sportstv

Today the Redskins lost the play-off game against the Seattle Seahawks with 10-20.

The game, played in a rainy Seattle, started with 3-0 score when the Redskins scored a field goal, but the Seahawks came back with a touch down before half time.

I learned a new English word, concussion, which means mild traumatic brain injury. One of the Seahawks players became injured in that manner, but his colleague Hasselbeck stepped in very effectively.

In the last quarter of the game there was a great opportunity for the Redskins to come back in the game but unfortunately it didn't work out. I watched the game in Ragtime, a bar where I went out with a few colleagues yesterday. I hadn't been there before, even though it is really near our house. This time there were no fans of the opposite team in the bar, so it was very quiet when the Seahawks where scoring their points.

I'm disappointed that the Redskins are no longer in the race for the Superbowl because I really enjoyed watching these last few weeks.

Unfortunately it will be quite a while before I can watch the Redskins again; the new season starts only in September, the weekend after Labor Day.

Yesterday afternoon we were in Georgetown and we had a late lunch there. We saw the first quarter of the Redskins game during our lunch.

Later I went to the Rhino Bar & Pumphouse, a student sportsbar to see the rest of the game. The Redskins were playing their first play-off game in several years against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Florida) after beating the Philadelphia Eagles last week. Winning the play-offs of course, will lead to the Super Bowl, the most important match in professional football.

I haven't seen many American footballs games yet, but it's a very pleasant game to watch, with a lot of exciting moments. I like it much better than baseball (too slow) or basketball (too fast); it's a pleasantly spectacular game.

To be honest I didn't think the Redskins played extremely well -- the Buccaneers had the ball much more often, and made much more yards than the 120 yards of the Redskin team(an indication of how much power a team has in a match). However, the defense of the Redskins turned out to be very solid, and after coming ahead with 17 to 3 at half-time, the Redskins managed to keep there Buccaneers at bay.

At one point the Buccaneers seemed to have made a touchdown, which would have brought the score to 17 to 17, but the officials ruled that Shepherd, the Buccaneer player, had lost control of the ball just before he came down, and thus the final score stayed 17 to 10. This caused quite some heart pain for the few Buccaneer fans in the bar, but the majority of the people watching were locals supporting the D.C. team that thus celebrated its first post-season victory in years.

A deserved victory on Sweden! Euro2004.com:

"After a dramatic penalty shoot-out, the Netherlands advanced to a UEFA EURO 2004™ semi-final against Portugal following 120 minutes of goalless stalemate in Faro-Loulé"

Together with Jelly, Manuel and Marcel I was watching the match in Van Stoffelen, a bar in Haarlem. A wonderful evening! The match wasn't great, but this has been the first time since 1992 that the Dutch actually won a penalty shoot-out.

Immediately after Robben's decisive goal a huge party started in Van Stoffelen, and we were dancing and singing all through the night. Almost everybody in the bar was dressed in orange clothes. Yeah, up to the semi-finals! Actually, I will be in Washington when the game starts, next Wednesday, against Portugal.

Yesterday I had dinner with Marjolein. We had a great lasagne while watching the soccer game between Germany and Latvia, which had a very pleasant result.

Therefore we were in a very good mood when we went to an Irish pub in the center of Amsterdam. There we would watch the second game of the evening: the Czech Republic vs. the Netherlands. And what a beautiful game it was! Of course, the result was very disappointing: to loose with 2-3 after being ahead with 2-0 is rather painful. But I think it was the most interesting game to watch of the whole tournament till so far; both teams played beautiful soccer. I liked the way Davids was playing.

Everybody around us in the pub was of course very disappointed with the result. Many people believed that the change of Robben was a reason why the match was lost, and as usual the referee was blamed too. I'm not so sure about what caused the defeat, but I must say I was very impressed by the way the Czechs came back in the match. Perhaps they were just the better team. But anyway: a great game to watch.

I saw only the last 30 minutes, but what a match tonight... Both teams played very beautiful soccer, and the last ten minutes the end of the game were very surprising and exciting.

I don't frequently watch soccer, outside tournaments like the European Championship, but this was really the game at its best!

Tonight the Dutch soccer team qualified for the European Championship 2004. I could hear the neighbours celebrate after the 5th and 6th goal. I'm sure nobody expected a 6-0 victory!

I am not a big soccer fan in general, but I enjoy the bigger events like the European Championships. Next summer we'll have a double pleasure: Bulgaria qualified at once for the soccer championship by becoming first in their group.

The draw for the final tournament will be held on Sunday 30 November.