Spain, Pain and Usain.

Spain, you dirty little b%^((£ds!  Italy was supposed to win that competition.  Euro 2012 came to a close last night with Spain absolutely smashing Italy 4-0 in a game where at times it looked like Spain had twice as many players on the pitch as Italy did.  Italy were chasing shadows while Spain poured through with numbers in both attack and defence.  It was embarrassing, and you got the feeling that Italy had played their final 3 days earlier in a brilliant performance against Germany.  Mario Balotelli was nowhere, and clearly not in the mood to hang around.  After the match he pushed and shoved his way past officials to pack a paddy by himself in the changing rooms, it did look more than a little Tigeresque, the way he threw his toys.  But hats off to Spain, they thoroughly deserved the win and maintained their stranglehold on world football which they have had over the last 4 or so years.  They were so good last night I think they would have even beaten Brazil 4-0 and that’s saying something.  Perhaps it was a good example for the rest of the world.  See how good your national team can be when all of your best players are playing alongside each other week in and week out instead of having your club sides filled with foreign players.

I know it’s a bit random to begin with football, but hey, I’m stuck in Turkey and watching anything else is tough!

Old mate Rog, hopefully cruising to another title at Wimbledon.

Apparently Wimbledon is on again and is starting to warm up.  Does anyone really watch the early rounds of Grand Slams?  Although I must admit I did take a large amount of pleasure in seeing Rafa Nadal being kicked out nice and early in the 3^rd Round.  Let’s hope Roger can get up and finally win another major or two.  I would love to see him take this one out, although it is not going to be easy having to get passed both Murray and Djockovic in order to get to the top.  Fingers crossed.  I was reading the other night about Marin Cillic played out the 2^nd longest game ever two nights ago and managed to crawl over the line after a 5 and a half hour marathon game of tennis.  Unbelievably the longest ever match at Wimbledon was in 2010 and went for an incredible 11 hours and 5 mins.  Bugger that.

Good to see the NZ Cricket team has picked up where it left off by getting pumped by the West Indies.  The ‘Windies’ are ranked 5 places below the Kiwi’s in T20, and let’s be honest 5 places is a lot in Cricket.  That pretty much leaves powerhouse cricket nations such as The Netherlands, Bermuda and Canada below them, yet they cruised passed the BlackCaps with a 50 run win!  There’s hardly even enough time in 20/20 to win by 50.  It looks like it might be a long tour of the Caribbean for the Kiwi’s with their Captain and arguably best player Ross Taylor likely to be heading home after injuring his shoulder in the field in the first match.  Not an ideal beginning when you are coming off three months holiday boys.

Super Rugby kicked back into gear this weekend and there were some games that were as close to Test Match intensity as you will ever see.  The Chiefs and Highlanders game, the Crusaders – Hurricanes and the Bulls and Cheetahs played out a cracker as well.  The Chiefs, Stormers and Brumbies look to have the top 3 spots all sewn up, but with only two more rounds of round robin left it will be interesting to see who can manage to pull it together and claim the last 3 wild card spots which are basically all still up for grabs.  There are 5 maybe 6 teams at a push looking to claim those last three places.  If the Sharks can get up over the Bulls things will become even more cramped, although I don’t see this happening as the Bulls have been putting better performances in as the season has progressed and the Sharks have run so hot and cold all year they could be taking too much advice from their resident Frenchman in Freddie Michalak. 

The hard luck story of the week has to go to Andre Pistorious who has missed out on qualifying for the Olympics by the slimmest of margins.  ‘The Blade Runner’ as he is known was .22 of a second away from qualifying for the 400m at the able bodied Olympics.  Not a bad effort for someone who is missing both his legs from above the knee.  Usain Bolt just lost to the man who claimed his World Champion title last year as well.  Bolt was disqualified from the 100m at the World Champs for too many false starts on that occasion.  However this time round he didn’t blow the start but the race.  Yohan Blake beat Usain again in the 200m at the Jamaica Nationals.  So fast was the 100m that even third placed Asafa Powell qualified for the Olympics as well.  It definitely makes for an interesting 100m final, could it be a Jamaica 1,2,3?  I wouldn’t be betting against it, that’s for sure.

P.S. C’mon Queensland!

Keep your eye on the ball team.