It is with great pleasure that I announce our NJ Rockstars 3.5 team is heading over to Arizona to compete in the National Tennis Championships!
Long post to follow.
HR
On the day before beginning my senior year of high-school, I called my parents to a family meeting (my parents are divorced, so I actually had to call my dad and ask him to come over my mom’s). The reason for this unusual request was because I had something important to tell them.
Up until then I had been a straight-A student since the first day I set foot on a school. I was not a particularly hard-working student. Without meaning to sound cocky or anything, from a very young age I knew I could get good grades by being efficient. Don’t get me wrong: I did the work when it was needed and would always deliver nothing but the best. It is just that I always felt that I could rely on my intellectual horsepower, rather than spending endless hours and sleepless nights relentlessly studying countless books.
Up until I used to lie to my parents. I would tell them I would go to someone’s house to study, when in reality I would be doing something else. That is how I was able to develop my social skills, sports ventures and other hobbies. Since at the end of each term my scorecard was full of As, my parents had this perception that I was this highly dedicated to his books kid, whose disciplined efforts were shown at the end of every school year.
That night I told my parents my plan for high-school senior year: “Forget about seeing a single A on my scorecard. It will be all Ds. This year I will do the bare minimum to pass.” To their obvious bewildered look, I followed with: “This year I am taking a well-deserved break.” They gave me a long lecture in a failed attempt to talk me out of my decision, but my choice had been made long before that, and my resolve was absolute. Up until then I used to go out and party. Now I would be deeply committed to partying and nothing more.
There is another element that factored into my decision. For my reader who have not met me, I went to high-school in Venezuela. Over there, the system to get into college is different from the US. You can learn more about it on Chapter two of my book, but the short version is that in Venezuela, senior year high-school has no effect in your college applications. More importantly, due to an overwhelming lack of supply and high demand, good schools have incredibly selective acceptance requirements, which include high GPAs from all your high-school years, plus passing an extremely difficult admissions tests. Since I already had the GPA, my plan was to ace the admissions exam of the most prestigious school in the country. Therefore, my only effort of doing any studying at all during my senior year of high-school, would be dedicated to achieving that goal.
Because of this fact that senior year high-school grades are meaningless in Venezuela and most students would somewhat be aligned with my personal vision, the education system came up with an idea to try to make the school year interesting for seniors. All the interesting topics that we had not learned to that point, would be part of the senior year syllabus: all the great books we had not read, the fun math we had not learned, the cool laboratory experiments we never did, would be featured during our senior year. As you can imagine, due to the constant streaming of daily partying, I missed all of that.
That is how I never got to read most literature classics you were supposed to go through in high-school: Tale of two cities, The divine comedy, War and peace, and… The Iliad and The Odyssey. Slowly but steadily, I have been catching up with them one at a time, and with the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie, the time has come to get my hands on this Greek classic. Once I finish it, I will share my thoughts with you.
HR
Happy birthday America! 250 years!
HR
Following my very elaborate series of comparing soccer / football vs. football, it is time for the corresponding predictor for the upcoming world cup.
With the now unstoppable globalization of the sport, the 2026 edition of the FIFA world cup features an all-time high first occasion of 48 countries, playing across 16 cities spread out also in a first time of three hosting nations: Canada, Mexico and the United States. Given the unusual amount of competing nations, at this point the tournament is more about which countries did not make, rather than the ones that qualified. Teams such as Curacao, Cape Verde, New Zealand, Uzbekistan, and Haiti, who -no offense to then- under more normal circumstances would not have qualified, will now be competing against the “elite” nations of the world.
You can refer to my soccer vs. football series, to understand my reasoning behind quoting “elite”, but the short story is that if there is anything all soccer fans agree on is that the quality of the game has decreased substantially over the last ten years, which is this entry should be relatively brief in terms of predicting who might win. So let’s get on to it right away:
Most likely to be eliminated early on:
- Given their relatively low population, low exposure to high-level competition, lack of resources, and other variables, I find it very hard to see any of the five countries I listed above going beyond the group stage. Surprises are always common occurrences in World Cups, and due to the rough conditions and somewhat forgiving accommodations (IE: hydration break), who knows if any of them could be able to pull an upset.
Host nations:
- Canada, Mexico and the US will somehow make it to the knockout stage. Despite my stars and stripes having my full support, I do believe that unless some incredibly unexpected series of planet alignments occurs and the gods of soccer descend on their squads -perhaps aided by definition of a round of 16 match in penalty rounds-, none of the host teams will reach the quarterfinals.
England and Brazil:
- For the reasons I already mentioned in my soccer vs. football series, I feel confident in ruling out the two former traditionally favorites. England might be able to make it further than Brazil -who might not reach the quarterfinals, and actually might be lucky enough to make it through the group stage. But there is no way that in my life time, the Sun will rise in a world where Harry Kane won a World cup. PS.: Neymar should be starting to handover retirement party invitation cards. PS #2: Add Portugal to this list, and Cristiano Ronaldo to the retirement party hosts.
Cinderella:
- With such a large pool, it is hard to say which underdog team will be the star of the tournament. All CONMEBOL teams are relatively strong, so it would not be fair to call them underdogs, while at the same time foreseeing that at least one of them could make it to the quarters and perhaps semifinals. African teams are always the tournament revelation, so I am going to put it out there, that one of them will generate a huge fuzz, one way or another. Morocco took this role in the last world cup, so even though they could have another great performance, I still feel there is another hidden surprise somewhere coming from Africa.
Deep run:
- Not including the favorites -which will follow below- there are two teams I could see going deep into the final stages, while soundly and convincingly defeating their rivals: Belgium and Norway. Both have potential to reach the semifinals, probably even knocking out Brazil and England in their way.
Favorites that could, but ultimately will not win:
- Germany lost their way after their 2014 victory. Their squad is fresh, but they nowadays play something different.
Finally, let’s talk about the favorites:
- France: really solid team with no visible weaknesses.
- Argentina: they have the best player in the world, albeit past his prime but still capable of being the protagonist. More importantly, they know how to play with Messi and since this is his last World Cup, they are going to play their best for him.
- Spain: an annoyingly defensive team that is filled of young talents, who while not able to display the most visually appealing game, are capable of asphyxiating their opponents to death. I can see them making it to the semis, or somehow meeting against either France or Argentina in an earlier round of the knockout stage, but both the French and the defending champions will ultimately prevail due to their superior offensive.
The verdict: ultimately, I feel it will come down to a repeat of the 2022 final and in this thrilling rematch. By this time, having been the best player in the tournament -along with Mbappe-, Messi will simply be out of gas, underperform in the final, and France will get their revenge, beating Argentina 3-0.
HR
If I ever start a YouTube channel, the Tron franchise will probably be either my first or second video.
Tron -the 1982, and the franchise as a whole- has fascinated me for years. It is probably one of the few entertainment products that somehow keeps following an incredibly odd recurring pattern:
- It gets released in an attempt to introduce wide audiences to a niche market.
- It fails miserably.
- It only ends up capturing the interest of people who actually understand it.
- After 10-15 years go by, and they redefine its audience.
Rinse and repeat.
The first film came out in 1982 to mixed reviews and a box-office disappointing results. Very few people liked it and even less understood it. I find it surprising that well-known present day reviewers, people with tremendous experience in the film industry, fail to grasp what Tron is about, even with all the available resources we have in 2026. This is because Tron is a smart movie, made for smart people: computer nerds from that time. Tron is the movie The Matrix wishes to be. The question then is, why did a movie that failed so badly, was able to get a $150 million reboot in 2010? The answer: because of the light-cycle scene. Everyone loves the light-cycle scene. In fact, it is the only thing people think about when discussing Tron. This is how it became a cult film -a term that is loosely used nowadays, however, if there is one film that truly earns it, it is Tron.
So Tron: Legacy came out in 2010, to worse reviews than the original, and somewhat of a breakeven box-office performance -which is hugely disappointing considering the amount of publicity the movie had to try to establish a Star wars-like franchise. Because Legacy’s plot had a direct connection with the 1982 film, audiences were puzzled on what to get out of the movie. But also, since an attempt was made to try to make the story easier to understand for a more mainstream audience, it ended up being neither niche nor wide. If there is one word that can easily summarize Tron, that word is “confusing”. The question then is, why did a movie that failed so badly, was able to get a $200 million reboot in 2025? The answer: because of the light-cycle scene and Daft Punk’s soundtrack. Everyone loves the light-cycle scene and Daft Punk’s soundtrack. In fact, it is the only thing people think about when discussing Tron: Legacy.
A third oddity within the franchise, Tron: Ares came out a few months ago, produced by and starring Jared Leto, who recently has become somewhat of an oddity himself. I have no idea what it is about, but I am completely sure that if there is someone out there who fully understands Tron and is able to figure out a way to make it work to a point where the original 1982 film can be redeemed, that person is not Jared Leto.
HR
Believe it or not, over the last few weeks I have gained a newfound momentum to work on the English version of my book. My editor and I so far have been able to finish one third of the content, which after the considerable pause I put on it, feels pretty satisfying.
In revisiting some of the chapters, I realized that parts of the original release needed a bit of improvement, which means that at the same time I am also working on the second edition of the already released Spanish version. This is relatively good news for future readers, as I am aiming to make the reading as smooth as possible, considering the challenges of dealing with such an elaborate topic.
Considering that I can only dedicate part of my weekends -the only free time I currently have- to this endeavor, I believe it is unlikely that the English version will be published this year. My commitment to the people who are anxious and excited to get my book is still there, so rest assured that my goal is still to make my work available to you as soon as I humanly can.
HR
In preparation for the upcoming World Cup, I would like to discuss the Immortal team picked by Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Owen and Martin Keown.
You can watch the full episode below, and come back to my analysis:
So here’s my take:
Goalkeeper:
- Iker Casillas: although I agree with the reasoning in his selection, I never really thought of Casillas as a great goalie. I always felt he was a very good keeper playing for a great club. I genuinely believe that Buffon, Oliver Kahn and Peter Schmeichel were better than Casillas.
Defenders:
- LB = Roberto Carlos: without a doubt.
- CB = Paolo Maldini: without a doubt.
- CB = Sergio Ramos: same logic with Casillas. While I agree with the panel’s argument of his goal scoring abilities, especially in critical moments, I look at the team holistically, as if I were to line this squad up against an opposing team. Under that scenario, I am really not too concerned about needing a goal scorer, having a midfield and forward lines as powerful as this team has. My concern would be more on defending and preventing the opponents from even getting close to my keeper, which is why I would pick Rio himself over Sergio.
- RB = Dani Alves: similarly to Casillas and Ramos but in a different way, I also feel Dani Alves benefited from the system where he played, which allowed him to showcase an elevated version of what he could do as a RB defender. To me, Phillip Lahm and Cafu surpass Alves, especially because both of them triumphed with their clubs and national squads proving my point, whereas Alves did not.
Midfielders:
Before going into the intricacies of each player, I have to present the justification of my analysis. As it happened with Ramos, the panel favor play making and goal scoring, over actual squad structure. Since they are playing with a 4-3-3 formation, having three CAM -or at the very least two CAMs and one CM- in Iniesta, Zidane and Gerrard, is unfeasible.
Once again, from a holistic and functional point of view, the team needs a CDM / CM in order to shield the defensive line and control the ball. Therefore, while it is appreciated that Makelele, Modric, Seedorf and Scholes were part of the candidates, but to not even mention Busquets and Gatusso? I was actually surprised about that!
So, following my logic, I am obviously not removing Zidane, which leaves Gerrard and Iniesta. It’s a very close call between them and I have nothing but the utmost respect for both legends, but given his ability to play his best in crucial games, proven on multiple occasions, I have to go with Iniesta.
- LM = Zinedine Zidane.
- RM = Andres Iniesta.
- CM = This is a very close call between Claude, Sergio and Gennaro -arguably the three greatest CMs of all time. As much as I loved Gatusso’s passion and full commitment to the cause, and as much as I respect Busquets’ commanding presence in the midfield, I really believe the Claude Makelele’s intelligence, brilliance and absolute impeccable, flawless performance as a controller midfielde, are probably the most overlooked of all time. Without Makelele, there is no Zidane, Figo, Raul, Lampard, Robben and Drogba.
Forwards:
Slight change on my formation, I would have done 4-1-3-2, 1 obviously being Makelele CM, Zidane CAM, Iniesta RW. This leaves:
- LW = Ronaldinho.
- RW = Messi.
- ST = Ronaldo Phenomenon.
Do you like my squad? Share yours in the comments!
HR
Major spoilers on this entry.
Do not continue if you have not seen Dexter Season Six and wish to watch it without spoilers.
——————— — ————————
Boy I take a lot of time to do these, eh?
If you missed my previous reviews, you can read Season One, Season Two, Season Three, Season Four and Season Five.
By the team we get to Season Six you will most likely get the feeling that: 1) The writers had no idea what to do to come up with a better antagonist; and 2) Colin Hanks is as bad an actor as his dad -more on this on another entry.
The problem with Season Six is the main overarching story of the killings based on the book of revelation. It feels like the writers were trying to go for a bigger, louder, more visual antagonist: the “Doomsday Killers”. I read somewhere years ago that incorporating religious themes into movies and series never works, and this is no exception. Not only it is not well executed, but it fails to captivate anyone’s attention, so the whole religious aspect could easily be removed from the narrative and the story would be completely unaffected, revealing the weakness of the plot. On top of this, the show features the most obvious plot twist in the history of television. It is so absurdly evident, it can be caught within minutes of the first episode of the season, so when the actual twist occurs in episode nine, the instinctive emotional response is to laugh instead of feeling surprise.
Since the plot twist is so easy to identify, of course the red herring of Edward James Olmos does not work and all your attention goes to the main antagonist Travis Marshall (played by Hanks). Due to his very limited acting abilities, his whole performance feels like a joke. It is obvious that he is going for an Edward Norton in Primal Fear sort of performance, but the thing is that Colin Hanks is not Edward Norton. Therefore, forget about seeing Aaron or Roy on the screen. Instead, you just get wooden Colin.
As it happened in Season Five, the side plots are forgettable. Both Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter shine in their respective performances, especially Jennifer. However, as much as she gives it her all, she can only do so much with the material given, and the predictable side plot of her falling for him and ultimately walking in on him as he kills Travis (Hanks), is something anyone should have seen coming three episodes before the season finale.
Stay tuned for Season Seven soon!
HR
Being an author of a book that describes the story of Venezuela’s collapse, I have been asked about this topic, following the events of the first week of January.
I actually gave a very good description of what would happened if this scenario played out in my book. So if you want to know what I think about this, you will have to wait a little bit until you can buy my book in English. If you are fluent in Spanish, you can buy it right now in Amazon.
HR
Now let’s talk about South American football soccer, and International Club football soccer.
Despite having considerably less resources than almost every single European league, South American football pretty much has the same level of tradition as Europe -if not more. The difference is that South American football has been historically dominated by three countries which I am quite sure you can easily name: Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, both on a club level and from a national team perspective as well.
As I mentioned on a previous entry, the equivalent of the UEFA Champions League is called the Copa Libertadores, and pretty much follows the exact same format of the Champions: the top clubs get pooled in groups, and the top two qualify for a knockout phase with home and away rounds. The difference is that up until 2018, the finals was also played in two matches, home and away. Starting in 2019, they adopted the Champions format of a single match played on neutral ground.
In terms of historical legacy, while still dominated by a small group of 26 teams, the pool of Copa Libertadores winners is a little more even than the Champions. Moreover, there isn’t a “Real Madrid” equivalent. The biggest winner is Argentina’s Independiente with seven titles, followed by Boca Juniors with six. The South American equivalent of the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona rivalry is Boca Juniors vs. River Plate, with River having won four Libertadores titles, and their splitting their domestic local league titles 38 to 35 in River’s favor. A fourth Argentinian club -Estudiantes- has also won four Libertadores titles, while Uruguay’s top clubs Penarol and Nacional have won five and three respectively.
Brazilian clubs have won twenty-five titles in total, distributed among Flamengo (4), Palmeiras (3), Sao Paolo (3), Pele’s Santos (3), Gremio (3), Cruzeiro (2), Internacional (1), Ronaldinho’s Atletico Mineiro (1), Fluminense (1), Vasco de Gama (1), Botafogo (1) and Corinthians (1).
The remaining champions are Paraguay’s Olimpia with three titles, Colombia’s Atletico Nacional (2) and Once Caldas (1), Chile’s Colo-Colo (1), Argentina’s Racing, Juniors, San Lorenzo and Velez Sarsfield (1 each), and Ecuador’s Liga de Quito with one.
The Copa Libertadores importance is mainly due to the players either winning the trophy or making it to the final rounds of the tournament, hence becoming top candidates to be signed by an European club, where they will make significantly way more money than playing in South America, apart from becoming worldwide-known superstars. This is why worldwide speaking, Copa Libertadores has mostly been categorized second to the UEFA Champions League, even though technically speaking they both share the same skill level.
This discussion became the initiator of the debate to determine which continent was the true best of the best, hence why in 1960 the Intercontinental Cup was created. The match to decide which club was the real world champion, in which the winner of the Champions League faced the winner of the Copa Libertadores. The tournament was held for forty three years, in which believe it or not the South American clubs won the title 22 times, versus 21 times a European club did. The competition was last held in 2004, when it was decided that the FIFA Club World cup would replace it. As you can imagine, the FIFA Club World cup would now feature not only Europe’s and South America’s champions, but also the champion clubs from all the regional football federations across the world. The FIFA World Cup has been moderately successful compared to the Intercontinental Cup. There are many reasons for this – let’s explore them.
The are two main reasons why the FIFA Club World Cup has not been able to succeed. The first is the schedule. The Intercontinental Cup was a competition that worked perfectly thanks to how simple it format was: a single match to determine who was the best among the two best clubs in the world, after each club had won their corresponding continental championship (the UEFA Champions or the Libertadores); it was successful because generally speaking, South America and Europe pretty much the same schedule on both their local domestic leagues and their continental competitions: they start around the same time, and end around the same time.
The FIFA Club World Cup instead has to deal with multiple leagues running at different start and end times, which creates a mess for the local and continental leagues themselves. This is why one year it was played on December when the South American and European leagues were half-way through, and then the next year it was played in July when all leagues were on vacation, then the following year in September at the same time the leagues were starting, then the following year in August. It’s a mess.
The second reason why it has been struggling is the format. Since the schedule is completely messed up, it is hard to get all the teams to commit to the same dates every year, which results in an odd format for the tournament: some years they add clubs, other years they subtract clubs, other years they allow the European clubs to play only the final match, and more recently, they started to allow clubs to compete in the tournament despite them having not won anything at either continental or domestic level. For instance, last year’s 2025 edition was won by Chelsea who defeated 2025 UEFA Champions League winners PSG. This is because FIFA wanted to expand the pool of clubs and for the first time ever, allowed the tournament to be played featuring 32 clubs. That’s a long way from the Intercontinental Cup.
The other issue is that with the schedule and format so messed up, there have been occasions in which the club’s key players leave the team -mostly for contractual reasons-. So Player A who won the Champions League playing for Club X in May, but whose contract expired in June, signed for Club Y in July, which means he can no longer play for Club X FIFA Club World Cup in September.
Finally, there’s the tiring factor. Some players are simply exhausted after their regular season, which means they end up underperforming in the FIFA Club World Cup. Honestly, this tournament is a boring / going through the motions experience for some players, that is used as an excuse to add another trophy for South American or European clubs. I do appreciate that they are trying to include the Arab, Chinese, Korean and New Zealand leagues, but the reality is that those leagues are not on the same level as European and South American football, and the numbers clearly back this up. Out of the 21 editions of the FIFA Club World Cup, European clubs have been on the finals every single year, winning 17 and losing only 4, to… guess who? South American clubs, who have also ended up eleven times as runner ups; and the reason why they haven’t been able to win more most of the times is because of what I mentioned above of their players being unable to compete, hence qualifying for a tournament with a weakened team.
Overall, I think FIFA is still trying to figure out to do with the clubs, by coming up with a mix that blends the old Intercontinental Cup format, with the FIFA World Cup format, with both the Copa Libertadores and UEFA Champions league format, all of this while making a considerable amount of money in the process at the expense of a good quality efficiently run tournament.
This concludes my analysis of football soccer leagues around the world. In my next entry I will go back to try to answer the original question of which one is better between the NFL and European / South American Soccer.
HR