Time zone challenges aside, I’m really appreciating the growth in the competition and the extent that the tournament has grown in popularity, viewership and more importantly recognition.

When I (for the first time) watched the Euro’s last year there was a perceived slower pace of Football and it took some getting used to compared to the pace of, for instance, the Premier League. But after watching a few games I’ve come to realize their game is developing at a high rate - and this World Cup’s excitement, quality of play, and upsets are evident that these players are catching up fast. They really are really putting on a show to be appreciated.

But, like I said in the title, I’m watching Footie from the US.
And, I wish I could say different, but the Fox commentary, in the simplest terms, sucks big time. Their breathless uneducated excitable play by play commentary (especially John Strong’s) detracts to the point that this is not an enjoyable experience at all.

My resolution is to watch the game on Telemundo (in Spanish) so I can appreciate the talent on display, and not suffer the distraction of terrible commentary, but still pick up on the vibe.

If American Soccer wants to evolve, then the TV commentary needs to toned down from overly excitable (and partial) to more informative and educational.

I’m so grateful that the Wall wasn’t built tall enough to not now allow Spanish commentary.

As per the title, I passed my Yellow belt grading today with a Distinction. I'm really proud as I'm mid 40s.

When I was a late teen I made it to black stripe but a new job, kids and moving home stopped me from continuing. When I was early 30s I started again, made it to Yellow and quit due to burn out.

Thanks to COVID and a way better work life balance, plus the kids being older (except the toddler), I've managed to get back to it and plan to stick at it through to black belt.

That's it really. I'm hoping other martial artists on Tildes will chime in with any feel good stories they have.

Good afternoon, I hope all of my fellow baseball enjoyers are having the best days you can. I am a new account holder here on Tildes but I've been lurking for a bit, and would like to hear from folks on how and why you first started to get into baseball.

To get things started, my story may be a little different than some. Today baseball is the only sport I follow, but I didn't really grow up with it like many people do when they first become fans. I think I played one season of little league and my only real memories of that experience as a young person were sitting out in right field during practice and hoping no balls got hit my way, and sitting on a hot metal bench and chewing gum. I'm not sure that I ever got a hit.

Somewhat later on in life, when I was in grad school, I wanted to get back into following a sport solely for the reason of having something to talk about with folks in the mindless office jobs I was working in at the time to pay the bills. I settled on baseball because there were games every day for much of the year, and it seemed pretty intuitive to me to read a box score and get a sense of what happened in a game even if I didn't have time to watch.

But what team to follow, where I had no real allegiance to any growing up? I didn't want to be a fan of the Yankees or Mets, which would have been the logical choice given where my school and work were, because it felt like people who had been fans of those teams their whole lives would run circles around me, a baseball novice. So I essentially ran the 30 teams through a random number generator and ended up settling on the Texas Rangers by chance. Fortunately for me this was just prior to the Rangers' two world series teams in 2010 and 2011, and I've been hooked ever since (even if I might have some misgivings about franchise ownership... and the leadership of the state of Texas as a whole).

I would love to hear other folks' stories, and look forwards to the rest of the season. Thanks for your time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_FIFA_Women's_World_Cup

starts this Thursday, July 20th, and runs for the next month.

here is a schedule that will automatically convert match times to your local timezone:

https://www.espn.com/soccer/schedule/_/date/20230720/league/fifa.wwc

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who lives in Australia or NZ. what have the preparations been like? are you planning on attending any matches?

or, anyone who is travelling from other countries to attend - what has your experience been like?

I'll be watching on YouTube TV. it's one of the more expensive streaming options (currently 73 USD/mo) but I've used it for men's and women's world cups since 2018 (as well as several years of live & time-shifted American football). they've had one glitch in all that time, during a 2018 semi-final match, but otherwise it's been damn near perfect. I'd definitely recommend it if you can afford it.

please limit discussion of other streaming options to legal ones only - linking to pirate streams could get Tildes and Deimos into copyright trouble.

like probably a lot of people, I'll be time-shifting matches because I'm on the US west coast and many will be inconveniently timed (but you better believe I'll be awake at 3am on Sunday Aug 20th for the final)

to avoid spoiling matches for people who haven't seen them yet, please use <details> tags:

<details>
<summary>spoilers for Foo vs Bar match</summary>

wow I can't believe so-and-so scored 15 goals

</details>

turns into: