Doping: Vampires in Austria

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

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.

Bundesliga: New Coach for Hamburger SV

Current third place Hamburger SV have to look for a new coach for the next season since their current trainer Huub Stevens will go back to Holland because of health problems of his wife. A step he took before when he was coaching 2nd division 1.FC Cologne, he left there after leading the club back to the first division. Now I was surfing along some German sports sites and one suggested that former Dutch and AC Milan striker Marco Van Basten might be in for the job. Now that's a huge surprise since a name like Van Basten is always connected to the big clubs in Europe and that's a category HSV definetely doesn't fit into. On the other hand this might make sense. Hamburg has a lot of Dutch players on their team and if the really manage to sign Van Basten they might even be able to hold on to their star player Rafael Van der Vaart who at the moment looks like he is leaving the club at the end of this season.
Van Basten announced that he will step down as the "Bondscoach" after the Euro 2008 this summer and was previously connected to Bayern Munich who were looking for a new coach. With Jürgen klinsmann filling that spot he is free for other options. The HSV offer might be an interesting one.

NFL: AFC Championship Game - New England vs San Diego

As the football season in the States draws to a close I can't deny that I get interested in who will make it to the Super Bowl this year. But this curiousity quickly fades away when the games start and the whole game freezes in tactics. Compared to a dynamic sport like Rugby - which might be the only sport which could be compared to American Football which in Germany is labelled as "Pitch Chess" - what is shown ion the screen is just plainly boring. A move, 30-45 sec break, another move, another break, you get the picture. Sure, there are certain plays which really look good, but in the end there really isn't any individual finesse in the game. In Football a single player can inspire the whole team by making a brilliant move in one instant with which noone, not even his team mates might have expected. American Football on the other hand is completely controlled by the head coaches with the players simply carrying out the orders of the head coach. So one could really say that the coach is the chess player and the players on the pitch are just the stones he moves around during a match. What's also rather disappointing is that the teams don't make any use of the possibility to pass the ball after they have crossed the line of scrimmage. This would bring the game to a whole new level, at least from my perspective. There had been a video on some streaming page in which a high school or college team passed the ball over 20 times before carrying it into the endzone for a touchdown. THAT was a great play for an American Football match.
Now I am no expert and I might not see the beauty in the game and I acknowlegde that there are millions of fans who really love the game. Maybe I'm just annoyed by those horrible commercial breaks which really cut the whole television coverage into way too small pieces.

Anyway, this will be different for the NFC Championship Game since this will be shown on German public television and they are not allowed to show commercials there at that time of night. In New England meanwhile the Patriots and the Chargers play one of the better matches I have seen so far. Especially the New England offense makes the game look like a hot knife go through butter, as they'd say in Germany. The half time score is NE 14 SD 9. And because of the lack of alternatives I guess I will be watching the 2nd half as well...

Africa Cup Of Nations 2008: Opening match Ghana vs Guinea

I have been following the African Cup Of Nations for quite some time now. This has come because of extended coverage on German television, all thanks to Eurosport who are covering the tournament very well over the past few years. My first experience with African football was on another channel though. It must have been in 1992 or 1993 when Ghana was playing the final against the Ivory Coast. Not really a thrilling match concerning the way both teams played, but the excitement kept on rising with each minute until they had to go into a penalty shoot out. It took all 11 players of each team to get a decision and in the end the Ivory Coast defeated Ghana 13-12 or something along those lines.
This was the time when players from Ghana were very popular in the German Bundesliga. My favourite player at that time was Anthony Baffoe who once played for Fortuna Cologne and then moved on to play for Fortuna Düsseldorf and other teams in other countries. Other great players were Tony Yeboah or Abedi Pélé. Still Ghana never really made it big when I was watching the African Cup Of Nations.

So now they have high hopes on the "Black Stars" in Ghana since they are hosting the tournament this year. The topics before the tournament have been the same as in every year. Too many players had to be released from their club duties, mostly players from the French Ligue Une and the English Premier League (~40 players). The German Bundesliga had to let a little over 10 players leave for Africa with Hans Sarpei another former player of Fortuna Cologne playing in the opening match for Ghana against Guinea (Group A).
This was a typical African football match with lots of chances, some rather brutal fouls and some strange decisions by the referee. The pitch was also rather questionable, the ball wasn't really rolling and instead was slowed down by the grass which had grown too long. Ghana hit the post three times in the first half and also had other great chances, Guinea were sitting in the defense and waiting for their chance. After the break a questionable penalty was rewarded to Ghana and they were up 1-0 (Asamoah Gyan 55'). 10 minutes later Guinea equalized after a corner kick. The Ghanaian goalkeeper looked rather unlucky (Oumar Kalabane 65'). Only a minute from the final whistle Portsmouth striker Sulley Ali Muntari let out a screamer and scored the winner for Ghana (90').
This was a great appetizer for the things to come over the next few weeks. Tomorrow's matches will be Namibia vs Marocco (Group A), Nigeria vs Ivory Coast and Mali vs Benin (both Group B). A I am especially looking forward to the confrontation between the two African heavyweights Nigeria and Ivory Coast. This was supposed to also be a meeting between two German coaches but unfortunately Ivory Coast coach Uli Stielike had to pull out of competition because his son became seriously ill. So it will be former Germany and Scotland coach Berti Vogts standing on the sidelines for Nigeria tomorrow.

Pond Hockey in the big leagues

So I was watching this Winter Classic thing the NHL has set up his year as their big new year's spectacle. And I have to admit that this was rather funny. Open air ice hockey in a huge football stadium in Buffalo where the local Sabres took on the Penguins from Pittsburgh. I have to admit that I don't follow the action in the NHL very closely and I also don't keep track with what's happening in the German Hockey League (DEL), although I frequently take a look at how our local Kölner Haie (Cologne Sharks) are doing. I even went to see a couple of games at our local arena which was quite exciting. I always liked watching hockey, especially when they were showing international games on TV. The olympics are something I always look forward to. I'll never forget the final of the 2002 Olympics when Canada beat the USA.

Getting back to this pond hockey thing happening in Buffalo, as I said, it was really fun to watch. Although I have to say there were way too many breaks in the match because they had to repair the ice every now and then. And there was snow falling at the beginning of the game so that was another obstacle for the players as well. So there wasn't a real flow in the game at some points, but the atmosphere was really great, from what I was able to hear. Some very loud noise. In the end it was a thriller which had to be decided by a penalty shootout which Pittsburgh won 2-1. Great game.

A few anime recommendations

I have been watching a little bit more anime recently, because a friend of mine recommended a few series. So this is what I was watching.

Over Drive
I've always liked sports series so I was happy to find this one. This time it's all about cycling. A young student joins a bicycle club at school and turns out to be a very talented rider although he says that he never rode a bike before. The club joins a race in Japan which drags on for almost 10 episodes. That's basically it. It's all about enthusiasm for something and following a dream. The usual anime story line. Because this series is about cycling I thought there might be some hints for performance enhancing drugs but that has been left out completly. Instead the Tour de France is the hot topic here and it's still the pure and marvellous event it used to be.
The character development is hindered by the very short time the series has (it's only 26 episodes) so I have the feeling that there's something missing somewhere. But it's fun to watch when you have nothing else to do. (5/10)

Dennou Coil
This is a strange one. It's about kids in a city where pets go missing. And it's not usual pets, it's cyber pets you can only seee when you wear special glasses. They seem to be hunted by a lifeform called "illegals" who come as some form of computer virus. There's lots of technical things all around and everything's "meta"-this and "meta"-that.
I've only seen two episodes so far but this seems to have the right mixture between funny parts, exciting story lines and mysterious cyberspace stuff. It's no Meccha series, it's more like private eye kids looking into a case which is of no interest to adults. But I might be wrong and the story will take a u-turn in the next episodes. You'll never know. Still I like this very much. The animation is great and the character design is a little different from what you normally get to see. (6/10)

Bamboo Blade
I was always interested in the sport of kendo so when this series came out I gladly took the opportunity to watch it. The main character is a broke teacher who runs the kendo club at his school and who has a bet with his senpai that his girls team will beat his senpai's girls team. At first there are only two girls in the team, one of those is absent all the time. But with time they are able to gather all the members they need.
This is nothing special either but it also has these nice funny moments and super deformed character design at times which I really like. The kendo scenes are not the centre of attention in most of the episodes so the anme takes a little bit more time for character development which I like as well. The previews at the end of each episode are hilarious. This is a series I like. (6,5/10)

Touch
This seems to be a classic and I only started to watch it because I really like the drama version of "H2". I don't know if "Touch" was done before "H2" or if it was the other way around. Anyway, the story seems to be very similar. When in "H2" there were three childhood friends from different families here we have two families and their kids are friends since they were born. There's is one girl and two twin boys, one of them is a slacker, the other one an outstanding athlete and student. Sounds familiar? Well, it does to me. So the talented guy plays on the baseball team at high school and that's what caught my attention. I've only seen the first two episodes here as well, but because it looks rather oldfashioned (the anime is from 1985) it has this nostalgic feeling to it. All in all it's over 100 episodes so there should be a lot of time for character development. I'm looking forward to watch this. (7/10)

Shigurui
A samurai anime which looks very mature and suited for older people rather than children or kids. It starts out with a duel between to crippled fighters, one being blind and the other one having lost an arm or a leg. From there on the story goes back a few years and tells what happened between those two men.
The whole set up is very dark, there aren't really any bright colours in this series. The violence is very explicit and very well drawn. Now, I always like to watch historic anime or drama series because I take an interest in how historic events or eras are portrayed in popular culture. This seems to be very accurate from what I can see but my knowledge of Japanese history is limited as well, so I might be wrong. This is definetely not like "Rurouni Kenshin" or "Samurai Champloo", it's way darker and gloomier. And much more gory, that's true. (6/10)

Byousoku 5 Centimeter
Another great movie by Shinkai Mikoto who also made stuff like "Hoshi no Koe" or "Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho". this time the story is about two kids who were friends in scholl but who were seperated when they had to go to high school. One day the boy travels to the countryside to meet the girl. When they meet he tells her he has to move further away from her. The next episode deals with what the boy is doing in his new home and the last episode shows what happened to both of them after they finished school.
What Shinkai always manages to do is to create a wonderful atmosphere with the pictures we draws. Although there might be a landscape covered in snow or just a scenery of a village at night it's always very colourful and because of that powerful. His stories are also very wonderful. Although they are everyday stories and nothing really happens (you are always waiting for a climax to appear) they leave you with a very calm and satisfied feeling. This one really is a must see. (8,5/10)

I will look into Blue Drop, Ghost Hound, Sketchbook - full color's, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Genshiken 2 when I find the time time to do so.