Brazil 6th World Champion

The 10th FIFA Futsal World Cup has just ended with Brazil winning an impressive 6th title since the tournament started in 1989. The final was a classic match between Brazil and Argentina.

I watched the final. Futsal is much quicker than standard football, and that demands more from the players' technical skills. Given that the pitch is smaller there are many more goal attempts. I have a much more difficult time disengaging the tactics (besides bringing the goalkeeper into attacks and getting caught up in the match, despite the fact that in this final that Brazil won 2-1 went into a thrilling final as Argentina (apparently) put all into attack, while Brazil (apparently) played defensive football.

The Brazilian goalkeeper Willian was outstanding and made some amazing saves. But at the same time Brazil were incredibly fast and dangerous on their shots (counterattacks?), so I had a hard time seeing who were the best and deserved the title. To me they were the same and only the luck of a great goalkeeper gave Brazil the title.

I was not engaged and Futsal is not something that thus interests me much. That said, congratulations to another title for great Brazil!

Trying for Cruz Azul against Necaxa

 Today I wanted to go and watch the local Mexico City side of Cruz Azul face Necaxa. I was trying to buy ticket online on my way to the stadium in the metro and metrobus, but on the one hand had a bad connection, but worse, Ticketmaster.com continues to be the worst facilitator of tickets in the world. I already had big problems with tickets I had bought for an MLS match in the US: I had already purchased the tickets, but when heading to the match, I could not get them in my account that was "registered outside the US". The problem was similar yesterday, as I have a Danish ticketmaster account, but could not access the tickets on that account, while when I accessed through Mexican ticketmaster, I was not able to pay with a non-Mexican credit card.

I did make it to the stadium twenty minutes before kick-off. In this digital world it was not possible to buy a ticket outside the stadium which makes it so much more ridiculous that it has to be so difficult to get a ticket.

In the end, without a ticket, I went to a bar and watched the match which Cruz Azul won 3-0, and they maintain a comfortable lead at the top of the Mexican Apertura league. As I had my beers I could see that the stadium was not full, which makes this ticketing challenge so much more stupid.

Champions League in Mexico

Yesterday Mexico inaugurated its first female president, so I was off work as the focus was on this historical event. It was thus a good day to watch some Champions League.

There is scant interest for other teams than the Spanish teams in the CL, most of all, obviously, Barcelona and Real Madrid, so the only option to watch in a bar was Barcelona-Young Boys, even though there were so many interesting matches playing simultaneously.

And Barcelona-Young Boys was indeed as boring as expected, as Barcelona cruised to a victory with 5-0, and it comes at a good time after they lost their first match 2-1 to Monaco. That said, with all its crisis, Barcelona is doing great under German Hansi Flick: top of the Spanish League and giving chances to a lot of young promising players appears to be working for now, but is also what Barcelona needs as they are unable to sign super stars. And surely on the long-term it is better for Barcelona (and Spanish football overall) to be promoting so many young players from the outstanding Barcelona youth academy.

The new format of the Champions League is confusing though. As everyone is in a big league, but without everyone playing one another, one cannot study the teams against other teams that you will face, and most annoying for real football fans, adapt the tactics according to other results and new matches in smaller groups. In my personal view it takes away some of the excitement about the planning. As the 8 initial rounds come to an end, the excitement will not be about the top teams, but about the 7th-8th or 23rd-24th, who will snatch the last position for the play-offs. And the top teams will all go through....

 I appear not to be the only one annoyed at the new format. The fans of Borussia Dortmund (a team that incidentally is first in the league after two victories, the latest trashing Celtic 7-1) welcomed the new CL format at home with a huge banner: "UEFA Mafia", protesting against the new format that indeed appears to be a way for UEFA to make more and more money from the ones who love the game.

In Dortmund