How well all these efforts stand up to high humidity and lashings of water regularly lashing down on the device is one very big question mark.
And rain it did, lashing down on kick-off and bringing French errors.
With rain lashing down on the white tarp in front of him, Girardi sat in the visitors dugout and explained why Phelps was batting eighth.
LONDON — While the wind swirled and the rain lashed down on Stamford Bridge Stadium, Chelsea became the first team in England to beat Manchester City this season.
This past week, however, while the winds swirled and the rains lashed down on the soccer fields, Abramovich was hosting his multimillion-dollar New Year's party on the Caribbean island estate once owned by the Rockefeller family.
The exodus of cars and trucks, some with furniture lashed down on their roofs, began in low-lying areas but quickly spread inland as the storm intensified and threatened to become the worst natural disaster here in decades.
With the rain lashing down on the half-empty AAMI Park stadium, the game deteriorated badly in a technical sense in the second half, with both coaches blaming the Australian referee for allowing the play-the-ball to be slowed down by lying-on in the tackle.
The rain that had lashed down on Monumental Stadium for an hour, the whole storm brewing over Argentina, seemed as appropriate as Maradona's words when he said, after the stadium lights were switched off: "I thought we were liquidated, but I forgot about Palermo".
As the rain lashed down on the pitch, it was frantic end-to-end stuff in the final exchanges, as the teams threw caution to the wind in the hope of netting the winner.
Cry more!" An ominous thundercrack marked the start of the match, then the rains lashed down and the misery unfolding on the pitch 200 miles away in Belo Horizonte grew more intense.
But with rain lashing down and puddles of water forming on the pitch, Collins decided to suspend play - much to the away side's disgust.
