I had a game tonight at the Charlotte Sports Center in here in Charlotte North Carolina. It was at 10pm which is pretty late for a game.

Our team is called “Rhythm” and we played our best game of the season by far! We were working together and passing the ball so well. We only had one sub too! We were playing amazing defense too! The other team could not really get any shots on us at all.

We, on the other hand, had TONS of great opportunities and good looks on goal! We kept getting great chance after chance and taking tons of shots on goal. We hit the post a few times and barely missed the net on about five tries.

Finally we got a goal and we went into halftime up 1-0, but fully knowing we should have been winning like 5-0. We didn’t play quite as well in the second half and they actually took the lead to go up 2-1.

With about 13 minutes left I went in for a fifty fifty ball on a Jamaican guy about twice my size and my ankle harshly connected with his knee! All the other guys said it was the loudest “CRACK” they had ever heard! I still can’t walk on my ankle very well and the other guy went down in a heap. he was down for several minutes and they had to carry him off the field.

The greatest part of the game came with about 45 seconds left and we were still down 2-1! We took a shot from long range and their keeper gave up a rebound and one of our forwards tucked it in the net to tie the game in the final minute!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

(This is my fourth post about the recent UEFA Champions League Final played in Rome, Italy this past Wednesday afternoon = Manchester United of the English Premiere League in England and Barcelona of the Spanish Primera in Spain.)

Well, can you believe it? Because of the DVR goof up at my friend Don’s house and because of my CRAZY insane schedule this past week in which I have had NO time… I STILL have not finished watching the whole game - the UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona!

BUT, I did watch the 1st half at least with my wife. We watched that much on Wednesday night - the day of the game.

The first ten minutes really started off very poorly in my opinion for both teams! Neither team were playing exceptionally well and I thought it looked really really sloppy.

To be fair Manchester United definitely DOMINATED these first ten minutes though. Ronaldo had at least two great looks at goal! The first was a great hit on a free kick and the keeper gave up a rebound to Si Jung Park who couldn’t finish. And he later had another great shot that just went wide of the post.

But in the tenth minute, Barcelona’s star striker Eto’o turned the United defence inside out and scored a rather easy goal on keeper Edwin Van der Sar.

That goal obviously shifted the momentum of the game and United dominated no more. Barcelona controlled the rest of the half keeping possession MOST of the time and went into the locker room at halftime with that 1-0 lead.

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The last couple days I have been writing about the UEFA Champions League Final and how excited 200 million people were to watch it on TV. Not to mention 80,000 or so at the stadium watching it live there in Rome, Italy.

It aired at 2:25 PM Eastern Standard Time (Charlotte time). Me and my friend who were going to watch it today were both working during that time of course. So we both DVR’d it. We both have Time Warner Cable with the awesome DVR feature that allows you to record any program you want to watch later and watch it at your convenience.

We planned to watch it together at his house that night after our Ridge Church community group. I was home around 4 PM and it was SO tempting to flip it on and go ahead and watch it without him, but I decided to go ahead and be disciplined and hold myself back! I was going to wait and watch the game with my friend.

When I was at his house and it was FINALLY time to watch the game - around 9:30 PM that night - we turned on the TV and selected the game from his DVR menu…

But it was just black! It would not play! We rebooted the whole system and it still wouldn’t play the game. It didn’t record one single minute of the game, even though it was showing it was all there. Wow! We were SOOOO upset!!! It was like a nightmare.

Thankfully I had recorded it as well at my house. All that is not to say anything bad about Time Warner Cable because this is not a very common problem… unlike when I had Direct TV! They were horrible. I could have a problem with Time Warner Cable service EVERY SINGLE DAY for the next year and they would still be better than Direct TV. I’m just sayin’…

OK, I guess we will have to talk about the actual game another day.

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

Yesterday I explained a little bit about what the UEFA Champions League is and how there are many fans all across Charlotte North Carolina of this biggest and most popular professional sports tournament in the world. And about how we watch the games all across the Charlotte area.

Yesterday was the Final… the “championship game” if you will. It was projected that over TWO HUNDRED MILLION people would watch this final game!!!

It turned out that the two teams to make the final were the English Premiere Leauge champions and the Spanish Primera League champions - Manchester United and Barcelona. What an epic showdown this game was shaping up to be.

I mean these two teams house tons of the best soccer players in the whole world.

Manchester United has been like an “all star team” for years! Their current squad has three teams worth of top goal scorers at forward! Including Fifa Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentinian sensation Carlos Tevez, England’s main man himself = Wayne Rooney, former golden boot scorer in the English Premier League Dermatov Berbatov, and of course Ji Sung Park from Korea.
Not to mention the rest of the squad like Michael Carrick, Goal Keeper Edwin Van der Sar, Ryan Giggs, Patrick Evra, and Rio Ferdinand…

And Barcelona has always been famous for their “dream teams” they put on the field. You know they are amazing when they need to “get rid of” Ronaldinio to make room for all their other talent at midfield! But they are still boasting many of the greatest players in the world like Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, Eto’o, Iniesta, etc…

This was shaping up to be quite a contest. Tune in later to see how it went!

Charlotte NC, Charlotte NC Real Estate, Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate, Charlotte North Carolina

That’s right. There are actually many of us. More than you would think probably. But I am one of them - one of the UEFA Champions League fans here in Charlotte North Carolina.

We get together in each others’ homes all over the Charlotte North Carolina area to watch the Champions League games. Sometimes we are in an apartment in the Davidson area, or sometimes at my house near Northlake Mall. Sometimes we watch the games at a house in Balantyne in South Charlotte or like yesterday we watched part of the game at Fox and the Hound in Uptown Charlotte.

So there are many fans of the UEFA Champions League all over Charlotte and we like to get together and watch the games wherever we are all across the city!

Many of you at this point might be asking “What in the world is the UEFA Champions League???!!!” And you would not be alone. But I’m glad you asked.

The UEFA Champions League tournament is basically the biggest and most popular professional sports tournament in the WORLD! Are you a little embarrassed now that you have not even heard of it?

It is a conglomeration of all the top, biggest, and best professional football/ soccer teams from Europe. So, the best teams from England, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc… all compete against each other for the most coveted crown in European “football” (soccer). The Champions League title! It goes on for months and months.

And TODAY was the FINAL game to decide the new champion. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina.

I have been writing the past 3 days about a great deal on soccer cleats that I found here in Charlotte North Carolina. Well, I have actually been teasing a little bit about this. I have been setting everyone up… I haven’t really written about my actual great deal yet!

Yesterday I left you hanging while I was at the counter at the Dick’s Sporting Goods at Northlake Mall here in north Charlotte. I was checking out with my Copa Mundials. Pretty good cleats for the regular price of $100.

The line was kind of long so I was just standing around waiting on the people checking out ahead of me. There was a large clearance section of shoes to my left. I had actually looked through this clearance section before several weeks ago. I thought I knew what was there but I figured it couldn’t hurt to look at the shoes on this rack.

Some Kelmes caught my eye. They were BEAUTIFULLY white! I had actually looked at them before. They were on a ridiculous clearance for only $99.99! They are normally $160. When I saw them several weeks ago I was looking to spend much less than $100 on cleats, but now that I was about to buy the Copas for that same price, and since these shoes were my size I took them back to the bench to try them on!

They fit perfectly. Now I had a choice to make. I took off these white Kelme “Master Infinitos”. I noticed tiny little orange stickers on top of the clearance price stickers. They said $49.97. My mouth dropped open. I asked the girl at the cash register and she said it was no mistake.

I bought them quickly of course. My wife had a $10 off coupon too! So I bought these $160 cleats for only $40! That’s 75% off! THAT’S what I call a really great deal!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

So, yesterday I talked about how I decided to go ahead and buy new soccer cleats because I have been playing a lot of soccer lately in order to stay in shape and have some fun. BUT, the cheapest decent cleats are all $100 and the really good cleats are at least $150!

So, Saturday morning I went to the Dick’s Sporting Goods at Northlake Mall right next to my house. I planned to go buy a pair of Adidas Copa Mundials. Only the most famous soccer cleats in the world. They are the best selling soccer cleats of all time. They have been around since like 1960 or something like that. The German national team started wearing them and then the whole world of soccer players wore them until the 90s. They are classics.

Then in the 90s Adidas started to experiment with new technology with their soccer boots. Cleats started to evolve and get better.

The Copas used to be $89.95 since I was born until about a year ago. They just went up to $99.95. I tried on a few pairs and found the perfect pair for me. I even wore my soccer shorts and brought two pairs of socks including my soccer socks. I made sure I had both pairs of socks on with the Copas to make sure they fit right.

I ran around the store with the shoes on and even kicked a ball around. I wanted to make sure they were perfect. I stopped and talked to a cool guy who works at Dick’s - Simon. He’s from London, UK… more specifically he’s actually from Fulham in London. We talked soccer for a long time.

Then I took my cleats up to the check out line. Check back in tomorrow to see what happened in the final part of this saga…

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

This is a follow up post to yesterday’s post about great deals in Charlotte North Carolina. I talked about how my awesome soccer cleats were falling apart by the end of my senior year of college.

They were made of Kangaroo leather and I don’t think I could ever wear cleats anymore made out of cheap leather. There is just a completely different touch on the ball and different playing level when you are playing with kangaroo leather shoes.

But of course since college I haven’t really been playing competitively. I have not wanted to invest the money in good kangaroo leather shoes since they all cost around $150.

But I have started playing in an indoor league at the Charlotte Sports Center and plan to continue playing there for many seasons. Plus I play outdoor every Saturday for a couple hours. The shoes I have been using are flats and destroy my feet! My wife has been saying I MUST get new shoes because I have blisters all over my feet after every time I play.

Plus buying new shoes would be like a commitment to keep playing soccer after I have made this investment and to stay in shape.

So, yesterday that is what I decided to do. Buy new soccer cleats. I have been looking for them for a cheap price EVERYWHERE. I have been to every store in Charlotte and everywhere online and haven’t really been able to find any for under $100. But, see what the awesome deal I found was on tomorrow’s post!

Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

I live in Charlotte North Carolina and actually grew up here - playing soccer year round.

When I was still in high school, my parents bought be an AWESOME pair of soccer cleats to play in. They were the BEST cleats on the market. They were the best cleats that Adidas made too. They were awesome. They actually do not even make them anymore. They were what all the pros were wearing back then. The Adidas Accelerator Ligas… blue and black.

Well, I wore them playing on my club team and we played year round. I also wore them when I played for my high school team. I guess I wore them for three years in high school for all those different seasons.

Then I went to college and played for four years (just for an intramural team). Of course I was a broke college student and could not afford new cleats. BUT I had taken REALLY good care of my cleats so they were in awesome shape. Plus they were so well made that they were really durable. I would clean them after every single game and practice plus polish them with “Chelsea Leather Food” which was made specifically to keep cleats nice and new and make them last… live a lot longer!

So when I played in college I was able to play in the same cleats. I technically only played three years because I had surgery on both knees one year that sidelined me for the season. By the end of my senior year though, they were pretty much falling apart.

Tune in to tomorrow’s post to read the rest of the story and how I find great deals in Charlotte!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte NC Real Estate.

Speed Street is still in full swing in Uptown Charlotte preparing for the big race - the Nascar Coca Cola 600 this weekend!

We were uptown again for a dinner at Cafe Siena. It is at 230 North College Street right across from Fuel Pizza. Only a few blocks from Trade and Tryon. It has GREAT food and right now they have a “prix fix” special where you can get an appetizer, entree, and dessert for only $30!!! That is over $50 if you ordered the items off the menu!

Here is a little description of the restaurant from their own menu:

Imagine yourself dining alfresco in the Piazza Del Campo, Siena, Italy, right in the heart of “The Magic City of Tuscany.” That feeling is the guiding spirit behind Caffe Siena …

· Alfresco Dining on the Veranda
· Gourmet Espresso Bar & Wireless Internet Cafe
· Fresh Pasta, Seafood, Steaks
· Oven-Roasted Pizzas & Paninis
· Wine Tasting and Martini Nights Weekly
· Private Dining Available | Complimentary Valet Parking

We had a coupon for $25 off so we really got a steal! It’s from those Charlotte Community books you can buy for really cheap. With the special they had going on with the prix fix and with our $25 off coupon we ate = filet mignon, duck, duck con fit, shrimp, seared tuna, salads, rice, tirimasu, and chocolate crepes all for only $35!!! not bad at all… and we even got to sit on black leather couches and people watch out the window.

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Uptown Charlotte.