Travels in the 2nd half

I was born in the United States in the 1960’s, so a love of soccer didn’t come naturally to me. In fact, when I was growing up, there were only three places to it. There were games from the Mexican Football League, on Spanish on Telemundo, there was a weekly game from Italy broadcast on channel 25, and there was a condensed, 60-minute tape of a game from England’s Championship on WPIX on Sunday mornings. In 1968 a new soccer league started in the United States – The North American Soccer League . But it struggled, with very little exposure until 1975, when the New York Cosmos signed two of the best players in the world – Pelé, from Brazil and Franz Beckenbauer, from Germany. All of a sudden New York was home to some world class talent, and I was bitten by the football bug. I remember going to the old Downing Stadium on Randall’s Island along with over 20,000 other to see Pelé’s debut. And I never looked back. Pelé playing for Brazil in 1960 - By AFP/SCANPIX (Nationale...

Cathedral at Monreale For those who are up of their religious history, Palermo is an interesting city. It has not one, but two major cathedrals. Yes, one of them is technically in the town of Monreale, but both were built with intention of being the headquarters of the diocese in the Palermo region. How did this happen? Well, here is the story. It all begins with the Saracen invasion of the 9 th century. At that time the town of Palermo was the center of trade in northwest Sicily. This didn’t change, but the control of the town switched from Catholic to Muslim. And it stayed that way for around two hundred years. During this period, the archbishop of Palermo was forced to live outside the city walls in the town of Monreale. The Death and Agony of William II of Sicily - By Petrus de Ebulo (XII-XIII century) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Then in 1072, the crusades, led by an Anglo-Norman army, brought control of Palermo back to the Christians. The sea...