A Tale of Two Headers (7/5)

Great leaping header for the win

OCEANSIDE HARBOR BEACH, CA - In a match that finally woke host 1A-Germany up when 1B-Spain took the lead in the second half, GER finally tied it in the 89' and had a couple chances in stoppage time but couldn't find the game-winner.  ESP took advantage of a great leaping header in the 119' to go ahead 2-1 but GER had a great close header opportunity in the final minute but it went wide sending ESP to the semifinals.  GER had 23 shots (20 of them in the second half and extra time) while ESP had 18 shots (10 after halftime).  ESP stepped off the gas after going ahead and it almost cost them.

2D-France once again failed to score but so did 1F-Portugal (for the third straight match) as the match went to penalty shootout.  Both teams scored on their first two tries but a wide left by POR left the door open and FRA went on to win 5-3.  After making 3 straight saves in the last match in the PSO, POR's GK couldn't stop any of the five FRA attempts.

Busy Oceanside Harbor Beach

In the two big matchups between favorites, lots of entries had a big stake on the outcomes.  31 had ESP making the semifinals and 49 had FRA.  24 went 2-0 while two went 0-2 (Soccer Guru and Il Vecchio).  A new leader has emerged as Merman is now in first with 90 points.  Danglish is now in last with 67 pts.

However, it's Kds911-3 and Luis Enrique's Armada with the best chance to win the pool (28.1% each) and win money (43.8%) and both have ESP as their champion (both tied for 2nd with 89 pts).  They will be forever tied as both also have 7 goals as their tiebreaker. Goleador (2nd-T) also has a 43.8% chance to win money.  The two matches cut our number of entries to win money from 40 to 24 and cut the number of entries who could win the pool in half (20 to 10).

BigRedMessi 3 (2nd), Blue Frogs (3rd), El Matador (3rd), and Rainman (2nd) are tied for 7th but can't win the pool while Azurri di Hermosa is tied for 39th but can still win the pool.  Germany Minus One (GER champ) and Salah (POR champ) are tied for 7th but are eliminated while BigRedMessi 2 (NED champ) is tied for 48th but can still finish 2nd.  

Canada wins on PKs!

Well, maybe I should have worn a GER shirt as my FRA and CAN shirts produced victories for those countries.  My Germany Minus One had a good run but went from best chance to win money to eliminated in one GER loss :-(  I wore my authentic 2024 FRA home jersey with great enlarged rooster on a beautiful blue jersey at Oceanside Harbor Beach near our AirBNB.  BTW, our AirBNB in Fallbrook, CA is always cycling through power causing loud shrieking smoke alarms to go off at 4:30 am.  Of course, the owner denies anything was wrong even when seeing the video and kids woken up.  But between brownouts (their solar battery is severely conflicting with power balance and we get dimmed lights every so often like a ghost is walking through the house), we did get to see Canada (wearing my 2021 women's home jersey) beat Venezuela to advance to the Copa semifinals.  Canada.  They better fire Gregg Berhalter fast, that's embarrassing.  I'm writing this as we have turned off anything electric within reason (meaning no A/C) and we still get weird power fluctuations.  Sigh....