Z/Web

Excellent game! Both of these teams were already through to the quater-finals, so the match was somewhat a formality. But the result would determine who would win the group and have home field advantage later in the competition. Leeds started off great, with Alan Smith scoring on a break-away just seven minutes in. But victory was very short-lived when Madrid struck back just sixty seconds later, when Raul finished. Before the half was over Madrid had pulled ahead on Figo’s long cross that turned into a shot, and the awkward bounce fooled Leeds’ keeper, Nigel Martin, and went into the goal. Viduka brought Leeds back ten minutes into the second half, but just a few minutes later Raul got his second goal to secure Real Madrid the victory. Great to see Leeds scoring against the titans of the league! Final: 3-2.

Awesome game! This is the match up that all of Spain waits for every season, and watching a 100,000 screaming fans certainly fills you with anticipation. The game started off with a bang just seven minutes in with Roberto Carlos putting in a shot that he scuffed, but the slower ball turned out to be the perfect through-ball for Raul, who finished it. Barcelona took over the game after that, but it took them until the 36th minute to score, when Rivaldo took on the keeper one-on-one and beat him. But less than a minute later, Raul scored his second when he poached a rebound of McManneman’s shot. Rivaldo picked up his game, scoring his own second in the 70th minute, shooting from long range perfectly between defenders, the keeper, and the goalpost. There was a lot of rough, hassling play after that, and Rivaldo’s hat trick was denied due to an offside call. Neither team was going to get the better of the other, and the game appropriately finished 2-2.

My Titanium PowerBook G4 arrived today and it is awesome! There are a few glitches, widely reported on Mac websites, but the ‘Book is so fantastic I don’t even care! The 15.” screen is H U G E — it’s wider than most 17” CRT monitors. Incredible. Playing a DVD on that wide screen is impressive, to say the least. The laptop is very speedy, too. I can’t believe how light and thin it is. Really remarkable, considering all the stuff inside. I opened it up to install some extra RAM (I’ve got 384 megs) and the metal of the bottom of the laptop is right there — it’s like there’s no room inside! It will be interesting to see how durable it is over the long haul, but for now I’m amazed.