Germany wins World Cup - a New Star emerges - Christ the Redeemer

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A great soccer game decided the World Cup with the superior precision and physical stamina of Germany finally winning out in overtime.  Argentina had several chances to score and take the lead but exhaustion was evident after the grueling World Cup series.

My suggestion that FIFA allow unlimited substitution and perhaps add a few more players to the roster would go a long ways toward improving the speed and increasing the scoring in football since the entire game strategy right now is to be tied at the end of the match and win in overtime or kickoffs.

So many games in the final rounds ended this way a rule change might make it a lot more interesting to fans and certainly will eliminate the need for the Broadway theatrics of faking injuries to rest or try to trick the umpires into a penalty, either of which is downright unethical and hypocritical.

But in the end the true new superstar was none other than the amazing statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking the stadium for the finals.  Here is the story on the star.

Christ the Redeemer, Portuguese Cristo Redentor,  colossal statue of Jesus Christ at the summit of Mount Corcovado, Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil. It was completed in 1931 and stands 98 feet (30 metres) tall, its horizontally outstretched arms spanning 92 feet (28 metres). The statue, made of reinforced concrete clad in a mosaic of thousands of triangular soapstone tiles, sits on a square stone pedestal base about 26 feet (8 metres) high, which itself is situated on a deck atop the mountain’s summit. The statue is the largest Art Deco style sculpture in the world and is one of Rio de Janeiro’s most recognizable landmarks.

In the 1850s the Vincentian priest Pedro Maria Boss suggested placing a Christian monument on Mount Corcovado to honour Isabel, princess regent of Brazil and the daughter of Emperor Pedro II , although the project was never approved. In 1921 the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro proposed that a statue of Christ be built on the 2,310-foot (704-metre) summit, which, because of its commanding height, would make it visible from anywhere in Rio. Citizens petitioned Pres. Epitácio Pessoa to allow the construction of the statue on Mount Corcovado.

Permission was granted, and the foundation stone of the base was ceremonially laid on April 4, 1922—to commemorate the centennial on that day of Brazil’s independence from Portugal—although the monument’s final design had not yet been chosen. That same year a competition was held to find a designer, and the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa was chosen on the basis of his sketches of a figure of Christ holding a cross in his right hand and the world in his left. In collaboration with Brazilian artist Carlos Oswald, Silva Costa later amended the plan; Oswald has been credited with the idea for the figure’s standing pose with arms spread wide. The French sculptor Paul Landowski, who collaborated with Silva Costa on the final design, has been credited as the primary designer of the figure’s head and hands. Funds were raised privately, principally by the church. Under Silva Costa’s supervision, construction began in 1926 and continued for five years. During that time materials and workers were transported to the summit via railway.

After its completion, the statue was dedicated on October 12, 1931. Over the years it has undergone periodic repairs and renovations, including a thorough cleaning in 1980, in preparation for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Brazil that year, and a major project in 2010, when the surface was repaired and refurbished. Escalators and panoramic elevators were added beginning in 2002; previously, in order to reach the statue itself, tourists climbed more than 200 steps as the last stage of the trip. In 2006, to mark the statue’s 75th anniversary, a chapel at its base was consecrated to Our Lady of Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil.

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World Cup Finals - Can Pope Francis bring Argentina a Miracle on grass?

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Pope Francis and Pope Benedict, it has been 600 years since there were two living Popes, and what are the odds of their home countries playing for the World Cup championship?  About as likely as Obama and Boehner sitting down and working out what is good for our country.

Yet here we are, the last day of the World Cup, and Argentina (Francis) is playing Germany (Benedict) for the world crown.  Who will win?  Germany is the heavy favorite after annihilating the home country Brazil in the semis 7-1 with discipline and precision we've come to expect from Germany.

As for Argentina, the odds of them winning are about as remote as the odds that some radical little people's priest from the poor slums of Argentina could ever be Pope.

As for me, I figure Divine Providence will always be full of surprises so don't be surprised if you see the Argentina flag flying from the Vatican this afternoon and the Argentina World Cup team visiting Rome.

Go Raggedy People!
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So we were supposed to lose the revolution!!! 50-1 is a fair fight!!!

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Latest World Cup odds

USA Loses and still Wins??? Only in Futbol World Cup Style

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Team USA stunned the experts who were expecting a quick exit from their Death Draw in the first round of the Brazil World Cup by losing their final match against Germany yet winning a spot in the next Knockout Round of 16 along with Germany and host Brazil among others.

By Futbol standards it was a great game with the final score 1-0 Germany after 94 minutes of play.  So if there are 10 players on each team I guess that means it took 1880 minutes of accumulated play to get one goal.  (That is in man-minutes).

In the end, it didn't matter that the USA lost because Portugal won and therefore the USA goes to the next round appropriately called the Knockout round.  It is called the Knockout Round because if you lose this time you really do go home.  Of course home might be nice for a team like the USA who had to travel to Brazil for the tournament and then travel over 9,000 miles in Brazil to play just three games.

For some odd reason the four stadiums were each built in different time zones or countries or something so the 600,000 fans from outside the country would not be partying in the same town every night.  The host city is the capitol called Brasilia which was just built in 1960 because it was either in the center of the country or far away from the rowdy towns like Rio de Janeiro.  Still the biggest crowds are in Rio.

Over 150,000 Americans traveled to the World Cup and adopted the nickname "Outlaws" perhaps to fit in with the local syndicates.  For the most part the rest of the world is mad that Brazil got the World Cup, the next Olympics, and Rio just hosted the 2011 Military World Games and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Party on as they say and no one can party like the lovely people of Brazil.

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World Cup - USA versus Germany Today!!!

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United States head coach Jurgen Kinsmann

Go USA!!!

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It is FOOTBALL Season American Style so No offense to the Brits and Football Soccer Teams

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Who owns the right to call football football?  And just what is football?



Listen to this Andy Griffin classic - What it was was football!

It seems all the rest of the world is lined up against America in claiming that Soccer is really Football and Football in America should be called something else, but is the rest of the world right? Well we at the CPT make it a point to tell you the truth so here it is.

The games of football, rugby football, soccer football, American gridiron football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, as well as the variations of the games in various countries all share the same history.

While it is widely assumed that the word "football" (or "foot ball") references the action of the foot kicking a ball, there is a historical explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot. These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the horse-riding sports (such as polo) often played by aristocrats. There is no conclusive evidence for either explanation, and the word football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has even been applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the ball.

For that reason all forms of football share and can claim ownership of the term for it has always applied to all of them. Now to get specific, medieval Europe was the time from 500 CE to 1,500 CE so we are talking about a name in use 500 to 1,500 years ago, long before the modern games came into existence.

In the ancient days, well before the time of Jesus, according to the Greek history, the first Olympic Games in the Greek Antiquity can be traced back to 776 BC. The Games continued through the rise of the ancient Greek empire and for almost 12 centuries, until the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned them, in 393 AD. The Games had gradually lost their importance when the Romans conquered Greece and when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. So ended a period of one thousand years during which the Olympics were to be conducted every four years thereafter.

The Olympic games were revived by the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin in the late 19 th century. The Games of the Olympiad, also known as Summer Olympics, taking place every four years since 1896 onwards, with the exception of the years during the World Wars.

As for football and the Olympics, in 1900 soccer became a demonstration sport and by 1908 medals were granted to winners. Rugby Sevens will debut as an Olympic sport at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to include the sport at the IOC Congress on 9th October 2009.

Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC. It describes a practice known as cuju (literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were established. Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively.   This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD.

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland. There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey of the Jamestown settlement, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman. In Victoria, Australia, indigenous people played a game called Marn Grook ("ball game"). An 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in about 1841, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." It is widely believed that Marn Grook had an influence on the development of Australian rules football

The modern rules of many football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. This also applies to other sports such as lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc. Apart from Rugby football, the public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools which created them.

One of the longest running football competitions is in Australia, the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, contested between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne every year since 1858. It is believed by many to also be the first match of Australian rules football, although it was played under experimental rules in its first year. The first football trophy tournament was the Caledonian Challenge Cup, donated by the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne, played in 1861 under the Melbourne Rules.

The oldest football league is a rugby football competition, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup (1874), while the oldest rugby trophy is the Yorkshire Cup, contested since 1878. The South Australian Football Association (30 April 1877) is the oldest surviving Australian rules football competition. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup (1867) and the oldest national soccer competition is the English FA Cup (1871). The Football League (1888) is recognized as the longest running Association Football league. The first ever international football match took place between sides representing England and Scotland on March 5, 1870 at the Oval under the authority of the FA. The first Rugby international took place in 1871.

Modern American football grew out of a match between McGill University of Montreal, and Harvard University in 1874. At the time, Harvard students are reported to have played the Boston Game — a running code — rather than the FA-based kicking games favored by U.S. universities. This made it easy for Harvard to adapt to the rugby-based game played by McGill and the two teams alternated between their respective sets of rules. Within a few years, however, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rugby rules and had persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. In 1876, at the Massasoit Convention, it was agreed by these universities to adopt most of the Rugby Football Union rules, with some variations. Princeton, Rutgers and others continued to compete using soccer-based rules for a few years before switching to the rugby-based rules of Harvard and its competitors. U.S. colleges did not generally return to soccer until the early twentieth century.

By the 1820's and '30's Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale were playing versions of football, often changing rules at halftime. It was so brutal it was called "mob football". On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in a game that was played with a round ball under "Football Association" rules (i.e. soccer) and is often regarded as the first game of intercollegiate football. The game was played with 20 players per team at a Rutgers field under Rutgers rules.

Another game claiming to be first was played in November 1875 at New Haven, Connecticut between Harvard and Yale, and was part rugby and part soccer. The two teams played with 15 players on a side instead of 11 as Yale would have preferred, and Harvard won by 4 goals and 4 tries, or touchdowns, to none.

In 1880, Yale coach Walter Camp, credited with being behind many of the modern football rules, devised a number of major changes to the American game. Camp's two most important rule innovations in establishing American football as distinct from the rugby football games on which it is based are scrimmage and down-and-distance rules.

So there you are, and you can thank the Ivy League for bringing football to America. Of course it was so brutal that there were 18 deaths and many serious injuries, and was banned on most college campuses, before President Teddy Roosevelt saved the sport by revising the rules when the situation came to a head in 1905 with 19 fatalities nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to shut the game down if drastic changes were not made. They were made and modern football was finally born in America.
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