Soccer, golf deliver stern rebuke to myopic "sports fans"

First, soccer:

For those who remember, the Greek national team won the Euro in 2004, their first ever major tournament win. In what can only be described as a highly improbable run, they beat Portugal and Spain in the group stage, lost to Russia in a meaningless group match, then beat France in the quarters, the Czech Republic in the semis, and Portugal again in the final. My father happened to be visiting at the time of the final, so we PPVed the final match and had a nice heart-attack-inducing 2 hours together.

This year, returning as defending champs, they regressed to the mean and have already been eliminated from knock-out round contention, with a meaningless game against Spain remaining.

I've watched as much as I can, what with not working from home anymore and home projects galore (put the last of the bamboo flooring down this weekend), but I forgot this morning's early game because of all the stuff to do around here.

My brother called me early in the second half of today's Czech Republic - Turkey match though and told me I had to watch, the offenses on both sides were just going nuts. The Czechs had a 2-0 lead, but the Turks had been pressuring and pressuring in a highly entertaining back-and-forth match. Sure enough, after the Czechs had a shot clank off the crossbar instead of going in for what would have been a clinching 3rd goal, the Turks went right down the field and scored to make it 2-1. And man did they keep the pressure up. Chance after chance fell by the wayside, total craziness, until they managed to tie the game with 3 minutes remaining in regulation. I get up to refill my beer, planning on settling in for a PK shootout, and Turkey scores again!!! Amazing. Turkey advances to the knockout stage, the highly-ranked Czechs go home. The ultimate winner, though, was the fan. What a friggin' game.

In other news, this was probably the best weekend of golf I've ever seen. Tiger Woods (perhaps you've heard of him), in his first tournament play since April, sunk a HUGE clutch putt on the last hole to force an 18-hole playoff tomorrow. Why is that anything more than business as usual for Tiger? Well, mainly because he had no business being on that course. He has obviously not fully recovered since the knee surgery he had after the Masters, and
was doubled over in pain after every tee shot, and some of his longer irons - every power shot, really. If this had been any tournament but a major, he wouldn't have been there.

The shots he pulled off Friday and Saturday on the back nine, and the gutty grinding he did on Sunday, made this an even more compelling watch than his 15-stroke destruction of the field at the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000. There just are no words for this guy that haven't been used ad nauseum already.

I'm quite sure I will never see a man as good at any sport as Tiger Woods is at his.