There would be five soccer matches to be broadcast again. I went downstairs to the living room to start watching the first one on big screen. Croatia was part of former Yugoslavia and players from that region are very skillful. Turkey is a country across Europe and Asia but its soccer association belongs to UEFA, so they always have chance to participate higher level competitions. Medoric who plays for Real Madrid as a regular starter scored a decisive volley out of penalty box and Croatia held the lead until the end of the match.
Poland owns star striker Lewandowski but he didn't perform very well in the following match. Milik who played for Ajax scored a goal. Northern Ireland made several opportunities but were all called off by Polish defenders and keeper.
The third match was supposed to be a charm but Germany National Team performed mediocrely. After scoring a header, they didn't have many flashing points. Ukraine almost scored twice if Boateng hadn't saved the first one on the goal line and one Ukraine player had backwarded several steps to avoid the offside. Ozel was an attacking midfielder who played fine but Schweinsteiger hadn't played until the last 10 minutes. He was more like a holding midfielder. Without him, it's much easier for Ukraine players going through the midfield to pressure the defenders. The match getting into the extra time, Ozel made a perfect cross to have the ball bounce onto Schweinsteiger's right foot to score the 2nd goal. Muller is one of my favorable players but he didn't perform productively and accurately as he usually can do.
Again, figuring out the window being wide enough, I drove to the gym to work out for an hour. When I sat back into my van, I was totally sweaty. The sky became completely clear today and hopefully the nice weather would be kept for the whole week because two Copa Centenario matches would be played at Centurylink Field.
Missing the first 20 minutes of the match between Ecuador and Haiti, I caught the rest of the first half, then went to the bathroom to take shower. Coming back to my bedroom to keep watching, I witnessed Ecuador to win 4 to 0 over Haiti at the end. Their fate became very certain to advance as 2nd placed team to the quarterfinal to face USA in Seattle.
It's not a totally surprise that Brazil still couldn't secure a spot in quarterfinal before the last match at group stage. They didn't send most of their best 11 starters to this tournament while others did such as Argentina and Mexico. During the halftime break, I went downstair to have fresh fish head soup my mom just cooked for dinner. It's very delicious because the ling cod fish head was given by our neighbor Joanne on the right. She and her boyfriend Darin went out to fish this morning and apparently came back with full of joys.
Though I wasn't impressed by Brazilians' performance in this tournament, I still would expect them to advance. Unfortunately, a handball by a Peruvian broke their dream. Brazil National Team being eliminated at group stage in any tournament is always a shock anyway.
My son had asked me to take him to watch X-men Apocalypse. Right after the match, we drove out to AMC Theater to catch the show at 8:10 PM. When we sat into the auditorium, it's already 8:20 PM but fortunately the movie hadn't started. It's a very entertaining sequel with amazing special effects and the story was relatively sophisticated. I liked the connection between Ancient Egypt and X-men. A group of teens sitting at the back were very disturbing, they kept whispering each other and walked in and out frequently. This rarely happened in this theater. However, they just distracted us a little bit, so we didn't say anything.
It's a very joyful weekend: 10 soccer matches and 1 wonderful movie, what else could I expect?
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