Author: Jonathan

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USA women’s soccer qualifies

As the reigning World Cup Champions and the dominant team right now in women’s soccer, there was little doubt that the USA women’s team would qualify. However, one of the interesting things about sport is you still have to play the games to win, and anything can happen.

What happened? The USA women scored a total 25 goals in 5 matches, compared to zero from their opponents. They beat Mexico 4 – 0 in the semifinals to officially qualify, and then beat Canada 3 – 0 in the finals to win the tournament.

Let’s hope they continue their winning ways and we get to see them in the finals in Tokyo.

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Meeting last week’s ticket challenge

Getting a low number in the queue is always the challenge when tickets first go on sale. Since tickets are limited the most desired tickets go early. Without getting too specific, we had multiple computers with multiple browsers up and running, as well as phones and tablets. Our lowest queue position was 250 and our highest was around 8000.

We were able to get tickets to the Women’s Soccer Finals. The closing ceremonies were finally available, but at a price above $2000 per ticket, we decided to pass. We do have a budget after all. Although we were interested in judo, the prices were also very high, so we decided to pass on that too. Today was successful though, as we purchased one of the few remaining events were targeting.

Note: This is a modified re-post because a strange blog setting caused my blog to roll back several edits. 
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CONCACAF Women’s Olympics Qualification

The field is set for the elimination rounds of the CONCACAF Women’s Olympics Qualification. The US won the Group A pool by going undefeated, scoring 18 goals in three matches and holding their opponents scoreless. Costa Rica finished second, losing only to the US. Canada won Group B, scoring a whooping 22 goals and also holding their opponents scoreless. Mexico finished second, losing one match.

The semifinals will be USA versus Mexico, and Canada versus Costa Rica. The winners of the semifinals will be the CONCACAF qualifiers for the Tokyo 2020 games. LA folks, you can go to this tournament at the Dignity Health Sports Park (formerly StubHub Center formerly Home Depot Center) in Carson.

Ticket prices range from $25 to $250 for both semifinals matches on February 7, and then again $25 to $250 for the finals match on February 9.
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Sport spotlight – men’s cycling

People that know me know I’m a big fan of cycling. Here’s a picture of me in the Tour de France King of the Mountain jersey in 2000.

2000 California AIDS Ride, Day 4

Pretty cool, huh? Context is important though, because that is a replica jersey bought in Verdun, France in 1993 (another time living in Luxembourg …) when a stage finished there. This picture was during the 2000 AIDS Ride and I wore the jersey because it was the hilliest day.

Interestingly, in 1993 in Verdun, some brash 21 year old American in the US champion’s Stars and Stripes jersey won his first ever stage of the Tour de France. His name was Lance Armstrong. I was so excited, an avid cyclist and American with an American winning the stage. Then he had his post-race interview, and it was unpolished and rude, and I was embarrassed. From that day, I had a love/hate relationship with him.

Watch this long video with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, and look at the lineup of dopers! There is also a bit of a Verdun history lesson as well.

Lance didn’t win the Tour that year, and he wasn’t considered a GC rider at that time, but his time would come. His post race interview with Paul was pretty calculated. Lance certainly understood cycling even early in his career as that same year he went on to win the World Championship.

We have tickets to the Men’s Road Cycling event, which ends at Fuji International Speedway (the Japanese site is much more interesting). The course takes the cyclists from Tokyo, over some mountains (Doshi Road / Yamabushi Tunnel), over the 1451 m (4760 ft) Fuji Sanroku, a pass through the speedway, a run around Lake Yamanakako, back through the speedway, then onto the very steep Mikuni Pass followed by the Kagosaka pass, before descending and returning to the speedway for the finish. Cycling is a hard sport to watch, and probably best enjoyed watching the highlights. Flag to flag coverage can get a little boring. I’m not sure what the experience will be at the Olympics, but I am hoping they have lots of big screens so we can watch how the race unfolds. Otherwise we’ll just be sitting in the hot July weather, roasting until the leader or leaders approach the finish. There’s no way though that I wouldn’t try to be there. In my fandom, I’ve ridden the 1984 Olympic course in Mission Viejo.

Note that the route to Fuji Sanroku takes you on the roads that will get you to the Yamanashi 5th Station for climbing Mt. Fuji. Here’s my adventure from that starting point back in 2009. If you are following this blog, the Mt Fuji story is definitely worth reading.

The course and the profile for Tokyo 2020 are below.

source: https://tokyo2020.org/en/games/sport/olympic/road-cycling/road-detail/

 

People unfamiliar with cycling think it is an individual sport, but really it is a team sport. Typically a rider is designated as the team leader, and all the other cyclists in some form or another protect that leader physically and tactically throughout the race. That’s why it is important for nations to have the largest number of qualifiers possible. The maximum number is five, and unfortunately the US only has two. There are a total of 130 riders in the men’s event. Here’s the complete list of rider allocation per country. It is too long to list here.

Countries with five riders are:

Belgium

Colombia

Spain

France

Italy

Netherlands

Countries with four riders are:

Australia

Denmark

Great Britain

Germany

Norway

Slovenia

Switzerland

The qualifications are based on that country’s points according to the international governing body (UC).

The US determines its team either through an automated spot through meeting certain criteria, or by a selection committee.

Although I don’t have tickets to the women’s event, I’ll cover that separately as there are differences between the men’s and women’s events, and the US women are performing much better on the world stage than the US men.

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Sport spotlight – Soccer

Soccer, or football to the rest of the world, doesn’t seem like it needs a spotlight. However, I have lots of questions including how qualification is determined and how do national federations choose who will represent their countries. We have tickets to two men’s preliminary matches, two women’s preliminary matches, and one of the women’s semi-finals.

As an interesting aside, the 1994 Men’s World Cup  was held in the US, and I was lucky enough to attend two matches at the Rose Bowl. I can remember seeing Romania versus Colombia, and the star Colombian player, Carlos Valderrama had some very crazy hair. Reading about that game again, I also now remember Gheorghe Hagi from Romania and his 35 yard goal. Then, I was able to see a semi-final match between Brazil and Sweden. I had to do some research to remember the Brazilian star was Romário, but I know the name of the Swedish goalie was Thomas Ravelli. The guy who lined up our tickets for that event might be reading this blog – thanks Harvey!

Sadly, the Columbian defender Andrés Escobar was killed after returning to Colombia, allegedly as a result of an own goal he scored against the United States.

The Men’s World Cup is coming BACK to North America in 2026. I hope I can get tickets to matches in LA in this soccer crazy town.

 

For the Olympics, men’s and women’s team are represented differently. For the men, the under 23 or below U-23 teams are allowed to participate. There are no age limits for women’s teams.

According to the Regulations for the Olympic Football Tournaments: Tokyo 2020: 

  1. The draw for the final competitions shall take place in principle at least three months prior to the opening match of the final competition.
  2. FIFA shall form groups for the final competition by seeding and drawing lots in public whilst taking sporting and geographical factors into consideration, as far as possible.

The men’s pool will consist of four Groups, with four teams each. The teams ranked first and second in each group qualify for the quarterfinals. The points scoring in each group is typical of FIFA matches with three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss. The tie break criteria are defined in the FIFA Regulations for the Olympic Football Tournaments: Tokyo 2020. 

The women’s pool will only have three groups with four teams each. Like the men, the teams ranked first and second in each group qualify for the quarter finals. The remaining two places are filled by the two best third place finishers as determined by:

a) greatest number of points obtained in all group matches;

b) goal difference resulting from all group matches;

c) greatest number of goals scored in all group matches;

d) highest team conduct score relating to the number of yellow and red cards obtained in all group matches and calculated as per step 2 (g) above;

e) drawing of lots by FIFA.

On the men’s side, 16 teams will compete. The allocation is three African nations (U-23); three Asian nations plus Japan (U-23); four European nations (U-21); two from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean; one from Oceania; and two from South America. The North America, Central America and Caribbean entries will be determined in a tournament from March 20 to April 1. The South America entries will be known following their tournament January 19 to February 9.

The men’s teams currently in the field are:

Côte d’Ivoire

South Africa

Egypt

Australia

Japan

Korea Republic

Saudi Arabia

France

Germany

Romania

Spain

New Zealand

Follow the US Men’s U-23 Team as they prepare for earning the right to participate in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

On the women’s side, 12 teams will compete. The allocation is one position from Africa, plus the African runner up will participate in an international playoff against the runner up in the South America tournament. Asia will be represented by two teams along with host Japan, with matches on February 3 to February 9, leading to two matches to determine the final two teams. Europe is allocated three teams chosen by the top three European teams from France 2019. North, Central America, and the Caribbean will be represented by two teams determined by the outcome of the qualifying tournament from January 28 to February 9. South America will send one team, plus participate in the international playoff with Africa.

The women’s teams currently in the field are:

Japan

Great Britain

The Netherlands

Sweden

New Zealand

Brazil

Of course, as the reigning World Cup champions, there is a high likelihood the USA Women’s Team will qualify. On January 28, they beat Haiti 4-0 in their qualifying tournament. The knockout round is at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, CA, February 7 through February 9. Support the team and get tickets! 

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Handball anecdote from 1996

In 1996, I was in Croatia on vacation after spending about six months living in Luxembourg. There were not a lot of American tourists at that time as hostilities between Serbia (Yugoslavia) and Croatia had only been over for about a year (Wikipedia link – use at your own risk). IFOR troops were still in the region, bridges were destroyed, land mines were still prevalent, and damage along the coast could still be seen. However, a Croatian friend in Luxembourg invited me to travel with him and his family, so I did.

Zagreb, 1996

I first went to Zagreb and was given his brother-in-law’s parent’s apartment in a Soviet style housing block call Mamutica (mammoth), seen in the background of the photo above. While Zagreb was not damaged by the war, the people there were definitely impacted over the years. The basketball goal is worn out, but not war damaged.

While I was in Zagreb, the 1996 Atlanta Summer were in full swing. One night, I was walking to dinner at some food court near Mamutica. As I was walking I swore I heard gunfire and even something that sounded like a small rocket. It freaked me out a lot. I couldn’t imagine war had broken out, yet I know what gunfire sounds like and this was definitely gunfire. I made it unharmed to the restaurant, and saw that Croatia and Sweden were playing in the Men’s Handball Olympic finals, and Croatia had won. People were probably celebrating by firing their guns. I never was able to explain what the small rocket sound was, but I was safe. It is a memory that will always stick with me, because realistically I knew war wasn’t breaking out again, and no one else seemed particularly concerned, yet I couldn’t deny what I was hearing.

I continued on to the Dalmatian coast and had a great trip. An interesting side note is the only way to get from Zagreb to cities on the coast was via a pontoon bridge, as the regular bridge had been destroyed with explosives.

I hung out in Murter for some days, and then island hopped from there, eventually making my way to Dubrovnik before heading back somehow (I have no recollection of leaving Croatia).

Alley, Stari Grad, Island of Hvar, 1996

 

Plaza, Dubrovnik, 1996
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Sport spotlight – Handball

We have tickets to a Men’s Handball preliminary session (two matches). What’s handball? It’s different than the sport of knocking a ball against a wall with your hand that some of us played when we were kids.

What exactly IS handball then? According to the USA Handball webpage, 

[team] handball is a fast-paced team game that was first played in Scandinavia and Germany at the end of the 19th century. Two teams of seven players (six field players and one goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.

In the United States, the sport is commonly referred to as team handball. It is often described as combining elements of sport like basketball, water polo, soccer and ice hockey. Men’s handball was first played at the 1936 Olympics Games in Berlin as an outdoor sport. At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, handball was an indoor sport and it has been an indoor sport on the Olympic program ever since. Women’s team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

For this Olympics, there will be two group of six teams. In each group, every team plays each other, and the top four advance to a single elimination tournament. The NBC Olympics website provides more links.

For an introductory video, USA Team Handball gives us this video.

https://youtu.be/q6RcTHNlxto

On the men’s side, Japan has qualified for the competition by virtue of being the host country. Denmark has qualified by winning the 2019 World Championship, Spain by winning the 2020 European Championship, Egypt as the 2020 African Champion, Bahrain by winning the Asia Handball Federation Men’s Asian qualification event, and Argentina by winning the 2019 Pan American Games.

The final 6 spots will be filled by taking the top two out of each of three 2020 Olympic Qualification Tournaments, with the tournaments held in Norway, France, and Germany. These tournaments will be held 17 to 19 April, 2020. The selection of teams participating is complicated, so feel free to check out this Wikipedia page for more detail on the men’s qualification,

On the women’s side, again Japan is automatically qualified as the host country. The remaining qualifiers are France, Brazil, South Korea, Angola, and the Netherlands. The qualifying tournaments will be held in Spain, Hungary, and Montenegro on March 20 through 22.

 Please visit this Wikipedia page for more information on the women’s qualification.

Unfortunately, the US did not qualify, nor will they have an opportunity to play their way in.

The matches will be held at Yoyogi National Stadium, an iconic structure on the edge of Yoyogi Park. It was built for aquatics and basketball for the Tokyo 1964 Olympics.

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We have digs

While I was writing away, creating content for this blog, Tomo was actually searching for a hotel for us. Japan has a style of hotel called a “business hotel.” These hotels are very functional, offer little hotel services, but do offer a (typically) clean place to stay. In my experience, the beds are hard as a rock and the sheets are like sandpaper, but if you lie very still they are OK.

When we were looking for rooms earlier, we visited some of the upper scale business hotel chains we had used in the past. We found those places were charging up to $600 per night, payment in advance, and no refund. While that is better than $2000 per night, it was above our price point.

A quick check at the moment shows the price is going up…

Luckily, a friend of ours gets access to various hotels through his company. The booking period for the Olympics was just opening up, so Tomo was able to shop around. He started looking at lower price hotels at first, and saw some that were 14 square meters with beds that were 120 cm wide. For two people. 14 square meters is 150 square feet, and 120 cm is 47 inches. For two people. That was a bit cozy for us for three weeks.

After shopping for four hours, Tomo was able to find a hotel with rooms no smaller than 20 square meters (215 square feet) and beds 160 cm (63 inches) wide. The room was available for all but two days, and those two days fell on a weekend. The price was less than $300 per night, and although advance payment was required, it is possible to cancel with a full refund. Note the usual price is $70 per person. They are charging double in this period. That’s right, they charge per person, not per room. Makes no sense and one of the things that drives me crazy about Japan.

I feel pretty fortunate that we found this. It is conveniently near the Akasaka Mitsuke subway station that has two subway lines that allows direct access (no changing trains) to Shinjuku Station, Shibuya Station, and Tokyo Station.

This hotel is not available for booking per their homepage – only through this special access. A big thanks to our friend for helping out.

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The unaccommodating accommodations

We thought we’d be really clever and reserve our usual hotel (Hyatt Regency Shinjuku) one day at a time at exactly the day the window opens for reservations. We are arriving a few days before the opening ceremonies and were successful getting a room the first few nights. And then the first day of the official Games, NOTHING was available. Nothing at all at the usual hotel. We continued to check at EXACTLY the time the rooms should be opening daily and they were already all booked. We called the hotel and learned that the IOC had booked the entire hotel in advance for the entire period. So … there went our plan.

We called a few of the Hyatt properties directly to see if there was any availability. The Park Hyatt (of “Lost in Translation” fame) was very kind and recognized that we had stayed there before. They made us an offer to stay for the entire period for only $2000/night (excluding tax and service fee), advance payment, and no refund. To quote Kai Ryssdal, “Let’s do the numbers!” That’s a whopping $36,000. So, that’s a big NO.

The issue is definitely making the news. 

Fortunately, we have a backup plan, so we won’t be spending $36,000 (excluding tax and service fees) and we won’t be sleeping on the streets. However, it would be nice to find a room so we are not inconveniencing friends. Thanks in advance to the friend who has offered their home to us. There’s time, and rooms will get released, so we will keep looking.