A Late Start

I slept through my alarm this morning so I caught the matches already in action. It was another triple-match morning – Nurnberg starting it off at 8:30 with Oxford and Newcastle at 9. I caught the action with Nurnberg at the halftime break and the other two maybe around the 20^th minute. To give a rundown of the action from my view in front of the laptop:

Nurnberg was again frustrating. Looking at the match tracker from the first half, Nurnberg was ahead by two goals by the 20^th minute but they let Mainz back in it. It was all level at the half. Seven minutes into the second half, Mainz went ahead 3-2. I kept thinking, “Really Nurnberg, you were up 2-0 and now you’re down 2-3?” I maybe even said that out loud. I couldn’t find a live stream of the game (couldn’t find one for any of the three matches) but the Bundesliga’s site did have their normal match radio…in German. I can catch bits here and there (having had high school German classes) so it could have been worse. I could definitely catch that Nurnberg’s defense was not covering well. The name of Nurnberg’s goalkeeper, Stephan, kept coming up. Luckily he was making saves (except for three of them of course) but it wasn’t good that Mainz kept him busy. Nurnberg managed to save the draw in the 82^nd minute, but it should have been a win.

Oxford were playing Hereford who were second from the bottom of the standings before the match. With that said, I followed this match the least, especially when Oxford scored after the first half hour. After that I was hoping for a second insurance goal and hoping that Hereford wouldn’t find that underdog spark and level. Well neither happened and the match ended just 1-0 but a win is a win. Oxford seem to now be finding their form and, with the win, moved up the table into promotion playoff contention.

Newcastle also continued their good form. By the time I joined the match, they were up 1-0 against a middle of the table Wolverhampton side. Just a few minutes before halftime, they went up 2-0. After the break, they seemed to just hold on to the match against a Wolves team that did field a good deal of shots, most though that were off target. Krul, Newcastle's keeper did however lose his shutout in the 88^th minute, but the Wolves only managed to peg that one back. With the win, Newcastle United currently sit third in the standings before the rest of the weekend games on Sunday. It’s just amazing that for a team that got rid of most of its star players from last year, a team that I thought would be fighting tooth and nail against relegation, is not only is high in the standings but also does not yet have a loss seven matches into the season. Keep it up lads!