with his hand on the goal line. But it finished in style with Jan venegor of Hesselink scoring the winning goal in stoppage time. And if it needed any more there was some pushing and shoving after the final whistle when emotions and frustration broke loose on both sides.
What's most astonishing in a positive way is the way that the foreign players adapt to the British way of playing. While you can see players falling down at the slightest touch in the German Bundesliga - one of the most annoying things in football, if you ask me - in Scotland the get hammered and still stand up, brushing of the tackle as something which belongs to the game. The referee also plays a vital role in letting the match continue. This is brilliant stuff and I would really like to see something like that going on in Germany as well. Unfortunately stuff like that won't happen here as long as the German FA (DFB) advises its referees to blow the whistle so often.

DEL Finals: Series tied at 1-1

2008-04-15T23:56:00.004+02:00

The Kölner Haie tied the series against the Eisbären Berlin tonight at the KölnArena with a 2-1 win. Trailing 0-1 after one period they came back to turn the tide and win it in the final period with a goal by 40 year old Dave McLlwain. It seems like the Haie weren't able to convert their powerplay chances. Or were the Eisbären so good in killing the penalties? I have no idea.
Interestingly enough the Arena wasn't sold out and that came after all the buzz that was created around the championship series. I would have thought that it was a complete sell out but I was proven wrong. The series now moves back to Berlin on Friday.

Statistics in football are plainly dumb

2008-04-15T23:41:00.003+02:00

There used to be a time in German football coverage when there were only three television stations in the country. Back in those days the sports program "Die Sportschau" used to show small clips of three games, all the other matches were just shown as results at the end of the program. Then in the 1980s private television was introduced and the broadcasting rights went from ARD (public television) to RTL (private). The coverage became more flashy and they even introduced live matches. I especially remember the matchup between 1.FC Cologne and Bayern Munich in 1989, I think. But since there were other private stations who offered even more money the rights went to SAT1 at the beginning of the 1990s and that's when the nightmare began. They introduced the so called "ran Datenbank" (ran database), a statistical monster which spat out useless numbers and events at every match that was shown. They counted the minutes a striker went without scoring, they recorded the longest streak for a goalkeeper without conceding a goal, etc. You get the picture. While those are to a certain extent reasonable there is one statistic which makes absolutely no sense. The commentators always talk about how long it has been that one team won against another one. The point is with the system of promotion and relegation there might be seasons when both teams never played against each other. So a streak of let's say 30 years might sound like a long time but when the one team has been in division one the whole time and the other one was relegated to e.g. divison 3 in the meantime, where's the point in bringing up a statistic?! So when a commentator was talking about that a match between Hamburger SV and Hertha BSC Berlin hasn't ended 0-0 in almost 30 years he was completely neglecting the fact that Hertha was playing in the 2nd division for quite a long time of those 30 years while HSV was never relegated even once.
I see the point for statistics in rather static sports like baseball or basketball or american football, where it makes sense to measure players by using numbers. It just won't work in football. A striker might not score for hundreds of minutes but if he scores that one vital goal at the end of the season he's the man. A goalkeeper might have a streak of playing 10 games without conceding a goal but how many shots did he have to save? When is a save a save? When can a shot be considered to be on goal? To me football is such a beautiful sport because it doesn't need something like statistics. The problem is that with things like the "ran Datenbank" people in the audience think that it's the complete opposite, that football needs statistics. And because of that we won't get rid off them in the near future.

DEL Playoffs: Cologne and Berlin in the finals

2008-04-15T11:49:00.006+02:00

While the playoffs in the NHL are just getting started the German DEL is already in the final stages. The past few years haven't been very interesting in the domestic league with Adler Mannheim and Eisbären Berlin splitting up titles every year. It has been especially frustrating for my local team, Kölner Haie, who enter a season each year as one of the big favourites and then fail miserably in the playoffs. They won their last title (of eight in total) in 2002 and have made some impressive shots at the championship since then, but there weren't successful at all. At least they could find comfort in the fact that their eternal rivals from Düsseldorf, the DEG, haven't won anything either. Both teams were the dominating forces in German Ice Hockey in the 1980s and the early 1990s.
The draw for the playoffs offered the opportunity for a final which might have included those old rivals, but it wasn't meant to be. Still these playoffs seem to have been the most intense ones in a long time. Lots of overtime matches, one game in the quarterfinal matchup between Haie and Adler Mannheim going in to a record 7th overtime. Lots of close series, especially the one between the Frankfurt Lions and the Iserlohn Roosters (4-3) in which quite a few games went to overtime. So everything is set for a great final series which is a best-of-five game series.
Berlin and Cologne got at each other right from the start with the Haie getting a 10 minute suspension for Todd Warriner after only 2 minutes of play. This match was decided in a sudden death again and now the Eisbären lead the series 1-0. Still the euphoria in Cologne is huge. The team already sold 17.000 tickets in advance for Game 2 when the series will come to Cologne tonight. They seemed to have problems filling their arena over the season but now fans are eager for a championship team in this city. With the local football club struggling to get promoted to the first division and the local basketball team being on the verge of bankrupcy at the end of last year people look for a team which will give them something to celebrate. Because that's something the people of Cologne really like to do.

A Day At The Record Store (IV) cont.

2008-04-15T10:48:00.002+02:00

Just to finish this off here's some words about the 7" singles I got while being at the record store a few days ago.

The Ice "s/t" 7"
The Ice were roommates of ours when we still had our rehearsal room in Cologne Mülheim and that basically is the only reason I bought the record. Well, it's not as bad as it sounds when I say this, it's just that it's not my cup of tea anymore. When I was listening to the single at the record store for the first time I had the record player on 45 rpm and the intro on the A side sounded cool. Not great, but cool. But then the voice set in and it turned out I had the wrong speed. Well, at 33 rpm the intro wasn't as cool anymore.
The Ice play your normal type of tough hardcore with lots of mosh parts, breakdowns and hard streetwise lyrics. As I said, nothing really special, but I heard the guys are great on stage so when they come around your place you might want to check them out. The artwork of this 7" is a blast though. Great good looking stuff.

No FX "Singles Club #10" 7"
I somewhat missed out on this Singles Club thing that No FX set up a few years ago. You had to pay some money in advance and in return you got a 7" each month. That's how it was supposed to be but some things happened along the way, at least I heard and now it's only 10 singles (edit: turns out there were really 12, I must have missed something there). Still a great concept and I didn't have the money to join the fun. Well, now I have to hunt and search for the scattered EPs all over the place and for someone who still is refusing to use eBay this can be rather hard. But every now and then I find one of those little gems and at this visit there was another one. I also got another of the 7"s but when I got home it turned out I already got that one. Damn!

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes "Jerry" 7"
I love the concept of this band. Usually coverbands don't really kick ass but this one is simply a revelation. Each of their records deals with a different topic and every time they manage to sneak in some quotations of punkrock classics in their versions of classic pop and rock songs. To accompany their full length releases they also put out 7" singles with two songs of one artist on it. So this one is off from their "Love their country" LP on which they shred country classics by artists like Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, Hank Williams or Willie Nelson. The 7" features "East bound and down" by Jerry Reed, hence the title. The flipside is "I'm gonna write a song".
Now after 60s, 70s, R&B, musicals, country and a bar mitzvah I wonder what Me First & The Gimme Gimmes will be targeting next...

Curses and buried shirts: Baseball lore revisited

2008-04-15T09:55:00.005+02:00

There seems to be a strong belief in baseball that curses really exist and work, although some of them seem to have been overcame over the past years. The best known one must have been the "Curse of the Bambino", but is there any clue as to what made the curse go away? One that apparently is still active is the "Curse of the Billy Goat" which prevents the Chicago Cubs from winning a championship in the past 100 years. In Japan the Hanshin Tigers are still waiting to win the Japan Series for a 2nd time and there a fastfood mascot is taking all the blame. The "Curse of the Colonel" is thought to prevent the team from winning since 1985 now when excited fans dropped a statue of KFC mascot Colonel Sanders into a river.
This kind of sports lore is something which makes baseball interesting to me. Legends, curses, witchcraft, that's something which adds to the fun. Fans and supporters always turn to higher powers when they are trying to explain the inexplicable. Why has my team not won a championship in a long time? Well, maybe it's not bad management or even worse players. No, it must have been a curse. There we go...
Now, it seems some people even try to force their "luck" a little bit and with the New York Yankees building a new stadium what better way to put a little flaw in the construction. A worker buried a Red Sox jersey under the visitor's dugout, told the New York Post and then the Yankees resurfaced the jersey with lots of media attention. At least this kind of child's play is one where no one gets hurt, unlike the stuff football supporters to over here.

A Day At The Record Store (IV)

2008-04-10T09:54:00.005+02:00

I haven't been to the record store in ages, it seems. So last week I decided it was time again to spend some money on some records and this is what I got in return.

No Use For A Name "The Feel Good Record Of The Year" LP (+CD)
I wasn't keeping track of these guys at all over the past few years. True, I was a huge fan back in the days and "Don't Miss The Train" is still one of my all time favourites ever. I also remember a brilliant live show at the "Underground" in Cologne where the whole audience just went berzerk for the entire set. But that was years ago and today I somehow lost my interest in most of the melodic punkrock bands mainly because the all sound the same, don't they? I know that argument is lame, but to me it's like that. There are no surprises anymore.
While saying that I know that that's true for this record as well but maybe because of sentimental feelings I still like it. It really is a feel good record.Nothing really changed over the years for Mr. Sly and his comrades, they still sound like 10 years ago. And in a way that's very reassuring and good. The record comes with a CD of all the album tracks. I guess that's one way of selling CDs to the kids.

Fine Before You Came "It All Started In Malibù" LP
Man, we love those guys. A Modest Proposal played two shows with Fine Before You Came from Milano, Italy a few years ago and we instantly fell in love with the band. While they are great musicians and composers who play a sound somewhere around the area of Braid and alike, they are also wonderful human beings, fun to talk to and hang around with. This is, I believe, their 2nd full length which came out on Strange Fruit Records, a label from southern Germany, not to be confused with other labels of the same name. So we were labelmates with them for a short time. They raised their level of excellence once more with this one. Jacopo's voice is just fascinating and really a thrill to listen to with the wonderful music pumping in the background. A great record and it's really a shame that this one was in the 2nd hand segment of the store.

Oiro "Vergangenheitsschlauch" LP
And once again the guys from Düsseldorf strike back with their way of playing northern German punkrock in the vein of all those "Jensen-bands" like Dackelblut, Blumen Am Arsch Der Hölle or Oma Hans. On their 2nd album nothing changed and I think it's better this way. They know what they are best at and they deliver. That's the way it should be. Although I initially bought this just because I know the people in the band this will become I record I like a lot, I am pretty sure that will happen.

Inferno "Pioneering Works" 3xLP
This was due for a long time now. Inferno used to be one of the first, if not the first hardcore band in the German scene. Their record "Tod & Wahnsinn" started it all here. That one is truly a classic piece of brutal early 80s hardcore music. I think I first got in touch with their music when I bought some compilation records of Mülleimer Records (who were then called AM Music). I then bought a CD which featured the aforementioned "Tod & Wahnsinn" together with their 2nd record "Hibakusha". And although I always like their first one better, the whole compilation was just great. "Ram It Up" was covered by S.O.D., they had tracks on the "Cleanse The Bacteria" compilation on Pusmort and so on. So they are truly legends in the German hardcore scene, although I would doubt if any of the young kids today know any of their songs.
This is a compilation of almost all the stuff they recorded. It features their three albums, compilation tracks, the "Son Of God" EP and the split 12" w/ The Execute. Three records labeled Oldschool, Nextschool and Highschool which I think is a nice joke. This is a piece of history.

Mount Logan "s/t" LP
I saw this band a year ago at some small festival show in Cologne where they played with some chaoscore bands and they completely stood out because of their very lo-fi and modest approach. Mount Logan are a three-piece without a bassplayer if I remember it correctly and yet they were able to produce a great sort of pressure and noise with their instruments. There were only a few vocals every now and then, very spartanic and the music was very dynamic ranging from loud to very quiet and back to really loud again.
This record really captures their live performance. Dark, gloomy, loud, quiet music which leaves a feeling of despair. You feel like you are the last person on earth. The design of the cover sleeve only emphasizes this. Almost completely in black with now band name or anything else on the front side. The record itself looks more like a test pressing with black labels and writings on it. Great lo-fi-doom-core (oh boy, how I hate makin' up those categories, haha).

Envy "Abyssal" 12" EP
Envy really seem to have found their style of music. After the brilliant masterpiece of their last record this just continues where "Insomniac Doze" left off. Only four tracks here, but the first one is a hymn which could have easily been put on the previous record. 10 minutes, maybe even longer, it just drags itself on and on and I personally wouldn't have a problem if there was no end at all to this one. It's got the usual breakdowns in the middle and then the outbursts come again, a classic Envy track, if you like.
What I especially like about the present Envy is that they still keep their rough edge while trying to add a few experiments every now and then. They could have easily slowed down their pace and reduced the heavyness of their music just like some other bands did. They could just turn into the next Mogwai, but that would be too disappointing if they just copy another band. I just like them they way they are. I liked them the way they were as well when they were still playing that upbeat chaotic brand of hardcore, but this suits them a lot better. I hope there's more to come in the future.

The Ice "s/t" 7"
No FX "Singles Club #9" 7"
Me First And The Gimme Gimmes "Jerry" 7"
...more on those three later on...

In The Backyard Of The Record Collection (9): Cross My Heart - s/t

2008-04-09T18:15:00.008+02:00

To be honest, when I first heard about the band I really found the name, well, debateable to say the least. I mean, okay, they sound like an emo band, but that name is way too cliché. Still the music is brilliant. I remember a friend telling about this new record he bought and there was this great line in one song going "...and I'm moving on my own two feet just to get my direction". He would go on and on and on raving about how great this record was and that I should really get it as soon as possible. It took me sone time to be convinced, but when I bought it it struck me with full force. The opener "Dornier" begins at a rather slow pace and tone, then suddenly crashs out and dies down again. The clear and subtle voice sets in and we're off on a great journey. This wasn't like anything I was listening to at that time. "It doesn't take that many pills to sleep forever" is the best one one this record and that's the song with that particular line my friend was talking to me about. The verse, again, very subtle and quite and then the rumbleing guitars set in for the chorus. The closing tune is yet again a true classic. Starting off with some feedback beeping which carries over from the previous track "The hypnotist" is very much hypnotizing, to say the least. There's this part in the end where there is a smal change to the previous chorus when it gets a little heavier which really gives me goosebumps.
With this record Cross My Heart from Baltimore made themselves immortal to me. Their follow up releases didn't quite get through to me as well as this one although one has to say that those records were way above average as well compared to the numerous epigones and clones that sprung up and died away with the time passing. Some of the guys are now in a band called Liar's Academy, but it just doesn't have the same feel as it had 10 years ago.

A week in baseball

2008-04-09T17:59:00.006+02:00

So here we go, the baseball season is in full swing after a week of play. And it seems that a few teams try to ridicule some of the experts who were labelling some clubs as losers before opening day. I found it quite surprising to see that the Orioles, the Royals, the A's or the Rangers (incidentally all AL teams) who were all considered to be cannon fodder for the big teams before the season suddenly turned out to be good ball clubs. Now I know that there will change a lot over the course of a 162 game season, but I found it quite astonishing that there wasn't a single team who was predicted to lose really did so. Everyone was talking about the great offense of the Detroit Tigers (0-7 after last night's loss to the Red Sox), the great Angels (5-4) and so on. In football the three teams who get promoted usually are considered to the the first three candidates for immediated relegation. Normally there's one stand out surprise (this year that would be Karlsruhe), but usually they go down the drain as the season continues. But that doesn't seem to be the case in baseball. What I like about that is the balance of the league. It's not like that every team has a chance to win the World Series, but it's close. Closer than in European football competitions.
And, oh boy, you got to give credit to the Americans for celebrating their championship teams. I was watching the ceremony for the Red Sox yesterday and that was brilliant. Although I don't really like F-16 flyovers, but bringing out legendary players from different sports teams (Bruins, Celtics, Patriots), honouring a former player who gave the club one of it's worst memories (Bill Buckner in 1986) by letting him throw the opening pitch, that's something you won't get in German stadiums. I like the way they honour their tradition.

In Japan meanwhile the spring Koshien ended with a win for a school from Okinawa. I guess that the population of those islands down south is rather small so that must have been a highlight for the region.
So this means the Hanshin Tigers finally get to take their home field again after having a great start on the road. They are now 8-2-0 and lead the Central League. I still wasn't able to watch a game because of the different time zones (Japanese baseball games will air at 11 am over here), but I really hope to catch one on some weekend in the future.

Bundesliga - Day 27: German football traveling back in time

2008-04-09T17:45:00.004+02:00

MSV Duisburg - FC Energie Cottbus 0:1
Hertha BSC - Werder Bremen 1:2
Eintracht Frankfurt - 1. FC Nürnberg 1:3
VfB Stuttgart - Hamburger SV 1:0
VfL Wolfsburg - Hannover 96 3:2
Arminia Bielefeld - Karlsruher SC 1:0
FC Schalke 04 - FC Hansa Rostock 1:0
Borussia Dortmund - Bayer Leverkusen 2:1
Bayern München - VfL Bochum 3:1

The past round of matches in the first and second division of German football saw things which seemed to be long forgotten in stadiums all across the country. In Frankfurt the Nuremburg supporters launched fireworks onto the pitch which earned them a game delay of a few minutes and the club a € 50.000 fine. In Cologne meanwhile the infamous Rhine derby between Borussia Mönchengladbach and 1.FC Cologne was played on Monday. Both teams are contenders for a promotion spot to the first division and therefore the confrontation was rather heated. To add fuel to the heat a few weeks earlier a flag was stolen from the M'gladbach Ultra group who then declared they were going to disband because of the shame. This very flag showed up in the section of the 1.FC Cologne fans at the end of the game and that send the emotions skywards. Fireworks were thrown onto the pitch from the M'gladbach side while the Cologne supporters happily ripped the flag to shreds. The game was called off for 5 minutes while some players from Mönchengladbach tried to calm down their supporters. All this came when Gladbach was leading 0-1 in a rather mediocre match. When the play resumed Cologne was rewared a penalty which shouldn't have been one and the game was tied 1-1. It stayed that way until the finakl whistle and the sirens of the police cars could be heard all through the city that night.
Now this all comes in a time when stadiums are family orientated facilities in which the customer (note: not the "fan") should enjoy himself in a friendly and pleasant environment. Not that I would encourage people to throw stuff onto the field and so on, but it's rather fascinating when the media and sponsors talk and show about the wonderful atmosphere in southern european stadiums with all there bengal lights and on the other hand they don't want that stuff in their own backyard. This ambigous approach can be frustrating at times.
On lower division news Fortuna Cologne finally came back to the winning side with a 2-1 win against GFC Düren last Friday. Here's the last goal by top striker and fan favourite Stasiulewski.

And if that wasn't enough you now even have the chance to have YOUR say in what happens with that very liekable club from the south side of Cologne. Yes, following the example of Ebbsfleet Utd and myfootballclub.co.uk Germany now is the next takeover target where fans can reclaim football. Fortuna Cologne takes part in www.deinfussballclub.de, where you can register and when you pay € 39.95/year you can decide on numerous things, jersey style, player acqusitions, etc. You name it. Take part, get active and help us get back to professional football.

This Will Destroy You/Tephra @ MTC, Cologne

2008-04-05T12:04:00.003+02:00

This went completely under my radar so I didn't take any notice of the show until a friend of mine told me about it yesterday afternoon. I have seen Tephra quite a few times now and their great blend of sludge/doom/slowcore/whatever-rock/metal is always very nice to hear. The sound was a little disappointing at first though as there were some bass tunes missing. At least that's what I thought. But they did a great job and the crowd seemed to like it as well. There's only one thing that was really annoying to me and that was this very strange gold curtain hanging at the backside of the stage. I mean, c'mon, this looked like some cheap Siegfried & Roy show imitation, but nothing like the dark and gloomy stuff which I would associate with the music of Tephra. Well, I guess it's just part of the club's interior so we all had to live with it.
The crowd, by the way, was rather small, a fact I always like when shows take place in underground (and I mean underground literally here) clubs, where you stand in small cellar-like facilities with almost no air conditioner. It was funny how many well known faces showed up for this one, so this made the show a very good time experience.
This Will Destroy You are a band I had never heard of before, but they really got me with their music. One might throw in Explosions In The Sky as a slight reference, but they have a touch of their own. Although I consider such sound as "living room music" because I always like it better when I listen to it at home, I still liked the show.
A nice evening to start the weekend. Very pleasant.

Bundesliga - Day 26: Nothings changes

2008-04-01T10:40:00.003+02:00

FC Hansa Rostock - VfL Wolfsburg 0:1
Karlsruher SC - FC Schalke 04 0:0
1. FC Nürnberg - Bayern München 1:1
VfL Bochum - Borussia Dortmund 3:3
Hamburger SV - Arminia Bielefeld 1:1
Bayer Leverkusen - Eintracht Frankfurt 0:2
Werder Bremen - MSV Duisburg 1:2
Hannover 96 - VfB Stuttgart 0:0
FC Energie Cottbus - Hertha BSC Berlin 2:1

There were quite a few surprises this weekend but in the end there was no change whatsoever in the table. Although top teams like Bayern and Hamburg drew or others like Bremen and Leverkusen lost, nothing really happened. This must have been especially frustrating for teams at the bottom threatened by relegation. Usually Nürnberg would be happy to draw against Bayern, especially because it's a very important derby. But with Cottbus and Duisburg both winning their matches it didn't bring them any advantage in their quest to stay in the Bundesliga. Nürnberg, by the way, is the only team which got relegated after winning the championship 1968. Maybe they are trying to celebrate this by going down to the 2nd Bundesliga after winning the German Cup competition, the DFB-Pokal.
The finalists for this year's competition are Bayern and Borussia Dortmund and Dortmund look like they are completely concentrating on getting their ticket for European cup competition this way. They went down 0-2 early against Bochum, recovered, went down again and then equalised. This might sound like a team with a lot of will and moral, but against a team of no names like Bochum you have to play better. I don't think they will to well in the cup final.
Finally another bad boy emerged this weekend. HSV midfielder David Jarolim was known for taking a dive quite often anyway, but this weekend he got thrown off the pitch after reaching to the crotch of one of his opponents. This might be some relief for Maik Franz who was in the spotlight for similar actions the weeks before.

MLB: Opening Day holds its promise

2008-04-01T10:29:00.004+02:00

I was really anxious for the new baseball season to start, something I didn't even think of at the same time last year. This is kind of strange for me to get sucked up into a sport which I didn't find very interesting some time ago. But somehow the excitement of grown up man clubbing small balls with way too thin sticks out of parks got me hooked and that is why I was watching a few games yesterday.
I started with Royals at Tigers, a highly anticipated game because of the tuned up offense of Detroit. They went ahead early but then Kansas City came back to tie the game and it all went into extra innings (Final: KC 5 DET 4).
There were quite a few rain delays and the final opening game for the old Yankee stadium was postponed to today. Impressing how the Cubs audience at Wrigley Field was cheering on every pitch Carlos Zambrano threw in the first inning. That was more like a rowdy crowd at a European football stadium than people hanging out at a baseball game. Well, they have been waiting for 100 years now. Oh, by the way, this seems to be the year for anniversaries of championship droughts. In German football two teams will have to celebrate as well. Schalke 04 is 50 years without a championship, 1.FC Cologne is waiting for 30 years now. In the end the Cubs also went to extra innings after their newly acquired Japanese outfielder Fukudome Kousuke entered the MLB stage in style by tying the game with a 3-run homer. Still they lost to the Brewers 3-4.
I also took a glance at the Dodgers who were facing the Giants at home, the only game I watched where there was nice weather, by the way. That wasn't as close as the other matches with L.A. getting in front early. (Final SF 0 LAD 5).

Meanwhile across the Pacific the Japanese season got started as well and the Hanshin Tigers are leading the pack in the Central League after sweeping the Yokohama BayStars. What makes this even sweeter is that the Giants lost their series to the Yakult Swallows.

Finally something to do in the evenings on boring days.

Favourites once again: Germany 4 Switzerland 0

2008-03-27T21:59:00.003+01:00

Just in case anyone is wondering why I didn't write anything about last weekend's round of Bundesliga matches, well, I didn't really feel like writing anything about it because nothing special happened. At least nothing which I thought was worth mentioning. So instead I will write a little something about last night's international friendly between Switzerland and Germany. Switzerland of course being the co-hosts of this year's Euro championship weren't very convincing in their last outings and they weren't any better yesterday. Although this first half was rather boring Germany went ahead 1-0 and then outclassed their opponents the the second half by scoring three times. Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez was brilliant and everywhere, while the rest of the team was rather uninspired. There were flashes of that fine play that brought Germany into the World Cup semis and to the Euro, but they weren't nearly as dominating as the used to be. And this might be because of some players really delaying the game by playing too selfishly. The prime example is Bastian Schweinsteiger who, on a good day, can play a wonderful left midfielder. But most of the time he just tries to run head first into a wall of defenders. I can't quite see why coach Joachim Löw is still holding on to him when there wáre alternatives like Podolski, Lahm or Jansen.
There will be no more matches before the final line up is announced and there is no doubt that Schweinsteiger will be in it. But I do hope that he either gets his stuff together or that the coaching staff will put him on the bench if he doesn't.

Spring is coming and so is the sound of cracking bats

2008-03-27T21:45:00.003+01:00

I have to admit that I have been very anxious for the baseball season to start again and spring training games haven't had a great placebo effect on me. So I gladly accepted the opportunity to watch the season opening game from Tokyo between the Athletics and the Red Sox at a decent time. It was 11 AM in Germany so I was able to watch a few innings before I had to leave for work. I twas nice to watch, some nice defensive plays and hits, some shaky pitching by homecoming Matsuzaka Daisuke at the beginning, and a nice outcome for the Red Sox with a 6-5 win in extra innings.
I wasn't able to watch the exhibition games the days before though. I would have loved to see the Hanshin Tigers play against the American teams and they seemed to have done well against the defending World Champions from Boston. But those Tigers games were broadcasted too early for me unfortunately. And they were at Tokyo Dome and not at Koshien stadium which currently is hosting the invitational Spring Tournament.
Which leads me to the website for that tournament. The great thing is that you can watch every game there as a replay once it is finished. Just click on one of the numbers 1-13 which represent the game days. Complete game coverage with no commercial breaks. And the commentary is just hilarious. I watched a little bit of a surprising match in which Yokohama crashed out of the competition. Yokohama of course being the former school of Matsuzaka.
And finally in Japan the new season kicked off as well. Until now it is only the Pacific League, but the Central League will join the action this weekend, if I read the NPB website correctly. There is a nice blog about the Hanshin Tigers on a website which deals with almost everything about baseball in Japan which I really recommend.

Aah, I am really looking forward to another season...

Hanami - Kirschblüten: A German movie about Japan

2008-03-16T23:20:00.003+01:00

Well, not exactly, but it is set in Japan and on a side note it deals with how someone traveling to a completely foreign culture copes with what he experiences abroad.
This movie "Hanami - Kirschblüten" by German director Doris Dörrie tells the story of an old couple living an ordinary life in the middle of nowhere of Bavaria, a very rural and conservative area of Germany. The wife Trudi (Hannelore Elsner) always wanted to visit Japan, since she had a strong interest in the culture and her son is working in Tokyo, and now she is confronted with a diagnosis of her husband's doctors telling her that he only has a few more months to live because he is suffering from cancer. She doesn't know how to cope with this and is not capable of telling him either. The husband Rudi (Elmar Wepper) is a normal civil servant who is afraifd of change and doesn't want to take risks at all, let alone travel to countries which are very far away. So she finally persuades him to visit their other children in Berlin and then take a trip to the Baltic Sea. While staying there Trudi suddenly dies leaving Rudi behind. He is struggling to keep up his daily life but in the end he has to understand that he needs to go to Japan to find out what his wife wanted to see there. Staying at his son's place (Maximillian Brückner) he experiences the vastness of Tokyo's daily (and night) life until he meets a young Butoh dancer, a form of dance his wife loved to do. He and Yu (Irizuki Aya) finally travel to see Mt Fuji, to fulfil the final wish of Rudi's wife.

At first I didn't really know what to expect since all the movies Doris Dörrie previously made weren't really my cup of tea. And at the beginning of the film I think I saw some tries of applying the technique of slow story telling, which one can find in Japanese cinema very often, to a German landscape and story. But as the movie went on I got sucked into the story more and more and all of a sudden this becomes something everyone can relate to. It's not only a movie which concentrates on the loss of a loved person, but at the same time it shows the difficulties parents and children have as time goes on. There is one scene were Rudi says the should just go back to Bavaria, because his children don't understand him and he doesn't understand them anymore. everything's fine, they are grown up and healthy and happy, that's it. His children take on a similar stance towards their parents, a stance which changes slowly with the death of the mother. And then in the second half of the movie there's the cultural difference between rural Germany and the pulsating metropolis of Tokyo.

This is a great movie with a brilliant cast (Elmar Wepper and Hannelore Elsner are just great) with a very moving story which will get you thinking. I really recommend this one.

Bundesliga - Day 24: Missed chances and trash talk

2008-03-16T23:05:00.002+01:00

Bayer Leverkusen - 1.FC Nürnberg 4:1
Werder Bremen - VfL Wolfsburg 0:1
FC Hansa Rostock - Hertha BSC Berlin 0:0
Karlsruher SC - Eintracht Frankfurt 0:1
VfL Bochum - VfB Stuttgart 1:1
Hamburger SV - Borussia Dortmund 1:0
Hannover 96 - Arminia Bielefeld 2:2
FC Energie Cottbus - FC Bayern München 2:0
FC Schalke 04 - MSV Duisburg 2:1

So another missed chance for the pack trailing Bayern Munich at the top of the table. An unexpected loss to last place Cottbus and none of the persecutioners took advantage. Bremen seems to be completely out of it at the moment. Losing to Glasgow in the UEFA Cup and now being beaten by Wolfsburg, the epitomy of mediocrity. Hamburg and Leverkusen won their matches, but they seem to be too far back to really get into the title race at this point of the season.
The main theme for the past few weeks though seems to be the person of Karlsruhe defender Maik Franz. Labelled the "bad boy" of the Bundesliga he again had some fights with his opponents. Now, honestly, I really don't like him as a player. He plays rather unfair and dirty (they were showing a scene on television were he stepped on his opponent's foot on purpose) and I don't consider him to be a good football player. So every time I see some one speak out against him I really enjoy this. This weekend there were numerous players of Frankfurt who complained about his style of play. Only a few weeks ago there was an incident with Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez and if I remember it correctly last weekend someone else was complaining about Franz as well. Now, although I said I like it when people stand up against him I think at the same time he is getting way too much attention. He's just a mediocre player on a team who has a high right now. Next year he will be back to normal down in the depths of relegation struggles with Karlsruhe (which is wishful thinking on my part, but I really hope predictions come true). Interestingly enough there was an article regarding the existence of trash talk on the picthes in the Bundesliga (I am sorry I cannot find the link any more) which stated that the master of trash talking seemed to have been German national team captain Michael Ballack, a player who most of the commentators consider to be very calm and reserved.

In The Backyard Of The Record Collection (8): Big Rig - Expansive Heart

2008-03-11T16:25:00.005+01:00

Now actually I can't quite remember when or why I pruchased this little gem. I think it must have been through the infamous German mailorder Lost & Found (note to myself: I have to write about Strain some time in the future). Could have been that the review said something about the singer of Operation Ivy being in this band and that was why I bought it. Ever since I first got my hands on the Op Ivy discography CD is was head over heels in love with that band. I always liked ska-punk, but this was different, as all of us know. I wasn't that much into Rancid at that time though, that only changed when they released their brilliant "...And Out Come The Wolves" record.
So I got Big Rig and at first I didn't really know what to expect. If I recall it correctly the review in the catalogue didn't say anything about the style of the music, so I am not quite sure what I was hoping for when I put the "Expansive Heart" 7" on my turntable for the first time. It wasn't ska-punk that awaited my ears, that's for sure. This record was explosive yet very intense and touching. Only four songs, but each and every one of them is great. The title track has a great melody and simply rips through everything. The singing of Jesse Michaels just sounds as if Operation Ivy have gotten rid of all the ska stuff and became a normal punkband. I never really got into listening to his next band Common Rider, that was too much reggea for me. But Big Rig was all that I needed back than.
I have no idea if this record is still in print, but maybe you can find some songs on the internet somewhere.

Nothing In Common @ Sonic Ballroom, Cologne

2008-03-10T10:28:00.002+01:00

All good things have to come to an end eventually and since Lisse, Nothing In Common's guitarist and singer, decided to join Aachen's Pale and play bass with them, the end of one of Germany's finest punkrock bands came to an end last Friday. What a fitting venue the Ballroom is for an occasion like this.
We (a.k.a. A Modest Proposal) have been friends with Nothing In Common for a long time because our singer Pascal and Lisse grew up together. It was always a pleasure to watch them play and the songs they performed were always highly entertaining. As were Lisse's announcements and actions on stage. For their last two release parties they asked some of their friends to perform punkrock and hardcore classics only accompanied by a piano player. Great stuff.

So this was their last show and the place was packed. So packed that - honestly - I wasn't in any mood to join the crowd so I kept standing in front of the room and talked to some people. It seems that the days of great shows which were more like a huge meeting of friends with some random band playing are a thing of the past now. So people only show up for special stuff like Gorilla Biscuits or for the last show of some of their friends' bands. For The Day (Aachen) opened up for the evening which took me a little by surprise since I thought that they had called it quits as well. What I was hearing from outside sounded as good as always and their choice of coverversions was exquisite as well (Jawbreaker "Boxcar" and The Undertones "Teenage Kicks"). Next up were D.H. from the east of Germany. I had seen them play with Nothing In Common at some show in Brühl years ago and I really liked what I heard so I bought their record. Still I can't remember much of it and it's been quite some time since I last listened to their music. By the time they entered the stage on Friday I didn't really pay any attention. Unfortunately maybe. If I remember it right they had a more "German" touch to their music, but still their brand of punkrock had something of some American bands as well. Note to myself: Have to listen to the record again.
So the I left I didn't see Nothing In Common play their final show because I had to work the next day. I believe they were awesome as they always were when I saw them. Another great band left the stage.

Bundesliga - Day 23: Forget about professional football...

2008-03-10T10:06:00.003+01:00

1.FC Nürnberg - Hamburger SV 0:0
Bayer Leverkusen - Hannover 96 2:0
VfB Stuttgart - Werder Bremen 6:3
VfL Wolfsburg - FC Energie Cottbus 3:0
Arminia Bielefeld - FC Schalke 04 0:2
MSV Duisburg - FC Hansa Rostock 1:1
Bayern München - Karlsruher SC 2:0
Eintracht Frankfurt - VfL Bochum 1:1
Borussia Dortmund - Hertha BSC Berlin 1:1

This weekend was really frustrating. And I am not talking about the first division results. I couldn't care less this time. To be honest, I didn't really pay attention to what happened in Germany's highest level of playing. Because this weekend saw the local derby in Cologne. Albeit in the 5th division. former local bigshots Viktoria and Fortuna went head to head on Saturday afternoon sitting in the top two spots in the table before the match. The atmosphere was great and I haven't felt such an excitement before a football match in a long time. The audience who turned up was huge for a 5th divison match, must have been around 1.500 as predicted. The match was moved from Sunday to Saturday which was a smart thing to do since Sunday is the day when the 2nd division a.k.a. 1.FC Cologne is playing.
Well, well, well, Fortuna started out pretty well, using their wingers frequently but they were still lacking clear chances. Meanwhile Viktoria was nowhere to be seen. They were simply trying to clear every ball which entered their half into the sky or elsewhere. And after only 12 minutes they cleared it a little further towards the goal, the Fortuna defender reaches it first and plays it back to his goalkeeper. IN SUCH A POOR WAY! that the goalkeeper has to use his hands to clear the ball. Free kick in Fortuna's box, and it's 1-0 Viktoria. To cut a long story short: While playing the better football Fortuna was outclassed by a witty Viktoria side which simply waited for mistakes to happen. The result after 90 minutes was Viktoria 4 Fortuna 0. And while this looks pretty clear Fortuna had enough chances (e.g. a penalty) to score and maybe equalize. What a horrible experience. You go to a match in high spirits and all your hopes and dreams get crushed in just 45 minutes. I was totally devastated and my weekend was in ruins. I just hope the team will bounce back after losing the first two games after the winter break.

As for the first division the press is raving about the performance of Stuttgart and Germany striker Mario Gomez who scored three times in a 6-3 win over Bremen(1st half, 2nd half). Gomez had offers from numerous clubs before the season, it seemed, but he decided to stay with Stuttgart. His value is believed to be something around € 30 mio which by far would make him the most expensive German player. Of all German strikers he is at his best right now. World Cup darlings Klose and Podolski are struggling at Bayern, Kuranyi seems to have problems finding his role at Schalke where he sometimes looks a little lost and noone really understood why Mike Hanke (Hannover 96) was playing on the national team anyway. No, Gomez is at the top right now and if he stays healthy (and doesn't vent his anger on medical boxes. Which he did once and broke his hand by doing so) he should be Germany's life insurance for this year's Euro tournament.

Champions League - Last 16 (Leg 2)

2008-03-06T11:19:00.002+01:00

FC Porto - FC Schalke 04 1:4 (a.p.)
Real Madrid - AS Roma 1:2
FC Chelsea - Olympiakos Piraeus 3:0
Internazionale - Liverpool FC (11.3.) -:-
FC Barcelona - Celtic Glasgow 1:0
Manchester United - Olympique Lyonnais 1:0
FC Sevilla - Fenerbahce Istanbul 2:3 (a.p.)
AC Milan - Arsenal 0:2

Some upsets in this round, Arsenal being the first English team to beat Milan at San Siro, Fenerbahce coming back after losing the first leg 2-3 to become the first turkish team to move to the quarterfinals, I believe. And Roma throwing Real Madrid out of the competition by winning at the Estadio Bernabeu.
In Germany Schalke was the talk of the town. German TV stations always like to promote matches with German teams as an occasion during which the whole nation sits in front of the television set to keep their fingers crossed for that particular team. By doing this the completely ignore the fact that there is a lot of dispise for certain teams and with the Schalke-Dortmund rivalry being one of the fiercest there was no way I was going to cheer for Schalke in their match against FC Porto. They won the first leg at home 1:0 and needed a draw to advance to the quarterfinals. That being said it became the match everyone expected. Boring, boring, boring. But the most frustrating thing was the commentary.
Now, in Germany Champions League matches are broadcasted by the pay-per-view station premiere and every once in a while they show off their skills on free tv as well. The station takes a lot of pride in their competent and in depth reporting, but to me their are just a bunch of idiots. Their announcers have no idea whatsoever of how to play and "read" a football match, they are simply there to sell the product. Their experts might be ex-football players like Beckenbauer or Sammer, but they have no television presence at all. And their commentators always talk like they are more interested in the private lives of the players and coaches than in the game taking place. A prime example was last night's commentator Fritz von Thurn und Taxis. That guy was simply hilarious. As far as I saw it Schalke had one chance in the first half and he was saying that they were in complete control of the match. He than blabbers on about the origin of certain players, calling Porto midfielder Lucho Gonzalez "a gipsy" (a word which in Germany sometimes is used in a rather insulting way) and tells Schalke and Germany striker Kevin Kuranyi to go back to Brazil because he refused to shake hands with coach Mirko Slomka. This is pure racism. That guy was way off. It sounded like he only liked to listen to himself talk. There was no information whatsoever on the match. I happened to switch to the coverage of Real vs Roma on an Austrian station and this was completely different. The commentator there was very laid back and only talked when needed. And he was trictly referring to what was happening on the pitch. The same goes for English commentators who I really like. They seem to have the ability to be "into" the action and at the same time the keep enough distance to give an unbiased look onto the match. Something which rarely happens in German television.
So thumbs down to premiere and I sincerly hope that Schalke gets eliminated in the next round so I don't have to listen to such crap again this season.

Bundesliga - Day 22: A storm is coming

2008-03-03T17:06:00.002+01:00

Hertha BSC Berlin - MSV Duisburg 2:0
FC Energie Cottbus - VfB Stuttgart (cancelled)
FC Schalke 04 - Bayern München 0:1
Hannover 96 - 1. FC Nürnberg 2:1
Werder Bremen - Borussia Dortmund 2:0
FC Hansa Rostock - Arminia Bielefeld 1:1
Karlsruher SC - VfL Wolfsburg 3:1
VfL Bochum - Bayer Leverkusen 2:0
Hamburger SV - Eintracht Frankfurt 4:1

So there we have it, the first match got cancelled last weekend because of a huge storm front blowing over Germany on Saturday afternoon. Apart from that there wasn't really anything happening. Quite frankly, this is becoming a little bit boring. Maybe the only piece of news worth mentioning is the hilarious comments the BAyern Munich front office was saying after they won at Schalke. Schalke's coach Mirko Slomka is under a lot of pressure since the club's president decided to voice his opinion on matters which he seems to have no clue about. Which lead to a now famous remark from Slomka about that you can put a nail in a wall to hang up a picture, but once you take the picture down and pull the nail out of the wall, the hole of the nail will stay there. Since then It's more than likely that Slomka will be sacked rather earlier than later. He still has the match against Porto in the Champions League this week, but if he loses that one most of the media guys think he's gone. So what Uli Hoeness and all those hypocrites did was commenting on the Schalke situation that it was not acceptable to sack a successful coach and stuff like that. What the hell, they have been crushing their own coach Ottmar Hitzfeld during the winter break just in the same way. It all started in Munich when President Karl-heinz Rummenigge announced that "football is not mathmatics" after a disappointing draw against Bolton Wanderes at home. Since then Bayern has done everything to dismantle Hitzfeld's position and status in the club. They found a replacement in Jürgen Klinsmann who will take over at the beginning of the new season. This is so typical of German media politics. When it's Bayern everything will do. No one even felt the need to point out the hypocritical behaviour. Ridiculous.

JDrama: The season wrap up (winter '08)

2008-02-29T22:39:00.005+01:00

Bara no nai Hanaya
A very heartwarming story about the owner of a flower shop who lost his wife when she gave birth to his daughter. The father of the mother seems to hold a grudge against the man and sets up two of his underlings to destroy the quiet but happy life of the florist.
Katori Shingo of SMAP has his funny moments in this one every now and then but all in all his performance is very solid and humble. As for Takeuchi Yuko she as beautiful as she always is. Her smile is one of the prettiest ones in Japanese television. The whole cast is very good, by the way. I really like how they managed to intertwine two basic storylines without getting tangeled up as they follow the quest of the mother's father to bring down the florist and at the same time the story takes time to look into the life of an abused child and the rescue of the child from its parents. This is great stuff with a wonderful soundtrack. (7,5/10)

Hachimitsu to Clover
I already watched the anime version of this story and what I especially liked was the fact that nothing really happened there. Basically this is just following the lives of college students at an arts university and what they do all year long. Sure, there are funny moments, sad moments, happy moments and stuff like that, but you never get the impression that the pace gets out of hand. It always had the feeling of being a story that could easily happen to yourself. Just life, eh?
The cast is brilliant with Narumi Riko leading it off as the shy and quiet Hagu. The trio of male actors inclued Narimiya Hiroki who I always liked for his silly roles in school boy dorama, but here he plays a highly talented slacker with lots of crazy ideas, still he's someone who helps out his friends when in need. As much as I liked the anime I also like this one. (7/10)

Ashita no Kita Yoshio
This is this season's stand out dorama. What a great start to the story. A man decides that he wants to end his life in 11 days. And during the time he has left he has a list of things he wants to do. One of those being a meeting with his ex-wife who divorced him 11 years ago. When coming to Tokyo he meets a lot of different people and experiences a lot of different things.
Might sound a bit boring but in fact this is really great stuff. The cast is excellent with lead actor Kuhinata Fumiyo stealing the show from everyone. But even the supporting roles are high class. The deeper you get into this, the more unexpected twists and turns come up and you will never know which direction this series will take with the next episode. Definetely a must see! (8,5/10)

Koshonin
Another one of those action police doramas, this time the main character being a female officer who is with a special negotiation squad. She's always by looked down upon by her superiors and while she is trying to prove that she has what it takes to fulfil the job she constantly gets herself in trouble.
This is kind of predictable since the episodes all deal with some sort of hostage taking or some madman setting up bombs all over Tokyo and the police are trying to track down his or her whereabouts. And the acting is a little tense. Don't get fooled by the banner, it's not as if Yonekura Ryoko is running around in a catsuit the whole time, the story a little bit more serious. Still this is just average stuff I would watch when there's nothing else on at the moment. (6/10)

Shikaotoko Aoniyoshi
I really liked Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki-senpai in "Nodame Cantabile" and here he is again playing a frustrated scientist who is transferred to an all girls school in the city of Nara where his life takes an unexpected turn. Turns out he's the only person who can save the planet. And you thought you had stress in your life, right?
This is a brilliant mistery story which at some points seems to get out of hand but then after a few minutes it gets back on track again smoothly and keeps you stuck in front of the screen. I haven't watched all of the episodes and I still have no clue in what direction this thing is going. All I can say is I really like it when deers talk to humans. Ayase Haruka plays the female lead and the rest of the cast is very good as well. (8/10)

Edison no Haha
Another school dorama and this time we're in elementary school. Ito Misaki plays a teacher who just got dumped by her fiancé and now she has to cope with a wiseguy student at school who is aking questions all the time. And what's even worse, that kid gets the rest of his class to follow his strange experiments.
A nice story about a child prodigy with an everlasting thirst for wisdom and knowledge. The bottom line of this series is that it is okay to ask question and that you shouldn't take no for an answer. Although at some points this gets a little too thick it still is a very good story and I have to admit that I like that kind of messages. Well, most of them. Again, this cast is pretty good and the story has enough lighthearted moments to make you laugh every now and then. (7/10)

1 Pound no Fukuin
Another manga adaption, this one telling the story of a good for nothing boxer who only has food on his mind as is in constant trouble of going to a weigh-in overweight. He meets a nun (a nun in Japan, oh well....) and falls for her, never realizing what it means to stay at a convent.
Another episode-based dorama where the story repeats itself every week. This is kind of funny, but it can be pretty lengthy at times as well. It's always about food - which is nice - and the problems the main character (played by Kamenashi Kazuya of KAT-TUN) has with his very strong appetite. Kuroki Meisa plays the nun and soemtimes she is acting a bit too holy, I think. Still because this is all a bit over the top you can easily recognize that this story was written in a manga. So it's okay, but not great.
On a funny side note, this dorama sees Kobayashi Satomi and Motai Masako team up again. Both were brilliant in the movie "Kamome Shokudo". (6/10)

Sasaki Fusai no Jingi Naki Tatakai
Another lawyer dorama. Or wait, is it a divorce comedy? Well, it has got a bit of both. Koyuki and Inagaki Goro of SMAP play the Ritsuko and Norimichi Sasaki who are not only married but manage their own law firm. But their ways of living their lives couldn't be more different. Ritsuko is sloppy and lazy while Norimichi is correct and disciplined. This leads to various quarrels and they are always on the brink of breaking up. It is only thanks to their friends and co-workers that they always find the way back to each other.
This series is episode based as well meaning that there is one story in each episode, usually a case the law firm takes on. But the quarrels and rants of the couple make this worthwhile. Every now and then I like those simpler things. (6,5/10)

* Fall 2007 Wrap Up
* Summer 2007 Wrap Up
* Spring 2007 Wrap Up

Bundesliga - Day 21: Action and Reaction.

2008-02-24T13:19:00.003+01:00

VfL Wolfsburg - Hertha BSC Berlin 0:0
Arminia Bielefeld - MSV Duisburg 0:2
Bayer Leverkusen - FC Schalke 04 1:0
Borussia Dortmund - FC Hansa Rostock 1:0
Eintracht Frankfurt - Werder Bremen 1:0
VfB Stuttgart - Karlsruher SC 3:1
FC Bayern Bayern - Hamburger SV -:-
1.FC Nürnberg - FC Energie Cottbus -:-
VfL Bochum - Hannover 96 2:1

The underlying theme for this weekend's round of Bundesliga action seemed to have been foul play. In a reanactment of the 2006 World Cup final Bremen's Diego (as Zinedine Zidane) and Frankfurt's Kyrigiakos (as Marco Matterazzi) tried to stage one of the best remakes in football history. Diego seemed to have been the target of numerous fair and unfair attacks by the Frankfurt defense, when he was downed by the Greek defender who then told the Brazilian midfielder "fuck you and stand up". This caused Diego to snap and the himself mowed down Kyrigiakos with a fine body check. Without a doubt this was a red card and with only 10 men on the pitch Bremen lost the match 1-0.
So much for the story, what happened the next day was that most of the media were trying to find excuses for Diego's foul play which I find highly astonishing. Here is a player who commits a foul on an opponent and is sent off. A completely normal occurence on a football pitch. But because this was one by a player who is considered to be the best player in the German Bundesliga (and I totally agree with that) everyone is trying to defend him no matter what.
I wonder what they would have said to Mario Gomez who was constantly harrassed by his "shadow" Maik Franz in the southern derby between Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. While the fans were trying to burn down the building before and during the match Gomez and Franz were going at each other with all they had in their repertoire. Gomez went ahead and scored the lead for Stuttgart in a game which Stuttgart went on to win 3-1. But it was only after the game when he told reporters what he thought of his opposition in Karlsruhe's defense. "I respect all of my opponents, but not this asshole. He's just an unfair sportsman".

Still all this can be dismissed as rather trivial when you read and maybe see (I won't post any pictures or youtube movies since this is just too much) what happened to Eduardo, Arsenal's Brazilian-Croatian striker. In a match against Birmingham City he was mowed down after only two minutes by Martin Taylor who with his lunge tackle might have broken everything into peices what was once in Eduardo's foot. This was one of the most brutal fouls I have ever seen and the pictures in the British tabloid papers look simply disgusting. One can only hope that Eduardo will be able to play football again in the future. This had nothing to do with sports and is rather an assault case for a law court.

Rugby Overkill: Six Nations and Super 14

2008-02-24T12:32:00.002+01:00

Well, well, well, this was a packed weekend with lots of rugby and I took the chance and watched a little bit of the action. Interestingly enough I was able to compare southern and northern hemisphere rugby with the Super 14 championship applying some of the new set of rules, the so called ELV (Experimental Law Variations). No I don't really understand all of those new rules, but it seems that combined with the speed and creativity of southern hemisphere rugby this looks simply amazing. While I was watching Bulls vs Crusaders (19-54) or Lions vs Blues (10-55) I was thrilled to see wonderful passing and running. And it was also great to watch all those players I had only seen on their respective national teams before. The Crusaders victory was brilliant with All Blacks fly half Daniel Carter setting the pace and executing a wonderful kicking game. In the end he also scored a try and completely fooled some Bulls forwards when he was clearing the ball with a kick in his own end zone.
This was completely different from what the European national sides were showing at the Six Nations. I know there always is a difference between club sides and national teams, but while I was watching Ireland vs Scotland (34-13) - although this was intense and exciting - this match didn't have the dynamics and the flow that the Super 14 matches had. I have no idea if this is due to the use of the ELV or if it's just the difference in approaching the game.
The top match was somewhat of a surprise though with England beating France in Paris 13-24. France were looking very good in their first two matches although they were struggling in their game against Ireland in the closing minutes. They were playing with a very young pair on the half positions, François Trinh-Duc at fly half and an extraordinary performance of 19-year-old Morgan Parra at scrum half. It had the same feeling was the semifinal in last year's World Cup but this time England were playing with a lot more offensive effort than back in October, I thought. This was exciting to watch, although a lot of running plays were cut short by a formidable defense on both sides. Still England has to look for a better player at full back. After being hammered for his performance against Wales full back Balshaw didn't look very convincing to me.
With the results of this weekend only Wales (who beat Italy with a convincing 47-8) is still undefeated. Trailing are England, France and Ireland with records of two wins and one loss. This is promising to be a very eciting final to this year's competition.

Champions League - Last 16 (Leg 1)

2008-02-20T21:38:00.003+01:00

Arsenal London - AC Milan 0:0
Celtic Glasgow - FC Barcelona 2:3
Fenerbahce Istanbul - FC Sevilla 3:2
Olympique Lyonnais - Manchester United 1:1
FC Schalke 04 - FC Porto 1:0
Liverpool FC - Internazionale 2:0
AS Roma - Real Madrid 2:1
Olympiakos Piraeus - Chelsea FC 0:0

The knock out stages in the European Champions League started this week and while Tuesday's matches were rather boring Wednesday saw somthing completely different. Arsenal vs Milan was labeled as the clash between the young and the old. The high speed one-touch machine of Arsenal with their exciting youngsters against the routine and the experience of Milan. Perhaps the embodiment of Milan, Paolo Maldini, played his 1.000th professional match for Milan last weekend and he again showed all his class in this one. It was a draw, yes, but the 2nd half was very exciting with an everflowing stream of Arsenal attacks and a very firm Milan defense.
Elsewhere Celtic lost to Barcelona after leading twice, both goals scored wonderfully. But Barca is a great team and one was able to see this when they scored. Messi did it twice and his 2nd one was brilliant. That match was also very intensive and exciting although Barcelona was in control most of the time. Still Celtic was fighting back with all they had. And their goalkeeper Artur Boruc made some great saves. If I remember it correctly he was in the goal for Poland when they played Germany in the group stages of the 2006 World Cup. In that match he was extraordinary as well.
That said I think the only team which will go through safely will be Barcelona. All the other ties are way too close.

Akiakane @ Sonic Ballroom, Cologne

2008-02-17T20:28:00.002+01:00

I have been looking forward to this show ever since I found out about it on punkstelle.de at the end of last year. It's very rare for us to get to see Japanese bands play live in local clubs, so I gave the music of Akiakane a try via their myspace site and I instantly liked it. Very nice melodic punkrock with enough energy and aggressiveness.
Arriving at the "Sonic Ballroom" at around 2115h the place was decently filled but definetely not sold out. First up were a band from Cologne called The Bloody Valentines, a name today often associated with whiny emo bands, but those guys were more into the punkrock kind of things. Well, there were somewhere in the middle between classic 77 styled punkrock and German fun punk gods Die Ärzte, although only on the musical side of things. This was too much cliché. Interestingly though their bassist seemed to be blind, still he was making all the announcements and it seemed that he was writing a lot of the songs. So,w ell, yeah, they played for around 45 minutes which a quarter of an hour too much if you ask me.
When the samurai girls of Akiakane entered the stage the expectations were very high it seemed. There was some kind of strange atmosphere in the room. Noone knew what to expect now. Introduced by what seemed to be their tour driver from England they then went on to absolutely tear down the club. Fast, high energy and aggressive punkrock tunes, not very much talking on stage (maybe due to the lack of English knowledge - which wasn't true as I found out after the show when I talked to singer Moe for a few minutes), that's the way it should be. People seemed to enjoy the show and were dancing around, getting them back on stage for one encore after around 40 minutes. It's a pity the Ballroom wasn't more packed than the ~40 people who turned up on this Sunday night. But I really enjoyed myself and hope that they will return in the future. If not I might go and check them out in Japan. That's what their merchandise girl Nao told me to do. よろしく。

Bundesliga - Day 20: How to decide on a goalkeeper for the national team

2008-02-17T20:05:00.004+01:00

Hannover 96 - FC Bayern München 0:3
Hamburger SV - VfL Bochum 3:0
MSV Duisburg - VfB Stuttgart 2:3
Karlsruher SC - Bayer Leverkusen 2:2
Werder Bremen - 1.FC Nürnberg 2:0
FC Energie Cottbus - Borussia Dortmund 0:2
Hertha BSC Berlin - Arminia Bielefeld 1:0
FC Hansa Rostock - Eintracht Frankfurt 1:0
FC Schalke 04 - VfL Wolfsburg (Fr.) 1:2

Whereas last weekend saw some surprises this one was flat out boring. Sure, the games were exciting, but the results didn't provide anything near to an upset. The top 3 teams all won, the three at the bottom all lost.
What gets more interesting is how the German press sets its sights on the position of the goalkeeper in the German national team. Ever since Jens Lehmann made a few mistakes against Austria he's been the No.1 target. Now Germany is the very comfortable spot to have a lot of good, very good and world class goalkeepers compared to countries like, well, let's say, for instance ... England (yeah, I know, cheap joke, duh, hehe). There are at least 7 names which are always brought up when it comes to nominating goalkeepers for this year's Euro championship. Lehmann's back up is supposed to be Timo Hildebrand who is playing at FC Valencia this season. Although he seemed to have some problems at the beginning he's now playing on a regular basis. At east when I last looked up his name, things change fast, you know.
Then there is the youth movement in the Bundesliga which brought up players like René Adler (Bayer Leverkusen) and Manuel Neuer (Schalke 04). Both were pushed to the front last year and played outstanding seasons. But while neuer seems to struggle a little bit recently Adler is getting better and better. Just this weekend he secured the point for Leverkusen at Karlsruhe. Those two are only at the beginning of their 20s mind you so they have the future all for themselves.
The guys waiting for a shot at the national team right now are Robert Enke (Hannover 96), Frank Rost (HSV), Roman Weidenfeller (Borussia Dortmund) and Tim Wiese (Werder Bremen). Rost is out of the equation if you ask me. He simply is too old (34) and doesn't seem to fit into the teamplaying role that the national team requires. Although he is playing very well for Hamburg at the moment. Weiderfeller is out as well because he's injured. That leaves Enke and Wiese. Enke had an outstanding season last year but seems to be back to the ground this year. Still I would consider him to be the best choice because of his character. Wiese on the other hand had an outstanding match in the UEFA Cup this week in which he saved towo penalties but he is just too inconsistent. Plus he speaks out too often which doesn't leave a good impression with the press and the coaches.

This being the situation at the moment every move and game of Lehmann is taken into consideration right now. Although - from what I've read - he wasn't to blame for Arsenal's defeat against ManU this weekend the German media (especially the tabloids) went on a rampage again. Heck, it's one game. If they really want to get him out of the team then go against his age. Personally I simply think he's too old and because of this you should use a younger guy. If Lehmann had stepped down after the 2006 World Cup he would have been a hero for everyone.

What will happen until June is that the tabloids will try to get him out of the team and instead have one of the aforementioned guys go to the Euro. And - believe me - the name of that guy will change every week. Whoever plays good will be mentioned. This will be fun, yeah..........

On other news, soon-to-be-promoted Fortuna Köln will play their first game this year in two weeks against Wegberg-Beeck at the Südstadion (Feb 29th). I am really looking forward to this one!! Yet another evening game. The last two were both won with a goal difference of 9-4.

Quote of the day

2008-02-14T23:53:00.004+01:00

"I believe in freedom of speech and I think it's very important but you don't do it in foreign countries and you certainly don't do it in public"

(Some redneck in the movie "Shut Up And Sing" giving a statement why he now hates the Dixie Chicks. God bless America.)

Rocky Votolato @ Rex Cinema, Cologne

2008-02-14T10:15:00.003+01:00

Sometimes evenings turn out just the opposite of what you had expected them to be like. Well, this wasn't realy the case for last Tuesday's evening since it wasn't supposed to be bad or anything like it, but in the end I had a lot of fun which I didn't expect when I left the house.
I originally planned to meet up with my sister and two friends before Rocky Votolato was supposed to play in a movie theatre in Cologne. The venue itself was a very special pick because I don't remember that they set up shows there before. So the biggest room in the Cinema was used for a very low key and quiet acoustic show of Mr Votolato. 350 people were lining up before the doors opened leaving the other people who were just passing by with some sort of astonishement on their faces. "Rex Cinema" is usually known as the "One Dollar House" which basically means that they show movies at a very cheap price. They manage to do so because they show old movies. Old in this sense meaning that those movies are already 3-6 months old or even older. So actually it is something like a re-screening. That's a nice idea because the prices for movie thetres went through the roof in the past few years.
Alright, so while we were standing in front of the "Rex" some friends passed by and we were just talking. I was getting ready to leave because I didn't have a ticket and I heard that the show was sold out anyway. So just as I was about to return home I met a former colleague who happened to have a "+1" spot on the guestlist, and the "+1" wasn't able to come around. Lucky me.
The stage was set up very simple, just a few lamps and other stuff, nothing special. But first they were showing trailers for upcoming movies they are showing at "Rex" in the future. This was kind of fun because it was totally like people were going to watch a movie. They were even showing the ice cream comercial which usually ends the commercial part before the movie. Still the choice of the trailers was interesting as well. There is this movie about the Dixie Chicks and their problems with their rather ignorant and conservative fan base ("Shut Up & Sing" - German site. Strangely enough the American one seems to be offline).
So after this Mr Votolato enters the stage and the completely captures the audience. Interestingly enough, as one friend standing at the entrance put it - "the authority of the room" was working very well. People were behaving like they were watching a movie. Which means they weren't talking very loud, they were just listening to the music. It felt kind of relaxing to see that. This must have been one hell of a show but I didn't see that much of it since I preferred to talk to some friends in front of the cinema. But it seems that he played a lot of songs and had a good choice from his repertoire.
When the show was over I was waiting for my sister and she had a surprise for me. I got a Red Sox cap from a friend who went to the States and on this particular evening he gave me the cap before we went to the show. While standing in the movie theatre I put the cap on my sister's head and then she disappeared to the front of the room. So when she came out of the cinema she had this look on her face that she did something bad and the first thing she asks me is "Will you get mad?". So then she presents me with the cap and there's an autograph of Rocky Votolato on it. I couldn't care less about something like this so I was really laughing. Nice way to end the evening.

MLB: Prime time TV drama on drugs

2008-02-13T20:57:00.003+01:00

This is simply hilarious. A few minutes ago, the hearing of Roger Clemens on the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs before a committee of the House Of Representatives in Washington (reports on New York Times, Boston Globe) finished and I am still amazed about how this whole thing went on.
Let's get this straight, baseball seems to have a drug problem, at least if you believe in what's written in the so called Mitchell Report. For some years a lot of players seemed to have used performance-enhancing drugs and the organization of MLB looked away. In the past few years they seem to have put some serious thought into doping and drug abuse and introduced tests (which seem to be pretty limited though) and seem to go against drug abuse with a little bit more strength.
Okay, here's how things work in Europe. People are very concious about what's happening in sports and although the attendence for the Tour de France is still very large the general interest seems very much impressed with the drug abuse in cycling. When a lot of German cyclists admitted they used doping in their career there was a huge outburst of anger. They weren't expecting any punishment since most of the cases were out of date by then, but they admitted it. In the end they admitted it.
What we have here in the USA is prime time television drama at its best. Those lunatics sit down ina congressional hearing and talk about some soap opera influenced crap instead of what doping does to sports. It's cheating, damnit. Yeah, sure, you hurt your own body with it, but those are growm up men. But they cheat. Results become void because one side had an illegal advantage over their opponents. Whole seasons might be invalid because some athletes decided to inject themselves with drugs. Still that issue is not addressed anywhere.
Now I don't have any proof but there must be drug abuse in football as well. Although some people dismiss the sport as not suited for the abuse of performance-enhacing drugs (now Greece national team coach Otto Rehagel once said that someone who doesn't have any talent won't be a better football player by abusing drugs) I have the suspicion that especially in rehabilitation certain things will be used. And if this bomb blows up one day there will be a lot of trouble for the players involved. And if it does blow up there will be no parliamental hearings but the sports federations and associations will deal with that. That's the way it should be.
Still this story is always good for a laugh... worthwhile to pass the time until the season starts again.

Bundesliga - Day 19: Derby Time

2008-02-09T17:49:00.000+01:00

Eintracht Frankfurt - Arminia Bielefeld 2:1
Bayer Leverkusen - Hamburger SV 1:1
VfB Stuttgart - Hertha BSC Berlin 1:3
VfL Bochum - FC Energie Cottbus 3:3
VfL Wolfsburg - MSV Duisburg 2:1
1.FC Nürnberg - FC Hansa Rostock 1:1
Hannover 96 - Karlsruher SC 2:2
Bayern München - Werder Bremen 1:1
Borussia Dortmund - FC Schalke 04 2:3

It was time for the big matches this weekend. Unusually early this season but nonetheless always a day to look forward to. Two of the most important derbies were played this weekend in Germany. The so called "Revier Derby" Dortmund vs Schalke and the "North-South-Derby" Munich vs Bremen. While Schalke used this opportunity - not only to make up for their spectacular loss at the end of last season to their local rivals which ended their dreams of the first championship in almost 50 years - to move closer to the top, Bayern and Bremen remained at a deadlock on the first to places.
Elsewehere this was a rather strange match day. I was convinced that struggleing Berlin was leaving the points in Stuttgart but instead they won. Who would have believed that? Frankfurt continue their winning run by beating a disorganzied Bielefeld side who looked like they are begging for relegation. Nürnberg wasn't able to win again and if they don't make it against such a bad side as Rostock who knows how they want to get the points to get back on track and stay in the first division. Bochum wasn't able to hold on to a 3-1 lead against Cottbus and Hannover managed to hold Karlsruhe to a draw. Somehow this round left me with a feeling of disappointment.

Approach To Concrete: Great records and strange merchandise

2008-02-09T13:41:00.000+01:00

Approach To Concrete were one of the first bands coming from Germany I was listening to when I was younger. Back in the days it was all about New York Hardcore and Bands like Sick Of It All, Sheer Terror, Madball, Agnostic Front or Biohazard were coming to Germany on a regular basis, but as a teenager you somehow don't look sideways and search for bands coming from your area. At least I didn't at first. That changed with the time and at some point I got my hands on a copy of a fanzine called "New Direction" (yeah, well, it's all about the clichés, right?). The issue featured an interview with ATC and lead singer Jörg was confronted with a lot of strange questions, one of them dealing with the "milky way CBGC's", if I remember it correctly. The zine came along with a tape compilation and that one had three demo tracks of Approach To Concrete on it. That stuff got me hooked instantly. And because they were coming from Cologne me and my friends supported them at every show they played around here.
Their records weren't bringing in anything new to hardcore, but what I liked was their punkrock approach. "Drown" is a great 7" and the follow up mini CD "...failures" continued in that way. They didn't care about any rules and they weren't very concenred with the image they portrayed. Some people saw them as a straight edge band completely ignoring the fact that both guitarist Thommy and bassist Seppl were drinking a lot of alcohol and singer Jörg and drummer Jochen were the only straight edge guys in the band. But that didn't matter to anyone because they were just a great band. Filling in at a show in Dilsen, Belgium, when the Swedish straight edge girls of Doughnuts were stuck on the road was a highlight. They also toured Europe with Battery and played a great gig at Cologne's "BüZe Ehrenfeld". Their last two shows were memorable as well. A weekend doubleheader which started at Burscheid's "Megaphon" club, I think they played with Point One from Leverkusen. The club itself was more like a village discotheque and not at all like a squat or a hardcore venue. The turnout was very low and when Approach To Concrete entered the stage there were only three people in the audience. Me, a friend of mine and the guitarist's girlfriend. Their last one was a blast though. The "JKC" was packed and they played one hell of a show. A good way to end it.
I can't quite remember it but I think at that show they were selling or giving away those strange plastic hammers. This again shows their rather funny approach to dealing with the so called hardcore scene. I mean, writing "the face" on one side is just hilarious. I wonder why I still keep this thing. Perhaps it's because I still like to remember those times when hardcore was a great thing in Cologne. Me and bassist Seppl were always meeting up at shows at the "Between" club and when those shows ended we always went to the "Lotta" bar to drink a few more beers until the place closed at 1 am.
Since then the "scene" changed a lot over the years. Bands came and went and it seems to be getting back on track over the past couple of years. What I especially like is that the boundaries which were built up over the years between the different parts of the "scene" seem to be breaking down little by little. Back then it wasn't anything special that punk bands played with hardcore acts. It seems to be getting back to that now. "One finger in the air hardcore", as one shirt print of Approach To Concrete used to read.

Unexpected promotional packages: Blacktop Records

2008-02-07T19:08:00.000+01:00

Someone who once in his or her life put out a fanzine will know this situation. You get promotional copies of records by labels you never heard of before. In my case it's even more strange since we at Dear You Zine always pouint out that we don't want and don't need any promotional stuff because we rather tend to buy the records. Yes, we review what we like and we buy what we like. Believe it or not. But so much effort that those promo guys put into their work should not be in vain so I decided to review the stuff here. So whoever wants to read this, feel free. The labels name is Blacktop Records, it's from some small town north of Cologne in the middle of nowhere and the bands are all at least hardcore-ish. Here we go:

AnchorsXUp - s/t CD
It's 2008 and bands still need to put x's in their names. Think you know what this band sounds like? I think you're right. For me this stuff comes at least 10 years too late. Don't get me wrong, this isn't crap at all. It's just that I've already heard enough of this sound over the past years. If I'd see this band live I might even like it. But on record this just hasn't anything to keep me interested. It always depends on who you send such a record to. If this was in the hands of a 20 year old hardcore kid who's totally into old school youth crew stuff then the rating would probably blow the roof. But for me this is just another copy of what was cool around 15 years ago. It's nice to know that there are bands who still play such music, but it's just not my cup of tea anymore. (4/10)

Seed Of Pain - Power, Corruption & Lies CD (actual release is a one-sided 12")
Interesting 90s hardcore touch that these guys from Switzerland have in their music. Although it's only a slight one it's enough to make them stand out of these four Cds I got in this package. Still it is rather sad that they feature the American blend of that period when there were so many great bands in Europe during that time span. What I like is the lack of melodies. Or let's put it this way, the melodies are rather unorthodox. At some point this even reminds me of Kreator's "Renewal" record, although there is no metal in here. Rather interesting. If they play live around here I might go and check them out. (6/10)

Storm & Stress - s/t EP CD
Gee, does anyone really need another band that sounds like all that crap that's played in big room discos where the alternative looking youth is shaking their hips to the newest and coolest sounds to get rid off their school stress? I'm definetely too old for this kind of stuff. Too much metal, too much despair and teenage angst and way too little punkrock. And, well, can we agree on the fact that this kind of music needs a rather bombastic production. Where other bands provide the listener with a tornado (with a little help from the funds of major companies) this is a slight wind. Once again, this might be better in the hands of someone who really digs this kind of sound, but to me it's just mainstream chart music. (3/10)

Black Friday '29 - The Pursuit Of Happiness CD
These guys have been around forever and I don't feel like they've changed a lot over the years. Still their typical hardcore blend with some mosh parts. The whole package sounds very international and will stand the test against their overseas counterparts. But yet again this won't be a record I will listen to in the time I have to spare. It's good and I really like their energetic live shows, but on record it's just not my thing anymore. The times I've seen them on stage they completely ripped through the audience and created a lot of mayhem. Wonderful old tyme hardcore. And I think if they play around the corner for small money I'd be coming along to take a look once again. But there are way too many bands who play this style nowadays, it's all becoming so similar. In my eyes, that is. Glad to see that there's still bands holding up the flag and promoting the spirit, whatever spirit they think it is. But for me that time has passed and I think it's time to move on to soemthing new, something different.
So out of sentimental reasons I'd still rate this one higher than the rest. Duh. (7/10)

Premier League goes abroad

2008-02-07T17:28:00.000+01:00

It is common practice for the North American professional sports leagues to hold exhibition matches and even league games in foreign countires to promote their business overseas. The NFL played their opening match in London, the MLB will play two matches in Tokyo and the NHL is considering to send some teams to Europe for promotional purposes. So it comes as no surprise when the English Premier League announced that they are thinking about having regular season matches played in foreign countries to expand their fanbase. What will be pleasant news to the millions in foreign countries seems to be a rather bad idea since it has to be kept in mind that long travels are not very good for the form and fitness of a team. One can always hear the Champions League winner complaining about their late autumn trip to Asia to represent Europe in the FIFA World Club competition. So personally I don't think that the game will actually benefit from matches played abroad. In Baseball the officials went so far as to set the date of the season opener between World Series winners Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics so early that both teams will go back to the states to continue their spring training and allow the to acustom themselves to home soil once again.
Sure, the promotional value will be immense and once the League is able to reap the benefits of such trips other European leagues will follow that example and will try to set up their own overseas matches. But the fans back home won't be as pleased as the ones in Asia, I think. You want to support your team and season ticket holders pay a lot of money to be able to watch their club play. Are those people supposed to follow the team wherever the league sends them? And what about local derbies? A match like Schalke vs Dortmund, Milan vs Inter or Arsenal vs Tottenham makes no sense if it is played thousands of miles across the globe.

International Friendlies: Rivalries are a fine thing

2008-02-07T17:15:00.000+01:00

There is a long history in football matches between Germany and Austria dating back to the time in between the World Wars when Austria had a great team which by 1938 had to be integrated into the new German "Reichself" after the annexation of Austria. This team failed miserably in the 1938 World Cup and ever since have games between those two nations been very explosive and exciting. When Austria beat Germany in the 1978 World Cup (3-2) it meant the end of the German World Cup campaign. Austria still thrives on those memories mainly becase they haven't won anything since then. In 1982 a horrible stalemate ("The Shame Of Gijon") produced a 1-0 win for Germany securing their advance to the next stage at the expense of the Algerians. I think I remember a brutal beating in 1986, the first match in which Lothar Matthäus was captain of the German team, when Germany lost 1-4 in Vienna. At the same stadium in 2004 the "2006 project" of Jürgen Klinsmann took its first step with a convincing 3-0 win over Austria.
So both teams met in Vienna again yesterday and right from the national anthems - when the German anthem was drowned in a whisteling from the Austrian supporters - you knew there was something on again. Austria was the better team in the first half in which the German side was totally disappointing. One could see that goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was out of form, the midfield was not existent and it was only because the defense was holding on that Austria didn't score. After the break Germany got back in control and scored three times to bring down the Euro hosts.

Elsewhere Italy crushed Portugal (3-1), England beat Euro co-hosts Switzerland (2-1) and Spain once again stettled into their favourite role as the dark horse with a win over France (1-0)

Eating Onigiri for the first time

2008-02-04T21:55:00.000+01:00

I always wanted to try お握り (onigiri, japanese rice balls), but i never had the chance. My cooking skills are rather bad and somehow I never found the time to give it a shot. But fortunately a friend of mine had some visitors from Japan and they were kind enough to make some. We also had miso soup with the onigiri and that was all very tasty stuff. What I found very interesting is that I was stuffed after eating only two of those rather small rice balls. I still have some with me at home so I might end up eating them tonight while watching TV.
It's always interesting to try out something different and because I watch so many television series from Japan I became interested in the japanese cuisine. It's fascinating that they show people eating in almost every series and in almost every episode. That's something completely different from German television series. In germany one might see someone eat something occasionally, but then it's not specified what that person is eating. In Japan they always talk about food. Interesting difference in local culture, I think. I wonder what I should try out next...?

Africa Cup Of Nations: The quarterfinals

2008-02-04T21:47:00.000+01:00

The teams which emerged from the group stages were those most of the experts expected to end up there. With two surpises. Guinea (0-5 against the Ivory Coast)and Angola (1-2 against Egypt) upset the continent in their group matches and although both of them crashed out of the tournament in their respective quarterfinal matches they left a wonderful impression with me. It's good to see that the hosts went through though. Ghana (2-1 against Nigeria) have always been my favourite team in Africa, especially because of their players who played in Germany. And when they show the crowd and you can see Anthony Baffoe sitting there it just feels good.
It's a shame they have to cope with such conditions though. The pitch doesn't seem to be in best shape on all grounds. Nonetheless the games have been very exciting so far. Where in European football most of the matches on an international level seem to be frozen in tactics in Africe it's just do or die. The players make the game very fast and there is a constant change in direction. Adding up to that are wonderful goals, especially from long distance shots. The equalizer in the Egypt vs Angola match was a stunner.

Right now it's Cameroon vs Tunesia and the untamable lions are up 1-0 (Eto'o, who else).

NFL: Super Bowl. Too much hype every year

2008-02-04T21:40:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I know, I always keep rumbleing about how boring American Football is. And, yes, I know it's boring to always use the same reason which is why a game can be named "Football" when there are only two situations in this game where the ball is actually played with a foot. But those Americans like their game and it's getting broadcasting service in Germany as well, so there must be something about it. Which is why I tuned it to the coverage last night. The match was shown on German state television and the commentators were at least a litle better than the ones they usually use for football matches.
The match itself was something I'd consider to be a stalemate. They score was locked at New England 7 New York 3 and there wasn't really much happening on the field. Which is why I turned off the TV after the beginning of the second half and that is why I missed out on what seems to have been a thrilling last two quarters.

But still, this just ain't my game. For example there was one situation when the referee was reviewing an incident on a screen to make sure what really happened and there wasn't anything happening on the pitch. Now there are a lot of discussions on bringing in a TV check into football but, honetsly, if it turns out to be like this the whole game will be changed. It's okay in Ice Hockey and Rugby, but in football it's completely out of place. Plus it would take those wonderful discussions from us about whether the ball crossed the line or not.

Rugby Six Nations: France top Scotland

2008-02-04T21:32:00.000+01:00

Scotland vs France 6-27
That was an interesting game. I don't know that much about French rugby but I was a bit surprised when a lot of names that were on the team during the World Cup last year disappeared for the Six Nations competition. Players like Michalak, Domenici, Chabal and others were missing. But as the German commentator explained it seems that the Frnech coach is trying to build up a team for 2011 so most of the squad are very young. Still this young Frnech team was all over the Scots during their match at Murrayfield last Sunday. Although they were making some mistakes in their play it always seems they outclassed the Scottish side a little bit. There were hilarious mistakes by the Scottish back players, especially one which gave the French a try. But the match had a lot more intensity than the opening game of Ireland and Italy on Saturday.

What also struck me was that they only played the first verse of "Flower Of Scotland" and then the whole audience at the stadium was singing the second verse on their own. Great stuff.

This looked very convincing for France so I am really looking forward to their match against Ireland next week.

Rugby Six Nations: Ireland and Wales back on track

2008-02-02T18:44:00.000+01:00

I think I mentioned before that it is very hard to follow the action in world rugby in germany since there is no tradition whatsoever. And because of that there are no matches shown on TV. But this seems to change a little bit for the better because a German sports station (DSF)is covering the Six Nations this year after they seemed to have some success with their World Cup broadcasts last year. I have to admit that compared to their normal program - especially their football coverage - the rugby matches are very well commentated and the commentator is very well prepared. Andreas Renner is able to give enough explanations for newcomers who are watching their first rugby match, but his knowledge of the game itself is so good that he can also give facts to the team and the players on the pitch which makes it interesting for people who are into rugby as well. There is a colour commentator as well, usually a German national team player or a coach, sometimes the Sevens national coach. I am very happy that the Six Nations get coverage on German TV and I still hope they will do the same when the time comes for the Tri Nations.

Ireland vs Italy 16-11
The first match of this years competition wasn't that much of a thriller, Ireland was pretty much in charge during most of the game. The best phase for Italy came when they were reduced to 14 when one of them got a yellow card only 10 minutes from half time. The scoreline looks closer than the match really was and Ireland secured the win very safely.

England vs Wales 19-26
It was a competely different story for the second game of the day. When I tuned in England were already up 9-3 and they looked very convincing. Especially Toby Flood was everywhere. Wales didn't seem to be able to cope with the fierce English attack and especially the English wingers were very threatening during most of the time. But in the last 20 minutes England somehow lost control of the game and Wales came back with two tries after putting the English backline under a lot of pressure.

Since this is my first Six Nations I'm not really sure what to make of those results. Considering that the Welsh and the Irish performances during the 2007 World Cup were disappointing (if you believe in what the newspapers were writing back then) their victories today must have been a step towards the right direction. England on the other hand came in as the runner-up in the World Cup and lost. So this must be seen as a setback, I suppose. I wasn't expecting too much from Italy although they only missed the World Cup quarterfinals because of a narrow loss against Scotland.

Bundesliga - Day 18: Back to action

2008-02-02T18:31:00.000+01:00

Hertha BSC Berlin - Eintracht Frankfurt 0:3
MSV Duisburg - Borussia Dortmund 3:3
Arminia Bielefeld - VfL Wolfsburg 0:1
Hamburger SV - Hannover 96 1:1
Karlsruher SC - 1.FC Nürnberg 2:0
FC Energie Cottbus - Bayer Leverkusen 2:3
FC Schalke 04 - VfB Stuttgart -:-
SV Werder Bremen - VfL Bochum -:-
FC Hansa Rostock - FC Bayern München 1:2

So finally the long wait is over. The Bundesliga is back on track. But when I take into account what the match looked like yesterday evening we're not in for some nice football action for the remaining 16 rounds. This was plainly ugly. Bayern and Rostock were looking like they were still half asleep from their winter break. Very slow reactions and almost no flow in their game. You would expect something like this from a team which is threatened by relegation (Rostock) but the 75 mio. Bayern team should be able to do a lot more than this. Anyway, they won - as they always do: play ugly, win with the very least of effort - and are staying on top of the table.
The matches on Saturday weren't as interesting to me since the Rugby Six Nations started today so I was only listening halfheartedly to the radio coverage. Dortmund vs Duisburg must have been an entertaining match and it seems that Dortmund was celebrating the win against Bremen in the national cup competition on Wednesday a little bit too much. Leverkusen turned the game around against Cottbus after being down 0-1. And it looks very dark for Arminia Bielefeld who lost to Wolfsburg who might have gained a little self-esteem under the week by beating Schalke in the DFB-Pokal. Hertha - as almost always - just doesn't seem to get back on track. Frankfurt on the other hand seems to make the most out of their limited budget. All of their goals seemed to have been scored by a new player, Martin Fenin.
Tomorrow Bremen and Schalke will take action and try to stay close to the top.

In the 2nd division the so called "carnival club" 1.FC Cologne dropped vital points in their match against FC St. Pauli (1-1) which didn't help them to strengthen their grip on a promotion spot.

Doping: Vampires in Austria

2008-01-20T23:35:00.000+01:00

There is an interesting article on an American blog about a scandal in Austria which still is pretty much in darkness. A blood bank was discovered in Austria were numerous athletes from all kinds of sports are supposed to have been customers over a number of years. This caused a huge uproar in the German public especially because of the confessions of some high profile cyclists before last year's Tour de France. Although apart from some cyclists names no other athletes were named the German Skiing Federation threatened the public television station ARD which broke the story with a law suit. In this feature for the American blog "Steroid Nation" American Arena writer Jürgen Kalwa, who also writes for German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung looks at how the reputation of one of Germany's best investigative journalists has become stained because of his superiors bowing to the threat of a Sporting Federation which features some of the best known and very successful athletes. Biathlon has become a sporting event watched by millions on the television screen with the German athletes - especially the women's team - winning a lot of races. They even set up events at sold out football stadiums so it is no wonder they are trying to protect their income.

Premier League: It's all about buying and selling

2008-01-20T22:58:00.000+01:00

With news like this it's no wonder that some parts of the fan beses in English football turn their backs on the clubs they love. Apparently American Liverpool FC owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr have recieved an offer of around £500million by an Arab investment group. And they bought the club just a year ago. We all know it costs a lot of money to run a football team and we all know that you need a huge stadium to generate at least some money. And I know that Anfield compared to other stadiums is rather small. But buying and selling football clubs just like they are a pile of stocks is just beyond my imagination. In fact I am very happy that I am a member of the football club I love and support and that I have a say in what happens with the club. Well, a small say, but it's better than nothing.
Well, maybe Mr Hicks and Mr Gilett just weren't prepared for European football with a manager like Rafa Benitez screaming for more and more money to buy new players. That's what life is like without a salary cap.