tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64161563372536083952024-02-21T04:01:37.714-05:00One Yank AbroadJordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-12408574351501120392014-10-26T08:15:00.000-04:002014-10-26T08:15:58.799-04:004 the Hard Way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I told you all that this would happen. I fucking told you! I said months ago when I heard about the
forfeit that there was a 100% chance that we finish 0,1,2 or 3 points ahead of
MIFK and what do you know? Karma’s a
bitch.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Mariehamn played a great season but now has no chance at
Europe next season and literally it’s only because their front office didn’t do
the most basic of tasks, registering its players. An asshole might feel it necessary to note
that this stupid front office mistake essentially cost MIFK upwards of
100,000€, but I’m not an asshole! <o:p></o:p></div>
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I scored another goal this month (keeping my essentially
spotless “one a month” goal streak intact).
That can only mean one thing…………<o:p></o:p></div>
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……………………………<o:p></o:p></div>
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DANCING BEARS!!!!!!!!!!! One for each goal this season.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> I just typed "dancing bear" into google. DON'T do that search if you are at work as it might get you fired. Apparently "dancing bear" is a term my blog shares in common with a porn site lol.</o:p></div>
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If you’re reading this then I’m sure you already know that
we improbably finished 4<sup>th</sup> place in the league. We were as low as 9<sup>th</sup> just two and
a half months ago. Hell, we were
something like 8 points behind Mariehamn going into the international break in
September. For the first time all season
though we were healthy and in the last nine games we didn’t lose a single
time. We also only conceded six goals I
think, three of which were in one game.
Of that nine game unbeaten streak, six of them were shutouts. It’s kind of dumb to dwell on it now,
especially if we qualify for Europe, but you have to wonder how good we could
have been if we hadn’t gotten any major injuries. I mean, Steven scored an amazing hat trick
two weeks before he broke his arm. I was
sure that he would score 20 this year. Timi
Lahti missed like15 games and Antti Uimaniemi missed the entire season. Antti is a top-3 Veikkausliiga left
back. Henkka is the best goalie in
Finland and he missed like 1/3 of the season.
Cheyne didn’t play at all until the summertime and he’s probably our
most important field player. It’s just
frustrating to know how good our team could have been if we had better luck
with our health. If you add in players
from last year who could have been brought back and helped us, you get a squad
that looks like this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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GK:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Henkka<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fille<o:p></o:p></div>
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Janne<o:p></o:p></div>
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LB:<br />
Antti<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jesper<o:p></o:p></div>
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CB:<br />
Koskima<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lahti<o:p></o:p></div>
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Karsten
Smith<o:p></o:p></div>
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Brown<o:p></o:p></div>
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RB:<br />
Keithy<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hoge<o:p></o:p></div>
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DM:<br />
Cheyne<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dafaa<o:p></o:p></div>
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CM:<br />
Kula<o:p></o:p></div>
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Grant Kerr<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pablo<o:p></o:p></div>
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Barsa<o:p></o:p></div>
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RW:<br />
Seba<o:p></o:p></div>
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Corni<o:p></o:p></div>
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LW:<br />
Seabrook<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nganbe
Nganbe<o:p></o:p></div>
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ST:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Steven<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jarno<o:p></o:p></div>
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moLASSEs<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is off
the top of my head so I may have missed a few guys, but that 22 plus our young
guys Miika, Ilary, Artu, Samu and Jontoo give us easily the second best squad
in Finland behind HJK. That squad could
easily deal with 6/7 games a month. We
made 48 points this year but with that squad and better luck we could have made
65 like Honka did last year. Like I said
I don’t want to dwell on it, but I want people who haven’t thought about it to
realize how close this team was to being the best VPS team in a generation,
maybe ever. In that sense, 4<sup>th</sup>
place is disappointing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s been a
long season, and in a way it doesn’t feel like it’s over. This year doesn’t have that same satisfaction
as we got last year, when we got medals after the last game and partied on the
boat coming home. Instead the year is
just over. Not much fanfare, no records
or history being made. It’s weird
because in America we have playoffs so every season has a more climactic
finish. Either you miss the playoffs and
there’s that moment of anguish after the last game you had a chance to qualify,
or you make the playoffs and lose depressingly or win triumphantly. Europe is obviously different than that. I didn’t feel this way the last two years
because both times we essentially had a playoff feeling. Haka had to fight until the very last minute
and VPS had a game that felt like a cup final against Jaro last October. Just the daytime kickoff and full stadium reminded
me of like a small country FA Cup final.
I guess it will sink in soon enough that the season’s over (I’ll be in
Asia for vacation in 10 days) but it has lacked that finality and that’s a bit
strange for me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve written
a lot of words here but haven’t really said much. Still though that’s all for now. I’m going to post one more time a bit later
this week. It will be a reflection of
how accurate my preseason predictions
were (hint: very accurate, obviously <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>)
and I’m going to post my personal Veikkausliiga XI, or really 18 because I feel
no need to be bounded to 11 picks. Come back
later this week to see that! For those
who want a sneak peek into my gift of seeing the future, consider this from my
blog post from August. Keep in mind that
we were on a 5 game losing streak when I wrote this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> Pretty much all of our last 9 games are winnable, and if we
were to win 7 of the last 9 (like we did last year) then we’d end up with the
same number of points as last season. This might sound crazy, but these
are games we still have to play: Inter (who have nothing to play for) at home,
TPS at home, Honka away, HJK home after they will have won the league and
played a Europa League group game, Jaro home. To win all of those games
is too much to ask, but we will feel that we are favorites in all of the games
I just listed<b><i>. My point is that we are poised to get on a roll similar to how
we did last year.</i></b> Last year after 24 games we had 32 or 33 points
- this year we have 29. So for all the doomsday fans remember...we’ve
been here before.</span>”</blockquote>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-55865874451608703772014-09-29T08:39:00.001-04:002016-09-29T02:34:32.286-04:00The Blog Lives<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I guess I blog once a month now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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September was a good month for VPS. We played 4 games and got 8 points. In the last three games we haven’t conceded
any goals and now we’re in a good position to finish top 6. It’s by no means guaranteed though because
our last three games are all against teams we’ve been miserable against this
year (5 losses and 1 draw).<o:p></o:p></div>
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This time of year it’s always best to play teams that have
nothing to play for. Unfortunately we’ve
got the opposite of that this year. SJK
is fighting with Lahti for the silver, HJK has nothing to play for but they’re
just way better than us, and KuPS are directly fighting with us for
position. Of course we can win any of
the games now that our team is fully healthy, but we won’t be favorites in any
of the remaining games.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Going back a bit, I have to mention that I scored another
goal! It was MAAAAAAAAAAAYBE offside but
I deserved to get away with one especially after this atrocity of an offsides
call:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-t7Ujc3CJ8BY1v_hFF_tW6y9nb3R7pdewbvhyphenhyphen6x6xkLSV1XbXGuFyn4wV454V9ycbJlgcnEuDsUB99jxeztpazRKXnHRjemZr2aS4SZilYjdKvDvdqrROO8SbAFJC3GGnv6kXPzfeqKR4/s1600/WP_20140919_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-t7Ujc3CJ8BY1v_hFF_tW6y9nb3R7pdewbvhyphenhyphen6x6xkLSV1XbXGuFyn4wV454V9ycbJlgcnEuDsUB99jxeztpazRKXnHRjemZr2aS4SZilYjdKvDvdqrROO8SbAFJC3GGnv6kXPzfeqKR4/s1600/WP_20140919_001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OFFSIDE?! On by 3 yards...</td></tr>
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Anyway, a goal means only one thing…dancing bear!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jaro</td></tr>
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To add to the others!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">KuPS</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jaro</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honka</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="131" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lahti</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aside from soccer I haven’t really done much since our last
break finished. This whole month I’ve only
been to the center two or three times. Staying home has only had the advantage of saving me money, but at the risk of my sanity. Also this sun setting at 7pm is making me sad.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week, I was completely ready to go on an epic rant
against the officiating in this league.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately for the readers wanting a laugh)
our last two games have been well officiated and I’m stepped back from the
edge. The only negative thing I have to say about Veikkausliiga right now is
that the season should be over next weekend.
I’ve played two Octobers already in Finland and both times I’ve been
forced to play on ice covered fields.
Those kinds of games are useless. The level on the field goes down significantly
from the late summer games and to be honest nobody wants to play when it’s -10
and the field is frozen. It also sucks
for the players because the risk of injury is much higher on a frozen field and
the majority of us don’t have long term contracts. If I tear my ACL because I tried to plant on
a patch of ice what will I do? No way
VPS or any other club is going to pay for me to get my knee surgically repaired
and rehabbed. I’d be out for 6 months,
have no way of getting proper physiotherapy and be out thousands of euros. And those are just the legitimate reasons I
wish the season ended sooner. I won’t
even go into the fact that I just don’t like being out in the cold or I get
sick easily or I’d just rather be inside.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgneQ331ur7BBRxrcbb75OWA6WzuGSYg0i2-HHJad0_Sa86QLdqwfMYxOfShwSH9QuJyB6wPmw7Y5pRJNdnCq-n2gPoQ8AVM6b71WMmW7JB_kaPUXLa2Q5pj-IX9zrBc2Osfg593y1xax28/s1600/5Iccxn6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgneQ331ur7BBRxrcbb75OWA6WzuGSYg0i2-HHJad0_Sa86QLdqwfMYxOfShwSH9QuJyB6wPmw7Y5pRJNdnCq-n2gPoQ8AVM6b71WMmW7JB_kaPUXLa2Q5pj-IX9zrBc2Osfg593y1xax28/s1600/5Iccxn6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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</div>
Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-20594446531571300652014-08-22T09:34:00.001-04:002016-09-29T02:38:49.865-04:00Back So Soon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFDLtoClJd9DgxeJuXmwKpf9IKatQxfSu1agXDCbWI7PJ_Gkbzci3mVKjDh8iFwTRHTSnErB4LmA3EA6CixZ0pRYycsPB0nvrIIx96JFqVfI2ll-GNR7WzTyQKb8i0gAhMJ-9oSr9Qm5bc/s1600/anigif_enhanced-11934-1393236096-2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFDLtoClJd9DgxeJuXmwKpf9IKatQxfSu1agXDCbWI7PJ_Gkbzci3mVKjDh8iFwTRHTSnErB4LmA3EA6CixZ0pRYycsPB0nvrIIx96JFqVfI2ll-GNR7WzTyQKb8i0gAhMJ-9oSr9Qm5bc/s1600/anigif_enhanced-11934-1393236096-2.gif" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We just can't seem to do anything right.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted anything, so I figured I’d come back. Our season has been a proverbial roller coaster and the past five weeks have been no different. Losing streaks become winning streaks become losing streaks. Players are returning from injury, only for another player to get hurt or suspended. We haven’t started the same 11 players in back to back games in months, if at all. Not a great situation.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYssJgU3eeRjnb5-B8qT8U_gw1iCjPU7VuTJMN4kvMjpgKXcgKG4eZFK5qxW8Xq_lBYUf6KN4SawwagpV-YPLfhBBqECf5naBmM-iT8NU1M6iySzYG6Aa767dMWEMogtAKHXnO_-9Y6o4/s1600/Untitled+image+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYssJgU3eeRjnb5-B8qT8U_gw1iCjPU7VuTJMN4kvMjpgKXcgKG4eZFK5qxW8Xq_lBYUf6KN4SawwagpV-YPLfhBBqECf5naBmM-iT8NU1M6iySzYG6Aa767dMWEMogtAKHXnO_-9Y6o4/s1600/Untitled+image+(1).jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-dba76af7-fde0-59ea-20b5-a1cea97a2cf4" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite all that, and all the doom and gloom of our supporters, we’re not terribly far off reaching our goals. We wanted to be top 3 to be entered in European competition, and because of the Finnish Cup situations we could finish even in 4th place and still qualify for the Europa league. All that aside, 3rd place is still technically possible. Pretty much all of our last 9 games are winnable, and if we were to win 7 of the last 9 (like we did last year) then we’d end up with the same number of points as last season. This might sound crazy, but these are games we still have to play: Inter (who have nothing to play for) at home, TPS at home, Honka away, HJK home after they will have won the league and played a Europa League group game, Jaro home. To win all of those games is too much to ask, but we will feel that we are favorites in all of the games I just listed. My point is that we are poised to get on a roll similar to how we did last year. Last year after 24 games we had 32 or 33 points - this year we have 29. So for all the doomsday fans remember...we’ve been here before. And to be honest, we’ll probably win the Fair Play spot into Europa League regardless of where we finish in the table. We may not win a lot, but we tackle very politely!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the Europa League, I’ll do a very brief post mortem. We blew our lead from Valkeakoski and ended up losing in Sweden 2-0. I had our best chance but hit the post. I probably could have done better, but then again I made the chance from absolutely nothing so I’m not sure anyone can complain about it too much. Honestly the biggest disappointment was to miss out on the bonus money and trip to Italy that would have come along with beating The Bromma Boys and presumably also beating Crusaders. Hell who knows one or two of us might have even earned themselves a big time transfer with a good performance against Torino. Losing in Sweden cost me and everyone else on the team at least 2,000 euros and cost the club upwards of 100,000 euros after all the expenses and taxes associated with the competition and prize money. Sorry Eero.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The past month has been pretty fun for me. I’ve actually gotten out and enjoyed Vaasa’s beach(es). I’m not a big beach person, but it’s nice to go hangout somewhere when the weather is so nice. More importantly, I’ve been visited by my dad in the last three weeks so the time has flown by. Despite the dismal state of the team at the moment, I’ve been enjoying life off the field. It’s the absolute opposite of how I felt for the majority of my first year in Europe.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Normally in my posts I talk a little bit about our games, but honestly we’ve lost five in a row and I just don’t feel like getting into all of that. What I do feel like talking about is the two more goals I’ve scored since my last post! Bring in the dancing bears!</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honka</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lahti</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To go along with the two I already had:</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">KuPS</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLf6zpvKioLyvS1iqRvypQWqX8kSYIPafldenA9Q00hnlfM-tkcp79qzmFXC4saTMDAkOMYHz6dbkNryUNmovV8iaz1L-N_7kbYG9jINFNiCaThMsBbz_oBOHhf2v1QBAR8HkrpIh4UPBK/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jaro</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all I have to say about the last seven weeks of soccer.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for my life personally, I’m starting to come around on Vaasa. Last year at this time I had already begun a countdown of days until I was leaving. I even packed all my things around the end of September and just wore VPS clothes for the final month I was in town. This year you’ll all be happy to know that I haven’t packed anything (except for my shorts because apparently autumn arrives in August. That’s assonance, asshole. Look it up :). </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrmV2d66Jnm7hNb7Y_MvB8UYbsf4cBVIfcIJ1cVKUntqrrzf3EAvpLFGtBpOBDusmyY2yEl49w82DPLbr9rPdYyC3gBxWYegP_MZNBCj-1NtSUxeAATFsCU-gBdoeplH8FZCwRXDjyor3m/s1600/ku-medium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrmV2d66Jnm7hNb7Y_MvB8UYbsf4cBVIfcIJ1cVKUntqrrzf3EAvpLFGtBpOBDusmyY2yEl49w82DPLbr9rPdYyC3gBxWYegP_MZNBCj-1NtSUxeAATFsCU-gBdoeplH8FZCwRXDjyor3m/s1600/ku-medium.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
I could even see myself signing a longer contract here assuming the terms were right. I’m not getting into what “right terms” means, but simply stating that I can happily see myself in Vaasa in 2015 and beyond. The only requirement is that I no longer live next to the biggest de facto playground in Vaasa.<br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So pretty much that’s it. Everyone can relax. We’ve had two great trainings so far this week that are specifically preparing us for the match on Monday. We’ll beat TPS to eliminate any relegation fears then we’ll beat Honka to be back in outside medals chase. Then I’m going to London for a week and coming back to what will probably be winter weather in Vaasa.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The meme (I’ll do a few since I’ve been away so long):</span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-39118141295392780362014-07-08T10:37:00.001-04:002015-01-26T20:47:13.197-05:00Jaro and The Swedish Job<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">...but fuck it, I SCORED! That's two for the season. Against our rivals Jaro, no less.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-14df8d2f-164e-3d29-15bf-fe617e4fd0c6" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The game itself wasn’t great, but we came through in the end and got the points. I said it in my last post but I’ll say it again, the team is finally showing that perseverance that got us into the medals last year. And don’t look now, but we have 25 points, exactly half of the 50 we got last year at the midway point of our season. All this without the left back, goalkeeper, striker or center back you would have expected to be our starters back in March. Imagine how good we’ll be if we ever get everyone healthy and can actually rotate our squad and keep all the players fresh. Haha who am I kidding? Everyone knows that VPS can only have 15 healthy players at a time!</span></div>
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We have a bit more time than usual to relax before our next game, so the team organized a quick trip to Tropiclandia for us. It was really nice and was my first time visiting the facility. I had a good time but it was nothing compared to Anthony, whom I think would build Tropiclandia in his backyard if he had enough money. It was a great time though and honestly people must have thought we were a bunch of oversized kids the way we were running around and giggling on the water slides.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhae4E8-SPDQX-6ShM-LDy1Bwh7tjMpTgk32hbcnqLFR7v-ZJahjEbo_JYWmWrx1KoqpFZXSMge3MXC-RD-MATbLH9raIYteZDLfUbq2R0Ph2vqAGhfihPNFH8UIVokNKB1eHTxtvLXvnJo/s1600/traveldog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhae4E8-SPDQX-6ShM-LDy1Bwh7tjMpTgk32hbcnqLFR7v-ZJahjEbo_JYWmWrx1KoqpFZXSMge3MXC-RD-MATbLH9raIYteZDLfUbq2R0Ph2vqAGhfihPNFH8UIVokNKB1eHTxtvLXvnJo/s1600/traveldog.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We head to Stockholm tomorrow to try and finish the job against The Bromma Boys. I was hoping they’d lose big over the weekend to Malmo and be demoralized, but instead they drew 1-1 and are probably full of confidence. The first goal in this game is going to be so vital. If we score then they’ll have to open themselves up trying to score two goals and give us chances to settle the tie with counterattacking goals. If they score first then they’ll be ahead on aggregate and we’ll be forced to chase the game and we are not great at that. Though we did overturn a deficit against Brommapojkarna last week so we could do it again this week if necessary, I just hope we don’t have to do that.</span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-29538085283595219442014-07-04T16:24:00.002-04:002015-01-26T20:45:39.356-05:00Europe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvGcj2FEIzgc6LreWhmYmrH0gzoNKTmNw5lROCwJ4uGJKUT-tX5D7OBkHaBu-RcvYaAgvghe6xvFGAIm2B7cTVNILLz4C5CckcPdlZGqL3De5aKh0nT9zeMUCP3kh8zvK6Az5r1icj5u3/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-13473-1376582193-17.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvGcj2FEIzgc6LreWhmYmrH0gzoNKTmNw5lROCwJ4uGJKUT-tX5D7OBkHaBu-RcvYaAgvghe6xvFGAIm2B7cTVNILLz4C5CckcPdlZGqL3De5aKh0nT9zeMUCP3kh8zvK6Az5r1icj5u3/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-13473-1376582193-17.gif" height="288" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giraffes fighting is like people on acid.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or I guess I should say we’re winning.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We played our first game of the Europa League first round yesterday and came away with a 2-1 victory. It was a hard fought win, but in the end I think we deserved to win and honestly should have scored one or two more. We also should have had a great chance to score a goal at the very end of the game when I was played through on goal. I was clean in, but slowed down anticipating that the ball would bounce up a bit. Instead, the pass skidded on the turf and put me on a desperate chase. Fortunately though I made it to the ball just in time before being cleaned out by the goalkeeper. My foot got caught awkwardly under the ‘keeper and I went down with a lot of pain. Unfortunately, the referee saw nothing wrong with this obvious foul and didn’t call anything, or check on me to see if I was ok. This was terrible refereeing that pissed me off. First, it’s as obvious a foul as you’ll ever see in a game. Second, it’s a red card offence because the goalkeeper was the last defender. That would have been enormous considering that Brommapojkarna didn’t bring a backup senior ‘keeper and possibly would have had to play a junior ‘keeper for the return leg next week. Third, the double standard for attackers vs. defenders is infuriating. Imagine if in that situation the goalkeeper had got there first and touched the ball past me and then I had slide tackled him? I would absolutely be called for a foul and get a yellow card, if not red. If the referee didn’t think the goalkeeper fouled me, then he must assume that I dived, in which case I deserve a yellow card. But I didn’t dive, as you can see below. Besides, I want to score so that I can put a Europa League goal on my CV to give it some clout.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzQN_2P9pRR1_j_-Uu0jTqSrRLgbQDWlw736owq1374LZ1TbPPLQH3fy3LrdC-9vw-A6zaXWfGGYzAy_j6sMQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although I didn’t write anything here, I felt very strongly that we could beat this team if we put them under adversity. I was vindicated when we scored our second goal from a horrible mistake just two minutes after our first goal. Brommapojkarna (which btw means “The Bromma Boys” and is the single coolest name in all of sports) have been having a bad season and the team is mostly young talents from Sweden. Thus they are far less equipped to deal with adversity than a team of veterans like, to pick at random, VPS. I played on a similarly-designed team with Enkoping SK. We had a ton of skill, but no history with adversity. It was almost the same team that had dominated Division 2 a year earlier and we had easily enough talent for Division 1. But as soon as things went wrong they just compounded and by June we were just making up ways to lose. We (VPS) screwed up by giving Brommapojkarna the first goal, but we really got in their heads once we took the lead. None of their players looked tired until we scored our second goal, then suddenly they were all tired.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQJZm8LYpkvUmLC-iTASfLNeMdCyG37pMAdrTgkIIlUAwgvTplWoT9aTDw5F0XnetUmiew_xAlpqM2MFhDxXUOo0xAhHyOaTphbDThyTPZh-eM29kkm2Mg6fWR_FUEbV-oUjv4eAGqE6e/s1600/Bbj2vLC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQJZm8LYpkvUmLC-iTASfLNeMdCyG37pMAdrTgkIIlUAwgvTplWoT9aTDw5F0XnetUmiew_xAlpqM2MFhDxXUOo0xAhHyOaTphbDThyTPZh-eM29kkm2Mg6fWR_FUEbV-oUjv4eAGqE6e/s1600/Bbj2vLC.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s America’s birthday, so I figure I’ll talk a bit about USA! Not the country really, because who cares, but instead about our recently doomed World Cup campaign. I won’t talk too long because this won’t relate at all to most people who may read this. The United States both overachieved and underachieved simultaneously. The team advanced to the Round of 16 and only lost after extra time. On the flip side we only won one game. We were dominated in three of our four matches, only controlling the game against a completely out of whack Portugal team. We lacked creativity while our most creative players sat at home (Landon Donovan) or on the bench (Mix Diskeruud). We brought Aron Johansson over Eddie Johnson or Terrance Boyd, then benched him because he wasn’t as big and strong as the guys we left home. We took one of our best performers in the tournament (Kyle Beckerman) and replaced him in the knockout game with Geoff Cameron, a player having a horrendous tournament. And we put Cameron in a position he literally never plays (he’s a right back at Stoke City and a CB with USA). Despite all these coaching mistakes the team still made it out of the group of death, so that’s something. The fact that we gave up the most scoring chances (72, tied with freaking Honduras) and created the fewest doesn’t seem to bother most people. The point I’m making, and I promise I’m wrapping up though I could write 5000 words on this, is that USA got very lucky even though they shouldn’t have had to. We have the players to get the same results without all the luck. We should have been able to beat Ghana without a miraculous goal from a teenage reserve center back. We should be able to lose by a goal to Belgium without our goalkeeper making literally 16 saves. In the end, it all gets washed over because Americans care more about drama than results. If we won every game 4-0 and won the World Cup the team wouldn’t be nearly as popular as they are as lovable losers. Our goalkeeper Tim Howard is now a hero at home and the rest of our team goes back to their clubs honestly believing they did everything they could do, which is what everyone tells them but is not the truth at all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Off the field the mood of the team is really good at the moment. Players are finally starting to come back from injury, plus we’ve got a new player in Jordan Brown (or Jordan “B”, since I’m obviously Jordan “A”). This has been good for the group and we’ve been able to improve the quality of trainings which has translated into better game performances. The team is also showing the resolve that defined us last year. Coming from behind to beat Brommapojkarna was something that reminded me of last year’s team, where every game we ran wild during the last ten minutes. We’re getting stronger as the season goes on, and that’s great news for our fans!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHe2eBGkrjmOPmuwY0CyvczHsDxMfj5-Dt6RZPkMLL9WRmuj6x9FlMiu359hdK1aMYoCqV_q1skDh1Mzpuwd1DI2Nj6g2YnbetLlfHEQmaH71JH8VGaq4nQLZf5afUZlwRdhlkjQx7bnJT/s1600/philosoraptor-today-is-the-oldest-ive-ever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHe2eBGkrjmOPmuwY0CyvczHsDxMfj5-Dt6RZPkMLL9WRmuj6x9FlMiu359hdK1aMYoCqV_q1skDh1Mzpuwd1DI2Nj6g2YnbetLlfHEQmaH71JH8VGaq4nQLZf5afUZlwRdhlkjQx7bnJT/s1600/philosoraptor-today-is-the-oldest-ive-ever.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our next game is away to Jaro, a cruelly difficult and emotional game for us before our return leg in Stockholm. To make matters worse, we really need to get something from the game and we don't have enough players to trot out a B team even if we wanted to. Hopefully we get a good crowd and earn the 3 points!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The meme:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4PBB6tUC4Z5uYvhniB2XdWJY6sUAiHCtRMwts2TdSDaJSMoAic-a9O83bV-fJgfh_YQZf4OPgxZMa_DfK7Z-LxL60uWMlQCRH5ny4SQmJV9T5sgi3zuF-WjiAUgdSQ5jtmj-srObVVrJA/s1600/Epicdpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4PBB6tUC4Z5uYvhniB2XdWJY6sUAiHCtRMwts2TdSDaJSMoAic-a9O83bV-fJgfh_YQZf4OPgxZMa_DfK7Z-LxL60uWMlQCRH5ny4SQmJV9T5sgi3zuF-WjiAUgdSQ5jtmj-srObVVrJA/s1600/Epicdpic.jpg" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-52981271145261087102014-06-16T15:54:00.002-04:002015-01-26T20:44:45.047-05:00WORLD CUP!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s been a shitty few weeks. I feel like I say that a lot.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-71287941-a630-27b4-68be-94cfa1e8a331" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll talk about the games in a bit, but before that I’ll talk about life off the field. Things have been going well and now I’m looking for ways to better spend my time. Believe it or not, lounging around all day can get really boring after awhile. My nights of course are taken with World Cup matches for the next three weeks or so. It’s been a decent start to the tournament and I’m loving it so far (except for Mexico winning). </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicCYlEZGvncotpA7iqD1uan1C4LqLW6p0KNuXwfZUXPokZVNmHOnhfjk6ynWKoYXQpo8CyY29f3lg-IN-UtJGx4Kvfn1-tFezf3I-VAG3ACNNQGOmAGeHsyxkI1740lpfMjKJJ5sKOCxTx/s1600/onyewustare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicCYlEZGvncotpA7iqD1uan1C4LqLW6p0KNuXwfZUXPokZVNmHOnhfjk6ynWKoYXQpo8CyY29f3lg-IN-UtJGx4Kvfn1-tFezf3I-VAG3ACNNQGOmAGeHsyxkI1740lpfMjKJJ5sKOCxTx/s1600/onyewustare.jpg" height="238" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fuck Mexico.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNdGKwgTKelXOJNDm9x_R83B-LOT68NThJNYBl4UHYzcCCKZhsTpFd-xw0MOxAFZ1LFz4hRRKcKD3qcPztWjjN6OdBf1Fuvwf947Wjp_cj5H-6bPWgF-DdJnIRP56nSCZeQ8XAvu-0mUMz/s1600/soconfusedrightnow.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNdGKwgTKelXOJNDm9x_R83B-LOT68NThJNYBl4UHYzcCCKZhsTpFd-xw0MOxAFZ1LFz4hRRKcKD3qcPztWjjN6OdBf1Fuvwf947Wjp_cj5H-6bPWgF-DdJnIRP56nSCZeQ8XAvu-0mUMz/s1600/soconfusedrightnow.gif" height="168" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spain against Holland</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe you wouldn’t know it by watching me play, but I know a ton about the game and really consider myself a tactics junky. I love the World Cup mostly for the passion that comes through in every game, but also because of the fascinating tactical battles that the tournament produces. It is the only soccer tournament where countries from different tactical backgrounds are thrust together. It’s fun to watch the stars of France have to solve the puzzle that is Honduras, a team unlike any they’ve probably played in years. Later in the tournament, it’s awesome to see tactical adjustments or gameplans for teams that you only learn you’ll be playing a few days in advance. That tactical uncertainty, along with a ton of pressure, is the reason why the knockout round games are rarely as exciting as the group stage games. But I digress…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mentioned I had a bunch of free time, so I’ve taken to finding some ways to fill the days. The first thing I’ve started doing is some extra training on my off days. It was difficult earlier in the year to do anything because we had so many games and I was needed to play essentially all the minutes. That situation hasn’t changed that much, but we have enough players now that we can rotate our team a bit. That relief is enough for me to have the energy and confidence to get out and work on the team’s off days. I think the extra training will show. We players don’t often get to train our individual tasks much when we have so many games so the extra stuff I’ve been doing it pretty necessary.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In totally non-soccer related happenings, I’ve been applying (and getting accepted into) graduate schools. I’ve noticed that a lot of players here are studying while they play, so I figured why not me too? I haven’t decided just yet, but it looks very likely that come September I’ll become a “student-athlete”. I won’t be leaving VPS though, so don’t worry (or sorry, depending on whether you like me or not!)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Europa League draw is in a week, and I’m excited to see who we draw. I had a whole writeup prepared a few months ago about the draw, but I had to throw that out the window because we were told that our draw has been regionalized to Scandinavia and northern Europe. Before I go into who and where I want to play, I will talk briefly about my goals for the club and myself. The publicly stated goal for our club is to advance past the first round though I think setting a goal like that is a bit silly. The reason is that the draw could hand us wildly differing opponents. For instance, if we get past the first round but then lose in the second round to a team from Andorra or Luxembourg, will we be happy with that result? Happier than if we play Rosenborg and lose on away goals? The latter situation would be a worse result, but would likely mean that we played a much better game and lost to a better team. I think our goal should be to beat the teams from lower leagues, and show ourselves well against teams from higher leagues. This may not fit nicely in a newspaper, but it’s more realistic. To beat a Norwegian or Danish team would be great, but if we draw the 2nd or 3rd place team in Norway, I don’t think it’s fair that the minimum acceptable result is to advance from that tie. Anything is possible though and, last week excluded, we’re a really good defensive team so I think we’re ideally built to play a knockout tournament. Now on to my hopes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I really hope to play a team from Wales or Ireland. If we don’t get drawn to the UK, then I’d love to play one of the Swedish teams or Iceland. I used to live in Sweden so I know all about the clubs there and I’ve been in Gamla Ullevi in Goteborg a handful of times so it’d be nice to actually play there. I also assume Brommapojkarna(sp) in Stockholm would play in the new stadium in Stockholm (the smaller one) so that’d be cool. Iceland is on my wishlist in all honesty because I think we could beat them. We get bonuses for each round we advance so I’d prefer to play the worst possible teams and keep advancing if I can be cynical for a moment. Then I hope to play Inter Milan in the play-off round. Imagine that, VPS playing Inter Milan (aka the “other Inter” to Finnish fans) at the San Siro! It’s actually harder for me to imagine them travelling to Valkeakoski for a game haha.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibIvfbPbjO24EzX4KmCAd-V64ZOb1mhoqdFM2ARiFu4xzm8RL9nHlb9Om4k2dEpm5jL4I2TCKFXOdYMu1rDmv63zwzW4rzUskGa_kcWZqU1ZjWk_ZLCaY33a-S4D-3jNm_tyqzy1o2HmN3/s1600/After+a+streak+of+unsuccessful+posts+-+Imgur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibIvfbPbjO24EzX4KmCAd-V64ZOb1mhoqdFM2ARiFu4xzm8RL9nHlb9Om4k2dEpm5jL4I2TCKFXOdYMu1rDmv63zwzW4rzUskGa_kcWZqU1ZjWk_ZLCaY33a-S4D-3jNm_tyqzy1o2HmN3/s1600/After+a+streak+of+unsuccessful+posts+-+Imgur.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve typed so much by now that I simply don’t feel like going through our last few games. In short, we didn’t really play all that badly but just conceded a lot of goals and we seem unable to score any ourselves. I was going to go through all the tactical things that I’m sure no one noticed from the KuPS game and talk about what tactics we choose to use against HJK as well, but it would have all gotten quite technical and at this point I don’t think anyone cares. I’ll break down tactics after a win sometime instead.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This has nothing to do with anything, but today I got another example of old Finnish people charm. I was riding my bike into town for a massage and in front of me I notice an old man. I naturally moved my bike very early to avoid this gentleman and took up a lane to his left. He proceeds to try and jump in my path and starts shouting at me. I stopped, which I think confused him a bit and tried to acknowledge what he was saying but he was having none of it. In the end, I think what he wanted was for me to pass him to the left instead of right. It seems like only in Finland do I get accosted by senior citizens and reprimanded for my behavior in public. The only senior citizen I actually know in Vaasa is Taku Jokinen, and he’s the happiest guy I think I’ve ever met. Why can’t everyone else be like him?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lastly, it was Father’s Day yesterday. I called my dad of course and we talked for like a half hour like we always do. I’m really lucky to have such an awesome dad. He’s always believed in me and is 100% without a doubt my biggest fan. Scoring in front of him on my senior night in college and against KuPS last year are two of my best memories in soccer. I rarely called him or my mother last year, but this season I’ve talked to them quite a bit and I’m happy I’ve made that change. It may very well have a bit to do with my improve outlook on my time here in Finland. He’s coming to visit in a few months and I’m really looking forward to that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all, folks! The meme and then some dad humor:</span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-61051740818032441012014-06-06T08:29:00.001-04:002016-09-29T02:13:40.548-04:00Time for a break and London Trip<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know you’ve missed me, so I’m here to please the people! I'm even posting on a Friday, and you all know how I feel about Fridays!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgri7SFH17LtVxKEoz8h-diAF_DTXmjEPhjSH3ouYn6coZblm1AgrfwzzIvUjXvXsbLf0ME39sXLosXOJJ5PBQV48ZUrIPnzaRgUSxeXTemeGrmabxAEsSJJzPLepOIJTqx7-aYhurXm4pb/s1600/t4O1vJt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgri7SFH17LtVxKEoz8h-diAF_DTXmjEPhjSH3ouYn6coZblm1AgrfwzzIvUjXvXsbLf0ME39sXLosXOJJ5PBQV48ZUrIPnzaRgUSxeXTemeGrmabxAEsSJJzPLepOIJTqx7-aYhurXm4pb/s1600/t4O1vJt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-8084fa4b-70f2-4db5-b83c-62b155af6f31" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since I last posted, we’ve won two games in a row and didn’t concede a single goal in the process. We had our best 45 minutes of the season in the second half against Honka so the team’s confidence is high. We always seem to do well in the last game before big breaks and it’s good because it makes the break more enjoyable. Finishing with a great result also keeps the spirit of the team high and that’s been true into this week. Training this week has been as good as any week all season, at least since I arrived in March. People are getting healthier as well so it’s almost all good news. The only downside for me personally was that I got a yellow card on a play similar to this:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKDxmz0fgkROIwc-a6ULPH3SEgfHUNWp9STQIsYLV0hPWcIXwAbheGL8lxS-Hndm0iNKUZoW3NgxXQ3bM8VBF7v9Xq0Ba2Q8QEX6bR5_il3JThCNT_9cEyAv2rTUIvansiXkpeTqX-yGC/s1600/News+Reporter+Walking+Fall.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKDxmz0fgkROIwc-a6ULPH3SEgfHUNWp9STQIsYLV0hPWcIXwAbheGL8lxS-Hndm0iNKUZoW3NgxXQ3bM8VBF7v9Xq0Ba2Q8QEX6bR5_il3JThCNT_9cEyAv2rTUIvansiXkpeTqX-yGC/s1600/News+Reporter+Walking+Fall.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be 2014 VPS if an important player didn’t get hurt so now Timi’s out for months with some sort of ankle injury. Regardless, we’ve now gone over three games without conceding a goal. Vaasa is going to have to change its name to Shutout City Finland™. That’s assuming HJK concedes a goal sometime between now and the end of time. Now, I’m not going to re-hash the games because there’s not much to say, so instead I’ll talk about life because it’s gotten better now that the weather has improved!</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The weather is pretty consistently good now, so I’ve been out and about. I even made my first appearance at Vaasa’s beach! There’s not so much to do in Vaasa, but my teammates and I have been making the best of it and enjoying our downtime. The World Cup is coming up soon, so I’m preparing my house to screen the games. I have a projector and a screen, so I’m pretty sure the guys will want to come over and watch the games on the biggest possible screen! The USA games though I have to watch by myself, because I get really intense and don’t like to be around people when USA plays important matches. The fact that we’re probably going to lose at least 2 out of 3 games only makes it more important that I be alone for those games.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I mentioned earlier, we had a break for a week. It was a great week and a good chance to recharge my batteries and, more importantly, stock up on a bunch of cheap stuff that I can't find in Vaasa.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The highlight of my trip was visiting Wembley Stadium, one of the biggest and nicest soccer stadiums in the world. The game wasn't very good, but the atmosphere there was amazing. The funny thing was that more people were entertained by throwing paper airplanes onto the pitch than the actual game. We also were seated a few feet away from the people who started a wave that miraculously made it's way around the stadium five times! I got to see a lot of the stars that I watch every week on tv play in person, so it was a great experience.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The walk to Wembley</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stadium empty</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXeFNafTZOTLSntlfw9Yq5nV9QlEZ0l8EwMmFY6fC8Af6nZ8X79tAv3k1xHSNZV0jLl34SZTRWLGXELIKHbCkSTfjRWNXLcLjnIOEy3olOe81ENb84g3zE8p5EQalmtF4HuZYrzI-ObiFG/s1600/WP_20140530_19_56_20_Smart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXeFNafTZOTLSntlfw9Yq5nV9QlEZ0l8EwMmFY6fC8Af6nZ8X79tAv3k1xHSNZV0jLl34SZTRWLGXELIKHbCkSTfjRWNXLcLjnIOEy3olOe81ENb84g3zE8p5EQalmtF4HuZYrzI-ObiFG/s1600/WP_20140530_19_56_20_Smart.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stadium full</td></tr>
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I won't bore you with details of the rest of my trip, but I will post some pictures.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrWyjE7vsgWiDu1jaTWqSYm0zBXmxCj7P4vGgx4adQ7Ayzd4byQbOFBOhCtx7IfiNkrelfaxrR9wvYnEB_dcTEvFMKkbOBKA0-1R5EgG8Bj5874H1urrlRnuhs7npdXMoxm_GDD9Qqpz7s/s1600/WP_20140529_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrWyjE7vsgWiDu1jaTWqSYm0zBXmxCj7P4vGgx4adQ7Ayzd4byQbOFBOhCtx7IfiNkrelfaxrR9wvYnEB_dcTEvFMKkbOBKA0-1R5EgG8Bj5874H1urrlRnuhs7npdXMoxm_GDD9Qqpz7s/s1600/WP_20140529_002.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me with my man-purse</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Victoria and Albert Museum</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tooting Broadway station.</td></tr>
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After the vacation was finished, it was back to reality. I had to be at training on Monday morning, but didn't leave London until Sunday night. Unfortunately, that meant flying to Helsinki and spending the night at the airport. I was worried that I'd not be allowed to do it, but I wasn't even the only person sleeping at my gate.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfDEQQzaf59RE77zfwZi08GfXe5EF4HJz-gQ4KAPw0-5pMtLK5-ul-0v_yzJknNvAsyrHp_UREfYqiqypBqY6gYjIz7Yjqf9bjVlAEoUXUmp70t2Vy-tzG4hq2rNUh77w9Lz4CPpatX-f/s1600/WP_20140602_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfDEQQzaf59RE77zfwZi08GfXe5EF4HJz-gQ4KAPw0-5pMtLK5-ul-0v_yzJknNvAsyrHp_UREfYqiqypBqY6gYjIz7Yjqf9bjVlAEoUXUmp70t2Vy-tzG4hq2rNUh77w9Lz4CPpatX-f/s1600/WP_20140602_001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from my seat. It was 1am.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDXLRqdG01IyUXYGvKKPP3PEcFeGc6TUzyyMHNcnZFPwqs6CblaiE9cubDBZeLhh3wpSF2eA2JkgsI-ftAPsAx4azk913dlMg8gyTXvaqA4cALlZHTTLpRzGiRzq0rBwzmIpw8vazGwYRU/s1600/WP_20140602_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDXLRqdG01IyUXYGvKKPP3PEcFeGc6TUzyyMHNcnZFPwqs6CblaiE9cubDBZeLhh3wpSF2eA2JkgsI-ftAPsAx4azk913dlMg8gyTXvaqA4cALlZHTTLpRzGiRzq0rBwzmIpw8vazGwYRU/s1600/WP_20140602_002.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The plane to Vaasa. Like something from the 1950s.<br />
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I made it back in time on the plane in the picture and went straight from the airport to training. It must have been good preparation because I did well in that day's training and the rest of the week as well. Hopefully the good work leads to a good performance from me and the team this weekend in Lahti!<br />
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In honor of my going on vacation, the meme is a cheeky dog on vacation:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9Uv97ag5AtmLV0caWM8MS59CVFWgc0dZU3Qo4tRW0b-PQ1SSI9Q6bJaZ6GFB0bksmiIx5-ufGQgXje1ZEkupDeWPMhPjjE_FzghsS48wSogUYm-PjDhQ344UBgYcLUBVf2zZVEIU5Mqo/s1600/cheekydog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9Uv97ag5AtmLV0caWM8MS59CVFWgc0dZU3Qo4tRW0b-PQ1SSI9Q6bJaZ6GFB0bksmiIx5-ufGQgXje1ZEkupDeWPMhPjjE_FzghsS48wSogUYm-PjDhQ344UBgYcLUBVf2zZVEIU5Mqo/s1600/cheekydog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-41970145415145617952014-05-20T13:56:00.002-04:002014-05-20T13:56:26.533-04:00Fixture Congestion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I said I’d get back around to talking about fixture congestion in Finland, and now seems as good a time as any since my computer won’t let me add any pictures to make my other posts more interesting. All text Tuesday!</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-a56d89c8-1abf-085c-972d-09b1d9ed3817" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am really confused about the hierarchy of Veikkausliiga who has decided to put this schedule together. Everything about Finland flies directly in the face of a 33 game season, and I’m going to painstakingly go over a few of them:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#1 The weather in this country means that the season can’t possibly start any earlier than it does. We also can’t go much further past the end of October and ensure playable weather. I saw a story over the winter that this would be the longest Veikkausliiga season in terms of days from start to finish. Still, we have six games from May 6-26? We have potentially eight games in July? From playing SJK near the last day of March, we at VPS were looking at the possibility of playing 33 league games + up to 4 cup games + at least 2 UEFA games. That’s 40 games between the League Cup final and season finale. In reality, it’s 37 (plus 2 for each round we advance in Europe) for us in a 7-month span. 37 in 7 months doesn’t sound unreasonable, but that doesn’t tell the whole story because Finland inexplicably takes international breaks despite being a summer league and having only a handful of full internationals in the league. Add in holidays and we have a week off to start May, a week off to start June, A week off in September and a week off in October. Yup, a full month of week-long breaks in a 7 month season. That means that our 37 games are effectively played in six months, a rate of 6 per month. Six games per month is roughly the rate that Chelsea plays, but they have a squad of 25 + capable youth players, which brings me to my next point.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#2 The nature of the finances of every club in Finland means that squad sizes are small. I would guess that no team other than HJK will use more than 20 players this season. VPS only has 20 players anyway I think. With that understanding, why are we playing a 33 game season? Why are we forcing clubs with limited budgets to trot out the same 11 guys 6-7 times a month until they inevitably get injured? Why are teams playing three games in eight days, almost guaranteeing that the last one will be an awful game? None of it makes any sense. The best argument I can think of is that a 33 game season means 16 or 17 home games and more revenue. Fair enough, but how much revenue is lost by playing a game on a Monday or Tuesday rather than a Saturday or Sunday? We have 17 home games, but 8 of them are not on a Saturdays or Sundays (though 2 more are on Fridays). In the solution I will pose later, we would have weekend matches in the league almost exclusively.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#3 The League Cup makes absolutely no sense. We play all the teams around us twice and then play them three more times in the season. By October we will have played SJK six times in eight months. That’s not beneficial for anyone. The League Cup also is a tournament that demands that it be taken seriously, while providing no incentive to do well. We got a bye into the last 16 of the Finnish Cup by making the Legue Cup final, but we played three extra games in the League Cup to play two less in the Finnish Cup. Not to mention that the League Cup forced us to travel to Mariehamn and play an outdoor match in 0 degree weather. Even worse, the League Cup hinders teams’ ability to look at test players in a competitive environment. Sure you can have a few each game, but the schedule is often so full that there’s no chance to look at five or six test players in their own non-competitive environment. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In addition to all the previous problems, which amount to more personal preference than actual provable hindrance, is the discouraging of trying new things. Preseason is a time for a coach to implement a plan for the season. It is also a time to try new things to see if they work. The League Cup commitment means that from the beginning of February until the season opener there is no chance to experiment without A) risking a loss in a tournament that has psychological meaning if nothing else or B) showing your hand to another team that you will compete with in the season. I think this has prevented teams in this league from adjusting or evolving their tactics over the years.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last thing about the League Cup that I’ll complain about is that it prevents teams from going away for preseason training camp. I know that some teams still do it, but that is dependent upon them losing in the League Cup. For VPS this year there wasn’t a single 10 days period after Feb. 1 for the team to go away on a preseason training camp. I know a training camp abroad is not necessary for success, but of all the places in the world that you’d want to fly away from in a preseason, Finland in February has to be near the top of the list.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’ve talked enough about the problems, time for my solution. It’s not novel, just a common sense approach. Add two teams to Veikkausliiga (Welcome back JJK and Haka!) and play a simple round robin schedule of 26 games. For the non-math majors out there, that means that a weekend-only schedule would span six months. Throw in the same month worth of international breaks that currently exist and you have exactly the same 7 month season length that we have now. It’s honestly that simple. If I was in control, the top two teams from Division 1 this year would be promoted to Veikkausliiga, and the bottom team in Veikkausliiga would play a relegation playoff with the 3rd place finisher in Division 1. Now we have 14 teams. I’d also eliminate the League Cup entirely because it’s dumb.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why this would work:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Teams would have more time to train and produce the best possible product on the field. Presumably, that is the goal of Veikkausliiga, since it surely isn’t earning money. If that were the goal, then we’d never play on a Monday under any circumstance (the obvious exception being if the league had a lucrative television contract that demanded a certain amount of nights a week having games, ie. Sweden and Denmark). I don’t know how our game is going to go against Honka on Monday, but I can guarantee that it will be a game between two tired teams. In general that leads to worse games than those between well rested sides.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A schedule like this would also make it easier for teams to compete with relatively small squad sizes. When I say compete, I don’t necessarily mean that teams with small squads will do better. Instead I mean that those teams will be able to give a better effort in every game, rather than playing games in which half the team is tired before the opening kickoff. This is better for competition throughout the league, as well as for moral of the players and fans. To use the Honka game next Monday as an example again, I’m sure that each team will be using 7 or more players that played 90 minutes the Friday before. There’s no chance that those players will be 100% fresh for the game, meaning that they are more likely to play less than their best soccer. A 26 game schedule would not mean that no teams would ever play on less than a week’s rest, but it would eliminate stretches of six games in less than three weeks like VPS is going through now.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The elimination of the League Cup is so self-explanatory that I won’t even go into it further. If a preseason league-wide tournament was a good idea, Finland wouldn’t be the only country that does it. End of story. Even money-crazed England doesn’t force such a ridiculous burden on its clubs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m done ranting. Hopefully my ideas strike a chord with the people reading this. I realize that it would mean 3-4 less home games, but if you have a job you probably have missed a few weekday games anyway. The league should at least force Veikkausliiga onto TV here. Even if it means showing the games for free (or even paying for airtime, as MLS did in its infancy), a tv slot would at least justify all these weekday games and theoretically should drive up interest in the league and its teams. Something should be done though. Anything would be better than the schedule we have now.</span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-33333466969249123902014-05-16T15:30:00.003-04:002015-01-26T20:40:29.300-05:00Not Good<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our injury problems keep getting worse, with Lasse and Henkka added to the infirmary. We also only got one point from the first 3 of our six games this month. The fixture congestion is hurting us more than any other team, but more on that another day. And now my computer is causing me problems which is why this post wasn't up days ago. That means no pictures until I can figure these problems out [edit: pictures up]. The only silver lining is that we probably only have to get through the rest of May with the small squad that’s remaining. After that we should hopefully be significantly more healthy.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvKZh1uDxgXUWXdvdC011xRSTIWAWfzWBec_hbbYhu9sK10qDqjYb1dHED7AnWyIimQh4qgw-g93tOd5Auxj7cdIrPAiBlphMxQmKMoML7WNnheoIoxgLMPtUEgWIo2bQoDeWiHuaP8XI/s1600/2dd513482436e04a12ec78eb00a59ba5_XL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvKZh1uDxgXUWXdvdC011xRSTIWAWfzWBec_hbbYhu9sK10qDqjYb1dHED7AnWyIimQh4qgw-g93tOd5Auxj7cdIrPAiBlphMxQmKMoML7WNnheoIoxgLMPtUEgWIo2bQoDeWiHuaP8XI/s1600/2dd513482436e04a12ec78eb00a59ba5_XL.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve had a weird month, with bright spots but also some terrible low points. I played a really bad game against HJK, then a good game against Jaro, and followed that up with another really bad game against KuPS, though I salvaged that by scoring at the end. My inconsistency these past few games bothers me more than any fan might be bothered by my bad games. It’s frustrating because I was going well in the preseason and the first few Veikkausliiga games, but in the MYPA game last month I hurt my hamstring and since then I’ve really struggled to find my form again. If we had the squad for it, I probably would not have played these last few games. My leg feels better now, but I’m still not close to 100% healthy. I wish my body would have allowed me to show better in my starting role so far this season.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIBvrXUsX-qr54ION0Ks9e0cXVoBoa1i4MMejcWSBSQ0_91ictbB2sAyfqOyr7EvzTslgGSLl_x1VTp_KoReeGQoz7E-nEo3IeZ2Up109U5UAYVYH1woV5C-UGXMQRMMaLnvTTyxT4ao2B/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIBvrXUsX-qr54ION0Ks9e0cXVoBoa1i4MMejcWSBSQ0_91ictbB2sAyfqOyr7EvzTslgGSLl_x1VTp_KoReeGQoz7E-nEo3IeZ2Up109U5UAYVYH1woV5C-UGXMQRMMaLnvTTyxT4ao2B/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29335-1376582579-9.gif" height="400" width="262" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m aware that I’m not everyone’s favorite player on the VPS roster, but I hope people at least respect what I bring to the team. The KuPS game was probably more representative of what I am for VPS than any other. I played the entire 90 minutes on an injured hamstring, one that if I injured it worse could doom my career since I rely on my speed and a torn hamstring could take that away. I played 75 of those 90 minutes in a position that is not my preferred spot because the team needed me to. I had a horror show in that position and made mistake after mistake, but I like to think that I never stopped working for the team. And then in the end I scored a sloppy goal after missing a handful of chances earlier. For those hoping for me to go away, it's not gonna happen anytime soon after the last result!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXyJASlIWm1pvoST4_saPxK8koIYYOxPR8mK48yj2GyblAqi1ABTuS4klPKGIjaJxzo1etEWf_2Y54PWfejnZlFAlSlwdKRq3c87sbDJj_vm-Ap33cR6t2Qzlk5eoiMhg5zjh92d2HVVLR/s1600/19gg3ffeliktjgif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXyJASlIWm1pvoST4_saPxK8koIYYOxPR8mK48yj2GyblAqi1ABTuS4klPKGIjaJxzo1etEWf_2Y54PWfejnZlFAlSlwdKRq3c87sbDJj_vm-Ap33cR6t2Qzlk5eoiMhg5zjh92d2HVVLR/s1600/19gg3ffeliktjgif.gif" height="202" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that I got the 3 “Lions” medal after the game almost made me laugh, since I was as aware as anyone that my game as a whole was awful. I guess a goal cures everything. Being a striker has it’s perks!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Off the field, I’ve been enjoying myself this month. Vaasa went from spring to summer then back to winter since I last posted, but now we’re having spring again. I’ve stuck to my pledge to get out of the house more, mostly because I no longer have a roommate and just get so bored at home. It’s done wonders for my morale, especially when the team is having a rough moment in the season like we are now. I remember around this time last year we had a game in Helsinki against HJK. The night before the game we went down to some small town hotel outside of Helsinki and I decided to take a walk. During that walk in the woods I sat down (in the rain, no less) and almost broke down crying thinking of how much I wasn’t enjoying myself. The sheer length of the season that still remained weighed down my spirit. I sat there for like an hour listening to music and just feeling sad, like some emo teenager. I’m happy to say now that I’m in a totally different mindset. I just realized a few days ago that I’m 25% through my contract and I don’t miss America at all at the moment.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve also been immortalized in lego form thanks to VPS’ fans! I know I said not everyone rates me, but I definitely think I am well-liked as a personality. I also think the novelty of my hair had a big part to play in my selection to be re-created as a LegoMan. I actually bought three of them: One for me, one for Celia and one for my niece. I’ll eventually give the one I’m keeping at my house to my mom or dad if they want it for their desk. I’ve got to thank everyone who voted for me. You guys (or let’s be honest, with a face like this it was probably the gals :) ) are awesome!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHt5Wj0WsxSvK7L92HZWcem40toBa3mDR6UwHOg0uoTEHAFIuDsEizLBwmBmmBu9LMbmPFh3DmsaZy8H0cdSaws-l0rJ4KqEzaHNgCTZBSET_aXdiYy6b5F0EPqx8SLh4JeqX4pcOKK8dS/s1600/funny-Jesus-talking-followers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHt5Wj0WsxSvK7L92HZWcem40toBa3mDR6UwHOg0uoTEHAFIuDsEizLBwmBmmBu9LMbmPFh3DmsaZy8H0cdSaws-l0rJ4KqEzaHNgCTZBSET_aXdiYy6b5F0EPqx8SLh4JeqX4pcOKK8dS/s1600/funny-Jesus-talking-followers.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-73883015293207376012014-05-03T18:00:00.003-04:002014-05-03T18:00:45.717-04:00May Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s May!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For most of Earth, that means colorful trees and flowers and sun and great weather. In Vaasa it only means sun. It is freaking freezing in this city and according to my phone weather app it’s only gonna stay cold!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s been a few weeks since my last post, and last I posted we were in the midst of an injury crisis. I obviously can’t talk about our injury situation currently as we don’t want to give anything away ahead of the HJK match. It’s evolving everyday anyway, so even if I wanted to give an update it probably would be wrong. I actually got injured myself against MYPA and had to come off. Luckily for me (and for the team) we had a full ten days between MYPA and our upcoming game against HJK. So now I’m ready to go, as I always am. Fun fact for all of you: In official matches, I have the longest current streak of games played for VPS. Assuming I play against HJK, it will be the 43rd consecutive game that I’ve appeared in for the club. That streak goes all the way back to my debut against IFK Vaasa 14 months ago. If you don’t like watching me play, well then tough titties because I’m always fit! (Famous last words…)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had a free weekend and I took that opportunity to do absolutely nothing. I’ve made a decision to leave the house on every off day, so I did that, but mostly I just sat at home and watched Netflix and played Playstation. I’ve been playing a lot of Battlefield 4 online recently, and somehow I continue to be terrible at it. For those who don’t know, Battlefield is a series of war video games and they have teams online. I play and just get killed repeatedly. In my last round I played, and this is 100% honestly true, I got killed 4 times in 10 minutes by a player whose username included “Samantha1999”, suggesting that I’m worse at Battlefield 4 than a high school girl. If you’re worse than a high school girl at anything, then it’s a surefire sign that maybe you should be doing something else with your time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The past week of training was pretty good, though it was a bit surreal since so many guys are in various stages of recovery from injury. We’ve had our fair share of injuries, but it’s evened out by the fact that HJK had to play the Finnish Cup midweek, so they’re be a bit stretched as well. I don’t have much to say about the game really; we know how good HJK can be, but the group we’ve got have played HJK well for a few years now. We don’t have a fear of HJK that I think hinders a few teams that play them. It should be a good one!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bouncyhouse! Half of my childhood was spent in those things.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I went to the center of May 1 to enjoy the city. I think that May 1 is Finland’s Independence Day, though I don’t know who they got independence from. I assume Sweden or Russia. Anyway, I made a point of actually going to the center for the festivities this year since last year I got super drunk the night before and didn’t leave my house until 5pm. It was a good time in the center; I’ve never seen so many people in one place in Vaasa. I wish the center was like that more often. It would be fun just to go down and hangout. One of the great things about the biggest cities in Europe is that they have big markets or squares that dependably host a ton of activities. For a foreigner like me, having a place like that would be great. Anytime I got bored I would just head to the square. That makes such a difference.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJYX6e9SoKdD-iyAHYAfys5r6M1uQA30pvk65iToIsup6qhGuKLcTO4qGKvkJSyB9ERF5zVEYN1rw6GDKiR4q0jBCADZQl9d8Yalb3G74NyCNAOLox-Nt5eZ0sZojOEYrGMi-3fZ-gh7Y/s1600/funny-cat-professor-chemistry-glasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJYX6e9SoKdD-iyAHYAfys5r6M1uQA30pvk65iToIsup6qhGuKLcTO4qGKvkJSyB9ERF5zVEYN1rw6GDKiR4q0jBCADZQl9d8Yalb3G74NyCNAOLox-Nt5eZ0sZojOEYrGMi-3fZ-gh7Y/s1600/funny-cat-professor-chemistry-glasses.jpg" height="400" width="303" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-49255788337247986312014-04-22T07:24:00.001-04:002014-04-22T07:24:23.241-04:00Injury Crisis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post. Well, actually it’s not been that long, it just feels like a long time because so much has happened. We've had so many injuries that I guess I can say that even my blog had to sit out a week to injury.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since I last posted, we’ve played four games, everyone has gotten injured and Celia has come to visit. We even squeezed in a day to play with little kids and a meeting with the big wigs of VPS. Also, shit got real on Game of Thrones, but that’s all I’ll say about that so that I’m not a spoiler!</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-d39c67a2-891d-cb93-882b-ca485fc33f1a" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll briefly go over each of the four games and then list who got injured.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RoPS W 2-0. We played pretty terribly in this game and made almost no combinations in the entire game. I came on after ten minutes and played striker until the last few minutes and then finished the game as the left winger. Fans of VPS will recognize this type of performance since it was the mirror image of the early games last season. Injuries: Steven Morrissey, broken arm.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">IFK Mariehamn L 0-1. This game was pretty one sided as well. We had a good spell right after I came on and looked most likely to score in the last 20 minutes, but then a fuck up/miscommunication on my part allowed a MIFK player a free header and he scored the winner in the 90th minute. Injuries: Frido Nganbe Nganbe, hamstring.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBrBg9V02uWSUIX81YvD-e1HFiECS4E4UWyURhmTjQh2ChVMRwx7c6HJrSU08Adv6BaaKrbm1LYE1ldVGHzRksKigbFdva2N-vQbwwGblBnEzW_Jyobci-uWDGwcpuwUn_RHSZKAVfyRt/s1600/WP_20140413_00120140422141135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBrBg9V02uWSUIX81YvD-e1HFiECS4E4UWyURhmTjQh2ChVMRwx7c6HJrSU08Adv6BaaKrbm1LYE1ldVGHzRksKigbFdva2N-vQbwwGblBnEzW_Jyobci-uWDGwcpuwUn_RHSZKAVfyRt/s1600/WP_20140413_00120140422141135.jpg" height="258" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm taking pictures of all the locker rooms. This is Mariehamn. I can't find the RoPS picture at the moment.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FC Lahti L 0-1. Second straight game without scoring. Or maybe it could have been better classified as a clinic than a game. We don’t have the advanced metrics for this game like we get for league matches, but I’m sure we had less than 30% possession across the 120 minutes. We showed great heart playing with 10 then 9 then 8 players against 11, but eventually a set play did us in and we didn’t get the chance to steal the game in penalties, although at the pace we were going we’d probably have to pull people out of the crowd to have five players healthy enough to take the penalties. Injuries: Timi Lahti, no idea. Cornelius Stewart, hamstring. Sebastian Strandvall, ankle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TPS W 1-0. We got back on the winning track. A deserved win, although TPS did have 3-4 good chances. I felt like a draw would have been fair, but our winning was also a fair result based on the game. I played in my favorite role as a striker next to a hold-up striker in Lasse and it only took 5 minutes in that position for me to create a goal. I will readily admit that winger is my most natural position based on my skill set, but the position I have played all my life and have the most understanding is what would be termed as a “second striker”. VPS doesn’t really play a formation that uses that precise role, but we did against TPS after Jarno went off and it got us the winning goal. The closest I normally get to playing as a second striker is when I play on the left wing. It’s worth noting that 4 of my 5 goals from open play last year came from the left wing position that I effectively just took the initiative to make into a second striker role. Injuries: Frido Nganbe Nganbe, hamstring.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moving on to life, I went to see Steven a couple of days after his surgery and he was in good spirits. I’ve since seen him multiple times and I can relay to everyone that he’s doing well and itching to get back on the field. I don’t want to say much more about his injury as it’s his private business and not really subject to a public blog such as this.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In between the Mariehamn and Lahti games, we took a morning out and hosted a clinic for the 5-8 year olds of Vaasa. While I like kids and can reasonably handle groups of them (I substitute teach kid aged 6-12 every winter in Indianapolis), I absolutely never again want to deal a bunch of kids playing soccer. Oh my god what a nightmare. I was partnered with Jesper Engstrom and we couldn’t get any of our groups to play the (very simple) game that we were running. All I’ll say is that those kids were lucky they were so cute!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She said she wasn't posing, but we know the truth.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later in the week Celia came to visit and that was really nice. I haven’t seen her in months and that time has sucked so I was happy to see her again. We could have had more fun, but everything in Vaasa seemed to be closed the entire time she was here. I had made plans for things to do, but we ended up essentially just doing the same things I do everyday when I’m by myself. We did however have a long walk around Vaasa so I got to see a few areas that I’d never gone to before. I also finally got a win in front of her. She’d been to maybe 4 or 5 of my games and I’d lost all of them until last weekend against TPS.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While Celia was here, a couple of us guys got together to celebrate Keithy Simpson’s birthday. It was nothing big, just a nice little celebration. It’s so important, especially for the new players, that we take time outside the pitch to get together and enjoy each others’ company. I’ve embraced my time with my teammates this year and it’s made the 7 weeks I’ve been here thus far go by really quickly. Hopefully Keithy is enjoying his time and not having such a rough start to Finnish life as I had in Valkeakoski.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s it for now. We have a tough test ahead tomorrow against MYPA. They’ve had a good start to the season and will feel full of confidence. We’ve also had a horrendous time whenever we’ve gone there so any result will be a boost. If we get something from the game, then we’ll have 7 or 9 points from 4 games that include the three longest road trips. That’s the kind of start to the season that we’d have taken if you offered it to us last month.</span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-15263231719104430112014-04-12T07:47:00.001-04:002014-10-26T07:17:13.452-04:00Veikkausliiga Predictions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m doing a predictions list, and I have to put it out now because the whole league starts playing in 2 hours. I planned on posting this two weeks ago, and I actually wrote it on April 3 or 4, but it’s just now getting completed. I don’t really see much of this in Finland, but in America there are predictions galore. Hell, there are mock drafts for the NFL for all 200-something picks, even though no one in the world can be sure who is going to get picked 157 or 39 or 213, not even the people making those picks know until a few minutes before. My list is not going to be as specific as those. Instead, I will group the league into 4 categories: Possible champions, medal contenders, middle of the pack teams and finally, relegation fighters. It should be noted that last year I predicted that JJK would be relegated and VPS would get 3rd, though I also predicted TPS would be 2nd and Honka below top 6 (that was before Honka’s still-mysterious spending spree that brought them 5 new starters in a week). Without further ado, my predictions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Preseason predictions for Veikkausliiga 2014:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Possible Champions: HJK</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s be honest, HJK has double the budget and more talent than any other team in the league. I think we (VPS) can beat them, but how many other teams can? They lost their most productive player in Zeneli and a great striker in Pojonpalo(sp), but they replaced those spots with Alho(Aho?...the black guy) and Forsell, so I don’t think they’re too stressed right now. The championships streak has to end sometime, but it won’t be 2014.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Medal Contenders: VPS, KuPS, Inter, IFK Mariehamn</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think VPS will be #2 this year, simply because I think we’re slightly stronger than last year and our competitors are slightly weaker. Simple as that. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">KuPS is something of a dark horse. They apparently have tons of money and every year they seem like they should be one of the best teams, but inevitably end up finishing 7th. I think if they start well enough to actually care about the last 15 games, then they can finish in the medals.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inter had a bad year last year, but they got Ojala back and that’s a big deal. His set play service is worth 15 points a season. They also obviously have the striker whose name I can’t think of right now who always scores with his head (as long as he avoids threatening referees) and the winger Duah is a heck of a player. They also have Gruborovics(sp) who is very good and I think they still have the dutch midfielder, who is probably my favorite non-VPS player in the league.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">IFK Mariehamn is a great attacking team, but they will probably be undone by their defense. I know from experience that it’s fun to play with a team that scores a ton of goals, but nothing is more frustrating than scoring 3-4 goals in a game and losing or drawing. Despite their talent, they have a lot of personalities that won’t like being on the bench for even one game. A good start for this team could put them top 3, a bad start and they’ll implode and could finish 10th.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Middle of the pack: MYPA, SJK, RoPS, Lahti*, Honka*</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the “Why are we even playing?” group. They all have talent, but probably not enough to win medals and too much to be relegated. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lahti has a star because they might actually belong in the medal contender group. I don’t know much about their players, but the striker is a beast and will score plenty of goals. I also like the tactical flexibility of their coach. He will have Lahti ready to play 2-3 different formations which will serve them well. They’ll be able to adjust to tactical mismatches in-game which will allow them to earn points in matches where the initial gameplan isn’t working. This is essentially the opposite of JJK last year, who had such a rigid gameplan that they could be beaten by literally anyone. And they were.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MYPA, SJK and RoPS are all the same to me so I’m putting them together. All will get sufficient points at home to not be in danger of relegation, but each will struggle, especially away and in the summer as the season stretches on. Don’t be surprised if any of these teams is top 4 in June, but I can promise none of them will be top 3 in September or later. I’ll let you in on a secret in the league, and that is that every team in Veikkausliiga wants RoPS to get relegated. No one likes going there, the field isn’t very good and there’s no fan atmosphere to make the game fun. Ironically, that lack of motivation going to Rovaniemi is a big reason why RoPS takes so many points at home and is in absolutely no danger of being relegated.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honka is another team with a star because I think they might actually belong in the relegation fighters group. They have a new coach who was a great player, but I don’t know what his coaching credentials are like. There’s a reason Michael Jordan and Zidane aren’t head coaches [edit: Zidane is now]...sometimes a coach’s personal greatness makes them unable to teach less gifted players how to succeed. Honka also is filled with young players and that’s tough. I had that situation when I played at Enkoping and despite our skill, we lost every game to more experienced teams.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Relegation fighters: Jaro, TPS</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jaro is here every year, and they never actually get relegated so I don’t know what more to say about them. They have one of the top coaches, but their lack of money and unwillingness to win ugly puts them in this group. They tried to be pragmatic in the last game we played against them last season and embarrassed themselves. They simply don’t bring in players who fit that fighting style that is so important in the first 5 and last 5 games in this league. The ironic thing is that Jaro would probably have more success in Allsvenskan, which is a better league than Veikkausliiga, because the games are more based on possession and finesse than fighting.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know one thing about TPS except that Patrick Lomski is playing there now and that they are in financial trouble. They had to get rid of a bunch of players and seem to be going into this season with a bunch of young hopefuls and lower division talent with a very good british guy running the midfield. Sounds eerily alot like Haka in 2012.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s the preview. Feel free to shower me with praise in November when my predictions are shown to be true. Just call me Blackstradamus. If I'm horribly wrong, well then screw you make your own predictions and leave me alone :) </span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-4634321559956883282014-04-03T13:22:00.002-04:002014-04-03T13:22:51.134-04:00Am I Famous?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I must be, because I've been in the media (social and real) this week.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got a bunch of twitter followers last weekend because I was mentioned on the live match tracker someone was doing. I had completely forgotten that I had twitter, only to get 16 emails telling me that I had a new follower. You would think twitter would have figured out a better way to do that, but oh well. I guess I have to start “tweeting” now to justify my newfound support! </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-20c6c758-2892-08aa-89d1-0cd887ec4530" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not to bury the lead (or “lede” for the purists out there) but I’m putting one of my email addresses in the about me section of this blog. I’m doing this because I often get feedback via other mediums and I wanted anyone who wanted to voice their opinion to have a direct line.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was also made aware that the story by Lari Vesander </span><a href="http://jalkapallolehti.fi/pitka-kotimatka/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://jalkapallolehti.fi/pitka-kotimatka/</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was published. We spoke on facebook for quite a long time and I’m happy with how the story turned out. It was very well written (at least the google translate was well written) and a good representation of my time. I majored in journalism in college and I can only hope to one day write a feature piece as good as this. I had actually forgotten some of my feelings when I was doing all those trials in 2012. It’s strange to admit because sharing my story with others has become such a big part of this blog, but originally the blog was only supposed to be for me. A way to remember everything that I did and where I came from. Inadvertently the blog did exactly what it was supposed to do, for me at least. To answer a question posed in the story, the reason I did so many more posts in 2012 (February and March especially) is because it was meant only for me and a few select friends and family whom I’d tell about the blog. In that way it was more a journal than blog.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also you’ll all be happy to know that I’m much happier now than I’ve been at any other time since I’ve been playing in Europe. For a three week period that included only 2 games and a bunch of double trainings, my March in Vaasa went surprisingly fast. The days only go by faster once the season begins so I’m sure this year won’t drag on like others have. Before I know it I’ll be in the city center in from of the people with my silver (let’s not get crazy and say gold) medal thinking, “Where has the time gone?”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The kid problem at my apartment is starting to get out of hand. Today I was almost caught in the crossfire of a watergun battle and later ruined a game of tag just by walking into my apartment building. Back in my day kids had some sense. And we walked to school 5 miles. Uphill both ways. And always in snow, even in the summer.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In happy news, we’re done with our two-a-day trainings and the season finally feels like it’s here! That means a lot of things, but apparently for one of my teammates that means dressing up. Now, I’m not against wearing nice things into training, but as you’ll soon see my friend Frido takes it to a whole different level. Can you say “Paris Fashion Week?”</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTh7nY5yHkMmgoPHRLPJdp4aZCw4PHvfHNvg16yd2eS61TGlXMsTai5aQ3HnJ6fNfVfBqQdfWnOHCFqAgGEPcQKTFJ1Sair65vrMRldGo8rADPUnYcMMUwxC8Q5GkgrMY2xmKCybIPDWj/s1600/frido.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCTh7nY5yHkMmgoPHRLPJdp4aZCw4PHvfHNvg16yd2eS61TGlXMsTai5aQ3HnJ6fNfVfBqQdfWnOHCFqAgGEPcQKTFJ1Sair65vrMRldGo8rADPUnYcMMUwxC8Q5GkgrMY2xmKCybIPDWj/s1600/frido.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are no words.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZMBzYTdF7fzda_6Cg8NY6MatrOAtvLY32uCNHrHDtmQLp3GMIVoXqS6Pmf41CnyKrbygkNt359hQj5cXkEntZnEWHS9-_80dIlsKpCImnSa1NoPsqY8HluZYJi8Y6a0pnERjj_D2YBJoB/s1600/WP_20140402_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZMBzYTdF7fzda_6Cg8NY6MatrOAtvLY32uCNHrHDtmQLp3GMIVoXqS6Pmf41CnyKrbygkNt359hQj5cXkEntZnEWHS9-_80dIlsKpCImnSa1NoPsqY8HluZYJi8Y6a0pnERjj_D2YBJoB/s1600/WP_20140402_001.jpg" height="400" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was -1 outside.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be fair to Frido I put an actual picture from Paris fashion week. I typed “fashion week shorts men” into google and that was the least ridiculous picture I could find. Don’t believe me? Click this link. I dare you.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=fashion+week+shorts+men&rlz=1CASMAE_enFI549FI549&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fJU9U5rpGILj4QTrjYHwAQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=611" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.google.com/search?q=fashion+week+shorts+men&rlz=1CASMAE_enFI549FI549&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fJU9U5rpGILj4QTrjYHwAQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=611</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First game is Sunday and I doubt I’ll check in before then. I’ll try to take some video during the trip, but no promises. Apparently people don’t like their daily lives to be filmed for a blog. Who knew?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7sU_ocy9iuydYEYZZE-n5HA_U7wawaQaUzgPP5_uD15Pc_eIBla4VCFVGyrmjUB2NF_DoL_ojiX9Qcf1iXbrnmJZvFoN00YdF91xvqnnJ934xiHwQA9dzdc57bvq42lPDniNoMLmFqsB/s1600/frido2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7sU_ocy9iuydYEYZZE-n5HA_U7wawaQaUzgPP5_uD15Pc_eIBla4VCFVGyrmjUB2NF_DoL_ojiX9Qcf1iXbrnmJZvFoN00YdF91xvqnnJ934xiHwQA9dzdc57bvq42lPDniNoMLmFqsB/s1600/frido2.jpg" height="640" width="468" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-11559219953739062812014-03-30T15:11:00.000-04:002014-03-30T15:11:31.945-04:00Settling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We lost.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f5fd9967-144f-8420-2e6a-3c549e34c5aa" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know I said otherwise earlier, but now that we’ve lost I realized I didn’t actually want to win the League Cup anyway. At least that’s the party line at the moment. We unfortunately played much like a team still in preseason, lacking any real cohesion and missing chances that we would otherwise score. I’m not going to recap the game because most of the people reading this were either there or have already heard everything. Like always though, I’ll make a few notes:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-The SJK goal should not have counted because of a handball. It was obvious and not really up for debate.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-I was pulled down in the box in the final moments of the game. The ref told me after that he saw me get pulled, but that I fell too easily. I told him that I fell easily because I was only on one leg since the other was swinging to shoot the ball, but he said he didn’t see it that away. We agreed to disagree.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-Despite the loss and being shutout, I felt we were the better team. I am very sure that we’ll finish above SJK in this year’s table, barring some unforseen catastrophe.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for me personally, I played 25 minutes and felt very good physically. However, my understanding with my teammates was perhaps the worst of anyone on the pitch, which makes sense since I haven’t played with any of these guys in quite some time. I squandered great passes from Anthony and Nganbe because I wasn’t quite on the same page as those guys.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in everyday life, things are starting to come together. I’m getting a bike tomorrow (or not, since this same guy took a month to get a bike that was promised to me last year…). My first order of business on the bike will be to ride to Jysk/Sotka/somewhere and try to find a mattress for my bed, since currently I’m sleeping on a glorified table. After that, the interior designer in me is going to decorate my apartment and make it my own. One of the most important things off the field for a player, especially a foreign player, is to have an apartment that feels like home. That can mean things from home that you can’t find in your adopted country (in my case, grape jelly. I bought 4 jars of grape jelly so that I can make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) or it could be simply having a place that makes you comfortable. I’ve already started that process by buying my bed and a couch from a secondhand furniture store that I somehow never knew about. I’ll finish the job and put up pictures so that you can all admire my work!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are some negatives about my place. First, I had no say in the matter which sucked because I had spent a ton of time finding potential places to live. My place is nice, just not my first choice. Or second. Or third. You get the point. It’s also costing me about 100 euros more per month, effectively so I can have a bigger kitchen. No thanks. I only cook because if I didn’t I would die. That’s literally the only reason.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s also like a thousand kids that seem to spend the entire day playing outside my apartment. I may sound like an old man, but these damn kids need to play somewhere else! Some of us have absolutely nothing to do all day and want to be left in peace!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all. I’ll try to get a video post up soon just to have something different.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-SNhef0CT4dGmNWpE0obDriMv_GdvLT8apCJ86xa8nBeKj7KJEVMLKt5V8fv4d3K8fBzcN80vSue-Gc6u6OAp3PaX4e7xzH8KWHTCPGaoJzDauiYL2LSvGhewNG2VYRsLY4fLBAIvHC3o/s1600/funny-Santa-Claus-deers-comic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-SNhef0CT4dGmNWpE0obDriMv_GdvLT8apCJ86xa8nBeKj7KJEVMLKt5V8fv4d3K8fBzcN80vSue-Gc6u6OAp3PaX4e7xzH8KWHTCPGaoJzDauiYL2LSvGhewNG2VYRsLY4fLBAIvHC3o/s1600/funny-Santa-Claus-deers-comic.jpg" height="400" width="293" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-46146514797251269672014-03-24T13:16:00.001-04:002014-03-24T13:22:48.796-04:00Shit's Getting Real<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s officially time for the games to get real. Starting this weekend, every game counts for something. This is always one of my favorite times of the year because a few things happen simultaneously: We train less, play more and actually get to celebrate our goals. In preseason you train an insane amount, play almost never and have to pretend like you’re not happy about scoring. Thank goodness it’s time for the bright lights to come on!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3BRCLvZB8vqUpdydTMB7cIBJ_zMTwb672u9Mh4kb24y964TiE1t1FA3J9C_gaGgVNlL3RDXXUsN4rdY4RZ3CmocyKyDARwQcgTXv1WpBNOxQLZVW871UqIiUwNdI1KPtA_FEqrjYkMof9/s1600/Condescending+Husky+-+Imgur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3BRCLvZB8vqUpdydTMB7cIBJ_zMTwb672u9Mh4kb24y964TiE1t1FA3J9C_gaGgVNlL3RDXXUsN4rdY4RZ3CmocyKyDARwQcgTXv1WpBNOxQLZVW871UqIiUwNdI1KPtA_FEqrjYkMof9/s1600/Condescending+Husky+-+Imgur.jpg" height="330" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week we trained our asses off because we had the weekend off. We had double trainings on three of the days and got into the gym as well. We ran fitness every day and generally made the most of our last non-game week for the next two months. The guys are super fit just like last year, and that will help us a lot because I don’t think many Finnish teams make fitness a priority. We ran circles around teams last year in the 2nd halves and specifically the last 20 minutes of games. If you don’t believe me, go back and see how many times we came from behind to win or draw last year. It must have been 7-8 times at least. As for me personally I’m happy with where my fitness is, but I realize that this is my last opportunity to really build my fitness level for quite some time. My game is based almost solely around running, so the more I can run (and specifically, sprint), the better player I’ll be. I’m essentially going to train through the League Cup final to give myself one week extra to prepare for Veikkausliiga. It won’t affect my play this weekend anyway, as I’ll likely not play huge minutes. I don’t know what the lineup will be, but seeing as this will be only my second game I can’t imagine I’ll play 90 minutes. When you think about that, it would be almost irresponsible for me as a professional to not do a bit extra work to get caught up to my teammates’ fitness.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Friday we had only one training and then were given the weekend off. That gave me some time to try and get some stuff done. I finally got my phone setup, so I’m on the grid! I also sorted out my credit cards so that I no longer had to fear starving to death because I can’t buy things. I wanted to look at apartments, but apparently in Finland no rental company has any interest in getting tenants for their open apartments. I emailed one company, who waited three days then emailed me back to offer me an apartment that met not a single one of my criteria. I then walked into a particular rental company, the same company that I used last year for my apartment by the way, and they proceeded to tell me that they’d call me later with options...WHAT? I’m tempted to go on a rant here, but I’ll hold back and just give you the thesis of my rant: Why would a leasing company not show empty apartments to a prospective tenant who is ready to move in immediately? Why would this process possibly be so difficult? There is literally no risk of non-payment since VPS is paying for it anyway, so I can’t figure out why this has become so difficult.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The free weekend also meant that the team was able to have a bonding night/team party. The less said about it the better, but I did take one picture before cameras were turned off. Just know it was a good night and a necessary thing to help build the kind of team spirit that wins games in the summer.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuuJREbXaF_-7C1RRkkAwvUg0Yh5TovVbz5btRiaxXMUiykaWu3Msx2IYR-znrwfVH5BGo0cN34J2etX4CCNFhyAE8JFb1nfQ2MqegNzu8S9qt7vLZRzDPEKO-hNJwi1zJopwX4H1zm8Y3/s1600/WP_20130306_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuuJREbXaF_-7C1RRkkAwvUg0Yh5TovVbz5btRiaxXMUiykaWu3Msx2IYR-znrwfVH5BGo0cN34J2etX4CCNFhyAE8JFb1nfQ2MqegNzu8S9qt7vLZRzDPEKO-hNJwi1zJopwX4H1zm8Y3/s1600/WP_20130306_002.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't talk shit about the picture quality, it's a new phone and I'm not good with the camera!</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ15mYSyupxYpQboB558SQT6Kk6tf9nI045g6rxg8KbBHpR8HdAdsRIN1dHKjdtRbSemhK_Ok4K3O6-5pfwcZ1A1ryx5goVTpOHmoBCsMTut2653iKbIpzinxuaWmEbD35TZA2DmCD9SNb/s1600/notgettingoffmyass.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ15mYSyupxYpQboB558SQT6Kk6tf9nI045g6rxg8KbBHpR8HdAdsRIN1dHKjdtRbSemhK_Ok4K3O6-5pfwcZ1A1ryx5goVTpOHmoBCsMTut2653iKbIpzinxuaWmEbD35TZA2DmCD9SNb/s1600/notgettingoffmyass.jpg" height="288" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunday I did laundry, but not in the way that you probably do laundry. Being in the hotel is like being homeless for a lot of things, laundry being one of them. I can’t afford to wash my clothes at the hotel, so I end up just doubling up everything besides underwear. Unfortunately, I only had a two weeks supply of underwear more or less and by Sunday the situation was getting a bit dangerous! Fortunately for me, a friend stepped up and let me wash clothes at their house. The fact that I even found someone to help me is a big step forward over last year. I think I’m going to achieve my goal of being more social and involved in the happenings of Vaasa this year. That night I watched the Real Madrid - Barcelona game and wow...what a classic. So many stars playing so well in an up and down game. If only every game was like that.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFnOOfkL00-54GGUibQsct8YrdQviWPSkRJlrfn38T7klcZj4QmoOuM_qjfT-DQxCOEPBuLvjYyk-Oh6NcuzBL5j4qJkSvMnkffgQupaQY6iiwx658xQsmnWoSKunCkK8EbTNhgvbfqMyd/s1600/lionel-messi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFnOOfkL00-54GGUibQsct8YrdQviWPSkRJlrfn38T7klcZj4QmoOuM_qjfT-DQxCOEPBuLvjYyk-Oh6NcuzBL5j4qJkSvMnkffgQupaQY6iiwx658xQsmnWoSKunCkK8EbTNhgvbfqMyd/s1600/lionel-messi.jpg" height="178" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He and I were born the same week. Depressing.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWOP88sgUU_S5Y2IRSoRrkdTzXujzWxjRXKDkMox0MzsChQfoHDIr4diXDZ73aTaIRRYynLODolssEE__O0YMTfUMVMRv7R6FvBLVrjalAGRIw0nGcywlydScFM5hQbqJmkVEA9YfR1Ym/s1600/looksonalegend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWOP88sgUU_S5Y2IRSoRrkdTzXujzWxjRXKDkMox0MzsChQfoHDIr4diXDZ73aTaIRRYynLODolssEE__O0YMTfUMVMRv7R6FvBLVrjalAGRIw0nGcywlydScFM5hQbqJmkVEA9YfR1Ym/s1600/looksonalegend.jpg" height="160" width="200" /></a><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’re back to training now, and the next couple of days will be hard training like last week. We have Wednesday off, and after that our attention will turn to SJK and the League Cup final. We really want to win this game, and it would be my first ever professional trophy, so I’m really excited about it. There should also be pretty good weather and a big crowd which is always fun.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTaYpY88_EciGOoclSEPUTw108pbgLQnxJT0iPzW1YaReyiNOSQ7gVkgtO30QpYlw_xeC4orHzJ7L6Lys-SSJZvdZ1t4OeJ2yZDu4wS6rbfLB0bJ3f_JI1zIbUIDFmvecOt2OLaJ7vt7q/s1600/boopgif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTaYpY88_EciGOoclSEPUTw108pbgLQnxJT0iPzW1YaReyiNOSQ7gVkgtO30QpYlw_xeC4orHzJ7L6Lys-SSJZvdZ1t4OeJ2yZDu4wS6rbfLB0bJ3f_JI1zIbUIDFmvecOt2OLaJ7vt7q/s1600/boopgif.gif" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-33055767960656282882014-03-18T15:04:00.000-04:002014-03-18T15:04:01.302-04:00Getting back into it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On to the Final!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5sKoZHxUbZL4j1TTQF0kOy_N4J-Ka8JLFcJtz_AcPf4G2qUDpsUzzBRnlCwKe39Q3R14olWoQRYHDz5N_SZpJ8bE0P9ltJvK6VZEhJq62KshQs-y9zMzbav1iDISAZU7OohowEP41i_NE/s1600/funny-Fedex-vs-UPS-trucks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5sKoZHxUbZL4j1TTQF0kOy_N4J-Ka8JLFcJtz_AcPf4G2qUDpsUzzBRnlCwKe39Q3R14olWoQRYHDz5N_SZpJ8bE0P9ltJvK6VZEhJq62KshQs-y9zMzbav1iDISAZU7OohowEP41i_NE/s1600/funny-Fedex-vs-UPS-trucks.jpg" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-4d4c385e-d683-9d09-79b5-8cd91baf28b5" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saturday night was one of the best games I've been a part of with VPS. We won 4-0, but that only tells part of the story. After a rocky first five minutes which included a missed penalty from Mariehamn, we dominated the game and the score was fair.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fortunately because of the comfortable scoreline I was able to come on for the last 10 or 15 minutes. It was a good first runout back with the guys, though it was terribly cold and my feet were frozen. I can't wear the same shoes anymore in cold weather. As for my play there wasn't much to say. I didn't touch the ball once until the last play of the game, but my touch did result in a scramble and goal by Nganbe Nganbe. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of that goal by Frido (Nganbe's given name), it must put fear in the hearts of every coach and defense in the league. In roughly 15 seconds, we took the ball from the goalkeeper's hands to scoring at the other end. At one point in the attack, the IFK Mariehamn defense would have seen Frido, Steven and me all running at them full speed with Sebastian having the ball and his choice of who to play. Even though IFK had four guys back it didn't help and we scored. It definitely won't be the last time we score a lightning fast counterattack goal this year!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trip home from Mariehamn was typically horrendous. While I like the ferry, I absolute hate the trip itself. We have to leave a day early when we play Mariehamn and spend most of the time between leaving Vaasa and arriving in Mariehamn in transit which is terrible for match preparation. And I don’t want to hear about how Mariehamn has to deal with it every game. They travel overnight so they get a proper night’s rest and then travel in the morning by bus like every other team. It’s not a fair comparison. It sucks that we have to make the trip again in only a month. It takes a lot out of the players.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since we’ve gotten back to Vaasa I’ve been in full fledged getting situated mode. I’ve been looking at apartments and trying to get my new cell phone to work over here. I’ve also got to get a residence permit again for some reason, which is an expensive and god-awfully slow process.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tomorrow is a free day so I’m popping down to Helsinki to take care of a few things. Someone needs to run for president (prime minister?) of Finland on the platform of simply lowering train tickets. I’m sure if you promised that and nothing else you’d be a wildly popular candidate. I’ll be in Helsinki for 18 hours, and it’ll cost me more than a typical trip to London! I’ll be sure to take some pictures to remember my short visit.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s it. I’ll talk more about SJK going into next weekend’s game. Or maybe not since I don’t know a single thing about SJK except that they’re from Seinajoki, wear black and gold and have a small army of players signed. Maybe I'll look some stuff up on wikipedia.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnlIjQKcdB0MHwXf82cb-4Z5YPnYop128srzi_JRvgQDQwUQY-Voyyk3XCYQWcAUyIe62vzQD0JRnIyCpytNKgm0ocB-LsVIhV1l7-5bCJHdbQrVu26vRK7pd9C_jR4nzfmSBaMGiTP9f/s1600/It's+more+reliable+than+a+book+published+back+in+the+90's,+IMO.+-+Imgur.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnlIjQKcdB0MHwXf82cb-4Z5YPnYop128srzi_JRvgQDQwUQY-Voyyk3XCYQWcAUyIe62vzQD0JRnIyCpytNKgm0ocB-LsVIhV1l7-5bCJHdbQrVu26vRK7pd9C_jR4nzfmSBaMGiTP9f/s1600/It's+more+reliable+than+a+book+published+back+in+the+90's,+IMO.+-+Imgur.png" height="275" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBlbl9ANVsig5hBZhDl9pb2pbYP_UPauvJbzjDk3sfyjo1s6YC6ikzRiGm7kJf41WrhIrBWPIb7h4H_GB6azXl9md9Lenw5zWTwys0WkMqivKO2nYB8EunR_Qj8zG3e78lG4jKLfQrMaAG/s1600/funny-Obama-USA-president.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBlbl9ANVsig5hBZhDl9pb2pbYP_UPauvJbzjDk3sfyjo1s6YC6ikzRiGm7kJf41WrhIrBWPIb7h4H_GB6azXl9md9Lenw5zWTwys0WkMqivKO2nYB8EunR_Qj8zG3e78lG4jKLfQrMaAG/s1600/funny-Obama-USA-president.jpg" height="375" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-19341558385295431432014-03-12T14:24:00.001-04:002014-03-12T14:24:33.533-04:00The Return<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had a funny joke I was gonna do with the title but the headline box won't let me do it. Actually, I'll just do it here. Consider this the actual headline (clears throat):<br />
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"Return of the <strike>King</strike> <strike>Prince</strike> <strike>Hearthrob</strike> <strike>Star</strike> <strike>Good player</strike> ... The Return"<br />
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Thank you, thank you. Don't forget to tip your waitress. And what am I saying? Of course I'm a heathrob! Anywho, back to the task at hand. After months of nothing I'm back on the proverbial wagon and blogging again. Why, you might ask? This is why.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-AjwMXvhNo2Y_U-q0ECfBKiwUwLp14jobeQQIOQoqyViVN1p0Yutd9ZLwcZguhDWZ5DODxIo56NHgIVviBtEqvFTRjTK3Pz9SoaeUwDEHY-swo6sol0WJUwfe60qlslrrDGIXLb93QihJ/s1600/signing2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-AjwMXvhNo2Y_U-q0ECfBKiwUwLp14jobeQQIOQoqyViVN1p0Yutd9ZLwcZguhDWZ5DODxIo56NHgIVviBtEqvFTRjTK3Pz9SoaeUwDEHY-swo6sol0WJUwfe60qlslrrDGIXLb93QihJ/s1600/signing2014.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s exactly what it looks like.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2cc05835-b774-4512-3c20-99f020f4b374" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have re-signed with VPS and I’m back in Vaasa. I’m once again a Yank Abroad! </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLNXti4TBs5a6Q3u8DOl75hyphenhyphen_N1YrcQto9yoj2jhzSQaFIbGfucJ9rmR4LwzUR193Gct0tIILb1e-ezdq0JKGA7eYz5-65mlC8Uz9YMUOD_-7l_R9JvkDpBcrO40UMh6paaJbY5tDL_JFI/s1600/slide_324631_3099038_free.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLNXti4TBs5a6Q3u8DOl75hyphenhyphen_N1YrcQto9yoj2jhzSQaFIbGfucJ9rmR4LwzUR193Gct0tIILb1e-ezdq0JKGA7eYz5-65mlC8Uz9YMUOD_-7l_R9JvkDpBcrO40UMh6paaJbY5tDL_JFI/s1600/slide_324631_3099038_free.gif" height="121" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I think this gif will be reused. I, like this gentleman, am committed to keep blogging! No matter the situation :)</td></tr>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a new year and therefore I have some resolutions for this blog. First, I will post more than I did last year. Second, I will make the posts shorter so that the blog is more readable (though I’m sure some 1500-word posts are still to come this year). Third, I will be sure to put in more pictures and videos because I think they better show what it’s like to be in my and my teammates’ shoes.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I said it a bit in the brief interview I gave for the VPS website, but I wanted to reiterate that I’m really happy to return to VPS and be a part of a team where I’m respected and trusted to do my job well. This is the first time in my career that I’ll get a chance to play two full seasons with the same club and I am sure that continuity will make me play better. My best games last year came after I had my option picked up in the summer and I knew I was accepted as an important member of the squad rather than some extended trialist. Now that good feeling that I had playing in August-October of last year is here already in March. I’m excited about what that means for myself and VPS.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those interested in my salary, I will disclose that (probably not so specifically as last year, but a decent ballpark figure). I just didn't want to put it in this post because in my experience thousands of not-so-interested people will read this post and then only a few hundred will read the subsequent post. It's those few hundred who really care about me and VPS who I think deserve to know what we earn. Random people who stumble across this blog as the news of the day don't care what we make and thus don't need to know. I put my salary last year so that our fans (and perhaps fans of other Veikkausliiga clubs) would know that there are circumstances that can affect a player than fans never think about. Maybe the player you love to hate isn't running because he hasn't had a decent dinner because he makes 800 euros a month and payday isn't until next week. Or maybe one of your players takes a stupid yellow card because he's frustrated with working his ass off and making less than the people yelling at him from the stands. Those are totally made up situations so you know, but the idea is the same. Though I'll have you know though that I played every game last year on a full stomach and only took stupid yellow cards because I am, in fact, stupid :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">That's all for now. I've got some notes to finish the post.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">-I have spent the entire winter collecting an infinite supply of gifs/memes that reflect any possible emotion, and/or are hilarious. So there’s probably gonna be a gif in every post. Deal with it. Examples below:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoowKb-0d_UebF0QYYBWIaPvpQevGhl6zrQzXAfwRIC0KbPoHoJBkFMoU0qIQFhJSBEImCikUl-lmCusnNjLquYLPvQjjuxwmnzJn5_YswA7SGZQ1w_dvbhi1BUkQX_RcpNB9umZRhf1qG/s1600/funny-classy-dog-top-hat-pipe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoowKb-0d_UebF0QYYBWIaPvpQevGhl6zrQzXAfwRIC0KbPoHoJBkFMoU0qIQFhJSBEImCikUl-lmCusnNjLquYLPvQjjuxwmnzJn5_YswA7SGZQ1w_dvbhi1BUkQX_RcpNB9umZRhf1qG/s1600/funny-classy-dog-top-hat-pipe.jpg" height="400" width="380" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9osMcceQRp7ifS5dyGPoRPlKMdItUUT-ALFAQwWXepQ2qDezN7TOn85H9MFIzDJTWFv55YqNKEJfOX-OvTtkzukWtwLZRSvIFl62jzVqBMtCs6hxcUawzfDkD15QeVz8z2a7w4EzQVUV4/s1600/Untitled+image+(1).gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9osMcceQRp7ifS5dyGPoRPlKMdItUUT-ALFAQwWXepQ2qDezN7TOn85H9MFIzDJTWFv55YqNKEJfOX-OvTtkzukWtwLZRSvIFl62jzVqBMtCs6hxcUawzfDkD15QeVz8z2a7w4EzQVUV4/s1600/Untitled+image+(1).gif" height="237" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-Getty has inexplicably made their entire library free out of nowhere, so the stock photo value of the blog is about to go through the roof. I can’t however guarantee that the stock photos I use will have anything to do with what I’m writing. Examples (again) below:</span></div>
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[Edit] They've changed that between the time I heard about it last week and now. So much for Getty Images.</div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-33158172206350137142013-12-06T13:29:00.002-05:002013-12-06T13:29:30.453-05:00Post Season<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, we did it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrjqQfV55t9zgUYAi4PdV1OFulb-vjM23FeA7OBiLze1Cgjjo74XkJWoZh3R9xVQq2C21wGVFzN_99YNsiM-5Wb64sH3Qk49u_GGZ9f_2yUMb3GZ69eB-THcf6ZBDDVlAfeSVRqlRTtvYb/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-30814-1380206864-12.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrjqQfV55t9zgUYAi4PdV1OFulb-vjM23FeA7OBiLze1Cgjjo74XkJWoZh3R9xVQq2C21wGVFzN_99YNsiM-5Wb64sH3Qk49u_GGZ9f_2yUMb3GZ69eB-THcf6ZBDDVlAfeSVRqlRTtvYb/s640/anigif_enhanced-buzz-30814-1380206864-12.gif" width="640" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-579d8b39-c921-8a7f-badb-e83f8cc94acb" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">14 wins (team record), 51 points, 3rd place and a spot in Europe. Not bad for a team predicted to finish 11th. I’ll put on my “clairvoyant Jordan” hat and mention that I said back in March/April that our realistic goal was third place. I never liked the idea that our public stated goal was just to finish in the top half of the league. That seemed like stupidly low bar to shoot for. Turns out I was right and VPS was a better team than anyone thought, including perhaps ourselves.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I won’t talk about the games other than this: Jaro was our most comfortable game of the season, which I expected considering they had given up weeks earlier. IFK Mariehamn is a game that just as well could have been cancelled. Neither team had any interest in being there and after seeing how the field was cutting up, no player was willing to put in a challenge and risk tearing their thigh or groin or something else. To make things worse, we had a referee who made calls that make me wonder if he has any friends in Singapore, if you know what I mean. That said, after the game we celebrated our bronze medals!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">----------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those first two paragraphs were written like five weeks ago, so I’ll leave them but not finish that post. It would be kind of useless to describe our celebrations that night and others at this point. Last season is in the past and that team is its own entity and separate from VPS 2014 and going forward.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those who care, I’ve been doing well back home in Indianapolis. I see my family every day and I get to watch my niece grow up in front of my eyes. My friends who I’ve had since middle school and even earlier are around and I’ve enjoyed seeing them and catching up. I also love that beers cost $2 at restaurants and $0.60 at grocery stores!</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZjpKiSGaNaqK-XfKVspIsw5zG_87b9IGZVdDxuSqjlfGXzhJKO1G3WxMgy21YEBEjEyhU4gaQ8KfrC8ls33tCxJ9aUj8skkc04CqymwI7SoQN1hQ14ZONGyfTDs5oHzZPviP6O39wO53/s1600/Indianapolis-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZjpKiSGaNaqK-XfKVspIsw5zG_87b9IGZVdDxuSqjlfGXzhJKO1G3WxMgy21YEBEjEyhU4gaQ8KfrC8ls33tCxJ9aUj8skkc04CqymwI7SoQN1hQ14ZONGyfTDs5oHzZPviP6O39wO53/s400/Indianapolis-map.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">not the last pic of Indianapolis in this post</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few people have given me well-wishes on facebook and I really appreciate that. I know how it is with fans, and rightly or wrongly they support the team over the individuals wearing the jersey. As soon as I walked off the field in the last game, the fans of the club really have no duty to support me whatsoever until/unless I return. The fact that quite a few people wished me well anyway is very heartwarming. These well wishes lead me to have to make something clear though: I was not homesick during the season. I knew what moving to Finland meant and the fact that I missed my family doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not I’d consider going back to Europe. I’ll talk a little bit about my situation later in this post, but I just wanted to say that I’m willing to live anywhere and having my family in America does not attach me to this country whatsoever.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the club itself, I’m impressed with who they’ve brought in this winter and also that they re-signed some key players in the club. The boys have already started training again which is crazy to me, but it seems like most Veikkausliiga clubs are training now so I guess that’s normal. On the flip side, I’m a bit disappointed by the players that don’t seem to be coming back. The class of 2013 (Henri, Dafaa, Kerr, Ameobi, Smith, Seabrook, Hoivala, Lomski) did A LOT for VPS last summer. We were by no means responsible for all of the success, but these players were the changes between 9th place in 2012 and 3rd place in 2013. I’ll note that we weren’t the only reason the team did so well; players like Koskimaa, Fowler, Antti and Strandvall played out of their minds the whole year. But I also don’t think that a random grouping of players would have done nearly as well as the Class of 2013 did. You’d think that type of contribution would be something that a club would fight to keep together. After all, there’s no reason we couldn’t dream about silver or even gold medals with that group plus Morrissey, a healthy Jarno, and a 3rd CB to rotate in to keep our defense fresh and allow Fowler (one of the best MFs in Finland) to play alongside Dafaa.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuhMd7eNAw0OAM1ZptK5Th1-KTGkO2T7T7Cr3D-DNqbQonCkTtnMhyphenhyphen9Pr3I4o2r4v9-xw4TYEKE7ciP7Y9ZYhHTwbuw5H3ULbH8_BvtjHkihBmXrKI6xa7lWUUkRE9jTol4YEs7sg2m7aJ/s1600/1400x564_142_d447ec49ed9acbd7cbc78c3da19a9d98.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuhMd7eNAw0OAM1ZptK5Th1-KTGkO2T7T7Cr3D-DNqbQonCkTtnMhyphenhyphen9Pr3I4o2r4v9-xw4TYEKE7ciP7Y9ZYhHTwbuw5H3ULbH8_BvtjHkihBmXrKI6xa7lWUUkRE9jTol4YEs7sg2m7aJ/s640/1400x564_142_d447ec49ed9acbd7cbc78c3da19a9d98.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indianapolis...also known as NAPTOWN!</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That said, I haven’t loved how the recent crop of players has been treated these past few weeks. We had the best defense in the league, and unceremoniously dropped one of our CBs. We scored something like 35-40 goals last year, and as of now about 20 of those goals are not back. VPS kept Henri and Anthony who were the best two players from that class, but also seem to be letting a lot of us walk. I’m just speculating, but I think that they believe they can find another group of guys for the class of 2014 who will do just as well as last year’s new guys. I hope they do, because I really like VPS and want the club to succeed as much as possible. Or I could be completely wrong and they plan on bringing everyone back, which would be even better. I also know that everybody doesn’t necessarily want to be back and that can complicate things.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for me personally, this offseason has been dramatically different from past years. Last year for example, I didn’t hear from any teams about a possible tryout/contract until February. That club was VPS and it’s a good thing I impressed them, because otherwise I don’t know where I would have ended up. This year though, my phone has been metaphorically “blowing up”. Of course I’ve spoken with VPS, but I can’t/won’t say anything else on that situation. Come next season I’ll either be there or I won’t, and at this point there’s no reason for me to fuel speculation beyond saying that we’ve spoken. I’ve also had interest from random places (Asia, Australia) as well as not-so-random places (America: MLS, NASL, USL-Pro, Finland). As a result, I’m sure that I will have a contract done far sooner than March like this past season. That’s always good on the wallet!</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieJxrgnIb0M8FXd8pB1X0_OC4Qo46t96YmTkmyUf0cIykI__7VKW6SsIJreC7-SP-qfLz2BArYernGmmZ3LVKHYrAxQzCcENtbkEyr5VloRPlRf_F_UukEi-H1f7UpOIrh2W8kkk5XFa0V/s1600/indianapolis-visitors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieJxrgnIb0M8FXd8pB1X0_OC4Qo46t96YmTkmyUf0cIykI__7VKW6SsIJreC7-SP-qfLz2BArYernGmmZ3LVKHYrAxQzCcENtbkEyr5VloRPlRf_F_UukEi-H1f7UpOIrh2W8kkk5XFa0V/s400/indianapolis-visitors.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indy city center. In a lot of ways similar to Vasaa city center.</td></tr>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve said enough at this point. I’ll try to update this thing more often this winter, but I don’t know how much things of interest I’ll have to say. If you don’t see a new post, then trust me you haven’t missed anything. Til next time!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0hpYpYyW4YqavA49xfbJJNXKSuCD5aLiI5tfU8tJH8oybOG43IrKBV0SPgNjQCsDssi5LptJgQRcLIQzzj1HYOMcvS-BKzPS1_lyPD-_q0FBsX6oJp85hnbNWbXbzRdR-q22ZBLPBCU0/s1600/enhanced-buzz-19825-1377116840-32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0hpYpYyW4YqavA49xfbJJNXKSuCD5aLiI5tfU8tJH8oybOG43IrKBV0SPgNjQCsDssi5LptJgQRcLIQzzj1HYOMcvS-BKzPS1_lyPD-_q0FBsX6oJp85hnbNWbXbzRdR-q22ZBLPBCU0/s400/enhanced-buzz-19825-1377116840-32.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com6Indianapolis, IN, USA39.768403 -86.15806800000001439.377911 -86.803515000000019 40.158895 -85.51262100000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-8244663695259544782013-09-27T09:35:00.000-04:002013-09-29T09:46:05.450-04:00Skyrise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See, I told you that the sky wasn’t falling. Quite the opposite. Three wins on the trot and we’re sitting in a comfortable 3rd.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM1FRqk9xGp4mvqtMuFV34i5BNODJcyKG9iFiwKBdZCxB5z0KJfz7q5DDMsoNehau6FohWUclG1A_9H27OUn0JSA72IG0GMZDtyvqMQrvbEUh-6-xrorBaQynUdoFzMdN3MMAoeR93xfzM/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-31514-1379090509-20.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM1FRqk9xGp4mvqtMuFV34i5BNODJcyKG9iFiwKBdZCxB5z0KJfz7q5DDMsoNehau6FohWUclG1A_9H27OUn0JSA72IG0GMZDtyvqMQrvbEUh-6-xrorBaQynUdoFzMdN3MMAoeR93xfzM/s1600/anigif_enhanced-buzz-31514-1379090509-20.gif" height="200" width="400" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-12158709-5f8b-b89a-764c-dbabce5755a4" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since I last wrote, I’ve been up to a lot of fun stuff. I went to London to visit Celia, I scored a goal, visited Helsinki and spent some time with my dad, who came over from America. Before I get into that stuff though, I’ll talk briefly about the last few games.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve taken 10 points from 4 games in September, and have gone up to 2nd in the form table behind only HJK. For some reason that I simply can’t explain, we are simply better than just about everyone else in multiple game weeks. Whenever we play 3 games in 7-8 days we always win the majority of them. That said, we haven’t played particularly well this month, we’ve just gone back to winning ugly. We drew with RoPS to start the month by scoring late after conceding a goal near the end. Even though we only tied that game, I think it gave us confidence in our ability to grind out results again. We used that confidence to hold on against JJK, KuPS and Inter. On paper, those should have been easy wins based on the table, but for my money those are three of the better teams in this league. JJK plays a style that gives us fits, but also leaves themselves open at the back. KuPS is probably the 2nd most talented team in the league behind HJK, but they never seem to put it all together even when they win. Inter is a team that would be really dangerous right now if they still cared, but they don’t and thus we were able to beat them. I said a few months ago that we needed 5 wins from our last 11 games to get third and we now have 4 of them. We need to win at least one more game this year and we have four tough opponents. It won’t be easy, but for something so important I think our club can dig down and get the results we need.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for off the field events, I’ve been uncharacteristically busy. My month started out with a draw against RoPS, after which I hopped on a plane to London! Unfortunately for me, the amount of time we had free only allowed me to spend 36 hours in the british capital, but it was still worth it to see Celia. I took a few pictures and I’ll put them up sometime, but with this new computer I’m not really sure how to load photos from my phone to the blog since it all has to be done through “the cloud” and I’m not amazing with electronics [edit: done]. We didn’t do much anyway, but I did get to see her new place which was nice. It’s in a totally different part of London from where she used to live to I was able to see parts of the city that I never visited before, including Wimbledon.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trip back from London was an absolute nightmare. Since I’m not made of money, I had to get the cheapest flight home possible. That meant two Ryanair flights from London to Lithuania to Tampere with the Lithuania stopover being 5 hours (note: flying to Lithuania is something I would not recommend. I’m sure Lithuania is great, but when Lithuanians are confined to a small space like, say, an airplane things get miserable). The fun didn’t stop there though. I arrived in Tampere at around 11pm, conveniently after the last train left for good ol Vaasa. That meant I had two choices: stay in a hostel and take the 6am train to Vaasa to make to practice on time or, take a 1:15am train to Seinajoki, wait two hours and then take a 5:30am bus into Vaasa. Of course I chose the second option and it was a terrible choice. I ended up in the Seinajoki train station with about a half dozen alcoholics aka my new best friends and didn’t get any rest. Needless to say training that day was more of a survival mission than anything else.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinCfgbMH1lklOniUOv0yHoo7Y-_34clY3qw5DWCwUvzMUVvuq5ZqHyeooSg3T9o-Kxfsd04awvfGt-fho5Fa6-z7z-_f0ADVsAVrHyN6t1LPd6-hKuqbFzuWCRx2fhAmg1gdJ3VR5Md2P6/s1600/drunk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinCfgbMH1lklOniUOv0yHoo7Y-_34clY3qw5DWCwUvzMUVvuq5ZqHyeooSg3T9o-Kxfsd04awvfGt-fho5Fa6-z7z-_f0ADVsAVrHyN6t1LPd6-hKuqbFzuWCRx2fhAmg1gdJ3VR5Md2P6/s1600/drunk.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My train station "friends".</td></tr>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A week later, things looked up again as my dad came to Vaasa. I don’t mention my dad on this blog very often, but he’s an integral part of my life. There’s rarely a time where I make an important decision without consulting him. He also is a sort of sounding board for me about things in my career. I don’t have so many complaints here in Vaasa, but the ones I do have go to him rather than to my teammates because that risks causing problems in the team. Every player has their grievances, and every player needs someone they can talk to who is not in any way subjective. Most of the time when I’m upset about something, I just need my dad to tell me I’m right, then I let it go. It sounds vain, but that’s what a person needs sometimes. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, my dad was in town and came to our home game against KuPS. I was really happy he got to see me play and even score a goal (he didn’t mention the heel-click celebration so I’m going to assume he loved it). My dad is easily my biggest fan, but he’s only seen me play about 10 professional matches. It was great that he got to see us beat KuPS and also went to Turku to see us beat Inter. I was especially happy that he got to see Veritas Stadion as it’s one of the nicest stadiums in the league in one of the nicest cities in Finland. I was also happy that I started both of those games (and all three of our wins this month, I might add :) ) so that my pops could see me play as much as possible while he was here.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My dad and I also visited Helsinki for a day and took the ferry over to Stockholm and spent a few days there, but in the interest of time I won’t go into details about that. Maybe I can put some photos up from Sverige, but don’t hold your breath [edit: they're up].</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAoFE2nH_1BaJlofogryfSBFkNTo-0kq76ggDw7q_A7MP84Cgs-Nmrtyv4w2PGLaUcUHUOQECExvR2MLidzJUiWlXOEOU95Rz-DW77xCp-F4bScjW9WPNi9VNZcHz_ezRHi4UVdjrCbjxv/s1600/Helsinki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAoFE2nH_1BaJlofogryfSBFkNTo-0kq76ggDw7q_A7MP84Cgs-Nmrtyv4w2PGLaUcUHUOQECExvR2MLidzJUiWlXOEOU95Rz-DW77xCp-F4bScjW9WPNi9VNZcHz_ezRHi4UVdjrCbjxv/s1600/Helsinki.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6v0zW2FAuxvNbhojm1dmofgyGkBlX6W8JCPG23E1A6LYC4OmBaLaiF7UX4ZHlM39SyOH_cFou_tpB22abeywht-NAWMvT1XtNnSIKU98NnKte3MkbaOmXJPqAciUReR8e-3NGkTTAaeH/s1600/Stockholm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6v0zW2FAuxvNbhojm1dmofgyGkBlX6W8JCPG23E1A6LYC4OmBaLaiF7UX4ZHlM39SyOH_cFou_tpB22abeywht-NAWMvT1XtNnSIKU98NnKte3MkbaOmXJPqAciUReR8e-3NGkTTAaeH/s1600/Stockholm.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our next game is against champions-elect HJK. Luckily for us, they haven’t yet clinched the title so we won’t have to clap them out in the pregame walkout. It’s a great tradition that teams do that for the champions if they’ve won the league before the last game(s), but I would hate to do it for HJK or any other team. I have huge respect for HJK, I would just be a little pissed off having to do that. For the game itself, I actually think we have a decent shot at winning. HJK will know now that they’ve won the league, and everyone knows that they are not quite as dominant away as they are in Helsinki. We’ve beaten them before and our loss to them came on the back of two incredible shots which would be difficult to repeat. We know that HJK is better than us, but that doesn’t mean anything if we’re better on the day. It won’t be easy, but then again when was the last time we had an easy game? We’ve only won 5 games by more than one goal, and of those five games, three times the “cushion” goal came in the last five minutes and four times in the last ten minutes. The point is that we don’t play easy games ever, so knowing we have a hard game is nothing new.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_2RYKbTeOeK9w7bXvK27Kenvyy0y71M90x3nuPnSbhm5xEtlUU3FigyNI5S5JBHOm3bLaGeN3p830vdTpN7UgFzQnS90BN6P5FEgQDqpcqvrwPswv9sMdQvev8RAiXI4kCJlFuDOegwJe/s1600/populationdensity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_2RYKbTeOeK9w7bXvK27Kenvyy0y71M90x3nuPnSbhm5xEtlUU3FigyNI5S5JBHOm3bLaGeN3p830vdTpN7UgFzQnS90BN6P5FEgQDqpcqvrwPswv9sMdQvev8RAiXI4kCJlFuDOegwJe/s400/populationdensity.jpg" height="243" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com465100 Vaasa, Finland63.0951412 21.6165128000000137.5731067 -19.69208119999999 88.6171757 62.925106800000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-48850858943202703442013-08-31T12:31:00.000-04:002013-09-02T06:36:20.848-04:00Skyfall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sky is not falling.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid--a112c83-d532-0708-fda0-6f7fb06cfefb" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things haven’t gone so well for us the past few games (or the past few months, really) but VPS is still ok. We’ve still got games against all of our rivals for 3rd place, and we’ve beaten all of them at some point this season. There’s no reason to think that we can’t go on a run to finish these last eight games. Like I said in my last post I think, we only need four more wins to essentially guarantee a third place finish. We have RoPS at home (we’ve beaten them here already), JJK away (won there too), KuPS at home, Inter away (drew there), HJK at home (beat them this year), Jaro at home (beat them here), MIFK away (won there) and MYPA away (not looking forward to that). My point is that even though I assume the fanbase is freaking out right now, things are not as bad as they seem. Of course, a bit better play in July and August would have us maybe talking about winning a trophy, but that’s in the past and now we need to do what’s necessary to finish in third.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL0RI4ydtvTVcO0sYHMw-zYYZ6P70vYAP3wOv6b3vNR4EgicOVZyw1x2H6wGtl-lUyv-phphbFPn8Hu5GzZv7biz5EJRFJftA1qlIjqfLMYczfRzdSUdJAMv3qwlXrbnnszKOP5cHxfrQw/s1600/VPSLahti2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL0RI4ydtvTVcO0sYHMw-zYYZ6P70vYAP3wOv6b3vNR4EgicOVZyw1x2H6wGtl-lUyv-phphbFPn8Hu5GzZv7biz5EJRFJftA1qlIjqfLMYczfRzdSUdJAMv3qwlXrbnnszKOP5cHxfrQw/s400/VPSLahti2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Obviously the main reason that finishing third is important is that it will give VPS entry into the 2013-2014 Europa League qualifiers and the $120,000 that comes along with it. The possibility of a big bonus motivates players to want to play these games as much as prestige, since there really is no prestige in the first round of Europa League qualifiers. They don’t even bother sending the maroon signage to put around the stadium. They just send you a referee from Latvia or Moldova or somewhere and match you against a team from Uzbekistan (I know, and I’m not changing it). That said, I don’t think that VPS will be throwing around huge bonuses anyway, since getting too loose with the pursestrings seems to have been a big problem in the near enough past that people still remember how poorly it went. Realistically, bonuses would only come if VPS progressed to the second round or beyond.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moving away from soccer, I need to apologize a bit to people who regularly check up on the blog. I haven’t posted for the longest time since I started the thing. I’m sorry about that, but I’m just all out of things to talk about. I’ve essentially holed up in my apartment since Celia left and have lived an incredibly boring life. I even started buying more frozen foods so that I wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store as often. Essentially, I’m just missing America. Last year I really missed my baby niece, since I had just gotten to know her a little bit then came to Europe. Now, I miss almost everything about America, even things that are available here but that I don’t have. I miss SportsCenter and HGTV. I miss driving my car. I miss the $1 menu at McDonald’s (and every other fast food place). I miss going to Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacer games. I miss being able to read all the signs. I miss all of those things, not to mention my family and network of friends. The reason I go to London whenever I get a chance is that it reminds me of America, and as much as I like to think otherwise I get homesick every time I come to Europe. I’d probably be less homesick if I made $1 million a year, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I don’t blame Finland for my feelings - if anything Finland makes it easier because everyone speaks english and I can communicate easily. But if I get a bit homesick in Scandinavia after a few months, I can only imagine how I’d hold up in a Turkey or Austria or China. I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent again, but the thesis of this paragraph is that I haven’t posted to the blog because I’ve been doing nothing because I’m a little homesick.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all for now. There is no skyfall just yet. If we don’t take points off our next two opponents RoPS and JJK though, then maybe it will be time to go to DEFCON 5 (which despite being a phrase, is ironically the opposite of what it means. DEFCON 5 in reality is not panic, but the least alert DEFCON status. Something like the phrase “I could care less” which in english is commonly used to mean the opposite of what the phrase actually says). And if the sky does fall, we’ll just call James Bond and he’ll save the day somehow. I don’t know the particulars because we watched the movie on the bus and I fell asleep halfway through and woke up during the final scene. I assume he just shot a lot of people and jumped off ledges until the day was saved.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYJk7nGN3b4IyBAbNBBhMwDN8tNH6S8sUHzq-iEeMj_52RS2nhKeckoQb0ywdFakf33Pb0fLDILfwEwYeA3Mx_pZbS0t0009c0-gvX1jlZuHvtNqrFHowzFffkNhKX2B1mh0FkkTeYwAgH/s1600/area-codes-in-which-ludracris-claims-to-have-hoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYJk7nGN3b4IyBAbNBBhMwDN8tNH6S8sUHzq-iEeMj_52RS2nhKeckoQb0ywdFakf33Pb0fLDILfwEwYeA3Mx_pZbS0t0009c0-gvX1jlZuHvtNqrFHowzFffkNhKX2B1mh0FkkTeYwAgH/s640/area-codes-in-which-ludracris-claims-to-have-hoes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com265100 Vaasa, Finland63.0951412 21.6165128000000137.5731067 -19.69208119999999 88.6171757 62.925106800000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-87534930318692779382013-08-16T07:56:00.001-04:002013-08-16T07:57:50.935-04:00Slump Buster<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve got my new computer, and I’m back blogging again!</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2361e15f-8693-2243-c9f5-fa85853c0b80" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t posted any blog posts this month, but that doesn’t mean a lot hasn’t happened. We’ve ended our losing run, strengthened our chances of finishing in the medals and I had my best game all season.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before I talk about those things though, I will state the obvious: my option for the rest of the season has been picked up and I’ll be a VPS player for at least the rest of this season. That’s a relief, because up until August 1 I was unsure if I’d have a job this month and going forward. I always assumed that VPS would want to keep me, but soccer is a business and the club has to do the best thing for them. The clubs interests may not have aligned with paying my salary for the next three months. I’m glad that wasn’t the case though and I get to stay.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I thought about doing a long post about our chances of finishing in the top three before we started our last round of 11 games, but I got too lazy. Instead I’ll do a brief synopsis of what I was going to write. I figure that we’ll need 50 points to guarantee a place in the medals. Based on the 33 points that we had coming into our last 11 games, we needed 17 points to get there. Essentially that means that we need five wins. I came up with these estimates based solely on how teams are performing this year. I didn’t look at the historical numbers needed to finish in the top three, I just looked at the teams close to us and their individual situations. Jaro just sold their best midfielder; TPS is in a terrible slump at the moment; IFK Mariehamn had their two top scorers hurt, their best player sent back to Turkey and their best current attacker inexplicably buried on the bench; MYPA and KuPS are both really good, but seem too inconsistent to imagine either of them getting the 20+ points they’d need to finish over 50. Everyone else is too far down the table I think. The good thing about those numbers is that we only have to worry about ourselves. That’s a big advantage, and a luxury I wish we had at Haka last year.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since I waited so long to write this post, I can confirm that last weekend we got our first of those five wins. We beat FC Lahti who, under the guidance of my former coach Juha Malinen, have been playing some of the best soccer in the league during the second round of 11 games. They also beat us 3-0 a few games ago so they had a lot of confidence coming in. I didn’t start the game, but I came on after only six minutes after a head injury to Atte. That caused a bit of a shakeup in our lineup, as we were already quite short on defenders. Jesper had to play in the back and he did a really good job in my opinion. I came on and played my best game all year, due mostly to my increased movement. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had just about everyone I talk to about my game tell me that I was playing too passively; That I was standing when I should be running, or that I was passing when I should be shooting or dribbling. Those words finally have started to stick in my mind. I had those words in my head when I attacked a defender and played a pass to Atte that led to him assisting a goal against Mariehamn, and I had it in my head for both goals I scored against Lahti. I won’t say much more about the game, besides that I was really happy with how I played and how the team responded to going behind early. We were in a really bad slump, but still showed that incredible team spirit that I always talk about. According to the experts before the season, we had the 11th most talent, yet here we are with a medal a realistic goal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In off-the-field “news”, Celia came to visit me for the past week. It’s always nice to have her around. She really makes life bearable in the absence of my family. We didn’t really do much, but just being around her is good enough for me. I even managed to not bankrupt myself like I did when I last visited her in London! I like playing for VPS, but I really wish that Vaasa was a bigger city than it is. Exactly the same as it is now, just with 10x as many people and all the attractions that come along with a population of that size. I kind of avoid having people visit me because I just assume they’ll be bored. It’s not a swipe at Vaasa, just saying that if someone was gonna travel all the way to Scandinavia I’d like them to have more to do than there is in Vaasa. Or maybe I just don’t know the city as well as I should! And any boredom she might feel here is balanced out by the overwhelming number of things to do in London. I’ll be going there either early next month or in October, depending on if/how much time we have off during the international breaks.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s all for now. We head to Turku next to play TPS. This is a really big game as TPS could well be our biggest rival for third place this year. A win for us would put us 12 points clear of them, though they’d have two games in hand. Regardless, a win for us would make it very difficult for them to catch us as they’d have to win 6-7 of their last 11 games and have us implode. A loss on the other hand would possibly take our destiny out of our hands. We’re making our final preparations now and we’ll see how it goes!</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No meme today since I don’t have any saved yet on my new computer.</span></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com1Vaasa, Finland63.0951412 21.6165128000000137.5731067 -19.69208119999999 88.6171757 62.925106800000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-19921331116989778812013-07-29T07:52:00.000-04:002013-07-29T07:52:22.303-04:00A Crazy Derby<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’re starting to get to the business end of the season.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">VPS is still in third place, a position it seems like we’ve
held for months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That position looks to
be in a bit of danger though, as the rest of the top half of the table has
effectively caught up to us during July.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We had a bit of a rough patch, then bounced back with a great comeback
performance against MYPA before losing to Jaro in what turned out to be a
fantastic match even though we lost.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of the two games, I’m only going to talk about Jaro because
I was at the center of a bit of controversy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The game itself started out really poorly for us, though that was kind
of to be expected with the crowd in Jakobstad one of the biggest in Jaro
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any game on the road is
difficult in the beginning, but it’s just a matter of weathering the
storm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did that against JJK and HJK,
but we didn’t do so well against Jaro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They put a lot of pressure on us and scored a goal early.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to apologize to the assistant referee
in that game because it looks like he got it right not calling offsides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said some things to him at halftime that
would have been appropriate if he got the call wrong, but based on the video I
don’t think he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got better after
the goal and put 2-3 good moves together before things got even worse and Jarno
had to come off injured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That meant that
I was in as a first half substitute for the 4<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> time this season,
which must be close to a record in this league.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before I talk about my role in this game, I’ll mention that
I finally got my hands on some of the game footage from previous games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watching myself on video exposed a lot of
things in my game that weren’t as good as I thought they were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Namely, I felt like I looked incredibly lazy
in most of the footage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always give my
best effort, but it certainly didn’t look like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this game I gave myself a few goals:
first, I wanted to make more assertive runs and use my legs to show when/where
I want the ball rather than just pointing like I’ve been doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, I wanted to keep moving constantly
rather than playing so stop/start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
haven’t watched the match video yet, but hopefully I did a better job with my
movement.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I’ve mentioned more than once before on this blog, when I
play striker I’m looking almost exclusively to get in behind the defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That makes what happened halfway through the
second half as frustrating as it is embarrassing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made a good run on the back shoulder of the
central defender and the team (namely Tomi Ameobi) played a perfect early ball
behind the defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took a good first
touch and was clean in on the goalie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
striker instincts took over and I felt no nerves whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could have probably scored by slotting to
the keepers right or between his legs, but because I was so clean through I
decided to round him and score in the open net.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, after I touched the ball past him and went to run around,
I slipped, got halfway up and slipped again, losing the chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That goal would have changed the game
completely and I’m sure we would have won the game had I scored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jaro always fades at the end of games, so to
tie the score with 25-30 minutes left would have been a big hit psychologically
for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead that miss probably
served to give them more energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me
personally it really sucked because I’ve been asking for that exact pass for a
month, and when it came I screwed it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People must be wondering what I was screaming for all this time!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, after the miss life went on and after a second Jaro
goal I was again involved in one of the game’s talking points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were about five minutes left in normal
time and we were chasing a goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henka
played a long pass that I chased along with a defender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The defender headed the ball then started
screaming, but I wasn’t thinking about him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I got the ball and immediately threw it in to Sebastian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gave the ball back to me and I one timed a
low shot that found it’s way into the net.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was no time to celebrate so I turned straight back to the center
line only to almost step on the defender, who was still down on the
ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reaction of the Jaro players
and seeing the player down made it kind of click to me that he was injured the
whole time and that I had played on despite it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That made me feel horrible because I consider myself to be a fair
player.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the exception of yelling at
referees, I don’t do anything unsporting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No sneaky elbows, no trash talk, no stepping on people’s ankles,
etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now I pretty much did the most
unsporting thing possible without even realizing.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In my defense, it’s been a few years now since FIFA declared
definitively that it is not the responsibility of any player to stop playing if
someone is injured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the referee
thought that the defender was seriously injured, then he had the authority to
stop the play at any time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, I didn’t
see the defender so it wasn’t like I intentionally broke any unwritten
rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To their credit, no player from
Jaro blamed me for continuing to play even though they must have assumed that I
played on with knowledge of the injured player.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After everything was sorted, we continued playing against
Jaro’s 10 men since they had no subs left to replace the injured player.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the ensuing 3 minutes plus an
extraordinary 8 minutes of stoppage time, we seiged Jaro’s goal and had at least
three great chances to score.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end
we didn’t get the goal, but we showed great heart in how we finished the
match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That doesn’t do us any good on
the day, but I promise that it matters in the long run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the first time since the Honka match
last month that I thought we really dug our heels in and fought til the
end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we keep that spirit then we’ll
win games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jaro was only able to repel
us because the crowd gave them a good fighting spirit as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even then, they needed a bit of luck at the
end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’ve got two games in the next week that will go a long way
towards determining what position we’re fighting for this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two wins and we’d probably be the favorites
to finish third.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anything less and we’ll
fall into a crowd of teams and obviously we don’t want that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first game is against Lahti.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve been playing really well lately, but
I think we’re better than they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
we play like we did against MYPA then we should win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that comes IFK Mariehamn, who are
struggling to figure out their identity since losing their two top
scorers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should be looking to win
that game as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That’s all for now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ll be looking to bounce back against Lahti this week and I hope that
there’s a big crowd there to cheer us on!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The meme:</span><br />
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0Vaasa, Finland63.0951412 21.6165128000000137.5731067 -19.69208119999999 88.6171757 62.925106800000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-14217133151038196102013-07-17T16:09:00.000-04:002013-07-17T16:09:16.979-04:00Rough Summer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hey everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve
gone over two weeks without posting so I have plenty to write about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t talk too much about the games in
general because they’ve both been pretty awful and I don’t do that much
anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will however talk about my
role in those games since…well since that’s what I feel like talking about.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsPHmqWdOzJF88ap1YR3RanVZA74spkBRjeby-a_UcyjM1iNWgOFD3N3fPalyiJZhY0aHBdBfM7pJqUjVoMyCc3FevEes272olavN_2HNXgKUigyvX3pI0PbjNWsbb96pMSrBoI_jYvr36/s1600/1070066_547518928628701_2053893758_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsPHmqWdOzJF88ap1YR3RanVZA74spkBRjeby-a_UcyjM1iNWgOFD3N3fPalyiJZhY0aHBdBfM7pJqUjVoMyCc3FevEes272olavN_2HNXgKUigyvX3pI0PbjNWsbb96pMSrBoI_jYvr36/s400/1070066_547518928628701_2053893758_n.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A picture of me...with mismatched socks.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tomi was injured, so for the last three games I spent most
of my time as a striker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It went so well
that after the KuPS game we signed another striker </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My time was less and less frustrating with
each minute I played up there, but I still had some issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve gone over them, but it is annoying when
you make runs that would kill teams and don’t get the passes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the HJK game I finally got some and caused
a lot of danger, but didn’t score.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
guess that’s just the nature of filling in for a player that is the exact
opposite of me.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One advantage of being the opposite of Tomi though, is that
when we play together as strikers we work really well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We played together during the second half
against HJK and caused them a ton of problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We both had decent chances to score even though we were playing the top
team in the league in good form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we
play together, we always have multiple ways to attack the defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I almost always run behind the defense, and
Tomi almost always shows in front of the defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While our individual runs may be predictable
for defenders, when they happen at the same time they are pretty difficult to
stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though HJK scored two goals
on us in the second half and we didn’t score we still played quite well I
thought on the attacking end.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNW2lWrH1la5JX6jHFG4qilEdB1GW1o86I6FtPJJdqVQ3TU1AcTXG9KNVWdA5vJ4MBcEIvh98GocSjVhyJ_CG11-nDtcQKx2oQ6b447VGAUDbtq0YszE5Gxvmf-uDtLecLrZ_RYtd7nOt/s1600/2013-07-08+15.47.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNW2lWrH1la5JX6jHFG4qilEdB1GW1o86I6FtPJJdqVQ3TU1AcTXG9KNVWdA5vJ4MBcEIvh98GocSjVhyJ_CG11-nDtcQKx2oQ6b447VGAUDbtq0YszE5Gxvmf-uDtLecLrZ_RYtd7nOt/s320/2013-07-08+15.47.12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Going back in time a bit, after the Inter game (which was
really depressing) we went to a little team get together at a fishing resort
about half an hour away from Vaasa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Usually after a second consecutive defeat no one wants to look at each
other, but I think the fishing trip was good for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are so rarely times for a team to all
get together outside of training, and that can be contentious because training
is competitive and we’re not necessarily there to be friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will say that I was on a roll and caught
two fish in about ten minutes, but due to my ridiculous fear of anything that
lives in the water,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nikki had to dehook both
fish for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he refused to help if
I caught another, I just took my fishing pole and went back to the lodge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jarno eventually won a hat for catching the
biggest fish while I jealously looked on.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvBqZfpDQzK1ujWclkY_IeUtCk41gPlAi03zbJQdxiPPK7X142QPcBjBl-dGZSrVulo10wfWfaeViBQy6KTWM-dQnMdk2KnaFySX3AZxMbmEMtsbPB-3LOjHfKdHBysqa8GJPhptpFTT8/s1600/427230_10151108573357744_1216515955_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvBqZfpDQzK1ujWclkY_IeUtCk41gPlAi03zbJQdxiPPK7X142QPcBjBl-dGZSrVulo10wfWfaeViBQy6KTWM-dQnMdk2KnaFySX3AZxMbmEMtsbPB-3LOjHfKdHBysqa8GJPhptpFTT8/s400/427230_10151108573357744_1216515955_n.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve been doing a lot more at home now that we have whole
weeks between games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s given us more
time to just have days to relax and hangout with one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, Steven Morissey came over to
spend a day with Anthony and I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
three of us had a really good chat about just about everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We talked about the games, life in Europe and
life back home, our careers and everything in between.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I won’t go into any specifics, I was
really interested in hearing about Steven’s reasons for choosing to sign with
VPS over other clubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His reasons said a
lot to me about him as an individual and his character. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gained a lot of respect for him after that
visit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, he cooked for us!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That makes him a winner in my book.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2VLX_9l7hkrtLEO2HcJgEBnyLrmU5pvRQoxxxEsuIZRZZC9IipNasZv0-IxyB5jAeI0YG9WxQ2Gac4VnX4cWGbFAasA_BisQ32ioMojyyL-wm6B59TLB7VwXcXeALbSt5emNue9ivbOVZ/s1600/2013-07-13+22.36.51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2VLX_9l7hkrtLEO2HcJgEBnyLrmU5pvRQoxxxEsuIZRZZC9IipNasZv0-IxyB5jAeI0YG9WxQ2Gac4VnX4cWGbFAasA_BisQ32ioMojyyL-wm6B59TLB7VwXcXeALbSt5emNue9ivbOVZ/s320/2013-07-13+22.36.51.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve talked about a few things, but by far the most
interesting thing has happened: a team party at my place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had just lost to HJK and needed to
recharge our batteries, so Anthony and I hosted a beer pong tournament at my
house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long story short, beer pong
involes throwing ping pong balls into cups of beer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I tried to explain in any more detail I
would be writing for hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, we
started off on the wrong foot by having everyone show up an hour late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we got to playing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some reason just about everyone took
their shirts off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have anything
to add, I just thought that was really strange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I kept my top on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The host team (Me
and Anthony) dominated the competition in group play with a perfect 4-0
record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, after getting
iced by having a bye into the semifinals, we lost and didn’t take home the
title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the night went on, things got
a bit “party-like”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few guys got into
a spirited argument over who loved Finland the most and in the ensuing
conversation my laptop got knocked off a table and the screen was broken into
pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s part of the reason that
this blog post took so long to get published.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The good news is that I know how some free money from certain
individuals to go out and buy a new laptop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’ll be happy to know that I’m getting essentially the cheapest new laptop
in existence, the Samsung Chromebook 3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m gonna buy it through Amazon and it’s only about 300 euros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I’ll be spending the majority of
that money, but the money pledged by the people who broke my current laptop
will help.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That’s about it for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I had a lot of stuff happen, but in the end I didn’t really get talking
too much about any of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We play MYPA
in our next game on Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s at 8pm
for some reason, I assume so that MYPA can travel to Vaasa the day of the match
and save a bit of money on hotel costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That could be totally wrong though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is a big game because I feel confident that MYPA will be next to us
in the final standings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This game is a
proverbial “six-pointer” in our individual battle for placement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winning or losing this game could be the
difference between, say, 3<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">rd</span></sup> or 4<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> at the end of the
season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come out and support us!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could really use the win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
The meme:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCsi34UB0OaSanj_djOP6az9u9QxRpxRHZu5Y-YSH859SqqOaeiRef0ehFt7YknofVzrpQV15EBWQaSy_MKRk8Fvqm4BjBktHWDeIDnIpAZGVxpBHLity_AOyceiWD88NfKdFQChwyNkT/s1600/270016_10151557157222598_628379018_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCsi34UB0OaSanj_djOP6az9u9QxRpxRHZu5Y-YSH859SqqOaeiRef0ehFt7YknofVzrpQV15EBWQaSy_MKRk8Fvqm4BjBktHWDeIDnIpAZGVxpBHLity_AOyceiWD88NfKdFQChwyNkT/s640/270016_10151557157222598_628379018_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-60211854068517952662013-07-01T16:05:00.000-04:002013-07-01T16:05:07.328-04:00A Change of Pace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The unbeaten steak is over </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">L</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We almost made it through all of June without losing, but in
the very last game it all went to hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Since I last posted, we’ve won (1-0 JJK), lost (0-1 KuPS) and tied (0-0
RoPS).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no interest at all in
talking about any of those games, but I do want to talk about my apparent new/old
position, striker.</span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9f90SE5CvfHgw2vz_M9d9w6QzkYV_Cb6mmhO1YkvtgJAUPDJJAgmbMtRzgnq5v-Nh2431wtGue8xNMj6ZRyoCZq-P4Kc1aNv5EIvsvl0g6AX4qlMSJQ5z2d6uKNM2_0tennfsN0W1eYI/s800/training.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9f90SE5CvfHgw2vz_M9d9w6QzkYV_Cb6mmhO1YkvtgJAUPDJJAgmbMtRzgnq5v-Nh2431wtGue8xNMj6ZRyoCZq-P4Kc1aNv5EIvsvl0g6AX4qlMSJQ5z2d6uKNM2_0tennfsN0W1eYI/s400/training.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I have no idea what we were talking about here, but let's pretend we were talking about what position I'll play.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve played the last two games as a striker, my natural
position and the one I played growing up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It may not seem like my natural position, considering that I haven’t
scored any goals from there, but trust me it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been asked quite a bit if I prefer to
play up front instead of the wing and my answers have been sincere: I honestly
don’t care which position I play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
said, in the second half of this season I believe I could be a more important
asset as a striker than winger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first reason is that we don’t have any depth at the moment with our
strikers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m the only person other than
Tomi to play as the top striker this season and only Sebastian and I have
played Jarno’s normal position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I don’t
play up top, then that effectively means that Tomi and Jarno will have to play
almost every minute from now until November.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Of course we could always just sign a striker in August, but I don’t
know what the plan is there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If money
grew on trees in Vaasa I’m sure that’d be an option, but then again if money
grew on trees here I’d spend a lot more time outside </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second reason I think I can bring more to
the team as a striker than as a winger is my style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have two strikers at the moment who are
both really good, but neither is comfortable making runs behind the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That doesn’t make them easy to defend, but it
is a bit predictable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I’m paired up
there with one of them things open up dramatically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The number of chances we created in the 20
minutes I played against JJK were greater than the number of chances in the
first 65-70.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I’m a good
change-of-pace (literally and figuratively) striking option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tired center backs don’t want to look over
and see the fastest player on the field coming on fresh at striker for the last
20 minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I know I’ve made a bit of an argument as to why I should
play striker, but I truly don’t care where I play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winger is probably my best position at this
level of competition, and a coach or two have even suggested that I play as a
fullback, though I never actually have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wherever Oka wants me to play I’ll play happily.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I went to the league website today, and was slightly
surprised to realize that we are halfway through the season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I do feel like I’ve been in Vaasa for a
long time, it doesn’t seem like the official games started so long ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the schedulemakers were drunk when
they set the games, we’ve played 16 games in nine weeks, but only 17 in the
next 16 weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s gonna be nice at
first to have a full week to prepare for each game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s especially nice for VPS in particular,
since our effective squad size is quite small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Going forward from now we don’t really have to worry about rotating the
squad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll have to deal with some
suspensions and injuries over the next four months, but there are no more
three-game weeks which is a relief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
just hope that things don’t get super boring like they were down the stretch
with Haka.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the last month there we
were training for an hour a day to preserve the bodies for the guys who were
playing the games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is such a thing
as too much free time, and I fear that the slowdown in games might lead to that
here.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another thing about the midseason point is that it kind of
cements VPS’s place as a real contender for the title or medals in
Veikkausliiga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No longer can we be
called a surprise or written off as a fantastic start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we are surely recognized by the whole
league as a team that can win things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
must admit I didn’t come to Vaasa with trophies in mind, but now that we’re in
the position I don’t see why we can’t win something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve seen every team in this league and some
twice and nothing has made me think that we can’t finish at the top end of the
table.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With the pace of the games slowing down a bit I’m going to
make a point of getting out into the city and enjoying Vaasa before it gets
cold again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t been to the
swimming area yet so I’ll have to go there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I know that Finland can be brutal when it’s cold, so I’ll make the most
of my extra free time in these summer months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Netflix and PS3 will still be here in autumn.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lastly, I want to
extend good luck to all the finnish teams in European competition this week and
month, especially IFK Mariehamn who has Kris Bright and Dever Orgill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though these teams are our rivals, their
success makes us look better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If every
finnish team were to miraculously make the group stages of the Europe League
and Champions League respectively, then Veikkausliiga would jump to like 15<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>
on the UEFA league coefficient and everyone would assume that I’m much better
at soccer than I am because I play in that league </span></span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You had to know that I would somehow spin
this to be about me, right?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> The meme:</span></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVXrh5RdKPoI8hoGUvP4Pc_m0oZi29Jv-m6sRfnOkN-45x_VWZWQTIPzflA8HTxPeSXX9mU63M7TEhNwipv-27tr-p7-a8tRa-sveA94Tw13bC8QFEJv1R1ayQID7VVsyTuxvLAAs6Zuf/s420/MjAxMy1mMTViMWRlMmUwZmUzMzZi_5149eb7ab25ce.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVXrh5RdKPoI8hoGUvP4Pc_m0oZi29Jv-m6sRfnOkN-45x_VWZWQTIPzflA8HTxPeSXX9mU63M7TEhNwipv-27tr-p7-a8tRa-sveA94Tw13bC8QFEJv1R1ayQID7VVsyTuxvLAAs6Zuf/s400/MjAxMy1mMTViMWRlMmUwZmUzMzZi_5149eb7ab25ce.png" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com2Vaasa, Finland63.0951412 21.6165128000000137.5731067 -19.69208119999999 88.6171757 62.925106800000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6416156337253608395.post-63500590821068915442013-06-21T04:57:00.002-04:002013-06-21T04:57:27.163-04:00Sitting Pretty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s been a tense week, but we did alright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two games and two draws against teams at the
top of the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t necessarily
play well for large parts of either game, but then again we rarely play well
for large parts of a game and we’re 2<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">nd</span></sup> in the table so it clearly
works for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember that fighting
spirit I was talking about?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was on
full display in these last two games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Teams that were picked to finish in the medals this year against a team
predicted to be fighting relegation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
the dust settled, we’re still above both of them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0mLebYBFFHuWMqPUBh2lyo-ulEnLzcE1JWf7tuAd6HAaz9EZMP4o-qZYieysEzpkc-gmoVc3laIKjHA_Qrax3jj9GIRg2Qt4Mgbfqt-AYDVXBBSADtkK8C4zQ0sXCsj3AU1shNaQc7Wlj/s1600/2013-06-18+18.17.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0mLebYBFFHuWMqPUBh2lyo-ulEnLzcE1JWf7tuAd6HAaz9EZMP4o-qZYieysEzpkc-gmoVc3laIKjHA_Qrax3jj9GIRg2Qt4Mgbfqt-AYDVXBBSADtkK8C4zQ0sXCsj3AU1shNaQc7Wlj/s400/2013-06-18+18.17.57.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Soccer wasn’t the only thing on the agenda this week
though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, along with the rest of the team,
visited the VPS juniors facility and watched the kids play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few of the players were coaches, so they
were busy boasting about how much their team was gonna outplay the other player’s
team and so forth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoyed getting out
in the community because in general I don’t really do anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I train, then go home and either blog, play
Playstation or watch Youtube/Netflix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
can get pretty boring, so it’s nice to do something actually useful in the
city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, seeing the kids play brought
back a bunch of good memories of playing for fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a pro is the best job ever, but it’s
still a job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, it has carried with
it the stresses of a job for probably the last 10 years or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was young my teams all depended on me
and now my job has taken me to a foreign country to a town I’d never heard of
two years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it’s refreshing to see
a ball roll directly past a kid because he’s more interested in looking at the
sky because he heard an airplane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I miss
that! </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Tuesday, it was my turn to answer questions on the
facebook chat session that VPS hosts each week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you don’t know about it just add VPS as a facebook friend and the
information should be there somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can actually go there now and see the Q&A session, since I won’t
rehash it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The chat was fun and there
were a lot more questions than I expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was mention of my nickname among some fans being, “The Predator”,
but I’m really pushing for “Jordan Seabrohimovic”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think you have to actually be good to
compare yourself to Zlatan though, especially in Scandinavia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I really hate talking about the games because anyone who
cares already knows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the games
coming so close though there’s really not much else going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The TPS game was incredibly boring and doesn’t
deserve more mention than this one line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Honka game however was ridiculous and deserves to be talked about a
bit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Honka is a really good team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They have signed 4-5 top-level talents for this league and have been
storming through the league since about round 5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How a team that lives in the shadow of a much
bigger club and that couldn’t pay its players last year is able to go on a
spending spree a few months later is open to speculation, but ultimately beside
the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They dominated the first
half, really giving us problems with their counterattacking style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see why they have been so
successful:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have a strong backline
that allows them to confidently counter in numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some teams counterattack with 3-4 players,
but Honka was having counter moves of 6 or 7 guys running in all
directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was difficult for us to
get a handle on, even though we enjoyed more possession.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The second half was very different from the first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honka predictably ran out of gas to play such
an up-tempo counter game, so what in the first half was useless possession by
us followed by a dangerous counterattack by them became just a ton of
possession for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With that possession,
and the arrivals of me and Grant Kerr to bring fresh legs and a different
approach, we were able to be dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That pressure finally paid off with our one clear chance and Sebastian
made no mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We tied 1-1 for those
who didn’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The real story of the
second half though, was the referee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now people who read this blog regularly know that I have a
bit of a problem with the referees in this league.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every game I get called for fouls that would
never be whistled in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things
that I think are just not fouls at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Against Honka though our ref took things to a new level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only did he blow his whistle every single
time a Honka player fell for any reason (which was suspiciously often, almost
like they were…GASP…diving?), but he didn’t call any fouls in our favor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The papers mentioned two penalty kick claims
that he missed in the second half, but in my opinion it was three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The handball was obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t intentional by the defender, but
his hands were away from his body so it has to be called.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not even up to the ref to decide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as simple a decision as the ball rolling
out of bounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t matter how it
got there, the call is ironclad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
trip of Jarno was also obvious, but the ref was too scared to call a penalty in
stoppage time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The third incident
actually happened against me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grant
played me a great lofted ball into the box and as I chested it, I was clattered
into by some defender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as obvious
a penalty as you’ll ever see and makes me wonder if perhaps I have somehow
gained a reputation in this league as a diver?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve never dove in my life (well……..at least not recently), yet I can’t
seem to get a call in this league.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll
been elbowed in the face twice (things that would get players red carded in
America) without a call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been
tripped dozens of times this season with no call all while being whistled for
2-3 fouls a game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enough of my little
rant though, I just wanted to mention something that I did that might make our
fans feel a little bit better about the ref.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When Sebastar scored, I high fived him but ran in the opposite direction
of the celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to get the
ball to give myself a logical reason of being next to the ref, but Honka
immediately kicked it to midfield.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regardless, I ran to the referee and essentially asked if he was
enjoying Finnish summer, but with a bunch of American curse words he may have thought that I was insulting him and his performance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that I would do something like that </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re someone at the Veikkausliiga office
who has the ability to fine players, then I’m sure I remember just asking him
about the weather, nothing else!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAS6S_uckiw8f5jjNpaK_I7m3_Hdgo1Fb6RV5YylYTjBP-yEAosCNZSiB7sf1Pyf0Wu3Rqzug6mMkHTlsXbgNmPWtHZkMBdzvAPGVQUstNDL4AGcIsxo2q3wjous0O7VSC4WwkehlLpXk8/s1600/enhanced-buzz-26718-1362427088-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAS6S_uckiw8f5jjNpaK_I7m3_Hdgo1Fb6RV5YylYTjBP-yEAosCNZSiB7sf1Pyf0Wu3Rqzug6mMkHTlsXbgNmPWtHZkMBdzvAPGVQUstNDL4AGcIsxo2q3wjous0O7VSC4WwkehlLpXk8/s320/enhanced-buzz-26718-1362427088-3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s midsummer today or tomorrow or both, I’m not really
sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find it weird that Scandinavian
people celebrate this holiday, but then again Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo
by dressing in borderline-racist costumes and drinking Mexican beer made in
Texas, so I guess I shouldn’t be throwing stones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our next game is against RoPS and Anthony is
suspended so he doesn’t have to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
couldn’t be happier about it either, though he’ll miss us while we’re
gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until then though we have a few
days off so I’m gonna go enjoy Vaasa!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The meme:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br /></div>
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Jordan Seabrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09646475394329832073noreply@blogger.com0Vaasa, Finland63.0951412 21.6165128000000137.5731067 -19.69208119999999 88.6171757 62.925106800000009