Ronaldo is continuing to kick ass for Manchester United. He has reportedly voiced his desire to leave England for Spain, but Man U. says they won’t be entertaining any offers, no matter what the amount. If they stick to their word, he’s stuck there until June 2010, at which point he’ll be 25 years old. Assuming he keeps playing as well as he has, this kid is going to be a ridiculously rich man in a few years.

Well, the flight to Portugal left something to be desired. The service was lacking and there were no updates from the pilot for the entire flight, which made for a boring, long flight. It’s only saving grace was the fact that it was free. That’s the last time I’ll bring that up, I promise.

Oh, and some woman who couldn’t be bothered to slide a latch yelled at me when I assumed ‘Vacant’ meant exactly that and opened the lavatory door. Believe me, lady, I could have done without the horrible image of an old woman, mid-wipe.

As soon as Portugal knocked the Dutch out of the World Cup, we began to look forward to arriving here to watch Portugal play England in the quarter-finals. Although, I knew it would be pretty cool to sit at a bar and watch the game surrounded by locals, I was still somewhat unprepared for what we experienced afterward. The game was a gut-wrencher, with no goals through regulation and two overtime periods. There was one goal by Portugal, actually, late in the game, but it was disallowed because someone was offsides. Anyway, I was in absolute agony. I was so afraid England might break through and score the 1st goal. In the end, they were again sent home on penalty kicks! Portugal pulled off a huge win, and the locals went nuts!

I went somewhat hoarse screaming along with all the portuguese in celebration. I met someone today who apparently screamed his head off, he could barely talk a day later.

Mira de Aire, the town my father-in-law is from, went crazy happy. People began driving through the streets honking their horns, people hung from car windows and sunroofs waving flags and banners. There were fireworks being set off. It was pretty damn cool. Bri was taken aback by the whole thing, I had to remind her that the rest of the world is absolutely fanatical about soccer (football).

For now, since I´m running out of time, I´ll post some pictures right here. I have a short video I´ll post when I have more time. More to come later….

fuck

Wow! Congratulations, Trinidad and Tobago!

Trinidad & Tobago, in their first ever World Cup match, forced a draw against Sweden today. This, to say the least, was unexpected. Just before kickoff, their starting goalkeeper was replaced by Shaka Hislop after having suffered an injury (still not sure what happened to him). Hislop did an absolutely amazing job in goal, he deserves a ton of credit. Not to take anything away from the rest of the squad, who were a man down for almost the entire second half and still managed to pull off what most of us thought impossible.

I will admit that I was rooting for the Trinidadians, since I’d watched them play Team USA at Rentschler Field a few months ago and needed a reason to choose a side. However, their next opponent is England. In that matchup, I’m forced to support the Brits, out of respect for my english friend, Dan.

So far, this World Cup is everything I expected it to be!

In the spirit of the upcoming 2006 World Cup, here’s a compilation of the best goals of the last World Cup, as determined by some unknown entity.

If you’re visiting from the Portuguese community, you may want to skip over goal #6, as it might sting a bit.