Beast of Sport aka The Boss

This year Major League baseball has seen some of the greatest players have great years and also down years. At this point in the season all teams will be looking to boost their rosters for a possible postseason push. The team that don’t look like they will change anything are the San Francisco Giants and why not, because they have the best winning ratio in the MLB right now. The Dodgers are looking like they will make some slight changes and teams like the Cubs and Nationals are looking to boost their potent offence to an even greater extent. Anyway here are the key players that will be looking to start fresh in the second half of the season. The New York Yankees are a big seller this year as they boast to of the games best relievers in Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller. Teams that are possible playoff contenders such as the Cubs and the Giants though they don’t look to interested. Miller is easily the best reliever in the terms of bridging a gap between the 6-8 innings. Chapman is the worlds hardest throwing pitcher and because of this is an excellent closer. He is 3-0 this year with a 2.49 ERA. The teams that seem to be the most interested in Miller are the Washington Nationals and the Chicago Cubs. The team that has a great interest in Chapman are the Cleveland Indians. The Indians are having the best season for a while and the last piece that they need is a dominant closer which is what Chapman is. The only other interesting trade prospect is Jay Bruce. Bruce, who is having his best offensive season will be looking for deals with the Dodgers and Nationals. Though the Dodgers seem to be the obvious choice for a guy like Bruce, the Nats are in need for someone who can deliver in both Offence and Defence. So we will see were these players end up and it will be interesting to see if they thrive in a new environment 

The San Francisco Giants are the winningest team in baseball with 57 wins and only 33 losses and are top of their division with a 6.5 game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Which seemed almost impossible back at the start of May when they were 17 and 18. Since then they have gone 40 and 15 easily the best record in baseball. So how did they do it?  Partly because their starting pitching has been first class. Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto their first two starters combine for 23 wins and only 5 losses. Jeff Samardzija has a solid record of 8 wins and 5 losses. Jake Peavy started out the season horribly but locked and and has an ERA less than 2.00 in his last seven starts. With Matt Cain on the DL, Bruce Bochy resorted to his long reliever Suarez for some quality starts and that’s exactly what he got. He finished his starts with 3 wins and 0 losses, A great record. The Giants have been without Joe Panick, Hunter Pence and Matt Duffy for ages but somehow they keep winning. Every single Giants player is coming up big when need be. Grant Green, Jarret Parker, Rubén Tejada, and Conor Gillespie are all in their first proper season with the Giants and they have all come up big at some point. 

As you know Portugal played the host nation France in the final of Euro 2016. Cristiano Ronaldo largely regarded as the best player in the world was the single reason that Portugal were in the final in the first place. France bossed most of the game but chances came few and far between for both sides. So when regulation time ended the game looked destined for penalties so when Portugal took an unlikely lead France panicked. They quickly launched everything they had at Portugal but to no avail. Finally the final whistle went and the celebrations began. Obviously France were heartbroken as it was their tournament to win. It was a miracle that Portugal won because Ronaldo left the game early because of injury. That was Portugal’s first win against France in 11 attempts since the 1970’s. I am very happy for Portugal and feel really bad for France. So I hope that the French team do well in the 2018 World Cup.

As you guys know Euro 2016 started a week ago with France claiming a dramatic late victory over Romania. France has not been amazing as they managed to beat Romania 2-1 and Albania 2-0. But France probably doesn’t care if they play badly but win. England opened up against Russia. England was very positive throughout the whole game and eventually an Erik Dier strike from a marvellous free kick gave them their reward. But Russia didn’t go down without a fight and equalized in the 92nd minute, continuing England’s record of never winning their opening game at the Euro’s. While England drew 1-1 with Russia, Wales beat Slovakia 2-1. Launching them to the top of their group. Yesterday, the Welsh and the English played each other to see who could claim the top spot in their group. Wales struck on the brink of half time as Gareth Bale netted past Joe Hart. The strike was special but England’s number 1 should have saved it easily. Roy Hodgson then played his trump card and put on Daniel Sturridge and Jamie Vardy. The subs had an immediate effect as Jamie Vardy pulled England level in the 54 minute. England now sensing victory threw everything they had at the Welsh. Finally in the 91st minute Daniel Sturridge smashed home the winner giving England all 3 points. England haven’t done well in a major tournament for many years now and I truly believe that their youngsters might be able to carry them to victory.    

Congratulations to DBOS for an excellent season with the Eagles.  Well deserved Champions of the Capital Girls League.  

As you know Leicester have won the Premier League! The odds of Leicester winning the league this year were 5000-1. I am a Man City fan but even I am pleased for Leicester. Last year they were bottom of the LEAGUE with 8 games to go. But did they just roll over. NO. They went on a unbeaten run of 8 games and completed the greatest escape from relegation that the Premier League had ever seen. Still everyone thought that Leicester didn’t have a chance to even stay in the league for another year. But not only did they stay up, They WON THE LEAGUE. This was probably the greatest Premier League season due to the unexpectedness element that we had never before witnessed. 

  
I play for a girl’s football team in London. On my team last year the boys and girls played together and we would play against all boy teams. It was fine together, but the referee had a different view. I would be dressed in the same kit on the pitch with the ball, and the ref would come up to me and say, “Are you playing?” or “Are you a girl?” “YES, last time I checked!” We had training two times a week, and we played the matches on nice, big, grassy pitches. We had at least two FA-qualified coaches at our practices (plus an extra coach) and at our games.
This year I play for a girl’s team. We only train once a week. We barely have one coach at training and we do a lot less training than when I played with the boy’s team. We didn’t have a coach at our games until a couple of weeks ago, so one of the other girl’s dads has been our coach. We play in a girl’s league against other girl teams. Our pitches are about half the size of the pitches we played on with the boys. And our pitches are really muddy almost all of the time, and the goals sometimes fall over on the goalies.  
I really love my team and my coaches. And I am happy that there is a league that we can play in. But why are our pitches so much smaller, and muddier than the boys? We have as much stamina as they do. If our games are called off, no one knows about it until we get there. That never happened when I was in the “boy’s” league. There are also more possibilities for boys to play in academies and really become good players. I know there are a few academies for girls, but not very many. We want to train really hard and win our games (and we do!), but I can’t help feeling that boy’s get more attention and are taken more seriously in sports.
I also notice the same thing happening in toy stores. Why don’t stores just have a kid’s toy section instead of a girl’s section and a boy’s section?  
Guys, we aren’t in the Victorian Era!!  
I heard the new head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, wants to raise awareness about girl’s football. I hope this happens soon!
Deputy Beast of Sport
 

On Sunday Man City beat Liverpool on penalties. The game itself was fairly balanced though. Man City took the lead after what you could call a goalkeeping error as the ball went straight under Simon Mignolet. City then a a very long spell of dominance in which they really should have scored 3 goals. Liverpool then threw everything in all out attack and they equalised in the 84th minute. Then it was Liverpool’s turn to have a spell of dominance in extra time in which Man City’s Willy Caberllo (Not Joe Hart) had to make some great saves to keep them in the game. This was really really shocking because there was tons of controversy over the fact that Joe Hart was not starting. The game then went to PK’s (Penalties). Liverpool scored the first but Man City missed so things were looking slightly grim. But then Man City pulled it together and Willy Caberllo saved the next three pens in a row and Man City scored the next three. Yaya Toure was the one who scored the winning kick for City

The Beast Of Sport
 

This week was a great week for football. It started on Tuesday when Chelsea took on PSG. PSG were probably the favourites going into the match considering Chelsea’s poor run of form. PSG went into the match confident and they certainly showed it. They had more than 60 percent possession. Ibrahimovic scored for PSG but Chelsea pulled it back before the break through John Obi Mikel. It stayed 1-1 throughout most of the second half but in the 80th minute Edison Cavani scored a brilliant volley to put PSG in front. It stayed that way for the rest of match. That match was great but the next day we had Roma vs Real Madrid. It was dominated by Real Madrid and Ronaldo scored a fantastic goal. Jesé for Real Madrid also netted to lead Madrid to a comfortable 2-0 win. Gent also took on Wolfsberg but I will not go into detail about that. The next day in the Europa league, Midtjylland took on Man Utd in what looked to be a comfortable victory for Man Utd. As expected Man Utd took the lead after 37 minutes through the struggling Memphis De Pay. But surprisingly Midtjylland equalised on the brink of half time. Weirdly Sergio Romero ( Who was only playing because David De Gea got injured in warmup) had to keep the score line at 1-1 with some fantastic saves. Then suddenly Midtjylland scored to make the score 2-1. It stayed that way for the rest of the match with Man Utd not mounting any decent chances. Louis Van Gaal has been under pressure for wins lately and this major set back will not help his cause at all. 
Stay tuned for more sport action at http://www.beastofsport.com 
The Beast of Sport 

This year was a very good year for women’s sport. I took into consideration all the great achievements by all the sports people this year and I think that the beast person this year for sport was Hope Solo. She has been with the US national team for 16 years. She is basically a living legend throughout the world in women’s football. She got a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics and the 2012 Olympics. More recently in 2015 she led the US women’s national team to a world cup triumph, enforcing her legacy even more. She has had a great 2015 and a great career.  So after all that Hope Solo is my Beast of the year. (:

  
Deputy Beast of Sport