Top Ten Things to Know for Today and This Week: William Shakespeare Turns 451

Here are ten things to know for today, April 23rd, 2015:

1) Today is National Children's Day in Turkey (pict. top)

2) Today is William Shakespeare's 451st birthday (pict. center)

3) Tampere is the third largest city in Finland

4) Serdar Kilic is the Turkish ambassador to the United States

5) Seville (Spain), Dnipro (Ukraine), Fiorentina and Napoli (Italy) advanced to the semi-finals of the Europa League.

6) Dynamo Kiev's Jeremain Lens (Netherlands, pict. bottom) got a red card in the team's 2-0 loss to Fiorentina today.

7) "Laverne and Shirley,"  an American sitcom, lasted 178 episodes over eight seasons (1976-83).

8) Nicholas Smith, 81, (Mr. Rumbold) is the surviving original cast member of "Are You Being Served?," a British sitcom that debuted in 1972, and lasted 10 seasons.

9) James Earl Ray, the accused murderer of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, died on this date of natural causes at age 70 in 1998.

10) Chile's Calbuco Volcano erupted for the first time in 42 years yesterday.

Top Ten Things We Should Blog About More in 2015 (our tenth anniversary year!)........: Soccer and Politics

Greetings to our blog readers in the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Vietnam, three places where we are surprisingly more popular than we could have ever expected! Perhaps, you guys will catch up with Slovenia (for my fellow Americans who flunked geography that's a former Yugoslav republic, yeah, that probably doesn't assist you any.......)

For the 109th time this year, we once again make fun of Cong. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va; pict. top) who is apparently fighting for companies like Amazon who don't have to pay taxes. Assuredly, this means he will have to take Jeff Bezos out for pizza the next time he's in Washington, D.C., where one may also run into Vice President Joe Biden (pictured bottom, hopefully, those of you going to Princeton University know he's the second man in charge at The White House.).

The man in the middle is Chelsea star Didier Drogba, a star player from the Ivory Coast, who also had a stint with the Istanbul soccer powerhouse Galatasaray, our favorite team. And, since the men in red and yellow tied Ankara GB 1-1 on Thursday, we presume, he is greatly missed.

Here are the top ten things we SHOULD blog more about in 2015, a year in which we will mark our tenth year of blogging!:

1. European soccer

2. Fox News nonsense

3. Israel/Palestinian nonsense

4. Cong. Bob Goodlatte

5. The Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va. (our favorite crazy Baptist minister)

6. Joe Biden

7. Taylor Swift

8. "Family Circus"

9. Global Warming

10. The death penalty/doing my laundry (tie)

World Cup Lists (2 of 4): Players with Long Names

It looked like the Greek national team had a profound advantage in yesterday's knock-out round game with Costa Rica, until the game ended in a 1-1 tie, even after two extra 15 minute sessions, and was determined by penalty kicks.

But, Greece leaves us with plenty of long difficult names to play with, as does Russia, Iran and Bosnia.

Here are 11 of them:

1. Sokratis Papastathopoulous. 26.  Greece (scored the tying goal versus Costa Rica yesterday,pict. center). Club team: Borussia Dortmund (Germany)

2. Giannis Fetafatzidis. 27. Greece. Bologna (Italy)

3. Maksim Kannunnikov. 22. Russia. Rubin Kazan (Russia)

4. Sergei Igmanashevich. 34. Russia. CSKA Moscow (Russia)

5. Liassine Cadamurco-Bentaiba. 26. Algeria. Mallorca (Spain)

6. Haris Mendunjanin. 29. Bosnia (pict. bottom). Gaziantepspor (Turkey)

7. Reza Ghoochannejhad. 26. Iran. Charlton Athletic (England, second div.)

8. Andranik Teymourian. 31. Iran. Esteghal (Iran). An ethnic Armenian, he is the first Christian to ever captain an Iranian national team.

9. Mario Gauranovic. 24. Switzerland. (pictured top) Zurich.

10. Benjamin Moukandjo. 25. Cameroon. Nancy (France)

11. Cesar Azpilicueta. 24. Spain. Chelsea.

http://www.worldcup.usatoday.com

Presidential Quotes (5 of 16): Millard Fillmore...........not the duck

Greetings to our blog-readers in Dubai, France and Norway, where the English soccer team Tottenham Hotspur traveled all the way to Tromso, a city inside the Arctic Circle, in which the visitors prevailed 2-0.

Though he may not be a household name in France or even here in les etas unis, President Millard Fillmore was the fourth and final Whig Party member and the 13th man to rise to the presidency. In Fillmore's case, it was not an election but the death of President Zachary Taylor which allowed him the presidency. Fillmore was later on a 1938 postage stamp, and his time in office lasted from 1850-53. He was also a political conservative.

This brings us to Mallard Fillmore, a right-wing cartoon duck whom we must admit is quite amusing even though we prefer the progressive politics of comic strips like "Doonesbury" and "Knight Life" (by the ever-kewl Keith Knight), which is the brainchild of Bruce Tinsley.

"Mallard Fillmore" first became syndicated in 1994, and Tinsley got his start as a political cartoonist for "The Daily Progress" newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., which is ironically the most progressive zip code in Virginia.

Stephen Colbert made fun of Mallard Fillmore in 2006 saying that the duck was to right-wing media as Garfield was to lasagna.

Here is Pres. Millard Fillmore's quote: "It is not strange to mistake change for progress."


http://www.millercenter.org/president/fillmore

http://www.millardfillmore.org

http://www.mallardfillmore.com

Futbol Notebook: Two Red Cards for Standard Liege

It is very unusual for three cards to be issued in one game, but yesterday, in Europa League play, M.Carcela-Gonzales and his Standard Liege (a Belgian team) teammate Kanu, a Brazilian national, both got sent off. The winning team Salzburg (Austria) also got a red card; Salzburg won the game 2-1.

By pure chance, another team from Belgium (Genk) played another team from Austria (Rapid Vienna), that game ended in a 1-1 draw.

Here are some of the Europa scores from yesterday (a whopping 24 games were played in total):

Betis (Spain) 1 Guimares (Portugal) 0

Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine) 3 Thun (Swiss) 0

Salzburg (Austria) 2 Standard Liege (Belgium) 1

Freiburg (Germany) 1 Estoril (Portugal) 1 (tie)

Genk (Belgium) 1 Rapid Vienna (Austria) 1 (tie)

PAOK (Greece) 3 M. Haifa (Israel) 2

For more scores, go to our sister blog:

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Futbol Notebook: Europa, Europa

It may seem hard to believe for people in Antwerp, Belgium, or Zagreb, Croatia, but soccer is gradually becoming more popular here in the United States. In fact, futbol has entered our pop culture as the late Naser Hejazi, the goalie for the 1978 Iranian World Cup team which played in Argentina, was mentioned in the last episode of "Homeland."

Since 24 games were played in the Europa League yesterday, we don't have much time for detail or analysis. But, we caught the tail-end of the Swansea-Kuban game. The English Premiere League team Swansea was winning 1-0 until the team's German goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel (pictured here) collided with a player for the Russian team Kuban in the (ouch!) 92nd minute of play. As a result, French national Djibril Cisse kicked in the penalty and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.

Here are some partial scores from Europe League play:

Lyon (France) 1 Rijeka (Croatia) 0

Swansea (England) 1 Kuban (Russia) 1 (tie)

Anzhi (Russia) 1 Tromso (Norway) 0

Waregem (Belgium) 1 Maribor (Slovenia) 3

Shanktar Karagandy (Kazakhstan) 2 AZ Alkmaar (Neth.) 1 (tie)

Apollon Limassol (Cyprus) 0 Lazio (Italy) 0 (tie)

For more results, check out our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time":

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Soccer Week (7 of 8): Dutch Soccer Game Has Three Cards

During domestic weekend action in the Eredivise (Dutch Premier League), one game between Heerenveen and Gromgen featured six goals and three red cards, one of which went to Dutch nationl Tjaronn Chery (pictured).

The game's other two red cards went to Mitchell Dijks of Heerenveen  and Jim Letschert of Gronngen.

Other highlights from Holland/The Netherlands included a two-goal performance form Belgian Steve de Ridder of Utrecht and two goals from Chery's teammate from Iceland, Alfred Finnbogason, who should have made our soccer players with long names list, who kicked in two goals for Heerenveen.

One lowlight which was shown on soccer highlights shows around the globe was Dutch player Maikel van der Werff's unfortunate own goal which helped his team Zwolle lose to traditional Dutch power Ajax Amsterdam 2-1.

Here are the scores:

Utrecht 2 Waalwijk 1

AZ Alkmaar 3 Go Ahead Eagles 0

Heerevveen 4 Gromgen 2

Roda 1 Breda 5

Njmegen 3 Feyrenoord 3 (tie)

Twente 2 PSV Einhoven 2 (tie)

Cambour 2 Heracles 0

Ajax Amsterdam 2 Zwolle 1

http://www.dutchnews.nl

http://www.rnw.nl

http://www.holland.com


SIDENOTE: This marks our 1,500th entry on "The Daily Vampire"...........yes, we are surprised by how long we've stuck with this blog as well.

Soccer Week (6 of 8): Turkish Soccer Game Sees Seven Goals

Ali Adnan Kerim, who goes by Ali Adnan (pictured), is an Iraqi player who is a rising star in the Turkish Premiere. Kerim, who is known as the 'Asian Gareth Bale' scored one of five goals for Rziespor, located in the tea mecca of Rize, in the 12th minute of play. His Turkish teammate Sercan Kaya added two goals, including the game-winning penalty kick in the 80th minute, for Rizespor's electrifying 5-2 win over Gaziantepspor.

Sivasspor, located in the northwestern city of Sivas, defeated Eskisehirspor, located in Eskisehir, a western city where meerschaum pipes are made, by a 3-2 score. The game-winner for the Sivas side came from Moroccan player Aatif Chahechouhe, who somehow didn't make our players with long, long names list, in the 73rd minute of play.

Here are the complete results from Week 4 in the TPL and (Spoiler Alert!), we have some UEFA Champions League scores, including how GalataSaray, a traditional Istanbul powerhouse, fared at home against Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid.

Here are the Turkish domestic scores from weekend (actually Friday-Monday) play:

GalataSaray 1 Antalyaspor 1 (tie)

Erciyes Kayseri 1 Akihisar 0

Gaziantepspor 2 Rizespor 5

Trabzonspor 1 Karabukspor 0 (Goal came from Brazilian Paulo Henrique in 76th minute)

Ankara Genclerbirligi 1 Kayseri 1 (tie)

Sivasspor 3 Eskisehir 2

Bursaspor 0 Besiktash (Istanbul) 3

Elazig 2 Konyaspor 0

Kasimpasha (IST) 2 Fenerbahce (IST) 3

Here are some UEFA Champion League scores:

It was a good day for Cristiano Ronaldo, as he scored a hat trick, in Istanbul in Real Madrid's 6-1 win over GalataSaray. But, it was not a good day for Greek team Olympiacos as they fell at home in Piraeus (a city outside Athens) to French powerhouse Paris St. Germain by a 4-1 score with two goals (scored within minutes of each other) by French player Thiago Motta.

Here is the complete UEFA Scoreboard:

Manchester United 4 Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) 2

Sociedad (Spain) 0 Shktar Donetsk (Ukraine) 2*

Benefica (Portugal) 2 Anderecht (Belgium) 0

Plzen (Czech Rep.) 0 Manchester City 3

GalataSaray 1 Real Madrid 6

Olympiacos 1 PSG 4

Bayern Munich 3 CSKA Moscow 0

Copenhagen 1 Juventus 1 (tie)

*- Shakthar Donestsk's win was considered the upset of the day. Brazilian player Alex Teixeira scored both goals in the victory. This team is not to be confused with Shakter Karagandy, a team from Kazakhstan, which will play in the Europa League on Thursday.

For more information on Turkish soccer, we highly recommend our good friend Ahmet Bob Turgut's blog http://turkeyfootball.blogspot.com/

http://www.angelfire.com/nj/sivritepe/

http://www.turkish-football.com/

http://www.psg.fr/en/Accueil/0/Home (Paris St. Germain's web site, in English)

Soccer Week (5 of 8): Games of the Week Results

There were a handful of soccer games played tonight in Europe: Among them is the Turkish Super League match-up between two Istanbul teams, Fenerbahce and Kasimpasha. Thanks to two goals from Pierre Webo of Cameroon (pictured here) the Yellow Canaries came from behind for a 3-2 win over Kasimpasha. Yes, we are wondering why Webo is not wearing a yellow jersey with blue stripes (Fener's traditional uniform colors) too!

Here are the results from the Games of the Week entry posted on Friday:

France:

Lille 0 Nice 2 (both goals came from Argentine national Daro Cvitanich)

Lyon 0 Rennes 0 (tie)

Also, Paris St. Germain won over Bordeaux 2-0

Turkey:

Bursapor 0 Besiktash 3 (Three international players: Hugo Almeida of Portugal; Tomas Sivak of Slovakia, who is also the team captain; and Julien Escade scored for BJK).

Kasimpasha 2 Fenerbahce 3

Also, GalataSaray tied Antalyaspor 1-1

Italy:

Inter Milan 1 Juventus 1-1 (tie)

Napoli 2 Atalanta 0

Greece:

Veria 1 PAOK 2 (Miguel Vitor of Portugal and Miroslav Stoch of Slovakia scored for PAOK)

OFI Crete 1 Asteras Tripolis 1 (tie)

Spain:

Villareal 2 Real Madrid 2 (tie)

Atl. Madrid 4 Almeira 2 (Goals from Spanish stars David Villa and Koke for Atl Madrid)

http://www.greeksoccer.com

http://www.turkish-futbol.com

http://nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com/2013/09/soccer-week-1-of-8-games-to-watch-in.html (Friday's entry)

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Soccer Week (3 of 8): Turks Abroad

With this image of Omer Toprak who plays in the German Bundesliga, which is where more Turkish international players (many of them are born in Germany) play outside of Turkey, we take a look at Turkish soccer players who play overseas. Every single one of the players mentioned here does play in Europe. We will mark those players who were born in Europe with an *:

1. Erol Bulut* (Veria, Greece_ a Turkish player playing in Greece was once unthinkable).

2.Tolga Cigerci* (Hertha, Germany)

3. Mehmet Ekici* (Werder Bremen, Germany)

4. Mevlut Erdinc* (Saint-Etienne, France)

5. Gokdeniz Karadeniz (Rubin Kazan, Russia_ a Turkish player playing in Russia was also once unthinkable).

6. Alpaslan Ozturk* (Standard Liege, Belgium)

7. Sercan Sarae*r (Stuggart, Germany)

8. Omer Toprak* (Bayer Leverkusen, Germany-pictured)

9. Tunay Torum* (Stuggart, Germany)

10 Arda Turan (Athletico Madrid, Spain)

11. Deniz Turuc* (Go Ahead Eagles, Netherlands)

http://www.turkish-football.com/

http://turkeyfootball.blogspot.com/

http://www.bundesliga.com/en/

Soccer Week (1 of 8): Games to Watch in Mediterranean Countries

This is the first entry in our first ever Soccer Week series (we were originally going to call it Futbol Week). For this entry, we look at ten games being played in Mediterranean countries. Alas, we didn't have room for Portugal or Israel. But, we do feature France, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain in this preview of what one might call dev machlar (giant games) in Turkish.

The three images above are of: 1) Pablo Batalla*, an Argentine international who is a star player for Bursaspor in Turkey; 2) Didier Digard who is a French international and a captain for OGC Nice in France and 3) Manolis Moniakis who has a short name (by Greek standards) the defender and Greek international plays for OFI Crete in Greece.


We hoped to provide you with the start times (as they would be in New York), but we realized that would cause much confusion. Keep in mind that Madrid and Paris are six hours ahead of New York and that Istanbul and Athens are seven hours ahead of Boston. Most games are played when it is morning or early afternoon in Baltimore or Tampa; we hope to provide you with the scores of these games on Monday:

Turkey:

Sun. Bursapor  vs.  Besiktash (Istanbul) 

Mon. Kasimpasha (Istanbul) vs. Fenerbahce (Istanbul)

France:

Sun. Lille vs. OCG Nice

Sun. Lyon vs. Rennes

Greece:

Sat. Veria vs. PAOK (Thessaloniki)

Sat. OFI Crete vs. Astera Tripolis (Tripoli)

Spain:

Sat. Villareal vs. Real Madrid (this might be the best game in all of Europe)

Sat. Athletico Madrid vs. Almeira

Italy:

Sat. Inter Milan vs. Juventus (Turin) (this might be the best game in Europe as well)

Sat. Napoli vs, Atalanta

http://www.turkish-football.com/

http://greeksoccer.com/

http://www.ligue1.com/ (French soccer)

*- Alas, we have Pablo's last name spelled incorrectly in our tags......

Coming This Week (we hope): Futbol Week

If all goes well, we are hoping to launch a seven-week series entitled Futbol Week. Our aim is to post lists, soccer results and perhaps Twitter feeds from soccer experts, such as Turkish soccer enthusiast Ahmet Bob Turgut and Grant Wuhl.

We will also be focusing on specific domestic league, and see how some of you favorite teams, including the Dutch futbol team Go Ahead Eagles (yes, that is their real name) with Turkish international Deniz Turuc (pictured above) who grew up in the Netherlands and Turkish soccer team BursaSpor with Argentine national Pablo Battalla (pictured below) perform as Week 4 gets underway in most UEFA-sanctioned domestic leagues.

Of course, the big news in the soccer world today is that Mesut Ozil, a German international player of Turkish heritage, has signed a 'cok para' (Turkish term for lots of loot) to transfer from Real Madrid to Arsenal.

Ironically, Aresnal ousted Turkish soccer team Fenerbahce from the UEFA playoffs just over a week ago without Ozil's help.

Sports Desk: France Wins Under-20 World Cup in Turkey

Today is Bastille Day in France, and their national Under-20 soccer team, is bringing home a World Cup Championship.

On Saturday, France beat Uruguay, which had upset Spain in the quarterfinals, 0-0 (4-1) on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of play without a single goal from either side.

The final was played in Istanbul, Turkey, and other host cities included Bursa, Trabzon, Rize, Gaziantep, Antalya and Kayseri. Surprisingly, neither Ankara, the Turkish capital, nor Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey held games during the tournament.

Paul Pogba (pictured top) who plays for the Italian team Juventus was named the best player of the tournament, and his teammate goal-tender Alphonse Areola (pictured bottom) from the French team Paris Saint Germain, which won the French League this season, was named the outstanding player of the final.

Ghana beat Iraq 3-0 in the competition for third place, and Ebenezer Assifuah from Ghana received the Golden Boot in the tournament as he was the player who scored the most goals.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/sports

Soccer Night-Turkey: Ah Those Altintop Twins

Merhabalar to everyone/ Herkese hello demek istedim..... Hmmm....Turkglish is perhaps not a language which is spoken much in the blogosphere, but, well we try to be original.

We made a big (insert English or Turkish obscenity here) goof last week when we said Fenerbahce was playing Swiss team FC Basel in the UEFA Europa League while English powerhouse Chelsea was playing Benefica of Portugal.

In actuality, Chelsea was playing Basel, whom they defeated, and Fenerbahce alas fell to the Portuguese side in Lisbon 3-1, which eradicated the Yellow Canaries' 1-0 win a week prior in Istanbul. Of course, since this blog is based in America (our executive editor Tilly Gokbudak, who is me, is a Turkish-American), we aren't quite sure how the aggregate system works in soccer, and we think there should be a best 2 out of 3 system instead.

Of course, Turkish futbol blogger Ahmet Bob Turgut, one of our favorite people to follow on Twitter, would have never made this mistake.

Before we go into our dated scores from last week, let's explain a few thing, starting with the twins: Hamid Altintop of GalataSaray (formerly with Read Madrid; pictured top) is the twin brother of Halil Altintop of Trabzonspor (pictured bottom). They are both 30. If for some reason, we got the two mixed up, hopefully, Ahmet Bob Turgut will correct us.

And, we have two new scores from today (Saturday): First, Kayseri upset Trabzonspor 2-1, so we image Halil is not in not in a happy mood right now, but hopefully he'll have a great olive and feta cheese Turkish kahvalti/breakfast (it's 7:30 a.m. and Sunday in Turkey as we are writing this).

We found out that Kayseri, a central Turkish team, has Icelandic national Gretar Steninsson, we presume he is one of the few Icelanders in the TPL.

But, our beloved BursaSpor doubled up on struggling OrduSpor 4-2 with two goals from Slovakian Stanislav Sestak.

The logo in the middle is of Sivasspor which beat bottom-dwelling Istanbul BB last week, but tomorrow, they have the daunting task of facing Burak Yilmaz, Didier Drogba and league-leading GalataSaray.


In leagues standings, these are the top four teams:

1. GalataSaray 65

2. FenerBahce 58

3. Besiktash 52

4. Bursaspor 50

And, here are the results from LAST weekend:

1. BursaSpor 1 Akhisar 1, tie

2.  Trabzonspor 2 Ankara GB 0

3. Elazig 1 Karabukspor 0

4. Sivasspor 4 Istanbul BB 1

5. Mersin 1 Antalyaspor 1, tie

6. Besiktash 2 OrduSpor 0

7. Fenerbahce 2 Kayseri 1

8. GalataSaray 1 GaziantepSpor 0

9. Eskisehir 2 Kasimpasha 1

We are also going to arbitrarily mention Turkish Airlines in the hopes that they will give us a free plane ticket from JFK (New York) to Istanbul.

http://www.turkish-football.com

http://www.turkishairlines.com

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com (Our sister blog)

Soccer Night_ Viva Italia

Alas, we did not get to putting this entry up in time to get info on who scored the goals for their respective Italian premiere league teams, but we can tell you the top image is of Gianluigi Buffon, a veteran goalie who is the captain of first place Juventus. The bottom is image is of Gokhan Inler, a Swiss international of Turkish heritage who plays for third place Napoli.

Here are the current standings:

1. Juventus 80

2. Napoli 69

3. AC Milan 62

4. Fiorentina 61

5. AS Roma (pictured middle) 55

6. Udinese 54

7. Inter Milan 53

8. Lazio 52

These are the scores from LAST week's games:

Udinese 1 Cagilari 0

Napoli 3 Pescara 0

Parma 0 Lazio 0, tie

Atalanta 1 Bologna 1, tie

AS Roma 4 Siena 0

Genoa 1 Chevo 0

Juventus 2 Torino 0

Fiorentina 3 Sampdaria 0

Palermo 1 Inter Milan 0

AC Milan 4 Catania 2

Top 10 Things 2 Do List for the Next 2 Weeks (or so...........)

Here is a look at ten things that we must do or ought to do within the next two weeks; for those of you in Dubai, Tax Day here in America is April 15th (that will be on a similar list on my sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://wwwpoliticscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

This is not to be confused with my sister's blog, well actually she doesn't have one.

Here we go:

1) Wheel alignment (that is the reason for the Model T Ford, though my car is considerably newer than that)

2) Watch the Chelsea-Rubin Kazan soccer game on tape (Gokdeniz Kazadeniz, is a Turkish player who plays for the Russian team Rubin Kazan based in the Tartar region of Russia)

3) Make hotel reservations

4) Go to North Carolina

5) Go to the state DMV

6) Read "Cat in the Hat" by Dr. Seuss (pictured bottom, well if it wasn't obvious)

7) Go through the comic books

8) Pay the light bill

9) Buy groceries

10) Take a Body Flow or yoga class at the gym

Dutch Soccer Results (from weekend of March 15-17)

Siem de Jong, (pictured) a Dutch national, helped propel his league-leading Ajax Amsterdam with two goals (20th and 59th minutes) over AZ Alkmaar, one of their primary rivals, in a 3-2 road win. His fellow Dutch teammate Daley Blind scored a goal for Ajax in the 22nd minute. For AZ, American Jozy Altimore, a former New Red Bulls player scored as did Norwegian national Markus Henriksen.

Serbian soccer player Filip Duricic also had great outing in the Dutch Premiere League, known as Eredivise, with two goals for his team Heerenveen in their 3-1 win over NEC.

Ajax has a one-point lead in the league tables over PSV Eindhoven and Feyennoord.

Here are the tables:

PEC Zwolle 3 Roda JC 2

Heracles 2 VVV 0

Heerenveen 3 NEC 1

PSC Eindhoven 2 Waalwjik 0

Vitese 4 ADO Den Haag 0

NAC Breda 4 Willem II 0

Ajax Amsterdam 3 AZ Alkmaar 2

Feyendoord 2 Utrecht 1

Twente 3 Groninsen 0 

http://www.rnw.nl (Radio Netherlands)

Quote of the Day- Roberto Benigni

Today, we continue quoting people associated with the 16 nations competing in the Euro Cup 2012 soccer championships with a quote from Italian comic/actor/director Roberto Benigni ,59, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in "Life is Beautiful" (1997), a film that he also directed.

Though his fellow Italian Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was a legendary actor who won two Golden Globes for Best Actor, Benigni was actually the first Italian to win a Best Actor Oscar.

For our quote, Benigni refers to the late director Frederico Fellini who directed many Mastroianni films including "La Dolce Vita" (1960):

"For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die."

Quote of the Day/Week-Hans Christian Andersen

This just in, though we were unable to watch the second half, we have learned from espn.com that England defeated Sweden 3-2 today, which certainly surprised those of us who just saw the first half in which England was only up 1-0.

But, we are quoting a famous Dane in Hans Christian Anderson as Denmark is among the 16 countries in the Euro Cup 2012 competition. Alas, the Danes were stuck in the 'group of death' which also features the Netherlands (Holland), Germany and Portugal.

Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, which is Denmark's third largest city. He is known penning several well-known fairy tales, including "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling."

Here is his quote:

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."

http://www.visitdenmark.com

Quote of the Day/Week- Jean Luc-Godard

We continue quoting people associated with the 16 countries represented in Euro 2012 with a quote from the great French film director Jean-Luc Godard, 81, who is best-known for his New Wave classic "Breathless" (1960). Many of his films are available on dvd through the Criterion Collection.

France tied England 1-1 in Euro 2012 play yesterday.

Here is Godard's quote, with his take on William Shakespeare:

"To be or not to be. That's not really a question."


http://www.criterion.com