Champions League Draw!

Sixty thousand people held their breath for what seemed an age, then Shunsuke Nakamura's scorching free kick screamed past Edwin Van der Sar's flailing arms and cracked into the net. The bulge in the net signaled an eruption of noise from the Celtic fans and sent them into a frenzy of excitement.......i know......i was there! And just two years after that goal sent Manchester United to defeat and Celtic through to the last 16 of the Champions League the draw placed the two old adversaries back into the same section along with crack Spanish outfit Villareal and relative unknowns Aalborg from Denmark. It's a tough draw but could have been much worse as there are some great teams in this competition. Celtic's impressive home record should see them accumulate enough points to be a real competitor in this section. If they can improve their dismal away record in the Champions League then they will have a great chance of qualifying for the last 16 of the competition for the third year in a row. Celtic's first game will be at home to Aalborg on the 17th September. I'll keep you posted!

300 Point Fitness Challenge!!

Don't worry that's not the number of points we need to win the league, but it is the number of points you need to win the September Fitness challenge!

I was trying to think of a way of getting us all into shape for the Fall season that could be fun, competitive and have a prize at the end of it!! So, here it is....Between September the 1st and the 30th I am proposing we have a fitness challenge based on a points system.

You can score points by the following timed activities; They have to be continuous activities and at least make you sweat! Yes, Danny, any activity!

For 15 mins of activity score 1 point

For 30 mins activity score 2 points plus an extra bonus point for completing 30 mins to give a 3 pts total

Every 5 minutes of exercise after this first 30 mins then gives you another point, so...

45 mins activity would score 6 points

60 mins activity would score 9 points, plus another extra bonus point for completing 60 mins to give you 10 pts in total

After 60 mins you can still score a point for every 5 mins of exercise and claim another extra bonus point after completing 90 mins

This would give you a total of 17 points.

So if you played a full game of soccer that would be a 17 point event!....I won't count the half time change over as a break!

Simple! Are you up for it? There will be a prize for the first person to reach 200 pts, 250 pts and 300 pts or for the person who has the most points at the end of the month if none of these milestones are met.

I have estimated that it will take, on average, 20 hrs of exercise to get to the 200 point mark, which is roughly 5 hours per week. To reach 300 points will take a huge 30 hrs of exercise or 7.5 hrs per week!

I have also estimated that if you manage to accumulate the 300 pts of exercise at a reasonable 'sweat' rate you will have burned off 24,000 cals! That could be as much as 7lbs of weight!!

I will track my progress on the blog to give you a 'pace setter' and if you send me, or post, your points every Sunday evening i will track our overall progress.

It's all done by trust so NO CHEATING! Send me an e-mail to say you want to join in!

Pre-Season Training!

The Fall Season kicks off on Sept 7th! It is, basically, the Spring Season reversed. There are some exceptions due to field availability.

http://carsll3.d4sports.net/leaguemanager/schedule.asp

The league have added a new team to the men's B division, BridgeportUnited.

This means we only have a short time to get fit for the new league campaign, especially if we want to start off well. I'll post something later in the week about how we could all get fit for the season!

Tom wants us wearing white socks for the fall season and who am i to argue with his fashion sense! I've got my socks ready to roll....

Looks like we voted for Man Utd and Celtic to win their respective leagues.....good!

New poll up for this week.

English League has started too!

The English premier league started this weekend with Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal posting first day wins. Man Utd drew with Newcastle and are behind league new boys Hull! It's a funny old game. I've added a poll to check out what you think the chances are of one of the "big four" winning the league this year. If you think it could be Aston Villa or Spurs or some other team just vote "other" and tell us all why.
The Scottish premier league also had their second series of game this weekend and league rookies Hamilton are the surprise leaders having won both of their opening games. Celtic, the champions, are in third place having drew their second game of the season away to Dundee Utd.
Of course, a long way to go in the leagues right now but it's always funny to see some of the lesser teams, like Rangers, getting a shot at the top ;o)

No Madison news right now, hope you are enjoying a good summer and getting ready for pre-season training!

Scottish League Starts This Weekend!

I know most of you will not care one bit but the Scottish Premier League starts it's new season 08/09 this weekend. Celtic play St Mirren on Sunday and are aiming to win the league for the 4th consecutive time! Their biggest rivals, Rangers, have been knocked out of Europe already and are desperate to win the league to keep their disgruntled, and largely ugly, fan base happy. Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hearts and Motherwell seem to be the perennial "also rans" in this league but you never know, one of them may have a good enough run to pip Rangers to second spot. I will give you selected highlights of Celtic's progress as the season starts.

I have added a poll to see if you can predict who will win the Scottish Premier League, go ahead and vote!

In other news.....congratulations to Jody, or as we should now call him, Tenbrinhosa, for winning the midfielder of the summer season vote with a narrow one point victory of Roniildo! Fribeca came in third even though he did not vote for himself......

Let's All Be Brazilian!

Just as a follow up to the game we played at the weekend against the "Brazilian select". I've often wondered if the great names their players have, help them play better football. You know, Pele, Zico, Kaka, Rivaldo, Cafu, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. So many great "one name" players compared to our team. Well, we have "Carlito" but the rest is just a collection of Ron's and Rob's. So my bro found a great website that converts your name to a Brazilian name!

http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

I put a few of our players names in and maybe you can guess who they are:

Gito
Tenbrinhosa
Houstisco
Jacquisco
Abbasson
Ronniildo
Adnanisco
Tinho
Barbhino Santos

How could we possibly be beaten with a line up like that?

One day left to vote.....it's getting close now!!

MATCH REPORT: Brazil 5 Madison 5

The old adage about football being a game of two halves was never truer after this away game on Sunday. A game packed full of twists and turns started of with a surprise when it became obvious that it was not Clinton we were going to play but a Brazilian select! And after 30 mins of the game you could have easily convinced me it was the actual Brazil team as they swept into a 4-0 lead. Rapid passing and swift attacks straight down the middle of the field easily beat the well practised Madison offside trap, even though at least one of the goals looked remarkably offside. Even with the majority of possession going to Brazil, the Madison team did come up with a few great counter attacks; Ronnie hit the post with a ripping shot and Carlito looked a certainty to score when he was one on one with the goalie but, both chances came to naught. The half time whistle was a huge relief for the beleaguered Madison team and a much needed break to allow the coach to come up with a game plan that could counter the silky Brazilian play. As the second half started Madison had a more attacking posture and actually put the Brazilians under some pressure with some good saves needed by the goalkeeper to prevent Madison opening their account. However, even this early in the second half it was clear that something had changed and a goal was coming. And sure enough, after a huge clearance up field from the defence, Sebastian latched on to the ball, raced into the penalty box and lashed a shot past the Brazilian goal keeper. Even though the score was still 4-1 the goal was a great boost to the confidence of the Madison team and it was no surprise that they added to their tally when "striker of the season " winner Jorge ( pictured above) scored a great second goal. It looked like a strong come back was on the cards now but those hopes were quickly dashed when Brazil slotted in a fifth goal against the run of play. With ten minutes left in the game and 5-2 down it looked like the script had been finally written. But that script was quickly torn up when a great break down the left by Sebastian followed by a great cut back pass into the penalty box allowed yours truly to volley an angled shot past the despairing arms of the goalie. 5-3 now and the clock ticking down, surely Madison could not come back! But that crazy thought became ever more realistic when another great spin and volley by guest player, Brian ( pictured above with a fan) smashed into the Brazil net. There was only one minute left in the game when the unbelievable became the inevitable when player of the match, Sebastian went on a solo run and thumped the equalizer past the unbelieving eyes of the Brazil defence. The referees whistle blew almost immediately to end a remarkable game and a remarkable come back by the Madison team.

I've not played in many 5-5 draws, in fact maybe this is the first, but it felt really good at the end of the game. This is likely to be the last game of the summer season unless our coach Mr T arranges another game. If not, it's been fun, and I'm certainly looking forward to the Fall season!

Don't forget to vote in the midfielder of the summer season vote!....Jody's the strong leader so far

Game on this Sunday vs Clinton

Message from our Coach:

Hi,

The scrimmage game is on for this Sunday in Clinton at 10:00. We have a full team but I am still waiting to hear from Jacque, Jorge and Stuart.

Stuart hope you are bringing the rest of the beer from last week and eveyone will expect it after the game... Thanks

Jorge...bring your son for this game and we can use him.

See you there on Sunday

T-

As you know we played Clinton in the league this season and beat them 3-2. Clinton have never beaten Madison and even though this is just a scrimmage game, with no points at stake, we want to keep that record up!

I've put the midfieder of the summer season poll up....should be a fun one!

Also, some clips of another great Celtic player Lubo Moravcik on the video bar