And we're off

I'm not going to attempt to live blog the World Cup Final because it's soccer and half the time I have no idea what's going on. It would really just be a bunch of "hot guy passes to other hot guy", "hot guys hit the post", "hot guy scores". So instead I'm just going to say that it started and I'm excited.

In case you some how missed it I'm cheering for Spain. Not because I have any Spainish ancestral background, but simply because the Spanish boys are hot. Even if Nando isn't starting today. I suppose I'll just have to focus on Sergio Ramos instead. Definitely an acquired taste that one.

Viva Espana!

First Nando sighting of the World Cup

I haven't been watching as much of the World Cup as I had expected but today I caught part of the Spain-Honduras match, entirely accidentally. I had turned the TV on to watch Wimbledon and it was on CBC, from the last time I had tried to watch soccer. Turned it to TSN it was commericals so I turned back and there was Spain.

Oh good times. Horray for Nando. Though he's a lot less noticeable with short dark hair than his long blonde locks. Also look at the picture above and tell me Spain isn't bringing the hotness to the World Cup. Iker, Yes. Sergio, somedays. Nando, everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

And now to wait for October

In case you missed it the Stanley Cup Finals are over. Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Chicago win is important to me for only one reason, the Cup is coming to town! I probably won't go to see the public viewing but it's nice to know that I could if I wanted to. I also won a little wager I had going with a friend so now I'm just hoping that he pays up. I'm sure he will though. Oh and also Jonathan Toews won the Conn Smythe. Good times.


No more hockey until October, what's a girl to do? My own plan is to check out sexy soccer players during the World Cup.

I need a verdict

All right folks here's a question I've been struggling with for some a while. Cristiano Ronaldo is a an amazing soccer player, I don't think anyone argues this point. But I can't decide if he's hot or if he's just a giant douche. My opinion seems to change depending on the picture.

The man does have an amazing body and isn't shy about letting the world know it.And he sure is pretty. See the following example:

But I find hat when he's not half naked he's either

1. carrying a man bag (well he is European but still)
   
2. wearing too much hair gel
   
3. or making hideous fashion choices
   

You can find prime examples of these by doing a quick google image search but here's a couple to start:

So please vote in my poll and help me take a stance on C-Ron.

Athlete Crush of the Day

Alright I think you all have realized by now that when it comes to athletes I'm pretty fickle. About a month ago I had a huge crush on Marc Kennedy. Last summer during Euro 2008 it was all about Fernando Torres. Who could forget my love of Jay Cutler? And as far as baseball goes I think everyone will agree that Joe Mauer is super hot.

So yeah my athlete crushes come and go. This week it's Chris Pontius of D.C. United. Again I know nothing about soccer but hell I might just have to learn. I stole this picture from Kickette which provides regular gossip on all things soccer related.

I'm so very bored

Here I am on vacation with nothing to do. You'd think it would be awesome but actually I'm really bored. I would nap but I'm going to see my cousin's baby in just under 2 hours and I'm afraid I'll miss my bus if I nap (I don't do alarm clocks), I've already read a 1/4 of my book this morning, I could work on my assignment but I just don't want to and as far as sports go well there is a replay of a World Cup qualifying match but really I just don't care enough about soccer.

1986 was a Good Year

On the heels of Rafa winning Wimbledon I’m reminded that ‘s only 22. This is a bit of a problem for me as my younger brother is also 22 making 22 my lower guy limit. However I’m also reminded that there are a whole lot of age-inappropriate hotties of this age. I’ve actually been meaning to write this for a while and just never really got around to it.

We’ll start with Rafael Nadal since he’s fresh on my mind. Okay so this is maybe not the best picture I’ve ever seen of him but he’s holding the Wimbledon championship trophy so that’s hot. He’s also a 4 time French Open champion and you’ll remember that the French is my favorite of all the majors.

Speaking of french here's another tennis player, Richard Gasquet. I'm not really sure what it is about him that I find attractive exactly but I think he's cute.

Moving on. Cam Barker of the Chicago Blackhawks. I always have a bit of an issue trying to remember how old these guys are come Christmas time when the Canadian Junior Hockey team is kicking butt. Anyway Cam is a good ol' Manitoba boy. He also played for the Medicine Hat Tigers in Junior. They were one of my favorite junior teams because I won a Medicine Hat Tigers ball cap from their website and they actually shipped it to me.

Calgary Flames goal prospect Matt Keetley. I'm not going to lie I had to do a smidgen of research for this one. I couldn't have more tennis players than hockey players in here. But apparently 1987 was the year for very attractive hockey players.

David McClure of the much hated Duke Blue Devils basketball team. I discovered him last year during the NCAA championships when I was doing hotness match ups. I don’t really have much else to say here. He looks way better in a suit. Oh he was my first College Basketball boyfriend.

Sergio Ramos, soccer player from Spain. This one I’m just a little bit conflicted on. I have seen pictures where he looks hot. But I have also seen pictures where I feel a little bit sick after looking at them and remembering that I thought he was hot. So I don’t know which way I’m leaning on this one.

I’m sure I’m missing a whole bunch of people. But these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

As I’m writing this I’m also realizing that 1987 was maybe even a little better. I may have to get around to doing a similar post of this fashion for that year. Although I will feel a WHOLE lot creepier about it.

You know I'm actually kind of sad that it's over

As has been discussed a length as of late I'm not actually a soccer fan. However I have watched an awful lot of soccer in the past two weeks. I'd like to blame it on there not being any sports to watch, but that's not exactly true either. Anyway now that Spain has won Euro2008 and everyone in the soccer world is looking forward to World Cup 2010 in South Africa, I turn my attention back to where it should have been for the last week anyway. Wimbledon.

Some things of note at Wimbledon. As discussed here Novak Djokovic lost to Marat Safin in an early round match which makes my taking next Friday off work so that I could watch the men's semi's kind of useless, though granted Rafael Nadal is still on course to be there. Andy Roddick surprisingly (well to me anyway) went out earlier this week as well. Oh and Mario Ancic is still hanging around, that's cool.

The women's side isn't looking much better. Ana Ivanovic the number one player in the world and Wimbledon number 1 seed got the boot, along with Maria Sharapova. So chances are a Williams if going to win again this year.

A couple more sports notes while I'm on the subject. I've noticed lately that I'm not quite the sports fan that I used to be. To be a true fan you have to follow a team and know the stats and standings. I don't know if it's just that I've lost interest in that sort of thing or that I don't really have time for it anymore but it's not something that I do. Yes I still watch a lot of sports but now I find that I enjoy just watching the game that I'm watching and not really worrying about what came before. Perhaps that's why I was able to pick up on this soccer thing and actually enjoy it (very attractive men didn't hurt either). It didn't really matter to me who won that last time or who was the favorite to win.

Never going to even suggest that I fake sick ever again

So some of you will know (because I have yet to stop talking about it today) that the Russia-Spain Semi-final was yesterday. The day before yesterday I was joking about faking sick so that I could stay home and watch the game because I had a horrible time trying to find a good Internet feed for the first semi. As it turned out I was home to watch the game yesterday but I really was sick and missed large chunks of the game.

Not that I can actually evaluate this but as far as I can tell Spain looked pretty darn good during that game. Now if only they can beat Germany in the final. And now for the fun stuff. I don't know if you guys have noticed but I've kind of become a fan of Fernando Torres. Me and every other female soccer fan who likes tall blondes with chiseled jaws and rock hard abs. Some people have issues with his hair, personally I just want to run my fingers through it.

Reminder to myself that change is good

I don't like change. I never have. When I was 9 my parents got a new dining room set and I cried. I've obviously learned to deal with change a little bit better than that. I've moved away from home to go to school, I've lived in 3 different homes in the last 5 years and I've started a career in my chosen field (I think, but that's a story for another time).

One thing that has been constant for nearly 2 years is my computer desktop background it has been the same picture of Novak Djokovic since about December of 2006. Last night a changed it to a Spanish soccer player. Obviously I'm going insane and I hope that once this Euro thing is over I can go back to being normal again. Or at least a normal as I was before. However given my aversion to changing my desktop I probably won't be changing this one for a while either.

For the record my work desktop is Conner Atchley of the Texas Longhorns basketball team and my laptop background is one of the windows backgrounds, which I will likely change now that I've set up my laptop for internet.

Euro 2008: Germany

As is often the case when I decided to do something like this I'm both getting bored and feeling pressured to finish before it becomes irrelevant. As a result I'm becoming more strict about what I'm going to post in terms of hotness. If it's even semi-questionable it's not going in.

Piotr Trochowski

Arne Friedrich

Euro 2008: Italy

Alessandro Del Piero

Andrea Barzagli

Simone Perrotta

Euro 2008: Switzerland

Tranquillo Barnetta

Eldin Jakupovic

Philipp Degen

Ricardo Cabanas

Euro 2008: Netherlands

Now that the round robin is almost over I guess I'd better get a move on and finish this. So to that end here we go.

Maarten Stekelenburg

Nigel de Jong

Robin van Persie

Euro 2008: Czech Republic

Okay so here's another totally unbiased post from me. And by that I of course mean not unbiased at all. I love Czechs, to the point where I even attempted to learn Czech once. It did not go well, I can't roll my r's. But I can say "I don't speak Czech", in Czech.

Petr Čech

Zdeněk Grygera

Zdeněk Pospěch

Michal Kadlec

Jan Polák

Rudolf Skácel

Martin Fenin

Václav Svěrkoš

Euro 2008: France

After yesterday's review of Spain and Portugal I get the feeling at all of the other teams are going to be a bit of a letdown from here on in. For that I apologize, even though I don't really feel like it's my fault. Anyway on with the show.

Karim Benzema

Patrice Evra

François Clerc

Thierry Henry

I've created a monster

Okay it's more of an I've become a monster situation. I've really turned into the one thing I would never be. The girl that knows nothing about sports but watches for the men. To this point I've been the girl who watches sports and maybe notices the men as a nice little bonus on the side but since I've been watching this soccer thing it's 100% about the guys, although I appreciate great footwork.

Euro 2008: Spain

So I'm beginning to think that no matter who wins this thing we all win from a hotness perspective. I hope that a certain water cooler buddy of mine who is off sick for the next couple of weeks spends some time watching Euro while she recovers from surgery. Maybe this will convince her.

Fernando Torres

Rubén de la Red

(as if that's his real name)

Iker Casillas

Raúl Albiol

Andrés Palop

Cesc Fàbregas

Fernando Navarro

Xabi Alonso

So I may have added like half the Spainish squad here but DAY-UM. I also feel that the "that's it I'm moving to Spain" tag will get alot of mileage in the future.

Euro 2008: Portugal

I'm not actually into soccer. I just like to gawk. But I think I make up for it in other areas, football and hockey for example, so I don't really feel bad about it. Join me in the gawking or not it's your call. But I think it's worth it.

Nuno Espirito Santo

João Moutinho

Miguel Veloso

Cristiano Ronaldo

Ricardo Quaresma