Cold war 2.0

Boxing gloves for sale ((c) gnackgnackgnack on Flickr)

Imagine a world where Real Madrid would not play Barça all year or Panathinaikos would gently avoid Olympiacos in basketball. The absurdity of struggling to say who’s the real champ. Stop dreaming, this is already happening. Welcome to heavyweight boxing.

Euroleague watchability scale

credits: Marc Falardeau

What if we had to rank teams in terms of entertainment instead of actual success? Mike Prada did it for the NBA. This is how it’d go in the Euroleague.

No miracle for Merkel

(c) abudulla.saheem on Flickr

This was supposed to be the epitome of Multiculturalism in Germany, the so-called Generation M. A Germany which would be proud of his immigration. With less Schmidts and more Turkish, Tunisian or Ghanean names. But four months after flying to South Africa to congratulate her boys, German chancelor Angela Merkel has decided the German Mannschaft would not be a poster for Multiculturalism in her country.

Marcello Lippi booed at a song contest

And he did not even sing!

The Squadra Azzura coach came to the San Remo music festival to back the grandson of Italy’s last King, Pupo Emanuele Filiberto. Not the easiest thing to do considering the never-ending controversy inherited from the relations of the royal family with the fascist regime of Mussolini during WW2.

The Legendary Evgeni Plushenko

"Figure skating forbidden here. Danger of ending up far second to Evgeni Plushenko." ©Redvers (Flickr)

I did not think I would ever write about figure skating here but what Evgeni Plushenko did these last two days is beyond belief.

The Top 10 most popular Euroleague players

The "Octopus", a fan favourite ©Hankish on Flickr

I long wondered who actually was the most popular player in the Euroleague. My methodology is not flawless. Maybe the number of sold jerseys would have made a nice little criteria. But since merchandising still has ways the go in Europe and I myself failed to buy a Ricky Rubio jersey for my brother this Christmas, I settled on the Facebook index.

Spicing up my old Football Manager

"Football I've got you under my skin" Frank Sinatra ©jurvetson (Flickr)

The good thing with 2009 is I could spend hours reading the adventures of Pro Vercelli on the Run of Play. I remember passing by the actual town of Vercelli this summer and thought of stopping by. Maybe I could visit the Naming Rights Stadium or get an autograph from the Ferj.

Josipović: when Jay-Z meets Ibrahimović

"Look guys, one in every pocket" ©Ivo Josipović

Obama was so 2009.

Check out Ivo Josipović’s résumé. The brand new Croatian president is a law professor and a composer. The man wrote some 50 compositions and collected a bunch of prizes (including a certain European Broadcasting award Google’s never heard of). His Wikipedia page also credits him for being “a promising football player” as a teenager.

I am back

… And it feels good.

Brothers and Sisters

First there was blood, then there was blood and last there was a handshake. I learned the other day France would no longer comemmorate 11 November as the day of the win over German forces in 1918 but as a celebration of the French-German friendship. Countless memories came to my diehard sport fan mind.