The Reign in Spain!

It's over! Spain has won the World Cup! Andres Iniesta's goal in the 116th minute (well into extra time) was the only marker of the match.

The poor fans the Netherlands would have celebrated in Amsterdam with a complete orgy of marijuana and sex shops. Instead, they will have to get over the loss with a complete orgy of marijuana and sex shops. I really need to go to Amsterdam.

By the way, it's been a good summer to be fan of Spain sports (and I know, that list of people is limited to Spaniards). Their best basketball player, Pau Gasol, won his second consecutive NBA title (and should have been the Finals MVP). Rafael Nadal won both the French Open and Wimbledon, earned the No. 1 ranking in the world and became universally accepted, for the first time, as the world's best player. And now Spain has won the World Cup. Good year for the nation's sports.

I'm excited for World Cup 2014.

Maradona says he's done

It is with great sadness that I report that Cronica newspaper in Argentina is reporting that Diego Maradona is done as the coach of Argentina's national soccer team. While nothing has officially been announced, the paper quotes Maradona as saying, "It's done, my chapter has ended."

This isn't official and a close friend of his is quoted as saying that he's still thinking about it. And let me say this: I hope he changes his mind. The World Cup has been fun but Diego Maradona made it more fun than the vuvuzelas, the horrific announcing, the U.S. miracle and Charissa Thompson's ridiculous reports on Yahoo! combined. Maradona made this event much more interesting and much more fun for a person like me that follows soccer on the periphery before really throwing myself into it once every four years.

So, Diego, I'm begging you: please come back for 2014.

Bye bye Diego

The rest of the World Cup won't be the same without him.

(And how good is Germany, by the way?)

Double Dutch

Down goes Brazil! The World Cup favorite has fallen in the quarterfinals, falling to the Netherlands 2-1. The tournament of upsets continues as after a poor start, the Dutch rallied and went ahead  on Wesley Snejder's header into the net in the 68th minute. Brazil completely fell apart after blowing their 1-0 lead, which went in as an own goal when their goalkeeper came out to far on a challenge.

The Netherlands are generally considered the best nation to never win the World Cup. They're now two wins away.

The start of July

Here's what the next few days have in store for us...

Tomorrow: LeBron James begins his summer free agency tour while Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amar'e Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki, Carlos Boozer, Joe Johnson, Ray Allen and Shaquille O'Neal become free agents as well. (And in another sport, so do Ilya Kovalchuk and Patrick Marleau.)

Friday: World Cup quarterfinal action, Rays-Twins.

Saturday: World Cup quarterfinal action, Wimbledon women's final, Rays-Twins, Strasburg, Ubaldo, NASCAR from Daytona.

Sunday: Wimbledon men's final, Rays-Twins

Enough already

The production house of "Knight and Day" seem to have struck some sort of deal with DirecTV where its commercial runs repeatedly on ESPN. During the NBA draft last night, the commercial ran seemingly twice per commercial break and its on during all of the World Cup commercial breaks.

And not different commercials either. The same one every time, the one with the Us Weekly rave about it, talking about Tom Cruise being at his "Jerry Maguire best!" It also includes Cruise and Cameron Diaz rolling on the beach, giving us all a quick look at Diaz's cellulite. Clearly, the editors didn't do their jobs on that shot.

Anyway, I hope the "Knight and Day" people realize that by flooding me with commercials for this movie, it reduces my chances of seeing it from "almost none" (I'm not one to support the actor that ruined Katie Holmes for all of us) to "none." That commercial has guaranteed I won't see it in theaters, won't rent it from Blockbuster, won't order it on NetFlix and won't watch it on cable. So good job, guys.

United States advances!

Landon Donovan, you are my hero!

French soccer disarray

Thanks to The Big Lead for posting the video on YouTube.

Travesty

Make it stop!

Thoroughly enjoying the US-England soccer game (and really enjoyed the Buckner-moment of English goalie Robert Green). Imagine if the United States somehow manages to win this game.

But, please, enough with the zuzuvelas or whatever those buzzing noisemakers are called. Enough.