Alireza Sefati Blog

Soccer - Spain and Germany will face off this Sunday to determine the best European soccer team of 2008.

Yesterday Germany beat Turkey 3-2, today Spin beat the tournament surprised Russia 3-0 both booking a place in Final.

This final in my opinion is going to be a beautiful final to watch. The Spanish team is very technical team made of  many technique soccer players such as Fabrigas and Torres, a solid defense and one of world’s best goalkeeper Casillas.

Germany side is a very strong tactical team. German players may not be too technical individually but they play great and powerful as a team. Having watched their game against Holland and Turkey, all the goals they scored was nothing but absolute team tactical team work. 

However I still predict Spain is going to beat Germany and win the Euro 2008 title because of their solid defense. Russia was a very attack minded team yet could not score one goal against Spain. Also having watched Germany’s shaky defense is another reason that leads me to predict that Spain is going to win it all.

But again in Soccer, you never know! So lets just wait and see. 

And as always, don’t forget to order your Germany and Spain soccer jerseys from Soccer Nation soccer store.

Soccer - I watched the Euro 2008 semi finals today between Italy and Spain. Both teams play similar type of soccer,. They like to take their time and slow down the game, hold the ball more,  drive the ball using their individual players techniques. Very seldom one can see fast one touch pass soccer from either one of these two teams.

As expected, both team tied scoreless during the normal time then went to OT where neither one of the teams could score a goal so the winner had to be decided by PK. Most people including the TV commentators were predicting Italy would do better in PK’s because they have more experienced players but I predicted otherwise. I have strong faith and confident in Iker Casillas, Spain’s captain and Goalkeeper, and goalkeeper of Spanish Giants Real Madrid. The guy is THE BEST GOALKEEPER in the world and because he is so young, he is going to stay the best for a while. He was able to save 2 of those PKs taken by Italians and led his team to the victory.

Spain were one of my favorites and I though they would win it all and now they are in semi finals so far so good. However, having watched Russians for the past couple of games, Spain MUST STEP UP their games or else Russia could defeat them out of the tournament. Russians are aggressive, fast, young, and play great as a team. They just beat the most popular team in the league that is the Dutches so they are on winning spirit and good moral.

The game between Russia and Spain will not be a slow one. It will be very exciting to watch and neither team can not afford not to give their 100 percent.

P.S. We just received a few more Spain Soccer Jerseys  so if you are available check out Soccer Nation website.

Soccer - Not me really. Russia surprised me when they beat Romania 2-0.  They controlled the game in that one and they messed a few good opportunities or else I think Romania should have lost 6-0. After watching that game Russia has become a favorite team for me as they are great in team work, team tactics, and they have very fit players who don’t mind running the entire game.

Today, they beat one of the favorites of Euro 2008, Holland and with that win Russians made it to semi finals. I think if they keep this up, they can win the whole thing. They are the youngest and most aggressive teams being led by one of the greatest coaches. This is good stuff I am loving it this year.

Open Source - Firefox 3 is supposed to be officially released tomorrow June 17, 2008. I downloaded the beta version and I was impressed by overall performance and speed of it, increased security, and the new cool look.

I am looking forward downloading the real deal tomorrow as folks at Firefox are trying to set a Guinness world record for number of downloads in one day. I also want to download this great browser to improve my web experience. Firefox is the browser of choice for me already and if they keep the good job they are doing, they will be THE BROWSER OF CHOICE for many.

Soccer - This is my first post about European Cup on this blog. I really like this cup and in my opinion it is the second best soccer tournament in the world. First one of course is world cup, and then this one. In fact if Brazil and Argentina could play in the European cup, then that tournament would be even better than the world cup because the best teams would be there playing.

Anyway,  I have been unable to follow this tournment as closely as I want becasue of my stupid supposdly part time contracting job that has turned into a full time nightmare.  But no worries this Friday June 20th is my last day there so I am out of there.

Back to European cup, I think this years favoirates are Holland, Portugal, and Spain. Both of them have won their first two games so far with great superirity and both of them I predict will be there in the final 4. I just don’t know who is going to be the 4th team. I was going to suggest it would be France but after getting crushed by Holland 4 -1 they are out I predict. Germany still has a chance if they manage to win their third game and possibly they will be the team up there.  Italy is in my opinion out too becasue they lost their first game and tied the second one.

Sweden is another team that have a chance. They won against Greece but lost against Spain so if they manage to beat Russia, they would have a great chance of being in top 4.

But let’s see who really wins it all. I think the winner will be either Spain or Holland but both of them have reputation of being the chokers often coming short at the very end.  But maybe this time is different? Who knows. Also don’t underestimate the Portuguess in particular Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco. They can create wonders.

Also, I really miss England. This tournament is not as hyped up as it should be mainly because England national team is not playing in this Euro cup since they could not qualify.

One last comment, don’t forget to get your soccer European Soccer jerseys from Soccer Nation.

Gadgets - iPhones are probably the most popular cell phone out there with ability to play music just like regular iPods plus other cool features but the current price is about $399 bucks. Yesterday Apple introduced the new iPhones 3G that is now $199 with new activation. So many thought this was a huge price cut by Apple to get you users to buy more right? Wrong!

There is a hidden fee, that is increase “data plan” by $10 a month. So if you do the math and you have a two year plan, you are paying $240 for extra data plan. That is $240 + 199 = $439. Yup so you the iPhone users are paying $40 more for these phones suckaas!

Venting - Because price of Gas is NOT going any lower. I am going to trade in my Tacoma for a small car because it is all messed up now. Hell thinking about finding a home job so I don’t drive or spending the night at work so I don’t have to drive home … just ridiculous!