[image:356:l] One of the things that I’m learning about here in Budapest is European Sports. At the top of the heap is European football or as we Yankees call it, soccer. I had heard before moving to Europe that soccer ruled the world, but now I believe it. With sports over here, it is soccer first and everything else is pretty much insigificant.

The World Cup this summer is the pinnacle of soccer competitions, but that comes only every 4 years. The top annual championship is definately the Champions League Final. Tonight, pretty much every TV set in every country around the world is tuned to the Champions League Final. It is basically the championship of all the professional teams in Europe. I told my Hungarian friend the other night, that probably only 1 in 100 Americans have ever heard of the Champions League (that’s probably a conservative estimate). Weird that while we think we are on top of the sports world in the US and yet the event that the rest of the world considers the top, we don’t have a clue about.

For those of you that care, tonights match is between Arsenal (from England) and Barcelona (obviously from Spain). They are playing in Paris and at halftime Arsenal leads 1-0. This will be a huge upset if Arsenal wins and their lead is even more amazing since they are playing a man short since their goalie was sent off with a red card 18 minutes into the match.

I would never have thought I would have know about these things or even cared, but for a sports-lover over here, it is pretty much my only choice. I can either give up watching sports or watch the sports they have.

ESPN2 is carrying the game in the US. You still have an hour to tune in and catch the 2nd half!