I just got my tickets for the ACC Championship and figured I'd start an ACC Soccer thread. I went to the Maryland-Duke game Friday, which was great (I'm a Maryland fan) -- sellout crowd, thousands actually turned away at the gate, a win and tons of pyrotechnics during the intros (and the national anthem)...

The ACC tournament should be great -- anyone in the DC area should definitely go.

Right now the ACC has six of the top seven teams (SMU is #1, follwed by Maryland, Virginia, UNC, Clemson, Duke and Wake).... Got me thinking about SMU -- they play NOBODY! They haven't, and don't, play one top ten team.

Sent you a PM lax. I plan to be there. But may not make the play-in match on Tuesday.

Very, very impressed with the level of soccer I'm seeing so far. Lot of these guys will be headed for the MLS for sure, but one could compare the intensity of these games to that of the MLS the way one could compare the intensity of the NCAA baskeball playoffs to the NBA - the electricity among the athletes is just totally different than any MLS game I've seen.

One game has already seen a coach ejected by a red card and another has gone to two ten minute golden goal overtimes and a golden penalty kick when the regular 5 kicks ended in a 4-4 tie. The golden goal kicker was a guy whose play I had been following the whole game even though there was no score. You could see the confidence in his style and it carried over into the penalty kick: he just walked up, set the ball and blasted it like a rocket without any showy fakes or aiming for far corners of the net - the perfect way to kick a penalty.

Maryland has already surprised me with their speed and agility in defeating a very stubborn Boston College team in the quarterfinals with a goal in the last minutes of a second 10 minute OT that was reminiscent of the goal that sank my heart when Italy beat Germany in the Cup. What a game!

They'll need even more than that against Duke in the semis. Those guys dispatched the Tar Heels with relative ease, though they were caught napping by the Heels at the beginning of the second half. Duke definitely consider themselves the pretty boys of the tournament. All the more reason to see them go down.

Ok. It's all my faught. My legs were getting frostbite in below freezing weather without the wind chill. I'm sorry but that is NOT soccer weather. Record crowd be damned.

I left at halftime with the Terps down 0-1 and the result was inevitable.

Moment of silence while I kick myslef...1..2..3..

Enough already! So am I gonna not see the final? Puulease!! I'd watch those Duke players butter toast. A&F hunks who can actually use those pretty muscles. And Wake's golden-legged Zack Schilawski...?

And the cutest Dukee was the one who beat us.....with his head. Damn you Joe Germanese!! You are forever condemned to spend all future cold nights like this one in my bed. There you shall be suitably roasted in the hell you Devils so richly deserve. And bring a second pair of underwear. I keep the old ones.

Props to my Terps for keeping it close. But there is no substitute for 3 inches. Ask any gay man. That and about 20 lbs are what we gave away to dem Devils. Take that down in your notebooks all you soccer junkies: SIZE...DOES.......COUNT in soccer as in sex. Bigger and faster are both useful.

But playing your heart out in the worst of conditions is what counts in life. And deprivation increases hunger.

This vacation has been a blast! Terps may not have made it to the finals but the team that beat them did - and won it all. Now it's on to the NCAAs for the Terps to defend their title. It will be a long shot IMO.

All props to the Devils. Those guys were obviously knackered after that frigid game against Maryland - much colder and windier than the earlier Wake Forest game IMO, and the coldest game in ACC playoff history according to one commentator - and it showed in the play. Duke's Chris Loftus who was injured in the first half of the MD gane never played in the final. And Joe Germanese who had played the whole tournament with a cast on one hand suffered a knee injury in the final probably due to fatigue from that Maryland game.

The hero of the final, Mike Grella, could play anywhere in the world right now. He reminds me a lot of an early Mathis but hopefully without the personal issues. And damn is he sexy. He's shown flashes of brilliance that bring to mind - dare I say it? - the great one: ZZ.

Loaded with Italian studs and a Greek god in the goal there is every reason in the world to follow this team.

Well I missed the score in OT 'cause I had to see this incredible Basque pianist Daniel del Pino at The Phillips Collection concert hall in DC. Well, well worth it. His Granados piece, Quejas, was to die for and all recorded fortunately. And he's cute with the sweetest Spanish accent. Is that gay? I am sooo Brian Kichen.