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Best Victory Celebrations: Touchdowns vs. Soccer Goals

  • December 27, 2011 4:32 am

My fifteen year old son Rafael’s DVR season passes include No Huddle, Sound FX, NFL Total Access, NFL Fantasy Live,The League, The Rich Eisen Podcast, and The Coach Show.

My DVR season passes include the Spanish Primera Division Soccer, Oh My Gol!, Bundesliga Soccer, and the UEFA Europa League Soccer.

I was born in Spain.

My son was born in the U.S. of A.

But whether you like or despise universal health care, like or despise a big military, like or despise stinky cheeses, I think we can all agree that NFL player Joe Horn’s “cell phone” celebration is the best victory celebration on either continent.

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A White Lie

  • December 16, 2011 4:57 am

While talking to my father on the phone last Sunday, I lied.

He lives in Spain and we talk four times a year: Christmas, his birthday, and after the Real Madrid-Barcelona soccer matches – the “Classicos” – which are played twice a year.

Alfredo Sr. is getting older and has heart problems.  I love his voice, his thick Spanish accent and story teller’s cadence.  I have a message he left on our answering machine several months ago and I still haven’t erased it.

After we talked about the Classico (Barcelona beat Real Madrid 3-1, by the way), he asked me if I remember the time when I was about ten or eleven, when he tied a rope to the bumper of his 1971 Dodge Dart and towed me up a winding road in Griffith Park toward the Hollywood sign.  Read more...

Gabriel Number Two and The Beautiful Game

  • August 10, 2010 3:30 am

Last month I found myself peppering conversations with words like “equalizer,” “brilliant ball in,” and, of course, “gooooooooaalll…”

I had caught World Cup Fever.

 

Friends were shocked.  So was I.  I was never a jock.  In high school I had a membership to the YMCA.  I swam.  Alone.  For one year.  That was it.  When I tried to play basketball, I earned the nickname “The T.O.P. Man” (Tower Of Power) – sarcasm intended.

These days I do tune in to championship series – basketball, baseball, the Superbowl – find out who the underdog is, and root for that team. 

By rooting, of course, I mean smiling wryly and nodding ever so slightly between beers.  Read more...