The London 2012 Olympic organizing committee are keeping their plans for the Closing Ceremonies in Beijing close to their chest, but it is rumored that Beckham will play a key role. This travel schedule is potentially crazy, check it out.
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The US Olympic Team enters the stadium in Beijing at the Opening Ceremony.
Great photos at RalphLauren of all places http://www.ralphlauren.com/home/index.jsp?ab=fd_us_interior
I have some very basic questions about how the Olympics are covered - the endless hype, the commercialization, the provincial US-centric coverage, the massive attention on the basketball team, cheesy shots of mothers in the stands, etc - but despite that, I like seeing our team representing strong. Major props to Ralph Lauren too - the team looks great.
Pretty amazing opening to the 2008 Olympics and are you serious with the way he lit the torch?
I’m glad they didn’t use Yao to light the torch because I couldn’t see him being held up that long..
With the continued dramz surrounding clubs letting their players play in Beijing, Messi proved why he is so valuable. In their opening round match against the Ivory coast, the dimunitive playmaker notched one and set up one to beat the Ivory Coast 2-1. Barcelona might be raclling this dude before the Olympics are over, but it’s clear Messi is going to put his stamp on this while he is in Beijing.
Starting any international tournament out on the right step is crucial to getting past the group stages. Big ups to our boys on the US Olympic Team for getting the crucial win in their opening match against Japan. Staurt Holden’s goal could prove to be critical to getting out of their extremely difficult group. On to Holland fellas…
—– Adu (Yellow) ——— McBride (Capt) (Altidore 74th minute) ——
Rogers (Szetela 87th minute) — Kljestan — Bradley (Yellow) — Holden (Feilhaber 83rd minute)
Orozco — Parkhurst — Edu — Wynne
———— Guzan (Yellow)—————-
Japan
———- Morimoto ————
———– Honda (Yellow)————
Honda (Yellow) - Taniguchi - Kajiyama - Kagawa
Mizumoto - Nagamoto - Morishige - Uchida
——— Nishikawa ———–
Guzan, Parkhurst, Orozco, Wynne, Holden, Bradley, Kljestan and Edu are looking very good. And I’m going to say it again, Edu should get a very serious look at Center-back for World Cup although these last 5 minutes of the match he’s been playing on the edge.
Matches Today that you can watch
All of the Mens matches, Results and Goal Scorers of Day 1 action after the Jump…
It is way, way too early to be up right now. As I rub my eyes and yawn hard my clock says it is 4:50am on the east coast. Gross is the only word that I can come up with to describe how I feel right now. I am going to power through though and its all for you.
My name is Graig Carbino and I write for USSoccerPlayers.com. I am going to follow the match live in the section below. If you are just waking up and haven’t seen the match feel free to peep your DVR first and then come back and tell us all what you thought of the encounter.
*Commentary and match results after the jump:
UPDATE - Looks like both Werder Bremen and Schalke have both decided to let Diego and Rafinha stay in China.
WTF is going on?
As our DP brother Ives already hipped you to, the Court of Arbitration of Sport ruled that clubs (ie. Barcelona, Shalke04 and Werder Bremen are the main clubs in the mess as they’re about to start Champions League Qualifiers) may hold out and / or recall players under contract back from China and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
This ruling goes against everything FIFA supposedly wanted, with Sepp Blatter citing the regard for the Olympic spirit being the most important thing for clubs, coaches and management to remember.
According to CAS Secretary General Matthieu Reebut the ruling was made because the Olympics are not set on FIFA’s Match Calendar as the main reason the 3 person panel ruled in favor of clubs.
Looking back at the original statements from the clubs and from FIFA, ones got to wonder if FIFA knew this was the way the chips were going to fall all along as it sure seemed like the clubs were confidant of the final ruling all along and Blatter was reduced to using the word “Spirit”. And in the bigger scheme of things, will FIFA ever make a change to it’s calendar considering you know the starting dates of the Olympics will never change.
