Rays Of Hope Everywhere In The Footcer World
Spoony, despite the fact that I sometimes can't understand his Cockney accent, on Wednesday night's 606 program on BBC Radio Five live brought up a fascinating point about friendlies. Responding to the fact that callers were saying that friendlies were meaningless and that England should play less of him, he calmly said, "do you know who played the most friendlies in the world since the last World Cup? Brazil."
But that's a team that does nothing right so this fact should be entirely discounted. :)
Brazil plays friendlies to the point that they're done playing friendlies against other countries (which, to be honest, have just gotten too easy for them) and are now playing them against club teams. Of course they're not the first and won't be the last international team to do so. But they've got a match scheduled against Sevilla of La Liga on September 16 to celebrate the Spanish side's 100th anniversary.
Sure this match is probably going to be a blowout but the home team will get a little boost from signing Tottenham's Frederic Kanoute.
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In other news of an not-enemy sort, England has "agreed" to play Argentina in November.
Agreed is in quotation marks because Argentina has agreed to it but England has only said they'll go through with it on one condition - that they've already qualified for the World Cup when it happens. If they slip up and Poland get the automatic bid out of UEFA Group 6, then the whole thing is off.
Argentina will instead play another UEFA team and England will chose a team from closer to home to hold the friendly with.
Though to call any match between England and Argentina a friendly is a severe misnomer. I can't believe that Switzerland, being a neutral country, has agreed to host it. After all, they make it a point to stay out of wars. :)
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There's so much footcer this weekend that it would be easy to ignore the Champions League starting up again on Tuesday but Reuters ran a fascinating story on FC Thun that should make all MLS fans take heart.
Thun from the Swiss League, as previously mentioned here, pulled the shocker of the entire Champions League tournament thusfar by beating Dynamo Kiev in the 2nd qualifying round. And they pulled another shocker beating Malmo in their away leg in the 3rd qualifying round 1-0.
Well, one thing that I didn't know about Thun (well, the things that I didn't know about Thun could fill a small encyclopedia since prior to the draw against Dynamo Kiev I had never heard of them) is that their player budget is approximately 4.4 million U.S. dollars a year!
Yes, that's right. 4.4 million dollars a year can buy you a team with the quality to make the Champions League official if you play it right. Sure that's still twice the MLS cap but it's proof that a quality team doesn't have to be filled with multi-million dollar players.
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Speaking of MLS (but not mentioning the Fire getting embarrassed by Kansas City tonight), Fox Soccer Channel deserves a medal for their coverage. Not only are they showing the MLS Select Team's match against Real Madrid live but they're bringing sister station's Sky Sports Fan Zone to MLS!
For those who haven't seen this amazing spectacle, it's a work of art. The network flies a fan of each team of a featured match to the match site. The two fans actually then call the entire match with no help from the "experts". Mistakes are made, jokes are cracked, fist fights wait to happen.
This is going to be...the...best...set...of...MLS...broadcasts...ever!
Now all that's missing is Fox Soccer Channel dubbing Diego Maradonna's Argentine television show into English and broadcasting it weekly and the channel will be complete (though they still need to buy the United States rights to the Colaship).
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Finally, here are the said Colaship's matchups of the weekend (bah humbug Chelsea/Arsenal):
Plymouth at Crystal Palace: this match will show once and for all if Crystal Palace are as screwed as they look (if they're the new Nottingham Forest). If they lose at home to a real Colaship bottom dweller, they should start making plans to play Scunthorpe and Swindon next year. Not that I'm guaranteeing those two sides will be in League One, I just like saying their names. :)
Wolverhampton at Leeds United: there's a lot of talk being made about the two battles in the Premiership this weekend that are potential 5 v. 6 end of seasoners (Tottenham v. Middlesbrough and Everton v. Bolton). Well there's a third one out there and it should be spectacular.
Norwich at Southampton: both of this big budget teams (for the Colaship at least) need to get their act together and quickly. Norwich just dipped into the transfer market bringing Clinton Morrison over from Birmingham City - something which if they had done it last year might have kept them up. Southampton, well, they shouldn't be looking forward to any south coast derbies with Pompey any time soon. Wait, I take that back. They shouldn't be looking forward to any south coast derbies with Portsmouth in the Premiership. The two should be locking horns in the Colaship for years to come. ;)
But that's a team that does nothing right so this fact should be entirely discounted. :)
Brazil plays friendlies to the point that they're done playing friendlies against other countries (which, to be honest, have just gotten too easy for them) and are now playing them against club teams. Of course they're not the first and won't be the last international team to do so. But they've got a match scheduled against Sevilla of La Liga on September 16 to celebrate the Spanish side's 100th anniversary.
Sure this match is probably going to be a blowout but the home team will get a little boost from signing Tottenham's Frederic Kanoute.
---
In other news of an not-enemy sort, England has "agreed" to play Argentina in November.
Agreed is in quotation marks because Argentina has agreed to it but England has only said they'll go through with it on one condition - that they've already qualified for the World Cup when it happens. If they slip up and Poland get the automatic bid out of UEFA Group 6, then the whole thing is off.
Argentina will instead play another UEFA team and England will chose a team from closer to home to hold the friendly with.
Though to call any match between England and Argentina a friendly is a severe misnomer. I can't believe that Switzerland, being a neutral country, has agreed to host it. After all, they make it a point to stay out of wars. :)
---
There's so much footcer this weekend that it would be easy to ignore the Champions League starting up again on Tuesday but Reuters ran a fascinating story on FC Thun that should make all MLS fans take heart.
Thun from the Swiss League, as previously mentioned here, pulled the shocker of the entire Champions League tournament thusfar by beating Dynamo Kiev in the 2nd qualifying round. And they pulled another shocker beating Malmo in their away leg in the 3rd qualifying round 1-0.
Well, one thing that I didn't know about Thun (well, the things that I didn't know about Thun could fill a small encyclopedia since prior to the draw against Dynamo Kiev I had never heard of them) is that their player budget is approximately 4.4 million U.S. dollars a year!
Yes, that's right. 4.4 million dollars a year can buy you a team with the quality to make the Champions League official if you play it right. Sure that's still twice the MLS cap but it's proof that a quality team doesn't have to be filled with multi-million dollar players.
---
Speaking of MLS (but not mentioning the Fire getting embarrassed by Kansas City tonight), Fox Soccer Channel deserves a medal for their coverage. Not only are they showing the MLS Select Team's match against Real Madrid live but they're bringing sister station's Sky Sports Fan Zone to MLS!
For those who haven't seen this amazing spectacle, it's a work of art. The network flies a fan of each team of a featured match to the match site. The two fans actually then call the entire match with no help from the "experts". Mistakes are made, jokes are cracked, fist fights wait to happen.
This is going to be...the...best...set...of...MLS...broadcasts...ever!
Now all that's missing is Fox Soccer Channel dubbing Diego Maradonna's Argentine television show into English and broadcasting it weekly and the channel will be complete (though they still need to buy the United States rights to the Colaship).
---
Finally, here are the said Colaship's matchups of the weekend (bah humbug Chelsea/Arsenal):
Plymouth at Crystal Palace: this match will show once and for all if Crystal Palace are as screwed as they look (if they're the new Nottingham Forest). If they lose at home to a real Colaship bottom dweller, they should start making plans to play Scunthorpe and Swindon next year. Not that I'm guaranteeing those two sides will be in League One, I just like saying their names. :)
Wolverhampton at Leeds United: there's a lot of talk being made about the two battles in the Premiership this weekend that are potential 5 v. 6 end of seasoners (Tottenham v. Middlesbrough and Everton v. Bolton). Well there's a third one out there and it should be spectacular.
Norwich at Southampton: both of this big budget teams (for the Colaship at least) need to get their act together and quickly. Norwich just dipped into the transfer market bringing Clinton Morrison over from Birmingham City - something which if they had done it last year might have kept them up. Southampton, well, they shouldn't be looking forward to any south coast derbies with Pompey any time soon. Wait, I take that back. They shouldn't be looking forward to any south coast derbies with Portsmouth in the Premiership. The two should be locking horns in the Colaship for years to come. ;)
posted by incendiarymind at 9:16 PM
1 Comments:
Actually, it seems that the Canaries have missed out on Morrison. The latest reports (from the Brit tabloid press) are that he's headed to Palace.
Norwich doesn't really need another striker. They need Oguchi Onyewu. I'm convinced that Worthy should go get him from Belgium. Oh, sure, that's not really rooted in reality, but City needs big help at defense, and Gooch is big help. So I'm sticking to my delusionary dreams.
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