Yes We Are Soccer Crazy!

The U-16 team Scott has helped coach this spring won the Idaho State Championship which qualified them to play in the Far West Regionals.  This tournament is for the champions of states west of Colorado - ages U12 - U19 girls and boys.

The location of the tournament rotates among the states.  When Scott played in Regionals we played in Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, and Colorado.  This year the tournament was in Boise again so George and I decided to drive over to watch his games.

It felt so normal to be back at Simplot Fields watching youth soccer!

I've watched hundred of games but this was the first time I've seen this....

Pre-game Scott discovered a boggy area right in the middle of the field.  When he reported it to the referees, they agreed that it was a dangerous situation.  A broken leg waiting to happen!  The grounds crew came out and dug out the mud and tried to fill it in. They suspect that a sprinkle head failed to pop up so all that water was under the sod. Even with this work, it was still considered unsafe, but luckily there was an empty field right next to us so we just switched over to that field.

Astute soccer fans - notice anything amiss in this photo?

Yep, the other team had 2 number 16s!  We never figured out how that happened.  The officials should have noted it in their check-in procedures.  Oh well! The club could have complained more because it certainly smacks of ref incompetence.  Were both #16s on the roster?  We'll never know for sure!

Scott's team tied one game and lost two games. We still are so glad we went to spend time with these two guys enjoying the sport we all love!

We also took time out of watching games to check out the new Meridian Temple.

Its location on a bluff overlooking the valley is spectacular.  What a wonderful blessing for this area!

We love Portland but we sure love the Boise Valley also!  

My Daddy

Looking at these pictures shows, better than any words could, the kind of man I had for a Daddy!

I'm sure this is when he was coming home after being on a ship for deployment.

Daddy had ice cream every night before he went to bed.  Looks like I enjoyed some too!

I called him "Honey Boy"!

My mother had this one hanging in her house until the day she died.  I love my poodle skirt and  I still have that monkey! I wish I still had that poodle skirt.  Grandma Boyle made it for me!

Love this one!

This must have been when Daddy was promoted to Chief!

He died when I was only 25 so I have many more years without him than with him but he still had a profound effect on my life and who I am today!

Happy Father's Day!

Coming in the fall.....

It's a GIRL! 

 A granddaughter!  

And we are so happy!

Xavi

Sorry if you aren't a soccer fan but I had to do a post on a true legend, Xavi Hernández Creus.

When he was 11 years old Xavi started at La Masia, the Barcelona youth academy. The selected young men live at La Masia and go to school there while also playing and learning all there is to know about soccer!  He made his first-team debut against Mallorca in August of 1998.  Since then he has played 700 matches, scored 82 goals and made more than 180 assists for over 50 players.  Xavi is the first player in Barcelona's history to play 150 international matches.  Highly regarded for his humble personality and his team spirit, Xavi is viewed as being the embodiment of the tiki-taka passing style of play and is considered to be one of the the greatest central midfielders of all time.  He is also considered by some to be Spain's greatest ever player.

Xavi relies on his ability to find and exploit space.  As he said, "That's what I do: look for spaces.  All day, I'm always looking."   Finding space, he would appear for a team-mate to receive and then move the ball on.  Former coach Pep Guardiola explained it this way.  "I get the ball, I give the ball, I get the ball, I give the ball."  I think that is about as good of an explanation of tiki-taka as I've heard!

Xavi's abnormally good vision, pinpoint accurate passing and world class ball control allow him to dictate the flow of play while rarely relinquishing possession.  His ability to completely control some matches has earned him the nickname, "The Puppet Master".  Before the Champion's league final in 2008 against Manchester United, legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson said, "I don't think Xavi and Iniesta have ever given the ball away in their lives.  They get you on that carousel and they can leave you dizzy!" Barcelona won that day!

Time catches up with everyone, even the best of the best, so this year at age 35 Xavi announced that he was going to leave Barcelona to play for a team in Qatar. Not only will he play for them, he will be an ambassador for the 2022 World Cup which will be in Qatar and start working on his coaching credentials.  We all hope to see him back at the Camp Nou as the coach!

Here he is going onto the pitch for the last time as a Barcelona Player.

Titles he's won with FC Barcelona

Champion's League 4 
La Ligas 8
Copa del Reyes 3
Club World Cups 2

In addition he has won 2 Euro Cups and 1 FIFA World Cup with the Spanish National Team.

Quite a player and quite a gentleman!  And what a way to end his sterling career at FCB with another Treble!  

Making HIstory

FC Barcelona made history this weekend with their 3-1 defeat of Italian team, Juventus in the final of the Champion's League.  With that win they got their second 'Treble" which means that they won their domestic league title, the Copa del Rey (Domestic cup - FA Cup in England) and the Champion's League, which is a season long tournament among the very best teams in Europe.  Only 7 teams have managed this and no other team has done it twice.  FC Barcelona are the Kings of European Football!

The last time Barça won all three was in 2011 and I did 2 blog posts.

lhttp://bondia2000.blogspot.com/2009/05/fc-barcelona-triple.html

http://bondia2000.blogspot.com/2009/11/day-30-un-trio-celebrando-el-triple.html

To try and give a bit more perspective on this accomplishment I'll share a few facts.  In the Spanish domestic league each team plays 38 games.  The season starts in August and goes through May.  The King's Cup is probably the easiest of the trophies to win.  There are only 9 games.  The Champion's League is a very difficult tournament.  If you make it to the final game you play 13 games.  Of those games Barça lost only 2!  In the quest to be crowned Champion's League Champion they defeated Ajax (Champions of Holland) PSG (Champions of France) Manchester City (Champions of England) Bayern Munich (Champions of Germany) and finally Juventus the Champions of Italy.

What is amazing to me is that there are some weeks when they play a league game on Sunday, Champion's League game on Wednesday, and another game on Saturday.  It just never stops for them.    During this season they have played a total of 60 games and have won 50 of those with only 6 defeats and 4 draws!  They've scored 175 goals and have had 38 scored against them.

They have been so much fun to watch this year! 

Well to say it was fun is not exactly true!  It was nerve wracking!  I can hardly stand to just sit and watch the games.  I usually clean out a closet or reorganize the kitchen.  If it is a really big game I will often follow the play-by-play on my phone or I-pad while I do something else and then when I know the score, I watch the game on our DVR!  I talk to myself all the time about how silly it is to be that worried about it but I am.  I'm like my mother.  When the Razorbacks played she would go outside and rake or clean up and then come in every once in awhile to check the score.  

Here are Matt and Scott watching the Champion's League Final:

Do they look like they are enjoying themselves? This is when Barca scored the 2nd goal!  Yes we  were all thrilled!

It's been a good year to be a FC Barcelona fan!!!