In The End, I Am Still A Yank After All

First of all I just want to say FUCK THE ARSENAL! Yeah, I know that most of my friends and the general population of the United Kingdom want to see the English team win the Champions League for the second year running but thankfully being from the United States, I have no such biases.

Maybe Ronaldinho will win the Champions League and let his guard down when it comes to the World Cup.

Of course that will just again let an England team win something which will just give all my English friends and people on the message boards a reason to talk more smack. But even though I don't like Barcelona one iota, I want to see them win for La Liga! Viva Espana (as being in the United States, my keyboard has no enye)! Or something. And mostly because Villarreal was robbed.

I didn't watch the match yesterday but everything that I saw in the stats showed the Spanish team dominating at El Madrigal but were unable to break through (I hate) Jens Lehman's ungodly good goaltending.

Now a lot has been made of (should have been the final) AC Milan v. Barcelona not being shown in the United States today. But it was hardly the beautiful war it could have been. It seemed like more of a seige. And any 0-0 draw not shown on American television is a good 0-0 draw. :)

By the by, the two teams in that semi-final combine for nine Brazilians. Nine Brazilians. And yet there are still people who doubt that Brazil should repeat as world champions in a walk.

This is unrelated but there were two footcer stories today that gave me hope for the future. The first is that MLS is working with the MFL to create a United States v. Mexico club tournament. The second is a list put together as a pundity piece on ESPN.com about possible players that MLS could buy during the European close season.

The though of the Irish national hero (or well Irish national villain in recent time) Roy Keane playing in MLS makes me misty eyed. And to think of Jared Borgetti and Eddie Johnson going head to head in a club match in the United States borders makes me outright giddy.

Of course the punditry is all a pipe dream but it's a wonderful pipe dream.

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http://spanishfootballsports.blogspot.com/

Today I found out when I looked up some combination of search term involving "chants" in Yahoo, that this blog is the #1 search result. That's kind of awesome I guess. I just wish I could remember which set because that's a screen capture I would love to see again. But the silly thing is the title is spelled wrong. So I went to look at my blog and Footcer Socblog is spelled right. Anyhow, that's neither here nor there. What is here, there, and a LOTD in reference to some of the other snippets for once is a link this other blogger left me to his Spanish footcer specific blog, in English. It's a good blog even if it seems to talk about nothing but Brazilians recently.

Trying Not To Write About My FIFA Demolitions

I recently upgraded my laptop so it will run at speed not seen since, oh, 1993 instead of 1988 and my first purchase was FIFA '06 (even though FIFA World Cup '06 just came out). I've been attempting to play it very unsuccefully in the past few days so footcer has been at the forefront of my mind. That and I've been debating with a bunch of haters on myspace.com which is getting me riled up to write about. In the last three days, here are the results:

APRIL 25

I've been looking at the final run-in for the Premiership, I'm thinking that Fulham will win their last three matches just to piss off all the supporters. If they do this, their 51 points will probably get them to 12th, one spot higher than last year with seven more points.

They only have to win one of the last three (or draw two of them) to finish with more points than last season.

So if that's all the case, why does this season for Fulham seem like such a defeat?

And another interesting fact. Despite how much crap the defense has been this year, Fulham's final goal differential won't be more than about -5 worse. And if they don't concede more than five goals, they've actually conceeded less.

Frankly I blame Villarreal who have the same payroll and same size stadium and yet they're in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

APRIL 24

The biggest story of the day was, of course, the PFA Crap Awards.

I think I probably ranted about these last year but basically each year they're a way for players to reward their fellow players who play on Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United. This year, however, there were actually two players who were not on big four teams who made the list - one from Wigan and one from Newcastle United.

My jaw absolutely hit the floor.

Anyway, here's the list - though I'm sure anyone who cares has already seen it:

G Shay Given (Newcastle)

D Pascal Chimbonda (Wigan)
D John Terry (Chelsea)
D Jamie Carragher (Liverpool)
D William Gallas (Chelsea)

M Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
M Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
M Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
M Joe Cole (Chelsea)

F Thierry Henry (Arsenal)
F Wayne Rooney (Man Utd)


And here's how it should be: G Edwin Van der Sar (Manchester United) - Given sees more shots but EVS sees a lot more than most and still stops more than most; D Pascal Chimbona (Wigan) - Can't disagree; D Daniel Gabbidon (West Ham) - A pass eating machine; D John Terry (Chelsea) - He is one of the best defenders on the planet by leaps and bounds; D Asier Del Horno (Chelsea) - More important to Chelsea offensively and defensively that Gallas; M Frank Lampard (Chelsea) - Well, they got one right; M Kevin Nolan (Bolton) - Way to miss the second best midfielder in England this season, asshats; M Henri Camara (Wigan) - Pretty much the entire reason Wigan is in the upper half of the standings; M Jermaine Pennant (Birmingham) - His current team sucks, but another team will be very lucky to have him next year; F - Thierry Henry - I'm not just being confrontational, after all; F - Wayne Rooney - I think all the PFA pays attention to is forwards.

So, in short any team without Nolan and Camara in the midfield is a crap team that doesn't deserve consideration as the best starting XI.

APRIL 21

The rest of the day was spent arguing on the sports forums on myspace.com about the comparative merits of footcer and football.

Being that it's myspace.com, by the end of the day the conversation had degenerated into which sport had more "dick biting." Yeah, it's high discourse. Though I did get some plaudits from a Brit via message for this bit of prose I wrote:

FOOTBALL FAN: Soccer, or "Football", is boring to me. Sure it is fast paced and not that many timeouts but from what I see a majority of the time the ball just goes back and forth to both sides of the field before one team can finally get a scoring oppurtunity coordinated and that isn't that often. I don't know much about it because it is boring to me and I don't choose to watch it.

FOOTCER FAN (ME): Not that many time outs? Dude, there aren't any time outs in soccer/football. The rule doesn't even exist. There also is not subbing in/subbing out. Once a player gets subbed, like in baseball, they can't come back in and in most leagues only three substitutions are allowed in the full 90 minutes.

And it's not just about the scoring opportunities, it's also about the action that happens trying to get possession. Players crashing into each other as they both attempt to gain possession of a ball midair. A player sliding along the grass trying to hit the ball out of the offensive player's stride. A perfect cross field pass to open up another player on the opposite side of the field.

See the funny thing is that you find American football so much more compelling when less time is spent in the scoring areas and in midfield in that sport than in football/soccer. That's what I love about the "soccer is boring, American football is exciting" argument. It's truly idiotic if one breaks it down. American football looks higher scoring because touchdowns are worth seven but most games seriously end up 4-2 and show up as 28-17 on the score sheet and whatnot.

But you know, it's what we grew up with here so it's what we understand. So who can blame you for thinking it's actually more exciting when on most criteria cited for American football and against football/soccer it's far, far less exciting.

I really have more of a life than to sit on the forums for as long as I did today. Or at least I usually don't have that much free time. And the whole thing is, I don't even hate football - though it is my least favorite of the United States' big four by a wide gap. I just hate the fact that it's a sport barely played with the foot and yet other Americans insist of the fact that it's "real" football.

But that's a rant I've posted on here quite a few times.

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Finally, I'm on the verge of winning the Chicago Fire fans group on Yahoo's fantasy footcer but I don't want to jinx it by going into the specifics (my lead is very precarious) but I'll be sure to write about that should I win. :)

Traveling Around The Footcer World Again

The footcer world had horrible news yesterday as Chelsea decided to stay at Stamford Bridge and build more seats instead of getting the hades out of Fulham. The only positive to Chelsea staying in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is that the "one team in Fulham" chant gets to stay around and that's a really good chant. Probably second only to "there's only one F in Fulham" (a chant I totally didn't get until I was singing it in the bathroom one day).

I was listening to Today FM today and an add ran about flying lucky fans to the Champions League final and then to the city of the winning team. I'm sure that the company is looking for Arsenal to win so it will only have to fly winners from Shannon or Dubln Airport to London (which is a really cheap flight). I'm sure most people entering the contest in Ireland want to go to Barcelona or Milan.

But, in a fit of jealousy, I realized I wanted Villarreal to win for another reason. Sure they'll fly the winner into Valencia and bus them to Villarreal but that win would still suck. Winning a contest to get flown to a mid-sized (50,000) town in eastern Spain with nothing but a footcer team going for it. That just makes a great mental picture. It's like a gag gift prize.

How do you spell hubris? Brazilian booking charter flights to Berlin for the championship game of the World Cup already.

The sad part is, were I in their shoes I probably would too. Booking airfare to Europe in the middle of the high season is an expensive proposition, after all.

Heed My Warning, Clear Out Liverpool Now

My favorite little Spanish team - Villarreal - is pulling a PSV this year and has clawed their way into the semi-finals against much bigger fish like AC Milan, Arsenal, and Barcelona.

Not only are they out of their league talent-wise but they're also on the wrong side of the alphabet. :)

They at least drew Arsenal who if the teams were reseeded would be the three seed (1. Barcelona, 2. AC Milan, dispute it if you like) so they have a fighting chance of making it to the finals - where they'll get their asses kicked by compatriots Barcelona like it was just another La Liga match. :(

Really Barcelona v. AC Milan is the final that I think the world (at least the part of the world that cares) wanted to see.

But there is a bigger story in all this. Arsenal, if they win the whole thing and finish out of the top four in England (a distinct possibility, admit it Arsenal supporters) under the new "Liverpool Rule," they would knock out the fourth place team from qualifying for next year's Champions League. Currently this is Arsenal's arch-rivals Tottenham.

As I was reminding my friend Todd of this fact today (he's a Spurs fan), he gave me a look like death. I told him, "don't blame me, blame Liverpool!"

I got a mental picture at the time which may have been a premonition.

Brothers and sisters, I see an army of Spurs fans burring the red end of Liverpool to the ground.

That is unless the Arsenal fans choose the enemy of my enemy and protect Liverpool from the invading north London hordes!

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U.S. Soccer has announced the lineup for next week's preparatory friendly against Jamaica and I'm still not sure why they just don't bring the entire New England Revolution for these all-domestic games. I mean, you'd be a little sparce in defense though the entirety of the Rev's back line (with the exception of reserve Avery John) is Yanks.

I mean, it works for small countries to have their B-team pretty much all be from the same club team so why wouldn't it work for us?

It could make us look a little bit desperate but no more so than giving Tony Meola a charity 100th cap.

Do we really want to remember the Meola days that fondly? Back when he pretty much was the team while our outfield players sucked it up?

Traveling Back In Footcer Time

So it looks like MLS started up again, eh? That's always good when it happens. I'm pretty out of it today from dropping a bad habit or two (going to The Globe Pub is not one of them). Seems like I've actually forgotten to post a couple of the recent footcer related posts from my LiveJournal so I'll do that now:

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29 - A TIME LONG, LONG AGO...

This is the first time I've tried to listen to footcer since moving to my new desk and I think this desk is lower because, besides the fact that my left ear is on fire, it's more comfortable.

There is big news in the footcer world today as friggin' Chelsea just signed a deal to be a sister club with Los Angeles Galaxy (of all teams).

The big part of this deal is that the Los Angeles Galaxy will get first crack at Chelsea youth players who the club sends to the United States for seasoning and Chelsea gets first crack at any Los Angeles Galaxy player who is actually good enough to play for Chelsea (all zero of them, but I think this could be a move to get Hercules Gomez on the cheap).

Now the Fire actually get to be involved in this deal as an AEG owned team. But far from being equal partners the other three AEG teams in the league only get to play Chelsea once every two years.

At least the Fire didn't choose Chelsea to be our European dance partner - I'm still holding out hope for PSV Eindhoven.

There is one really silly but somehow awesome part of the deal: Chelsea is going to sponsor a reality show in the United States where the winner gets a professional contract at Chelsea.

I wonder if Freddy Adu is eligible for the show. :) At the rate he's developing, it's the only way he'll ever get on Chelsea.

SATURDAY, MARCH 25 - AN EVEN LONGER, LONGER TIME AGO...

The movie that I watched today also had quite a few dream sequences, "The Football Factory."

I chose this movie because MLS kicks off next week with the Fire playing FC Dallas on ABC! And, well, this is a decision involved with the movie I watched of sorts. "The Football Factory" is about footcer hooligans and I have to decide how active I want to be in Section 8 this season.

I'm leaning toward not at all (as much as will try to convince me otherwise). Not that Section 8 is anywhere near the level of violence of your average surviving English firm.

The irony of the movie is about the choice one hooligan makes as he's about to turn 30 whether to stay in the firm or to "grow up." And, well, I turn 31 about a month into the Fire season. Seeing all the grey hairs in the firm in the movie just made me think, maybe it's time to move on and let the kids be the kids in Section 8.

Something creepy was I had no idea whose firm was portrayed in the movie but it turned out to be FUCKING CHELSEA (as well as Millwall's as their main rivals)!

So this marks two weeks in a row I've accidentally shat upon Manchester City in my non-footcer entertainment choices.

Last Monday I went to see West Ham supporter Billy Bragg after the Hammers knocked City out of the FA Cup and now today I watch a film about the team who beat City 2-0 in the league. UGH!

I swear that it's not on purpose!

One last footcer note - CONGRATS TO READING!

Reading officially clinched promotion to the Premiership today with a 1-1 draw against Leicester City.

I didn't think about the possibility of this happening so I was listening to Fulham/Aston Villa in the Premiership at the same time.

Just so everyone knows where my #1 priority still lies. Even if both clubs have the same amount of Yanks on them. :)

FRIDAY, MARCH 24 - AFTER TODAY'S HOME LOSS TO POMPEY, IT SEEMS LIKE DECADES AGO

Fulham has decided to immortalize last Sunday's win over Chelsea through a memorabilia package!

There's even a commemorative DVD entitled "Worth The Wait."

While I'm still celebrating the win as much as any remote Cottager around the world, there is something a little embarrassing about FFC celebrating a win over Chelsea with about as much flourish as Liverpool celebrated their Champions League victory.

Are Fulham really that small a club to have to celebrate one match as if it's the biggest accomplishment ever.

Well, on the bright side, at least Fulham isn't West Brom celebrating fighting off relegation on the last day of last season.

That all being said, am I going to buy the commemorative DVD? You bet I am. Just not until the 31st when I have the money to spare. I'm sure Fulham will still be celebrating them. At least if we don't beat Aston Villa on the road tomorrow and replace the shirts with that. :)

I'm almost starting to feel there's more pride in not winning one road match and yet avoiding relegation. That's one for the record books.

MONDAY, MARCH 20 - AS FAR BACK AS I'M GOING TO GO

And chalk up loss number three in my "Chelsea will have four losses in league this season." But that's not the reason I'm feeling good about the footcer world after this weekend. More important is who handed Chelsea their third loss of the season 1-0 away from home...

FULHAM BEAT CHELSEA FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 27 SEASONS YESTERDAY IN THE WEST LONDON DERBY!

Of course it being Fulham, there has to be bad news mixed with the good as there was a pitch invasion after the match by jubilant Fulham fans. This in itself isn't the bad news. The terrible occurance is that Chelsea away supporters than stormed the pitch and a fight ensued.

The FA may close off Craven Cottage for the next Fulham home match against Portsmouth on April 1.

In the oddity of oddities, had my plans to go to the United Kingdom not gotten aborted, I would have had tickets to that very match. So, in the end, it looks like it's better that I didn't end up making it to London at the end of this month.

That personal note aside, fuck Chelsea supporters! This was probably the same group that after the Fulham/Chelsea match at Stamford Bridge last year, walked down the Fulham Road into Fulham (well further into Fulham since Stamford Bridge is in Fulham after all) and started beating up Fulham supporters - after the further westerners lost!

But the good part about that was at least Chelsea supporters had to realize their smaller, but older, neighbor's existance.

Now there is no denying, even amongst the idiot Chelsea fans in the United States, that Fulham exists!