Fall Soccer Session
Fall session survey: could you please respond.
Do you wish to play on Saturdays from September onwards? Short practice followed by our traditional fun game, as always, till the snow falls :-)
Cost: $0
Brazil is Soccer But Also Music: Concert
Brazil is soccer, but is also much more, like music. The Brazilian Embassy is promoting Brazilian Independence Day on September 7th, with a show by world-renowned Hamilton de Holanda, followed by a free cocktail.
"Hamilton de Holanda is virtuosic, brilliant and unique - those are some
of the adjectives used to describe this brazilian musician, who sets
world audiences ablaze, developing a career studded with awards.
Transgressor of the instrument and creator of a revolutionary technique,
he plays with beauty and spontaneity, a fact that prompted the U.S.
press to dub him "Jimmy Hendrix of the bandolim".
Hamilton is a musician who combines tradition and modernity performing
smoothly through different formations, achieving thus a way of exposing
musical ideas and impressions about life with "the heart at his
fingertips". In Canada for the first time making a debut of his new
album “BRASILIANOS 3” and his multi-award quintet: André Vasconcellos
(Bass), Gabriel Grossi (Harmonica), Daniel Santiago (Guitar), Márcio
Bahia (Drum) and himself Hamilton de Holanda (10 strings Mandolin).
The concert will also form part of the celebrations of the Brazilian National Day".
Don't miss it: September 7th. Bring the kids. Ticket info.
3,800Km and Mt. Washington
3,800Km of driving later, coach and Gustavo are back in town. A couple of photos of The Cog. This railway goes all the way to the top of Mt. Washington.
An amazingly gorgeous place.
(click to enlarge)
Please Vote Today
Players and parents:
For BMO's Team of the Week, please vote today, and every day until August 27. This is our U11 team, Vincent's team (Gabriel's brother)
Vote now.
It's very easy and fast.
No. 105 For Ceni
Rogerio Ceni, whose jerseys I am usually wearing, scored his professional goal number 105 today. That may not seem much, except that he is a goal keeper!
This time it was a pk, but Ceni was just coming back from 6 months surgery. The man is amazing.
He is the top scoring goal keeper ever.
And while you are at it, make sure you see the third goal:
Posting from the middle of nowhere in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They play soccer here too. That's Mt. Washington in the background of the soccer field:
Great Job, and Gustavo Says Hi
Gustavo congratulates the team on the great win last night.
From beatiful Thunder Cove beach, he says he misses soccer and his teammates!
7.5K Run On Beach
Running on the beach at 0m elevation, on sand.
I had never seen such good reception, receiving from all satellites; GPS accuracy of 4m.
6.25K Run 0m Elevation
Another prize to the 1st who can guess exactly where this 6.25Km run was.
Remote Exciting Run
Another prize to whoever figures out where my run was today, on a very rough trail
"Are there any bears around" I asked the owner.
"No... not usually" she said.
"Do you have a gun" I asked?
"Just run with a stick and make lots of noise" she said.
Gustavo and I ended up being chased by 4 horses and 2 dogs.
It was great - and exciting.
Soccer Juggling With Fire
Everywhere you go there is soccer. Elsewhere in Canada (where? a prize for the 1st correct guess) this fellow was juggling a ball on fire!
Fitness Report August 10
This week the team total surpassed the 2,000Km mark! Wow.
The combined running time is 12,192 minutes, or just over 203 hours of running!
Gustavo is still in the lead overall, with a total of 149.75Km, followed closely by François and Trevor, while François has ran the most in August. It looks like will be a race to the finish this month - a very healthy competition. No couch potatoes here.
Site Traffic
Traffic stats to our site as of August 10. Since inception, the site has been visited 5,833 times.
Practice - The Way It's Supposed To Be
This was practice 53 since April (we actually started in March but without taking attendance) and consecutive practice number 200 for the coach, over the past 2.5 years including winters. I had not missed one practice, a very nice round number to, very sadly, end the streak. It was not an easy decision. It may be just a few practices and matches to most, but it's a lot more to me.
The 200th was the way it is supposed to be: kids having fun, playing lots of soccer, ending in the dark, where you can barely see the ball, only screams and laughs.
We had a redo of the Olympics hurdles as it had gone to court. The winner was once again Hunter, with K'Paw for silver, and Gustavo for bronze. Hunter received another bandaid as prize.
We practiced corner kicks, had a shots on goal competition, and we also played two rounds of 1-2-3, with one win for each team, plus a scrimmage, which ended 2-3- or 3-2, or something like that. Who cares!
Play hard, play fair, that's what matters.
Shar's amazing jumps.
The couple... Whose sister is this? (Hint: look at the eyes)
Is Today's Bolt's Under 19s Day? A Must See.
Usain Bolt runs for the 200m final this afternoon.
Amazing Bolt recently suggested he could run under 19 seconds for the 200m. If he manages that in Thursday's final, it will be one of the greatest must-see moments in athletics history.
15Km Run
We went for a 15Km run today. 15Km had been our objective after the 10K we ran in May. It took longer than anticipated, vacations, minor injuries, illnesses got in the way, but we did it. It was a lot of hard work, but very enjoyable.
Never give up :-) You can do anything.
A 12-year old's heart:
Canadian Soccer: Execution, Not Excuses
Great editorial from the Citizen's Andrew Potter today. Yes, the refereeing was atrocious, and the call blatant. So what's new?
Execution, Not Excuses
"Canada’s women’s soccer team gave the country the defining moment of the London Olympics so far, with a spectacular effort Monday in a heartbreaking 4-3 loss to the Americans in the semifinal. Too bad they went and spoiled it by blaming the loss on the referee.
“We feel like we got robbed in this game” — that was from Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod. From forward Melissa Tancredi: “That was our win to have. We put it all out there on the field. And it was just ... taken away.” Team captain Christine Sinclair, who scored all three goals for Canada in the game, was more blunt. “We feel like it was taken from us,” she said. “We feel cheated.”
Success in sports is a function of five elements: preparation, strategy, tactics, execution and chance. But in the thick of the action, the only things that remain in the athlete’s control are tactical choice, and execution. By far the most important of these is execution.
Chance is a security blanket. It is what provides the excuses for when things don’t go the way they hoped. The track was wet and I slipped. I drew an outside lane. The referee jobbed us. Almost every athlete reaches for the excuses at one time or another, and for good reason: it deflects criticism away from poor execution, or from questions of whether the athlete prepared properly or made the right tactical decisions, or if the coach chose the proper strategy.
The very best athletes have a different perspective. For these competitors, execution is the only thing.
Listen to Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt after his victory in the 100 metres: “It wasn’t a perfect start, so I had to execute from 50 metres and I knew I was going to do well after that,” said Bolt. “I just ran. I’m not going to say it was a perfect race because I know my coach is going to say no.” This from a man who had just run the second-fastest time in history.
Or consider then Canada’s greatest ever Olympian, Clara Hughes, who finished what was a disappointing 32nd in the women’s road race, under pretty bad weather conditions. But what many people had trouble understanding was why Hughes didn’t seem even slightly upset with her position.
“When I look at my placing, you can say that I’m disappointed,” she said. “But when you look at my effort and everything I put into this, I’m not. I felt good — in the sense that it felt like hell. But in terms of what my effort was I suffered, and that means it was good. I gave everything I had, but it just wasn’t good enough.”
The refusal to make excuses for anything other than execution is what distinguishes mere Olympic athletes from true legends. The problem with excuses is that they engender weakness, rather than courage. Worse, they prevent the excuse-maker from making the adjustments or corrections they need to make to ensure superior execution next time.
This is not to take anything away from the Canadians. They played a magnificent game. But what the players need to realize is that blaming the refereeing is no different from blaming the weather or a bad bounce. If they are going to have a hope of winning the bronze medal on Thursday against France, they need to stop claiming they were robbed, and think about why they weren’t able to deliver the knockout when they had the Americans on the ropes".
In short, they need to focus on execution going forward, not excuses for what is past. That is the path to greatness.
Brilliant piece.
Bad ref? Score two more than the other team.
Do yourself a huge favor: don't waste your time arguing bad calls.
Olympics Soccer: It's Brazil vs Mexico For Gold
Damiao is now the 2012 Olympics top scorer.
Brazil has been chasing Olympic gold for many years. Now they will play the final at Wembley.
"Brazil's dream of winning an elusive Olympic soccer gold came a step closer to reality when they beat South Korea 3-0 in a one-sided semi-final at Old Trafford on Tuesday".
Mexico defeated Japan 3-1 in the earlier semi-final in London.
"Brazil, whose obsession with winning the Olympic gold is unmatched by few other countries, won with two second-half goals from Leandro Damiao, now the tournament's top scorer with six goals, after a 38th minute opener from Romulo in front of a 69,389 crowd at Old Trafford".
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