Free Kick Masters competition - Soccer related

[Boogahz]

Anyone in, or around, Houston that might want to attend this? It is on Saturday, July 5th.

I have a line on some very nice free tickets, but the catch is that you would HAVE to attend. I am getting more info on what the sponsor still has left, but there were VIP box seats, sideline seats, and even participants in Walls on free kicks

http://www.freekickmastersusa.com/Home.asp

Players listed are currently:

Ronaldinho Gaucho
Rafael Marquez
Alessandro Del Piero
Lionel Messi
Fernando Torres
Deco
Jared Borgetti
Robert Pires
Dwayne de Rosario
Subait Khater Fayel
Sun Xiang
Sun Ji
Eddie Lewis
Harry Kewell
Dmitri Loskov
Brad Davis
Segundo Castillo
David Bentley
Jozy Altidore
Juninho Pernambucano
Luis Fabiano
Lukas Podolski
Martin Palermo
Kasey Keller
Vojislav Dragovic
Francesco Toldo
Brad Friedel
David James
Faryd Aly Camilo Mondragon
Shen Si
Sulley Muntari
Javier Portillo
Júlio Baptista

The Free Kick Masters is a skills-based international soccer competition featuring some of the world’s top rated free kickers competing against some of the world’s top rated goalkeepers in a free kick shootout to declare the world’s “Free Kick Master” and “Golden Goalkeeper”. The last Free Kick Masters event held in Marbella, Spain was sold out and broadcast to over 30 countries and an estimated 110 million viewers.

The Free Kick Masters 2008 will be held July 5, 2008 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. The player crowned “Free Kick Master” will receive $1 million in prize money, and the “Golden Goalkeeper” title winner will receive $0.5 million in prize money.

The Free Kick Masters panel of judges includes former players and distinguished coaches from around the world.

Professional referees will be keeping score to the official standards and regulations as set by the professional football association. The referees will be chosen by draw

[Truant]

damnit. I want to go but can't.

[Boogahz]

I an pretty certain that I will be going. The wall tickets could be fun...I don't know many people that could say that they got busted in the face by some of the stars that are expected to attend. I should know for sure tomorrow since I am at the service shop getting some work done on my car now.

[Boogahz]

This was the final list of players that were present:

Kickers:
Brad Davis
Dwayne De Rosario
Eddie Lewis
Jared Borgetti
Javier Portillo
Jozy Altidore
Julio C. Baptista
Lionel Messi
Martin Palermo
Rafa Marquez - Won the $1Mil
Romario
Robert Pires
Ronaldinho
Segundo Castillo
Shen Si
Subait Khater
Sulley Ali Muntari

Keepers:
David James - Won the $500k
Francesco Toldo
Kasey Keller
Vojislav Dragovic
Jorge Campos

There was a definite feel that things were specifically orchestrated to maximize the televised portion of the event. I can't really complain, because the producer of the entire thing is who got me in. From what I was hearing from the producer and my co-worker (her cousin), the thing was plagued by last minute drop outs from players to announcers. It still went off well in my opinion.

It was a fun event, and it was really cool to watch the interactions of some of the players with the fans. I think that David James and Kasey Keller spent more time with the younger kids than anyone else. Shen Si, from China, had some kick ass shots. One actually bent around the front of the wall to go in the side net, and I still can't figure out how it happened. I really felt for one of the wall-boys that took a line drive from Martin Palermo to the face. That shit had to hurt.

Ronaldinho couldn't seem to get past the wall, and James easilly stopped the one shot he got around it. Messi seemed to be distracted by the lone fans that would intermittently go charging at him from the stands, and he almost threw punches at one that tried to steal his jersey. It almost seemed like security didn't decide to show up until after a few people got to him and Ronaldinho.

Overall, I had a blast though! Oh, and Keller can be a fucking goofball!

[Chidoro]

Sounded like a lot of fun. That's pretty screwed up that fans were able to physically harass the players. Ronaldinho must be out of practice. It widely known that he isn't going to be at Barca for much longer now.

Oh if you haven't already, seek out Sepp Blatter's comments about the players being treated like slaves when it comes to breaking contracts. You think american atheletes are coddled, you should hear the way players should be allowed to break contracts because the player would be "unhappy".

[Nick]

Sepp Blatter is a senile old fuckwit who should be carted off to a mental home. Nothing he says is worth anything other than a sincere "shut the fuck up" at this point.

I caught some of this, and it's awesome you got to see it Boog, it must have been a lot of fun.

Ronaldinho really seems to have lost whatever it was that made him who he once was. A shame He was amazing (although still an ugly man by anyone's reckoning )

[Boogahz]

It wasn't even aired in the US as far as I know. I would have liked to see how it turned out since the producer was telling me that the first cuts she was seeing looked great (although she was probably biased). Plus, I really did miss out on some of the kicks on one end of the field from where I was sitting.

It was fun though. I almost sold my Ballack 08/09 national team away jersey for $150 that I was wearing too...they wouldn't give me a shirt to replace it and I didn't want to get kicked off the field for that price. lol

[Nick]

Poor Ballack, he's had the most unlucky season that virtually any player has ever in the history of football. He's still amazing. Keep that shirt, it'll be worth more in the long run (just to have, not to sell!)

[Boogahz]

I found the televised version of this on a few trackers, but they were all requiring some kind of membership to adult sites just to be able to download from them. Does anyone know of anywhere else it is listed/hosted? From the shots I was able to see on YouTube, I would like to have seen how the finished product came out. Unfortunately, it was not aired in this area for me to snag it on the DVR.