One more step along the world I go

Today I embark on a new adventure. It will be my first ever visit to Africa where I will be doing mission-work with a group of guys from my church. We're flying to Lusaka, Zambia (via Ethiopia), then making our way up to the Northern copper-mining town of Chingola.

Our main task out there will be to start building work on a classroom. The team that went last year started to build a clinic, which we should be able to open this year. For more informaiton take a look here.

We'll be away for just under a month and I am really looking forward to it. I hope to experience a new culture, learn many new things and come back a changed person, but for now I really ought to complete my packing!

The Italian Job

Who would have predicted what has happened to Italian football in the last few weeks? Certainly not I. First of all, my money was on Brazil, England or Holland to lift the Jules Rimet. But not this time! England never got going, Brazil didn't play as a team and the Dutch were too young.

Instead of taking the focus away from the football being played in Germany, the Italian match-fixing scandal, revolving around Juventus' former director Luciano Moggi, seemed to have had the opposite effect. The Italians played great football to be fair and, under the leadership of Marcello Lippi, played some uncharacteristicly attackingly stuff.

Perhaps with the exception of the Australian game, the Azzurri were in control and, unlike France, deserved to qualify from their group. France completely surprised me, a team which had done it all in '98 and 2000 surely couldn't emulate that success with the same core of aging players. No, in this tournament I feel the most deserving team have won it. Lets not forget Argentina and Germany, who also made this World Cup special when we look back on 2006.

Back to Footballgate where the four teams implicated in the investigation have all been punished in some way. Juventus, Serie A's most successful team, have been relegated to Serie B and docked 30 points from next season. Similarly, Lazio and Fiorientina have also gone down but had less harsh, 7 and 12 point deductions respectively. Milan remain in the top league but will start with a 15 point disadvantage. All are banned from Europe for a season.

This is a massive verdict on a huge scandal and the implications will be felt throughout world football as well as Italy. Such accusations deserved strong punishments I think it is a healthy thing for the game to have those clubs with the most power to be brought down, making it a more even playing field. It will be especially interesting to see how the clubs who have been awarded the European places of the aforementioned teams fare in European competition. I look forward to the new season with a renewed interest!