Mexico defeated Netherlands 4-0 and earned a spot on the final of the U-17 FIFA World Championships. Despite the European team being a favorite to win the tournament, Mexico was superior on the field and has proven they are a world-class team. They will play the winner of the Brazil-Turkey semifinal on Sunday.

Mexico expected a lot from this team given their performance in the matches prior to the start of the tournament and they have delivered. Two players, Carlos Vela and Giovani Dos Santos, opened the eyes of many during their stay in Peru. Dos Santos already plays for the Barcelona FC youth team and they have expressed an interest in Vela as well. This is the future of Mexican soccer and one can only hope they continue to improve their skills.

update: adding a couple of links about the game (1,2,español). On the other semifinal, Turkey tied the game after being 3 goals down but it was not enough as Brazil scored one more before the end of the match. Mexico vs. Brazil play Sunday afternoon.

The hottest ticket in town for this weekend is the ASU-USC football game and Sun Devil stadium is nearly sold out, despite being a 12:30pm game. Two of the most powerful offenses in the game are attracting a lot of attention, to the point that ESPN decided to come to Tempe for its College GameDay show. Yes, defense might win championships but offense brings people to the game.

Given that we don’t have any tickets today, Sarah has to work that afternoon and we are doing our long run (10 miles) earlier that morning, I think I will be watching the game on ABC and from the comfort of my couch. Of course, I will be wearing my gold and maroon!

update: USC won 38-28 and will remain the #1 team in the country for yet another week. Three quarters are not good enough to beat USC, even they were had an off night, as ASU found out today. The game was much closer than the final 10 point difference would lead you to believe but close is not enough. It was an entertaining game despite neither team playing to their full potential.

Once in a while sports are more than just a game and tragically sometimes we are reminded those athletes are human as well.

We went to our running group meeting at 6:30am for our weekly long run. The nice thing about it is that they setup aid station(s) through the route which makes a difference when you are going for a few miles. So today we went for a nice 9 mile jog which put me over the 1 hour running mark. I ran the route with the group for the majority of the 9 miles in 1:15:00 which keeps me within my ~8 – 8:30 minute pace.

We went to go get breakfast afterwards and came home to crash! We are now laughing because I really don’t remember when it was the last time that I ran 9 miles just for the fun of it. This is about 1/3 of the 26 miles and I feel good about where I am today as far as my fitness. I have 3.5 months to knock out the remaining 18 miles ;o)

This morning I was on the phone with my good friend Shane and his wife Suzana who live in Houston. I was curious to know what their plans for dealing with Rita and I wanted to make sure they were ok. Their story is not different than what you are hearing on the media, they tried to leave the city but couldn’t. They have a car, they have the resources and the willingness to leave the city but the logistics were too much to handle.

They tried to evacuate yesterday. They were on the road for 10 hours and had only travelled 45 miles from their house (see the map). With little gas left, they found a gas station which had gas available and had to wait for 4 hours and luckily were able to get some gas before it could run out. 14 hours into the adventure and only a few miles away from home, they decided to return back home and ride out the storm there. It took them 30 minutes to get back to their house!

This is not just their story though, this is the exact same situation that a lot of people are in. It appears the system has failed again by not providing the logistics necessary to evacuate 4 million people in such a short span of time. I am not saying this is something easy to accomplish but I would’ve imagined some lessons were learned during Katrina but does not look like they were executed to help people from Houston and nearby cities.

Shane and Suzana, our best wishes are with you and please stay safe.

update: I have been chatting with Shane over IM and he sent me some photos from last night and one that he took this morning sitting there on his boxers.

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