Z/Web

I don’t know what happened since last week, but the Quakes came out asleep for this game. I went to the game expecting a victory — the Burn isn’t the strongest team, especially away, and with San Jose’s form last week, it should have been a decisive home opening victory. Instead it was a miserable loss. The game was slow, the Quakes spent more time passing the ball back to their own half than going forward, and there were very few quality chances. The ref blew the whistle every time two players brushed against each other, and for some odd reason, play was completely halted every time there was an injury: no stretcher was brought to carry the injured guy off so the game could keep moving. The result was a real stop-and-go affair, and San Jose never got any momentum going. The Burn played mostly defense (SJ keeper Cannon only had to make one save all night and that was in injury time), but scored in the 18th minute on a counter-attack. That turned out to be all they needed as San Jose couldn’t get a shot on target to save their life. Quite pathetic. Worst of all, the stadium was packed. It was nearly sold out. They even ran out of programs. I got one of the last $15 tickets while some of the people behind me had to pay for $25 seats because that’s all that was left. Though the game was crappy, the event itself was a lot of fun. The fans were in good spirits (most were used to San Jose losing), the atmosphere was entertaining, and the fireworks show at the end of the game was spectacular, almost worth the price of admission alone. (They cleared out one end of the stadium and most of the fireworks exploded just a hundred feet or so above the stadium so the flash lit up the entire place and the booming explosions hurt my ears. Very cool.) As far as soccer goes, let’s hope this was just a fluke. Final: 1-0 Burn.

The first half was boring, with no goals and no much offense by either team. I don’t know what the coach said at halftime, but suddenly Juventus came alive. Tacchinardi scored six minutes into the second half, followed by a goal from Inzagi four minutes later. Eight minutes after that Del Piero put in a beauty and it was officially a rout! Vieri managed one for Inter on a penalty kick, but no one seriously expected Juventus to give up a three goal lead. Final: 3-1 Juventus.

A rather bizarre game. Arsenal gifted Boro with two own goals in the first half! The first was Edu’s deflection off Windass’ shot, and the second was a dreadful clear by Silvinho which sent the ball past David Seaman. In the second half Arsenal really had to push forward, and Richard scored in the 58th minute on a Boro counter-attack. Wow, a 3-0 win for Boro! The craziest thing of all, however, was that this unexpected home loss to second place Arsenal gave the championship to Manchester United. They are sixteen points ahead and there’s no way Arsenal can catch them! So Man. U. are now the champs seven times in nine years. Wow, that’s domination! Final: 3-0 Middlesbrough.