England | Soccer Improved

ENGLAND WORLD CUP 1990 STYLE ITALIA 90 ENGLAND FANS IN SARDINIA & ITALY

This is how it was 20 years ago as we marched up through Italy, Italia 90 style! All Union Jacks, small shorts, tashes, short hair, socks, with shirts tucked in, the Carabinieri, Pavarotti, Gazza crying, Bobby Robson, blazing sunshine, the Germans, the penalties, camping, beer, chanting, riots, tear gas and all great fun. Come on England! www.scooter-rallies.com

Tags: World Cup Soccer by
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Come On – Singing for England

This is the video to a song my band recorded for the world cup (www.myspace.com/wemadethismusic) done over couple of hours one Saturday. Let me know what you think.

Tags: World Cup Soccer by
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The Greatest Sports Tournament There Is

This is truly my favorite time of the sports year. Not because of the beginnings of NFL preseason. Not because of my fantasy football drafts. Not because of the MLB pennant race that's heating up, and not because of the upcoming college sports season. It's all because of a little known event, beloved in England.

What I'm talking about is a competition that gets little coverage in the USA, but one that excites so many who know about it to no end. We're talking about England's FA Cup, which finally kicked off last weekend.

You may be wondering what sets this event apart from the rest, and what makes it better. It's the sheer size of it all. Very few events have as many contestants as 762 from the start, and very few have as many rounds (14) as the FA Cup happens to have. The beauty of this all is not only the single round elimination format, but the fact that teams of all levels have the chance to compete with one another.

Every tournament, we witness massive upsets that stun the football world. Imagine the LA Lakers losing to a college basketball team, or the Pittsburgh Steelers losing to some kind of high school football team. As crazy as it sounds, this stuff legitimately happens, and the story lines are unparalleled anywhere else.

Giant killers have become urban legends, to a certain extent, in FA Cup history. In the 1988-1989 FA Cup, non-league(meaning that they were below the 4thtier of English soccer)Sutton United upset top flight team Coventry City. In 1969, third division Mansfield Town upset West Ham United (who were currently sixth in the top division) 3-0. Perhaps no better giant killing story exists than the story of 1975 Wimbledon FC. The team, who was a non-league team at the timebeat top division team Burnley 1-0 in the third round and then followed that up by holding reigning first division champion Leeds to a 0-0 draw before narrowly losing the replay.

The unpredictability, as shown in just some of the examples above, is what makes it so special. The fact that a team such as Chelsea traveled to Coventry City last year makes the event special. Could you imagine the Packers traveling to play an Arena Football League team? Literally every team has a chance, if they keep winning, to get a huge game like that at home. Once the teams take the field, anything can happen.

Imagine March Madness on steroids. This is like the NCAA tournament, only better. Instead of 64 teams (which we see as huge), it's 762. Imagine the possibilities with so many teams, and think of all the teams you'll never have heard of.

Instead of two weeks of games, it's 10 months of them. Imagine 10 months of March Madness. We're sure that Dick Vitale would agree when we say that it's truly awesome!

Come and get more sports action at RootZoo's sports forum, amongst the most active sports networks online. Answer sports trivia 24/7 and meet thousands of sports fans just like you.

Tags: Soccer Game by Amy Harris
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