Some Thoughts on Football and Soccer This Year

The end of the college football regular season is approaching and my University of Florida team has played above and beyond most sports analysts' preseason expectations.  Yesterday they won the Southeastern Conference's East Division for the second consecutive year after pulling off a heroic last-second goal-line stand on the road against heavily-favored LSU.  Now the Gators are 8-2 and will face Florida State next week in Tallahassee before heading off to Atlanta to once again play against Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide for the conference championship.  Let's see if they can't pull off a couple more miracles...

After finally starting to follow the already-enfolding National Football League season last week, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Miami Dolphins, the team I traditionally support the most after having grown up in the area, sporting a winning record of 5-4 with four straight victories.  Now make that 6-4 and five straight after they made an improbable comeback on the road today against the Los Angeles Rams, scoring two late-game touchdowns after being shut out for most of it.  I heard, though, that their offensive line is decimated with injuries...hope they can get it together for the stretch run to the playoffs, in which the Dolphins are now only one game behind for a wild card spot...

And I can't finish this article without referring to what almost the entire rest of the world calls "football" but which we here call "soccer".  In Mexico, their premier professional league is finishing up their fall "Apertura" split season and will soon be starting their Liguilla championship playoffs.  A few of the teams that made the field of eight for the playoffs were those consistently good each year, like "my" UANL Tigres, Club America, and Pachuca. Tijuana, usually in the middle or bottom of the standings but vastly improved now, finished at the top this season.  And then there is Necaxa, which just this year was promoted from the next lower league (called Ascenso): in their first season back in the top league, they made the playoffs, quite an impressive feat...I wonder how far they'll go...