The World Cup in footbal (soccer) is underway. The home team Germany won the opening match yesterday against Costa Rica 4-2.  The Czech Republic has their first match on Monday against the United States.  In the Czech Republic, it is showing on ČT2 in the U.S. it is on ESPN2.

It seems like all the pubs and bars in Prague will be showing the games.  Some of them have had their signs out for weeks, inviting people to come and watch on their large screen TVs.

Of course, the offical FIFA World Cup website run by Yahoo! is a good source of information.

If you can read Czech, here are a couple sites to stay on top of the excitement:
ČTK - Sportovní noviny
Česká Televize - ms fotbal ‘06

The Czech hockey players have done it. They reached for an Olympic medal and got one. Not gold and not silver. They got a bronze and should be happy for it. To be honest, I didn’t think they’d make it to the quarterfinals after losing to Switzerland, Finland and Canada in the preliminaries. But their win over Slovakia on February 22 got them into the semifinals … where they were killed 3:7 by the Swedes who played a superb, incomparably better game.

Overall, the Czech team didn’t seem to be together somehow during the Olympics. It was made up of many excellent, experienced players but they weren’t very well coordinated during some of the games, and didn’t seem motivated enough. It felt as if the bond that makes a team was missing. Their inconsistent results (four wins and four losses) make the bronze medal feel less deserved.

Jaromír Jágr announced today that the bronze-medal game in Turin was probably his last game for the Czech national team. A number of his team mates, the golden guys from Nagano, are supposedly leaving as well. What does it mean for Czech Republic ice hockey? We’ll find out during the 2006 IIHF World Championship in Riga that runs from May 5 to May 21. Something to look forward to!

We are now on day13 of the Olympics and here is an update on Team Czech. So far, the Czech Republic has earned two silver medals - Kateřina Neumannová in the Women’s Cross-Country Skiing 15km Pursuit, who finished just 1.9 seconds behind Kristina Smigun of Estonia, and Lukáš Bauer in the Men’s Cross-Country Skiing 15km Classical.

The Czech hockey team, which had two wins and three losses in the preliminary round, beat Slovakia (undefeated in the preliminaries) 3-1 in the quarterfinals. The Czechs will face Sweden on Friday, while Finland meets Russia in the other semifinal.

The opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy takes place today and the games run through February 26. There are high expectations for the Czech hockey team, which won the gold medal in the 1998 Olympics, the ski jumper Jakub Janda who won a silver and a bronze at the 2005 World Championships, and cross-country skier Kateřina Neumannová who won a gold medal at the 2005 World Championships.

The Prague Post has a good article on Team Czech and who to keep an eye on at the games. They also have an article on Jandamania.

Petr Čech was named the best football (soccer) goalkeeper in the world for the year 2005 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, an organization which has been ranking goalkeepers since 1987. The 23 year-old Czech plays in London for the Chelsea Football Club.

You can read more about Petr in an article on Radio Praha and in his profile on the Chelsea Football Club official website.

Congratulations Petr!