When Life conspires against You

Well, things don’t always go as they should. Of course, this should be a given, for yours truly this was the case this past five days or so.

First off, the midweek post was supposed to contain a special surprise, namely the first goal scored by myself in anger in a FIFA 08 match with Arminia Bielefeld. It’s a cracker of a shot from just outside the box by Sibusiso Zuma against Arsenal (!!!), and I wanted to use it as a teaser for something I have planned over the Winter Break (It doesn’t take much thinking for you to figure out what I have planned…). However, since the highlight was too large for OleOle’s video service, I went to upload it to YouTube. Two hours later the file was uploaded… except it wasn’t. All that work for naught. *sigh*. I’ll get it up sooner or later.

Up next was the fact I had a rather important teacher’s exam to take on Saturday, so I programmed my VCR (I’m not rich enough for one of those fancy DVR thingies just yet) to record the South Africa-USA match. I left for the exam, got in the room, was given the exam, started to work on it… then realized that I had registered for the wrong exam. So, instead of showing how much useless history and geography knowledge I have crammed in my brain, I was being asked how much sociological and psychological knowledge I have crammed in my brain. Yes folks, I signed up for the Social Science exam rather than the Social Studies exam. There was only about 6 seconds of panic until I decided to give it a go anyway. Besides, the bosses would get a kick out of the whole situation. I’ll find out how I did in a month, but from how things went I did really well on it. I guess this gets me on the hook for teaching a high school psychology class next time one rolls around…

Because the exam took so long, I got home after the match was over, and I rewound the tape to watch the match… and I got two hours of infomercials. Seems someone turned on the TV and changed the channel before the match started. Ugh. I guess in the grand scheme of things I didn’t miss much, as the game ended up 1-0 for the Americans, but by all accounts Rowan Fernandez acquitted himself well, and Zuma seemed to be MIA in terms of serious chances, yet impressed duNord with his movement and locks. Siyabonga Nkosi didn’t make the 16 man roster for the match, and won’t play against Canada on Wednesday. Why you ask? Well, in action tonight in a friendly, Nkosi netted the final goal in a 6-0 thumping of Bünder SV, an amateur club from nearby Bünde who sit atop the Fußball- und Leichtathletik-Verband Westfalen. (*phew*) 700 folks braved the cold to watch the friendly, which Middendorp used to blood some of the reserves as well as some of the younger first teamers, who were up 4-0 by halftime.

In other news, Bundesliga.de is reporting on the Bundesliga’s Asian Adventure, speaking for the most part about Cottbus and Borussia Dortmund’s shenanigans, but at the end of the article, we get some info on the Arminia Bielefeld friendlies:

Arminia Bielefeld too will play in China in December on their own initiative. Arminia will take on twin city Wuhan on December 18 and Shenhua Shanghai one day later.

I’m working on getting some more information about the friendlies, and I’ll pass it along when I get said info.

One more mention of Bielefeld on the Bundesliga’s website is an interview with defender Rudiger Kauf, who scored in the win against Nurnberg. A line that jumped out was when he stated:

But you always have to be aware that we're Arminia Bielefeld, not one of the teams aiming for Europe. Our budget is one of the smallest, so you have to be aware that we always fight against relegation.

He is correct, in a way, but I hope that he has more than surviving the Bundesliga as his goal for this season. In October’s edition of FourFourTwo, sports psychologist Martin Perry (His not-too-shabby blog can be read here) notes that teams who are either promoted or perennial relegation fodder need to look beyond surviving, and focus on attainable-with-effort goals like a mid-table finish. I, of course, have wildly unrealistic expectations and think Arminia can get to Europe, but we will see.

Here in the States, Thursday marks Thanksgiving, and as a result I’ll be desperately attempting to get away from family members that I really do not like, so as a result I’ll be hiding writing up an Arminiageschichte on the trusty laptop. I would share some turkey with you folks, but it’s likely to be sawdust-dry. Catch you then!