I don't know about you but I get more excited watching the Fifa World Cup tournament than watching the NFL Superbowl or the NLB World Series. The World Cup comes once every four years like the Olympics. And best of all, The World Cup invites the best of the best soccers teams from all around the world like the Olympics. You can witness the entire world shouting from the top of their lungs to cheer for their country.

If you recall, the 2002 FIFA World Cup was crazy in the Koreatown, Los Angeles. All Koreans, whether they are 2nd generation Koreans-Americans, 1.5 generation Korean-Americans, and the 1st generation Koreans were bursting with joy when they witnessed South Korea win their games. I am stoked of this year's summer games. I wish the best of luck to the Republic of Korea (South) over their first challenger, Togo.



And can you believe it is already 2006? I can still replay the 2002 Fifa World Cup games in my head. This summer will rock!

Here is a short blog entry I just wrote about the South Korea National Soccer team versus the Los Angeles Galaxy team this past Wednesday. I already got my ticket for the next week, South Korea National Soccer team versus Mexico game. This game will be huge! Unlike the Los Angeles Galaxy game (does Galaxy even have a fan lineup? hahahaha), Mexico has a substantial amount of fans compared to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Heck, Mexico and soccer (futbol) goes hand in hand. Mexicans do not care about baseball, football, and basketball. It is all about soccer. They live and sleep for soccer (not literally). The upcoming game between South Korea and Mexico should not be taken lightly. In the 2002 Fifa World Cup, South Korea was victorious over Mexico, sending the Mexico team back home. And although this is a friendly preliminary match between the two national teams, it will be one aggressive match because 2006 is the year of the Fifa World Cup.


Originally posted on 6th March 2006 - 11:15 PM in the Resource forum.
FIFA World Cup and World Classic Baseball
Go South Korea National Team!

Coca-Cola and Doritos presented the MEXICO vs. SOUTH KOREA futbol fiesta on February 15, 2006, 7:30 pm.

The huge event was held yesterday night and I am staring at the general admission ticket. You know how the ticket handler rips the ticket along the perforated line and they return the other half, which is the receipt, well, the ticket I am staring at has both sides of the ticket attached to each other along with the perforation in the middle.

Yes, I missed the event! Here's the story.


I was scheduled to go pick up my dad, my brother, and my cousins and go together in my car to save the parking fee ($20 main stadium and FIFTY dollars at some shady parking lot privately owned). I left my last class at 3:20 pm., registered for the spring quarter successfully at 3:30p.m. and left campus. Picked up my cousins at Cerritos and left their place at 4:30 pm. Picked up my dad and waited for my brother and left the place at 5:45 pm.

We stopped at McDonald's and to go'ed. This was around 6:15 pm somewhere in Soto. We were getting close to the Los Angeles coliseum stadium at around 6:30 pm. McDonald didn't quite satisfy our hunger so we once again stopped by Church's Chicken restaurant. Took awhile to get our family meal and left immediately. 6:45 pm.

About three miles away from the LA Coliseum stadium (which is next to USC campus), mad traffic. All lanes were heavily congested to the point where it reminded me of Manhattan in New York City. The Los Angeles Parking Enforcement vehicles were at every corner, waiting for victims that willingly park their vehicles at a tow-away area to bypass parking fee or just because there is no parking (rolleyes).

But what do you expect. Over 75,000 spectators (estimated) where 4/5 were Mexican-Americans. Unlike the previous soccer between South Korea versus the Los Angeles galaxy, this event probably had 5 times more spectators. Mexico sure represents. Mexico and futbol goes hand in hand so you would expect all the Mexican-Americans to not miss this event.

The spanish newspaper (La Opinion) has the frontpage cover basically about that evening's match between South Korea and Mexico. La Opinion writers covered every detail possible, all the way down to the statistics of the South Korean soccer players and their recent winnings and losses. Both the local Spanish and the Korean radio stations announced about the upcoming match hours before the actual game and broadcasted live on the radio live. I don't know if the local Korean television stations broadcasted the soccer match live but the Spanish channel (52 in Los Angeles city) broadcasted live.

So going back to the traffic, hundreds of vehicles were crawling outside of the stadium, trying to get a parking space. 7:25 pm, the United States national anthem was being played! 7:30 pm and the players are getting out on the field. As the cars are lining up to get somewhere, it seemed as if the parking enforcers were guiding all of us far away from the stadium. How frustrating. I see a large amount of people running, gramps to little kids, running to get into the coliseum stadium.

I told everyone in the car to get out and run along with the crowd to get to the event, stats! Shortly after, I was alone in the car, waiting in a line that was going nowhere. To end this story, I didn't end up parking my car. I parked a few blocks away and got entertained by the radio announcers. 8)
On the bright side, South KOREA won!

Speaking of sports, the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy concluded yesterday. I'm so proud of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) for winning a total of 11 Olympic medals, which 6 are Gold.

Congratulations to KANG SEOK Lee, JIN Sun-Yu, CHOI Eun-Kyung, CHUN-SA Byun, DA-HYE Jeon, KANG Yun-Mi, AHN Hyun-Soo, LEE Ho-Suk, SE-JONG Oh, HO-JIN Seo, and SUK-WOO Song of South Korea.


The 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy
Apolo Anton Ohno should have never earned that Gold medal four years ago. He deserved the loss this year.

Year 2006 is a full line-up of sports and sports!
If you haven't heard, the World Baseball Classic began last week, March 2, 2006.
The World Baseball Classic is the equivalent to the Olympics. National baseball teams are divided into four pools.


[First Round]
Pool A, Tokyo
South Korea vs. Taiwan, Thursday (South Korean won)
China vs. Japan, Friday (Japan won)
South Korea vs. China, Friday (South Korea won)
Taiwan at Japan, Saturday (Japan won)
Taiwan vs. China, Saturday (China won)
South Korea at Japan, Sunday (South Korea won)
South Korea and Japan advances to Second Round

Pool B
Mexico, USA, Canada, and South Africa

Pool C
Panama, Puerto Rico, Netherlands and Cuba

Pool D
Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Australia, and Italy


Heading out this Sunday to the Anaheim Angels Stadium to see South Korea whoop their opponents!