Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2022: Lindsey Vonn

 Last week of the challenge and I am bringing up a different sport Woman's Alpine Skiing. Of course that means a new athlete in Lindsey Vonn. She won four overall Woman's World Cup Champion. The first USA woman's skier to win a Gold Medal in the Olympics. Winning 82 World Cup races she is the greatest female ski racer from the USA and one of the greatest in the world.

Her Olympic Medal runs...

A tribute to her...

4 more days left in the challenge!

Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2022: M is for Mia Hamm

 Switching sports to soccer or the other football. Let's switch gears even further by choosing our first female athlete. Mia Hamm perhaps the greatest woman's soccer player of all time. She won four NCAA Championships at North Carolina. She was on World Cup Champion teams in 1991 and 1999. In 1995 Team USA finished in third place and also in 2003. 

                                            Here is a commercial with Michael Jordan...

Besides the World Cup she was on tow Gold Medal Olympic Teams 1996 and 2004. In 2000 she was on a Silver Medal Team. She also won a championship in a professional league.

Her top 10 goals...

Is there a better female soccer player than Mia Hamm? Stay tuned for a new athlete or team for N.

R.I.P Diego Maradona

 One of the greatest, perhaps the greatest soccer player of all time Diego Maradona has passed away at the age of 60. The superstar footballer lead Argentina to one World Cup Championship and one runner up  in four World Cups. 

Highlights from the 1986 World Cup.....

Below more of his highlights...

The man had his controversy, battled his demons,  and died to soon. However, what he could do on the field defined him as a legend. May he rest in peace!

Lindsey Vonn Calling it a Career

Lindsey Vonn the greatest American woman skier is calling it career. One could make a case for her being the top woman skier of all time. Only one other female skier has won the overall World Cup Championship four times. Vonn's 20 World Cup titles is more than any other skier has won. The most by a man is 19.

The Olympics might be her weakest spot on her ski resume.  Two bronze medals and a lonely gold one. That Gold one was in the downhill and was the first won by an American woman.

Lindsey's 82 World Cup wins is a woman's record. The men's record is 86.

Her latest crash...

Injuries are the reason she is retiring. 

She has had a great career. The United States has some wonderful woman ski racers but Linsey's boots will be hard to fill.

July Recap

What a month on the blog World Cup, farewells, music, and football. I never thought July would be better page view wise than April with the A to Z thing. I even picked up a few more followers, I welcome them and hope they enjoy their stay.

Saying goodbye to Yahoo! Contributor Network is sad news. Being a writer there was a roller coaster with the ups and downs. In my book the place was on an upswing and I actually liked writing there again and then boom! Some of the downs could be me, misinterpretations, and some things just simply sucked at times. All of it according to my own perception.  I liked the Associated Content years the best. The group of writers who befriended me had a bit to with it. Yahoo brought out great opportunities to see my writing on a bigger stage like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports and the such. It opened doors.

The ups and downs don't matter now. It is all history. I am glad I was able to spotlight 10 other writers on my blog this month. Hopefully in the future I can spotlight others and just not the musicians, athletes, and celebrities. I don't know what the futures holds I just stumble into it one step at a time.

The World Cup just proved my picks in any sport a wise man should bet on the opposite team! I didn't watch as much as I wanted too. 

Johnny Winter's death reminded me of miss opportunities, the need to take advantage of them when you can. It also reminded me to appreciate the living legends out there while we can. Things end unexpectedly.

Thanks readers, visitors, and accidental clickers for making July special onward into August I go with the blog!

World Cup, Soccer, Football..

Soccer is the world's sport but it is not Merica's sport. Wanted to make a distinction between the United States of America and the two continents of America. Soccer could be the sport in central and South America. Soccer doesn't need to be the sport in the United States, but soccer would like to be successful in this country.

I played a season or so of youth soccer. I was a fan watching NASL soccer games and then ASL games in the 70s as a youth in Jacksonville rooting on the Tea Men. College football was king in the city and the city had dreams of an NFL team. Pro soccer is what we had. Leagues, teams folded and were forgotten. No one remembers the Jacksonville Tea Men now.

As a youth I was a fan. It was what my city could offer and my parents cold afford to take me to the games. I moved to a more soccer friendly area but never  really got behind the DC United. The woman I got behind. They took advantage of international success and started a league. But it faded and petered out. I liked the girl's game.

Men's soccer needs World Cup success to make soccer successful here. Unfortunately the rest of the world is to talented than Team USA. Mediocre is how I would describe our World Cup appearance so far. A win over Ghana, a draw with Portugal, and a loss to Germany honestly is respectable. A win in the next round would give soccer a boost. A deep World Cup run could give soccer a much needed buzz here. A miracle championship could establish soccer here. It would be the best thing for soccer increasing the fan base, boosting interest, merchandise sales and it won't happen

I wish Team USA the best but watch out for the powerhouses!

World Cup: Congrats Spain

Spain and the Netherlands met in the World Cup Final and both countries were looking for their first World Cup title. Spain won the match 1-0 in overtime. The television ratings were up in the United States for this World Cup.

Soccer is the World's game and not really the United States game. It would change if we fielded championship quality teams. The country would watch before switching back to baseball, and soccer would never climb to the level of American football, the NBA, and would be hard pressed to catch the NHL. Soccer leagues have struggled in this country. We know defense whens  championships, but we like scoring.

However, the World Cup Championship is the biggest sporting event in the world and I did watch. On the plus side soccer moves very quickly. The pace of their football is very quick. The yellow cards were pretty exciting. Both teams played hard. Spain appeared to be more aggressive than the Netherlands. I think that is one of the reasons Spain won. However, it was a battle between both teams.

Spain beat Portugal 1-0, then beat Paraguay 1-0, and beat Germany 1-0 to reach the finals. I tip my hat to their defense, Germany had put up four goals in games against Argentina and England. Spain started the tournament with a 1-0 loss to Switzerland, followed by a 2-0 win over Honduras and a 2-1 win over Chile. Congratulations to Spain on their World Cup Championship. We will see who wins in 2014 in Brazil.

World Cup Soccer

I didn't get into all the hype for the USA soccer team in the 2010 World Cup. However, a tie with England is huge for the U.S. Team. However, team USA still needs to take care of business against the rest of the teams in their group. Yes. team USA will be favored to do so, however being favored and actually taking care of business is two different things. England was favored against team USA, however England didn't take care of business. That being said all is not bleak for England. England did not lose and is still favored to advance.

I did write a few World Cup related articles recently. One was on Lionel Messi who I heard one expert on the radio call one of the best players in international soccer if not the best. You can read my article on Messi here.

In a related article I wrote about the rich soccer history of Messi's team Argentina you can read that article here.

I also review the rich soccer, or football history of two more power houses. One was Brazil which can be read here. The other one was Italy which you can read here.

Hope you enjoy the World Cup action and I will blog about something else next time.