Legendary

I was cruising the Crystal Palace FC supporter’s website this morning (www.holmesdale.net) and I came across a posting from someone with the user name “Beastie.”  He/she posted, and I quote, “I’d happily contribute.  It would be legendary.”  “Beastie,” whoever you are, you have just scored major Mess points for using the word “legendary” during the course of your everyday life.  Well played, sir.  Well played.

A Wonderful Week Comes To An End…

…and a more wonderful week begins?

This past week was wonderful.  It began with a Crystal Palace thumping of Southampton and never looked back.  There was an SPN meeting, a workshop with a youth program at Wilder, great gchats with Ellen, a YCC policy meeting, lunch following the meeting with Rachael-Em-Ellen, pay day on Friday, a second Palace win of the week on Saturday morning, and then the highlight of the week – our holiday party.  I love my friends, and many of my closest ones showed up Saturday night and I loved it.  The highlight of the party, with apologies to everyone else, was the (not-so) surprise visit from Tre!  I sort of knew she was coming (I’m not THAT oblivious, Tre…) but I did not want to get hopes up in case something didn’t work out, as Iowa is quite far away.  But she came!  Tre is AWEsome – you only have to look at what high demand she was in this weekend to see that, and I’ve really missed not having her around and not being able to stop by McNamara on my way home and see her, so I was thrilled when she showed up.  I know she had a lot going and and I’m grateful she took some time to come and hang out with us.  Hopefully she’ll be back before too long.  But there was so much amazingness at the party.  Wonderful sweaters.  Eggnog that could knock out a horse just from taking a whiff of it.  Pretty decorations.  College friends.  Work friends.  Friends met through friends.  Cookies.  Cheesecake.  Chex mix.  Punch.  Christmas music.  Pictures.  It was a good night, and a great way to cap off a great week.  The only thing that could have made this week better would have been the Amazing Race finale being this week instead of last week, but hey, you can’t have it all.

So now it’s Monday and a new week begins.  Who knows, this week might be even better than last week.  It certainly has the potential.  That’s what keeps getting me up every day.  That’s what gives me hope and excitement every single day.  Every day could be better than yesterday, every week could be better than last week, every month could be better than last month, every year could be better than last year.  I hope you all can feel that way too.  The future is a great unknown – a blank slate filled with the potential to be wonderful and awesome and amazing.  Exciting, isn’t it?

And next week I head home for the holidays.  Things are good in the world of the Mess.

The Mighty Eagles Keep Soaring High

Everyone knows that the Yankees are my #1 sports team.  My #2 team is the mighty Crystal Palace FC.  It works out quite well because the European football season (in general) runs from August to May… during the baseball off-season.

Before I get to today’s game, perhaps some background.  Crystal Palace Football Club is based in South London, in the borough of Croydon.  Growing up I never had a favorite football team.  I became a Palace supporter in the fall of 2005 while I was studying abroad in London.  I headed down to Selhurst Park and saw my first ever European football game in person when Palace lost to Sheffield United 3-2.  Since then I’ve been a die-hard Eagles supporter.  I listen to pretty much every game on online radio, and on the few (maybe 3-4) times a year they are on TV in the United States I head down to the pub in full regalia.  Football in England is sort of like baseball in America in terms of structure.  There are four “league” levels.  The Premier League is the top (like the Majors), the Championship is next (like AAA), League 1 is next (like AA) and League 2 is the bottom (like A).  The only difference is that every team is independent.  Every year the three worst teams are relegated to the league below, and the three best are promoted to the league above.  There are several more leagues below League 2, but they are not part of the official “Football League.”  Teams can, however, be promoted from non-league leagues into the Football League.  Crystal Palace currently plays in the Championship, the second division of football in England.

Palace got my Saturday off to a flying start by squeaking out a hard fought win against Doncaster today.  We fell behind early, but quickly responded with a penalty when one of their players was sent off.  The Fantastic Finn, Shefki Kuqi, put home the penalty.  The conditions in London were terrible today, from what I saw on the TV later, and Palace just couldn’t break down 10-man Doncaster until the 89th minute, when Alan Lee finished slotted home the winning goal.  Palace dominated the game though, we just couldn’t find the back of the net.  Lee is just back from being injured, so it was great to have him get on the scoresheet.  Sometimes you have to win ugly, and that’s what Palace did today.  The grit and determination they showed is a good sign moving forward.  17-year old Nathaniel Clyne got man of the match.  He’s an exciting prospect and appears to have cemented a spot in the starting 11 despite his young age.

What wasn’t a good sign was the massive amount of injuries that happened today.  Paddy McCarthy was stretchered off with what looked like a baddd injury, according to the announcers, Jose Fonte appeared to be limping, and 17-year old Sean Scannell limped off the field.  Kuqi went off with an apparent hamstring injury.  Ben Watson didn’t play with an injury… neither did Carl Fletcher or Victor Moses.  Let’s hope these injuries aren’t too bad.  We have a relatively light schedule until Christmas, and we’re currently riding a nice winning streak that has us up to 8th in the league.  That is just 2 places (and one point!!!) off the promotion playoffs!  Hoo hoo!  Up the Palace!

Football Prediction Results

Record for Week: 4-7

Record for 08-09: 4-7

All time record: 11-23

 

I’m not off to a great start this season.  A few surprise results threw me off.  It’s going to take a few solid weeks if I’m going to get my overall record back to .500 .

Palace continues to struggle, and to this point are the only team in the league not to score a goal.  I trust NW will bring in the striker (or maybe two??) that we desperately need.  It’s early and the season is long.  The ship will be righted!

Bristol City 2 – Crystal Palce 1 (AET)

Our season came to an end last night, but I couldn’t be prouder of our boys.  They went on the road to Bristol, to an incredibly hostile atmosphere, down a goal and needing to win.  After 90 minutes, we were up 1-0.  That’s a great result… a road win at Bristol!  They did all we could have asked from them.  The penalty miss was unfortunate, but that’s football.  It happens.  Unfortunately that meant that we were level 2-2 on aggregate, so we had to go into extra time.  They had a couple of superb finishes to give them the 4-2 aggregate victory.  There was really nothing we could do about either goal.  Moments of individual brilliance… just have to tip your cap.  Our boys gave it their all and fell just short.  Bristol had 120 minutes at their place, and we only had90 minutes at Selhurst.  They earned it by finishing higher than us in the table, so nothing we can really do about that either.  I bet, though, that if extra time was at Selhurst the result would have been different.  Given the fact that I thought we would be battling just to avoid relegation, finishing 5th in the league is a fantastic achievement.  I remember calling my dad twice and telling him that our playoff hopes had ended… but we ended up making it!  Neil Warnock has instilled a winning attitude not only in the team, but in the supporters as well.  Our season may have just ended, but I’m already excited for what next season might hold.  Let’s hope we can hold on to most of our exciting young lads.  The future of the Eagles is bright!

Up the Palace!

First Playoff Leg: Palace 1 – City 2

Sometimes in sports you just have to tip your hat to your opponent because they produce a moment of brilliance that you couldn’t do anything about.  Today, Palace just have to tip their hats.  Stunning strike by City in extra time.  Nothing Palace can do about that.  If he took that shot 100 times he’d probably miss 90 of them.  But what’s done is done.  We can only look ahead to Tuesday.  I’m fully confident that our boys can get it done. 

Up the Palace!

Weekend Football Predictions

This is a HUGEEEEEEE weekend of football, ladies and gentlemen.  The Premier League will be decided, and of far more concern to me, the Championship playoffs kick off with Palace taking on Bristol City at Selhurst Park.  We’ve been on a great run and I think the lads will keep it up.  Moses is supposedly healthy, and Scowie will be back on the bench.  I like our current form and think we’ll be able to get it done tomorrow.  (6:30 AM Central Time on Setanta for those who are interested)

Fearless Football Prediction: 2-0 Palace. 

Birmingham v. Blackburn: 2-2… Birmingham are relegated

Chelsea v. Bolton: 2-0 to Chelsea… who finish level on points with Man U

Derby v. Reading: 2-1 to Derby… the Rams go out with a bang and drag Reading down with them

Everton v. Newcastle: 2-1 to Everton… securing their European slot

Middlesbrough v. Man City: 2-1 to Middlesbrough… turmoil in the Man City front office spills onto the field

Portsmouth v. Fulham: 1-1… Fulham avoid relegation by a single point

Sunderland v. Arsenal: 3-1 to Arsenal… Wenger finishes another forgetful season with a win

Tottenham v. Liverpool: 3-2 to Tottenham… Goals fly in at White Heart Lane despite neither team having anything to play for

West Ham v. Aston Villa: 1-0 to Villa… finish just outside the final European slot… but still get in because of fair play

Wigan v. Man U: 3-0 to Man U… Man U win the title on goal difference

 

Watford v. Hull: 1-1… Watford finally gets a result at home… but will it be enough?

Palace to the Playoffs!

Palace needed to beat Burnley on Sunday to seal their spot in the Coca Cola Championship playoffs, and they got the job done… and then some.  They passed Burnley off the pitch and when all was said and done they had achieved a 5-0 victory.  It was truly a great day.  Listened to the game on the radio and have seen pictures and video of Selhurst, and the atmosphere was incredible.  Great job to all who were there.  Now we’re just three games from being promoted to the Premiership!  Next up: the two-legged semi-final against Bristol City.  It won’t be easy, but we’ve been on quite a roll lately.  Let’s hope the lads keep it up!

C’mon you Eagles!

Weekend Football Review

I didn’t do very well this past weekend with my picks (the first weekend that I posted actual score predictions).  I only picked 2 results correctly.  To my credit, however, I did get the scores of those two games exactly right.  I picked Chelsea to win 2-1 and a 2-2 draw between West Ham and Newcastle.  I also picked the Chelsea game as my “joker” in my fifa pick ’em, which netted me a cool 100 point bonus.  As I’ve said before, I pick the scores and post them here for fun.  I don’t claim to have any special talent for picking games and I don’t claim to be an expert.  It’s just fun.  I know a decent amount about the leagues in England, so those are the games I’ll post scores for.  Anything else would be a blind guess.  I’m going to keep a running tally of my season record of correct picks as well as my all time record.  I won’t give myself extra credit for picking the correct score, only for picking the correct result.  So, here’s the first one(!):

 

07-08 Season Record: 2-9 (2 correct picks, 9 wrong picks)
All Time Record: 2-9

 

As for some insightful analysis, it’s pretty simple for Palace: win on Sunday and we’re in the playoffs.  Nothing else matters.  We played decently well at Hull from what I’ve read, and Mr. Warnock should have the boys ready to go this weekend.  Shame I won’t be able to catch it on TV.

 

As for Man U and Chelsea: Michael.  Ballack.  Enough said.

Tough One For the Palace, Sweet Victory for the Chelsea

Palace gave up a late goal and lost at Hull 2-1 yesterday.  I didn’t see the game, but from people’s comments it sounded like a fairly even, back and forth, up and down the pitch sort of game that could have gone either way.  Luckily, other results went our way, and we’re still in 6th position!  If we win next weekend against Burnley at home we’re in the playoffs, with an eye on winning promotion.  It would have been nice to clinch a spot yesterday with a win, but I can hardly believe how exciting and nerve wracking the final weekend of football is going to be.

Chelsea, on the other hand, pulled out a monumental victory over Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, by the score of 2-1.  Herr Ballack (der deutsche Supermann) netted both goals, one on a redonk header, the other from the penalty spot.  I still haven’t seen video of the hand ball that gave Chelsea the penalty, but the linesman rarely makes a call like that unless he is absolutely sure of it, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.  It’s not like United deserved their goal either… What does the result mean?  The two teams are now level on points with two games left.  United have a far superior goal difference, so that’s an extra point for them, but if they slip up in the last two Chelsea could end up winning the title.  This was unimaginable to me a couple of weeks ago.  Come on Chelsea!  My dad is a Chelsea supporter, so I root for ’em too (unless they’re plaing Palace, that is)!