A Top 5 of Champions Trophy Moments

Here is a Top 5 of videos connected with the Champions Trophy. The women's tournament starts in Rosario on 28th January 2012.

1. Although I didn't see it at the time, I duck every time for the drag flick straight on. This probably gives you an idea of what it is like to be Beth Storry in goal...



2. It is always a great honour to speak with the best player in the world: Luciana Aymar was amazing in Nottingham. Here is some great action from Nottingham mixed with a stirring interview...



And here is a link to some of her other goals...



3. A round-up of England's progress to the bronze medal at the Nottingham tournament in 2010. Featuring plenty of the top England players...



4. A royal visit to the Nottingham Champions Trophy tournament on the last day, July 2010, made for a very special close to the competition.



5. This is by my Dutch friend, Eva and it brings back a few memories of the time spent in Nottingham during July 2010.

Travelling to Argentina

Below: One of the Haathees from around London recently, this one lives at Heathrow airport. 'Haathee' is Hindi for elephant and these fellas helped to raise some money to protect the real Asian elephants.

Above: A street scene from Buenos Aires, showing a massive advert for Adidas - note it isn't the new Las Leonas kit sadly, but still very cool.

Just to prove I am actually here!

The flight from Heathrow was delayed by some 7 hours, so that wasn't too good, but it did mean I got to do plenty of reading! 2 hours late leaving Heathrow, diverted to another airport because of fog at San Paulo and a 3 hour wait on the runway at Campinas in Brazil. The crew had to change over there and then a long wait in the stack to get into San Paulo.

Anyhow, arrived in Buenos Aires and so far everything has been very good, food excellent, people very friendly. The barman at the hotel is very impressed with my picture with Luciana Aymar! Taxi driver was a bit nuts, kept pointing out all the different football clubs Maradona played for, and asking me about Liverpool team news (He was a big Liverpool fan) - keep your eyes on the road son, as traffic came at us from both directions.

The final roundabout before the hotel he grabbed at the crucifix dangling from the rear view mirror and made the sign of the cross. I wasn't hopeful we'd make it across...  Still the Lord works in mysterious ways, especially at roundabouts. 

And of course everybody knows the Las Leonas, there is a great photo spread in the sports newspaper from the opening ceremony in Rosario with dancing and the teams - Chloe mentioned it was great on a text message she sent me.

It does look good in the newspaper, on to Rosario tomorrow on the bus.

The World Cup in Argentina is coming up at the end of August, and Luciana tells us why we should all go!

Luciana Aymar on the World Cup and the Champions Trophy 2010

My second inappropiate question to Luciana Aymar! And well very fun, she was good enough to do a longer interview and talk about the World Cup in Roasario in Argentina in a few months time.

Another day, and this time a 4-0 win and Argentina are looking up, and 'Lucha' was on fine form.

This is the Press Conference, lucky to get to put a few questions to one of the great hockey players, Luciana Aymar with a few surprise results!

England Captain, Kate Walsh thought the questions were very funny.