In Another Example Of How Soccer Rules My Life ...

There are many special soccer competitions happening over the summer.  You may have heard of the Gold Cup, the biannual competition between countries in North and Central America.  (The Semifinals were held last/Wednesday night; the United States and Mexico will, once again, meet for continental supremacy Sunday.)  You may have also heard of the Club World Cup, where teams in domestic leagues meet up in a global tournament (being held in the U. S., like the Gold Cup) to see which club team in the world is the best.  (That's not really the case since there are only 32 teams and many of them were invited, so how can you determine which one is the best?)

But for my money, the summertime soccer competition I am most keen on is the Women's European Championship, colloquially known as the Women's EUROS.  That tourney began yesterday/Wednesday afternoon and will last throughout July.  I think it has better teams than the Gold Cup and is more important than the Club World Cup, which isn't as old as the Women's EUROS.  European women's soccer is getting really good these days, and there are several countries that could win this tournament.  I loved watching three Years ago and four Years before that, so I'm looking forward to watching Women's EUROS 2025 slavishly.

Thus, my waking days will be spent, yes, on soccer.  There will be group stage Matches for the Women's EUROS for the next dozen Days that began yesterday/Wednesday.  Then there will be Games as the tournament reaches the knockout stage, culminating in the Final Sunday, July 27.  I will try and listen to as many Matches on satellite radio while I'm at work.  If I'm at home and the Match is on over-the-air TV, I will turn on Channel 9/Fox.  And for a few Games, including the Final, I will go out to a soccer pub to watch.

Now, add that to the Gold Cup Final on Sunday, possibly the Club World Cup Final (I hear that the gameday venues have been atrocious due to low attendance and dangerous weather, but the Games themselves have been great), and MNUFC playing (including on back-to-back Days Monday and Tuesday), and my month of July will be held hostage by soccer.  I will enjoy that, for the most part.  But I cannot guarantee I won't collapse in exhaustion at some point.  Heck, I wanted to watch the Mexico-Honduras Gold Cup Semi last/Wednesday night on Univision.  I turned the TV on, but I was so tired I slept from just before kickoff till about the last 20 Minutes of the Match.  There might be more of that where that came from if I'm not careful.