Footcer Socblog

The Day MLS Turned The Corner Is Finally Here

2006-11-12T10:13:00.000-08:00

I'm really excited for MLS today. Not just for the MLS Cup match, though that is going to be brilliant, but for MLS in general.

The owners finally put the Beckham Rule on the books at the league meeting yesterday. I saw finally because Landon Donovan, Eddie Johnson, and a few others have fallen under the Beckham Rule for quite some time. Or the unwritten one. The official one says the league will pick up $400,000 of a superstar's salary while the team can pick up as much in addition as they want to.

So if Chicago Fire wanted to sign Juan Riquelme (okay, maybe that's just my dream), that's now entirely legal. Though why they would sign an Argentinian as that wouldn't help gates that much, I don't know. I just couldn't think of an exciting Mexican offensive minded player since Jared Borgetti now in the hinterlands might not even need the Beckham Rule.

And the better part of the new rule is that teams can trade away their Beckham Exemption to another team for domestic or smaller international players. So a team like Red Bull New York could, in theory, buy two international superstars.

Heh. Maybe they should call it the Bruce Arena exemption since he was the one who pushed for the Red Bulls to be able to operate in that way. :)

They also passed the Youth Development rule which lets teams sign players out of their own youth system instead of exposing them to the draft.

And I've heard rumors of single table for next year.

MLS is become a real league. A really, real league. Not made of wood anymore.

Now if only single entity would go away. I guess it's baby steps.

But I'm also excited about the game today.

This is the game that should have happened last year when Houston was San Jose. These were the best two teams in 2005 and they're still among the top four so it should be an even matchup.

Of course I want New England to win because Clint Dempsey and Sharlie Joseph are going to be playing in England after a two month respite and they should have had a ring from last year. Then again, Dwayne DeRosario won't be playing in the United States either, but rumors are he'll be playing in Canada and not in Europe.

Even if he's good enough to cross over the seas.

Though I don't know how those transfer rumors about DeRo can possibly be true. There is no way that Houston will leave DeRosario open to the expansion draft (which is coming up in a week).

Maybe Toronto FC will use their Beckham exemption to lure him away. :)

Speaking of silly moves, it appears as though Manchester United is about to give Freddy Adu his long awaited European trial.

On a related story, Boston mayor Thomas Menino has offered Houston mayor Bill White 10 Boston cream pies if Houston wins.

I am a bit jealous of New England Revolution since they have a mayor in their major municipality who really seems to care about them. He even wants to build them a stadium downtown. Combine that with Bill Kraft (who is probably down in Dallas today as opposed to Foxboro since the Jets don't offer nearly as much competition) and they might benefit from the Beckham Rule more than anyone but Los Angeles Galaxy and Red Bull New York.

I'm pretty worried about what the Fire are going to do with theirs.

Though there are some good players on the Polish national team playing in Scotland and Germany right now who would be good candidates. Or maybe Robbie Keane. He's not that happy right now. Maybe that would get Mayor Daley interested.

Or maybe that's a pipe dream.

It's more likely that Chicago hosting the MLS Cup would, though hosting the All-Star Match didn't seem to do much for that.

So who's my money on in the end? I think Houston is going to win and they are the longer shot but this is the sort of game where pride is important to me. So I think I'll put money on the Revs depending on how my NFL bets go.

They can't let me down yet again, can they?

Just Plain Bitter About One Thing

2006-10-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to watch Fox Football Fone-In tonight to hear how Nick and Steven try to knock Fulham after they beat Charlton Athletic this afternoon.

Sure they'll say that they they'll lose to Aston Villa this weekend and they definitely will and they'll say that Charlton is in last (and they are) but I'm sure that they were picking the Addicks to beat Fulham today.

And they were wrong yet again.

In fact the only time the two Cottager hating asshats have been right was when Fulham were playing Manchester United and Chelsea. And I'm sure that Nick will not mention that Fulham has lost less times than Liverpool.

Though, no I'm not getting really bitter about the fact that Fulham, despite starting out mid-table, are not getting any respect at all. In fact, I'm so not bitter that I can even feel empathy for Chelsea.

Not that I don't feel awful for Petr Cech since a potentially career ending (and almost life threatening) injury is something that transcends sports. But I also feel bad for Carlo Cudicini who is going to be fine.

I almost didn't feel a bit sick to my stomach when I read that Sam Allardyce is willing to loan Chelsea one of Bolton's backup goalies.

Now, were it a club with financial issues who didn't have players on top of players on top of players, I would be plauditing Bolton. It's not like Chelsea doesn't have a healthy goalie in the system. Their third goalie Hilario is perfectly fine and I'm sure they've got a fourth, fifth, and sixth goalie in their reserves who could probably start for most teams.

Cudicini is going to be back before the January transfer window so Chelsea can wait like most other teams would have to do to get a Premiership quality starter.

Alright, maybe I am a bit bitter.

Distracted From Footcer By Footcer

2006-09-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

So this time I actually have an excuse for not posting. I was in New York City last weekend and then I've spent the rest of the week trying to catch up. So I didn't catch much of the footcer. Though today I went into work trying to make up some of what needed to be done while I was in Red Bull territory and listened to some of the matches. Oh how I missed you footcer!

Though the one most interesting thing that happened today I didn't get to see or hear first hand. Joey Barton of Manchester City, who had been getting harrassed all game by the Everton fans, at the end of the match went right in front of a group of their supporters and mooned them.

Well just like the last incident involving a Manchester City player (though this is much more humorous than that one which involved serious injury), an irate set of fans from the opposing team called the police.

Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce got called down to a police station in Liverpool for questioning on the behavior of his player and everything.

What I wonder is how he kept a straight face through the whole thing.

I bet you that he didn't. Because, despite his "psycho" persona, even the hardest of hard asses couldn't help but break down when police would ask them, "how do you feel about your player showing his hindquarters to a group of opposing fans?"

Listening to 606, the opinion of the callers was pretty much to make light of it. One e-mailer stated, "I think the punishment should fit the crime. He should be sent to his room, not be able to watch television for a week, and not get his tea."

But there were honestly people screaming that the behavior would encourage youths all over the United Kingdom, nay the world, to start mooning people in school because a footcerler did it.

Nice to know it's not just the United States that likes to freak out over the slightest bit of man ass.

And besides, who amongst us hasn't wanted to moon an Everton fan at some point in our lives?

Let he who is without a little Joey Barton desire in them cast the first stone?

I shouldn't say I was totally away from footcer as on Wednesday, there was a great event that I attended...

I can't even believe the Fire are honest to goodness now the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Champions!

It feels like it's not even real it's so wonderful. The first silverware since 2003 and a run I saw every step of the way making it even sweeter. Well that's a lie since I missed the match against Kansas City in the 3rd round because I didn't think this Fire team had it in them to make a run.

Now they're the best team going in MLS right now for the last two month and have a trophy to show for it. Hades, if they keep on clicking on all cylanders they could have two trophies in just a tiny bit of time.

Now I wasn't present for as much as that one. But if the playoff run (which would, in theory be only one game at Toyota Park unless D.C. United bites it against the 4th place team to be named later) is anything like the U.S. Open Cup run, it will be worth it.

The only thing was, I got there so late I missed the first two goals. But my bit of superstition of showing up late, driving there, and listening to cheesy radio stations on the way worked like a charm.

Congratulations to the Chicago Fire - now if only the stupid Chicago media weren't too busy mourning the Fluke Sox and had covered it. ;)

Footcer Is Not For Suckers

2006-09-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

I went into work today and it went pretty well. I don't know if it's good or bad that I got more accomplished in five hours today than the last 21. I still have to go in tomorrow at some point for another two hours or so (the hours I missed by sleeping through my alarm on Monday). I think it will be during the Fulham match.

What kind of half-ass fan am I that I thought it was today? I even wore my Fulham jersey to work.

Anyhow, not that it wasn't fun listening to Reading demolish Sheffield United (and of course listening to the Preston North End match so I don't feel guilty about still subscribing to their service even though I used it to listen to Reading all last year) but it's just not the same.

Though it's a bit better than the news coming out of the homefront vis-a-vis footcer.

I heard something on Gol TV's news program (right before my cable decided it no longer liked the channel, a glitch that's happened until tonight where the video still comes in but the audio) that made my heart stop...

The newest rumor is that the United States may hire Sven Goran-Erikson as their next head footcer coach!

I had to scratch my ears on that one.

It was like all of the ribbing that the program had taken from pundits all around the world had come home to roost. There is no way that the United States can make the same mistake that England did, is there?

Wait, I think that's what we usually do in world affairs and such but we're talking footcer here. :)

Sven is about the worst coach the United States could sign because if there's any coach that let players completely control the team, it was Sven. If there was any coach who compounded roster blunders with tactical ones, it was Sven. Maybe if the United States wanted to adopt the flawed paradigm of the late Bruce Arena regime, Sven is perfect.

Ha! Never thought I'd put those three words in the same sentence.

Though I can say one good thing about if Sven is hired. He'd keep soccer on the front pages of the papers - though not for soccer. Hide the secretaries!

Now, there was better news on American Soccer's repeat after the story ran, that Sunil Gulati flew down to Argentina to interview Jose Peckerman. Now that's a possibility.

Though I personally still want Steve Nicol.

The whole thing seems to be just a way to leverage Juergen Klinnsman. Though from what I heard it wasn't that the German didn't want to coach the United States, just that he didn't want to coach the United States for what U.S. Soccer was willing to pay him. There was about a $1.4 million dollar descrepency.

Just pony up the cash, please.

Consider it an investment in a good team that will up the value of footcer in the United States and pay way more that that in dividends!

Sometimes You Eat The Barcodes And Sometimes The Barcodes Eat You

2006-09-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

Now that's more like it for Fulham. Instead of waiting until the second to last away game of the season to get a win, they only had to play until the second. With a 2-1 win over Newcastle United (the same away score of the Chicago Fire), Fulham has 7 points in 4 matches and find themselves in 7th. Who would have thought they be ahead of their opponents when they went to White Hart Lane for the London derby against Tottenham.

Did you hear that, Fulham ahead of Tottenham? Don't know how long I'll get to say that. :)

I think it's time for the Cottagers to inflict some more pair on the north Londoners while they're down. It probably won't happen since Jimmy "Who The Fuck Is Steed Malbranque" Bullard went down during the match. He's out until some time in October. Except for, you know, Chelsea this next part of the schedule looks winnable without him (away at Watford, home with Charlton, away at Aston Villa - that's probably a loss, and home with Wigan).

I know I'm getting way too excited about this but it's not often that I get to wear my Fulham jersey with pride. Especially in the United States after both footcer Yanks on the roster scored goals. I mean, it's not that odd to hear "Brian McBride with the tying goal" but it's absolutely crazy to hear, "Carlos Bocanegra with the winner."

The only thing that would have been better is if Chelsea had ended up losing to Charlton.

Speaking of Yanks, if you only watch one match this year, it should be the Monday night (well afternoon in the states) match between Manchester City and Reading. There probably won't be four footcer Yanks on the pitch simultaneously since DaMarcus Beasley is doubtful with an injury but it will be Reyna against Convey. That is, the once Captain America versus the future Captain America.

It's too bad that Beasley won't play because how many times do you get to see the two main contenders for the left wing position on the United States national teams go head to head besides in practice scrimmages?

But who needs Monday when tomorrow's got some exciting games in La Liga?

Oh wait, they're not that good and tomorrow is the opening day of pointyball. Choosing is going to be really difficult.

Footcer Red, Footcer Blue, It's All Good

2006-09-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

It's a good day today as far as footcer goes so everyone join me in the greatest chant ever in Major League Soccer...

WHO THE FUCK IS D.C. UNITED
D.C. UNITED, D.C. UNITED
WHO THE FUCK IS D.C. UNITED
D.C. UNITED, WHO?

We're going to the U.S. Open Cup finals, baby!

FIRE, FIRE, FIRE, FIRE, GO!

After the bit of uncomfortableness that was the quarterfinal match between my two favorite teams, this U.S. Open Cup run could not have been scripted better. Now that D.C. United is dispatched, the final opponents...ONLY THE GALAXITIVES!

The hated, hated L.A. Galaxy.

So the Fire polished off Freddy Adu (who now, apparently, wants to be introduced as Fred since he's the second coming of the Grown Ass Man) and now who's the opposition standing between the Men In Red and the cup - LANDON DONOVAN!

For the team of no names to go through two of the biggest names in the league (not even to mention DempseyJosephTwellman) to life the U.S. Open Cup for the first time in three years couldn't even be scripted.

Of course L.A.'s got their own script (which is fitting since it is L.A.) as they're going for a repeat. But, who cares, our story's better! :)

And here's a bonus entry with my reflections on the transfer deadline (originally on LiveJournal last Friday). It's been one of those weeks. :)

I you're still looking for an EPL team to follow, I think I have a recommendation for you...Manchester City.

There's one really good reason...

DAMARCUS BEASLEY SIGNED A LOAN DEAL TO GO TO MANCHESTER CITY FOR A YEAR FROM PSV

This is great! He's going to take up the spot currently "held" by Trevor Sinclair, about six years past his prime, and give Manchester City a needed boost of speed down the left. There hasn't actually been a really speedy player at Manchester City since Shaun Wright-Phillips left.

Now Beasley, besides simularity in appearance and stature is no Shaun Wright-Phillips. But, you know there aren't many SWPs in the world. Beasley should give Manchester City new attacking options besides Joey Barton (and Darius Vassell and Giorgio Samaras when they decide to show up).

Meanwhile Andy Cole will be playing for Pompey. Curses to Pompey! If they're not getting Manchester City players involved in police investigations, they're stealing them!

It's not just excitement about another Yank footcerler playing in the EPL, this is excitement about my favorite U.S. international joining my second favorite Premiership team. Now of course this is the transfer that matters to me most but it was a fascinating international transfer window closing day - though aren't they all.

The only thing that would have made it more interesting would have been a big-time MLS transfer. But that's asking way too much given the current situation.

Other notes:

What is up with the Everton to Wigan train? I don't mean the real one that probably exists between Liverpool's blue end and the city of the pier, but the player one. It's getting a little bit ridiculous when Kevin Kilbane hops it. It's a sideways transfer.

Spaking of Wigan, Pascal "The Answer To Everything" Chimbonda transferred out of there to Tottenham. Spurs have to stop making these good moves! They also got Steed, who apparently wanted them to get if no one else. In money plus player, Fulham got Wayne Routledge on loan (with a relatively reasonable buyout clause). The move means that a certain Canadian international has probably seen his last significant time in the EPL. It will be good to see Tomasz Radzinski finishing out his career as FC Toronto's captain. I won't even boo him that hard when they play Chicago Fire.

Speaking of CONCACAF, Dwight Yorke decided the A-League isn't even as good as MLS and was bought up by Sunderland for 200,000 pounds. He would have been better off sticking in the Australian league.

Middlesbrough ended up getting their man in Robert Huth. He was the major competition for their affections with Oguchi Onyewu. Huth went for 6 million. If that kind of money were offered for Gooch, Standard Liege would have told him that it had been fun, but that it was over.

But, of course, there's only one transfer that really mattered - CARLOS TEVEZ TO WEST HAM. Now I know you're saying "what the fuck?" if you know about footcer. Basically this guy is among the top five prospects in the entire world (if not the #1) and he was pretty unhappy playing in the Brazilian league. All of these Champions League caliber teams were begging his current team Corinthians to sell him. And who gets him? A UEFA Cup team - and that was by default. Apparently they're about to be bought by a sugar daddy who can pay for the Argentine. Still, it's possibly the most shocking transfer since Beasley to PSV mid-season in the middle of a playoff hunt. Well that's all corrected now. :)

I Was Still Distracted By The Chelsea Loss

2006-08-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Tonight there's a rarity...a Footcer Socblog post on the same day I post it in LiveJournal. :)

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I just finished watching "High Tension" and the last half hour or so reminded me that NANOWRIMO is a bit over two months away. How that movie saw the light of day with an shoddy tying together of all the events, I will never know. But, the name doesn't lie. I was frozen to my seat the entire time I was watching it.

That movie was the equivalent of if Arsenal had been given a penalty kick in the 86th minute and had tied Manchester City this weekend.

It was that shitty an ending - sorry, I can't mince words about it.

But in reality, I am on cloud nine after this weekend's EPL action since Fulham and Manchester City both got big home wins. Of course Fulham's isn't as big an accomplishment. Sheffield United is pretty far from Arsenal (even though, shockingly, they're tied in the standings) but if the pundits are to be believed, that was a six pointer.

Well I haven't said it yet this year but now I will (for the third year running)...

FUCK THE PUNDITS, FULHAM ARE NOT GOING TO GET RELEGATED!

See, again this year they've done what they do every year. Every year they lose a key player and every year a new player emerges to take their place and lead Fulham to their version of the promised land - mid-table. :)

I'm sure I said this earlier but it bears repeating - Jimmy Bullard is the best signing Fulham has made in ages!

Or, to put it the way that I did on the Fulham FC account on my space...

Who the f*ck is Steed Malbranque? Did I not say Bullard was the best signing ever back in the spring? Though the whole Pascal Chimbonda is the answer thing. I can back off that one. ;)

Pascal Chimbonda is not the answer as evident by the fact that he's Wigan's Steed Malbranque (or William Gallas).

Come to think of it, the problem seems to be widespread among the French national team pool. Steed must be trying to get on the team by acting like one of the starters. Though a French speaker - Samuel Kuffour - may actually be the answer. Fulham are rumored to be competing with Espanol and Borussia Monchengladbach for the Ghanian's signature.

The question is, will Brian McBride be able to play on the same team as a Ghanian? Actually I think the answer is yes since McBride would play with pretty much anyone despite water under the bridge.

Now Fulham just have to keep Luis Boa Morte for three more days until the deadline and everything will be alright. Fulham's always able to replace one of their big stars but two may be asking too much.

Me, I just rode Jimmy Bullard to 30.50 fantasy points on Yahoo. Kind of like I did for most of last season. He may just Fulham his way onto the England team if he keeps that up (much like Wayne Bridge did).

Speaking of predictions, I have come to believe that Newcastle United is cursed. Obafemi Martins, who midweek was given a standing ovation at St. James Park for just showing up for the Barcode's UEFA Cup match was taken off from his EPL debut on a stretcher.

So now Newcastle is left right back where they started - looking for a second striker before the transfer deadline.

Hey, I bet Eddie Johnson's available.

No, I shouldn't even say that since there's still hope that he could figure in the next World Cup and a career ending injury wouldn't be very good to wish on him.

Though reports state that he should be back after the international break against, you guessed it, Fulham.

Finally, one last footcer note about the northeast of England. In what could prove to be the funniest story of the round, Middlesbrough had two of their backup goalkeepers sent off withing two minutes of each other.

For those keeping track, Middlesbrough plays the Monday night match against Pompey tomorrow.

The miracle of not playing and yet having two players get red carded comes from loan deals. The goalkeepers of both Sheffield Wednesday and Oldham Athletic are on 'Boro's books and were both sent off.

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And a "bonus" - Thursday's entry:

So my little world just got turned upsidown. First the world astronomy body decides that Pluto isn't a planet and now I find out that New England Revolution is now considered Chicago Fire's biggest rivals.

I guess this change has been in the offing for some time (at least since last year's Eastern Conference Finals and the Sharlie Joseph incident) but I never expected it to reach fruition.

Well now I'm just split. I guess I have to side with the Fire since I live here in Chicago and not Boston. *sigh*

But at least there's one thing that both team's sets of fans agree on...

I really hope the Fire absolutely demolish D.C. United in the U.S. Open semi-finals to take away their treble opportunity!

And I will certainly be at Toyota Park on September 6 since I forgot how much fun the U.S. Open Cup was. I forgot because I can't remember if the Fire even played a home match in it last year. This year they were rewarded the semi-finals. What a difference having your own stadium will do.

I especially loved the fact since only 5,000 showed up and it was general admission that you could choose your own seats.

I chose to sit near the corner since I could sit in the second row and, in theory, get lots of pictures (of course, knowing full well that my camera hates night photography). Though I made the mistake of not buying more batteries, which made my camera even more crappy, and this was the best picture I got:

While it wasn't the best picture I've ever taken, it was a meaningful one since it was Calen Carr in the penalty area after drawing the penalty that turned out to be the game winner when Andy Herron knocked it home.

Overall, I think it was some of the grittiest performance by the Fire all season. In the first half, New England was running roughshod over them but the Fire got a goal against the run of play to take a 1-0 lead. However, Clint Dempsey and Taylor Twellman decided to put on a 1-2 show (as they tend to do on occasion) and I think only a few huge defensive clearances stopped Twellman from scoring a first half hat trick with his head.

As it was, Chicago witnessed what may have been Taylor Twellman's last goal in U.S. Open competition on a corner kick to knot it up at 1-1. Since Taylor has joined the "I hate MLS and they can suck my contract" club along with Dempsey (rumor has it that Twellman got into a verbal war with Steve Nicol before the match), chances are he's going to be either plying his trade in the Colaship or with a lower half Premiership team come the January transfer window.

Or if not, he'll be in Denmark. But he isn't going to be playing in the United States any longer (except for the national team).

Same goes for Clint Dempsey. It was so frustrating seeing him playing for New England. I almost shouted to the strangers next to me, "he should have been playing Manchester United [with Charlton Athletic who offered him a contract] this afternoon not the Chicago Fire tonight."

And probably Sharlie Joseph as well. Though he's said he wants to become a United States citizen so he's going nowhere until that happens. But with the Revolution dismantling itself, he's not going to be around there much longer.

Irony would be if he ended up with the Fire. Though that's not going to happen.

In short, it was nice to see the final game the current Revolution "could have been a dynasty if they bothered playing a whole season played" in the U.S. Open Cup. :(

Oh, but on a bright note - CALEN CARR!

Holy sweet man jimminy! That man child flat out was the best player on the pitch for good portions of the match yesterday (which is saying something since New England started pretty much the entire United States B-Team). He was absolutely everywhere on the pitch at all times including pretty much taking the game into his own hands when it was knotted at ones and outbattling everyone.

That and at the end of the first half, he went crashing into the Revolution's goalie, did a nearly double flip and landed on his back. It was really, really, really, scary but he was obviously fine to continue. Maybe it knocked something right in his game. :)

Though with all my thoughts centered on the chilling reality of the end of the Revolution, my only thought was, "oh great, if he plays like this all of next season the Fire are going to lose another player to Europe."

Oh, but there was such beautiful footcer news yesterday on the other side of the pond that no matter what happened in the U.S. Open Cup, I was going to be happy.

IT ONLY TOOK CHELSEA TWO GAMES TO LOSE THEIR FIRST MATCH OF THE SEASON!

I mean, I'm not Middlesbrough fan but I think they deserve to be put up on a pedestal for beating "the champions" (well it's a fact but I hate when they're called that) two years running. Even Manchester United hasn't done that (at least in regular competition).

This remedied a horrible situation which I like to call my personal table hades. That is the top three being:

1. Manchester United
2. Chelsea
3. Portsmouth
19. Manchester City
20. Fulham

Thank goodness it was the first week of the season and not the last that had the three teams I hate the most at the top of the table and my two teams propping the rest of the table up.

Manchester City did a good job of controlling their own destiny by tying said Pompey 0-0.

But of course Portsmouth had to take some joy out of it by calling in a complaint against City defender Ben Thatcher for a mugging he had on Pedro Mendes during the match (I was listening to Fulham/Bolton so I didn't hear it live). Now, sure, he probably deserves a suspension but calling the police?

This just makes me hate Portsmouth all the more.

Oh, and Bolton can suck it. Bunch of time wasting, bad penalty getting asshats. Well, I guess a draw's a draw. Thank goodness for makeup calls. ;)

Speaking of hatred and Chelsea, I'm now a temporary fan of Werder Bremen as they can be the upstarts who keep Chelsea out of the knockout phases of the Champions League.

Chelsea drew Barcelona in their group which is just a thing of beauty. I would just love it if they went out in the group phase. Let them compete in the UEFA Cup and win the thing. It would still be so wonderful for them to have gone out and spent even more money only to have a lesser result in the Champions League.

Other Champions League thoughts:

Manchester United got the easiest draw imaginable. Celtic, Benfica, and FC Copenhagen. Is that a UEFA Cup grouping?

Alright, to be fair it's not as easy as AC Milan (you know, the team that shouldn't even be there) with Lille, AEK Athens, and Anderlecht.

Meanwhile, PSV actually got a bit of a favor this year as they got Bordeaux and Galatasaray along with Liverpool. They didn't draw AC Milan again which is always nice.

Valencia better hope their new signings come through quickly or it's going to be a short (if four months is short) Champions League for them. They are in a tough group with Roma, Olympiakos, and Shakhtar Donetsk.

No group, however, is as tough as Group B with Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Sporting Lisbon, and Spartak Moscow. Though you couldn't pay me to sit through any of those matches. Final average goals for: 8, final average goals against: 8. And that's for all four teams.

Meanwhile, my fantasy strategy would have worked fine, had I kept it. But, no, I had to diversify and it ended up costing me a shit ton of points. Oh well, at least it's game week #1 and not game week #38.

My Uneducated Footcer Predictions

2006-08-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

I did write a couple of entries in the interim to this one, but I'll have to search for them. Maybe later. August has been really, really busy.

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I'm just not ready for the English Premiership season to start yet (which, oddly enough, makes me just like Chelsea). Ordinarily on the eve of wonderfulness that is the start of the supreme footcer season, I'd be making predictions or at least saying which teams I like the most and the least but I haven't even finished looking over the summer transfers (again, kind of like Chelsea).

The only real prediction throwdown I want to lay down is this:

Jermaine Pennant will lead the EPL in assists with Liverpool - for what that's worth.

All I have to say is that if Peter Crouch can't convert a bunch of goals with the service he's going to get from two of the top five crossers on the planet, than he really is bambi on ice.

Speaking of trying to regain form, Andy Johnson is one of my two strikers going into this year's first week of the fantasy season. I have a sneaking suspicion he will score Everton's first goal of the season when the Toffees play Watford.

I fully expect to do horribly in this first week as I am not very diversified. My team is a lot of Tottenham, Everton, West Ham, and Portsmouth - the four teams with the most favorable schedule for tomorrow's matches as well as the mid-week games.

Arsenal, Liverpool, and Newcastle United with only one game don't seem like great plays to me. Fulham draws the Manchester United defense (not that anyone but Queudrue, Boa Morte, and John - if he starts - are worth playing for Fulham anyhow). And, like I said, Chelsea doesn't even know who's starting for Chelsea.

Once they get that started the fantasy EPL season can start.

It's just too bad that when that happens, the real EPL season will be all but over for the other 19 teams.

That's one thing that I do know for certain this season. That and Watford don't stand a chance of staying up.

Wigan will not happen two years in a row.

Rapping Up The Footcer Rumors Of The Day

2006-07-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

I am a crap footcer fan today. While there was a match between the USL All-Stars and Sheffield Wednesday, I chose to see "The Devil Wears Prada" instead (oh yeah, and then there's the small matter of New England Revolution v. Celtic). Well, I guess it's a way to be involved in something New York City without discussing Red Bull New York's hiring of Bruce Arena as new coach and technical director.

And such settles one rumor. But there are two others which are much more interesting floating around the footcer world right now.

The first involves Clint "More Animal Than Man" Dempsey (why that hasn't caught on yet, I'll never know) who is being, according to the rumor mill, courted by West Ham United and Charlton Athletic.

I can only imagine the hooligans at West Ham United and how they'd embrace Clint Dempsey. I mean, he'd need to start listening to grime to fit in the east end, but I think his rap career could take off in London. And, of course his footcer career as well.

The other rumor that's really gaining some traction is Jared Borgetti coming to the Chicago Fire as Bolton wants to offload him.

This isn't even a real rumor, but more wishful thinking on the part of Chicago Fire fans. Well, me. It's been so long since the Fire had a legitimate superstar and Borgetti would fit that bill nicely (as well as serving as an example for our young striker corps).

The factual part of the rumor is that Borgetti is being shopped around and the team that has shown the most interest is Racing Santander. Much as I'd love to have another recognizable face in La Liga (for purely selfish reasons as unlike the Prem, La Liga news isn't easy to come by so the players can kind of be a blur), I wonder how a move to a team that stands a great chance of being relegated to the Segunda Division would benefit Borgetti.

He'd be much better off coming to MLS where each week he'd have people coming out just to see him. Well, maybe not every week but most weeks. But here in Chicago, he'd be a draw amongst the Mexican populace which is something the Fire lost in recent times.

And from what I hear, he's available for about a million (transfer fee, not personal terms). Sure he'd be the highest paid player on the fire - but when your star player who's supposed to draw is Tony Sanneh (at least he's our player who makes over $300,000) we need something.

I mean there's other places he could go like FC Dallas (but with Ruiz and Cooper, he's just overkill) or Los Angeles but Chicago is Borgetti's kind of town.

Come to Chicago or don't bother joining another side. :)

Speaking of other sides, here's a funny picture from the Nicaraguan League:

I would like to again thank the leagues of Central America for making MLS seem like a well oiled machine.

One thing came out of the incident that was sort of odd - a realization. As I made fun of the Nicaraguan League, a suppoter from El Salvador said the following to me: "I'd rather watch a game from my poorly organized but exciting local league than an MLS match."

Which lead me to the following conclusion - MLS is just a whipping boy because it doesn't bother fighting back. When people from countries who MLS teams usually beat - basically every Central American country but Costa Rica (and then they only lose to Saprissa) - start knocking MLS there's just no other explanation.

Maybe MLS just wants to be a good neighbor or something but they need to remind the small leagues that we steal their best players that don't go to Europe on a regular basis and we'd steal more if MLS allowed more than four senior internationals per team.

Well I for one am not putting up with it anymore and MLS shouldn't either.

By the way, on that note: FC Dallas 2, Tigres 0.

They could blow the lead in Monterrey but MLS has again proven that at home, the teams can beat anybody. What's that old saying about the national team matching the personality of the country (or at least the country's domestic team)?

Still Running A Few Days Behind

2006-07-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

This post would have made more sense had I posted it while it was still topical (also known as Friday):

Damn VH1 again! So I had just started watching "The Libertine" before I decided that I should probably eat something if I want to make the seven hour train to bus ride to Toyota Park (I almost said Pizza Hut Park but that would have taken a plane flight into DFW as well) so I turned it off.

First thing when I was eating I turned on CNN and the whole thing was just too troubling so I decided to flip through my favorite channels. What should I stumble on but VH1 showing "Best Week Ever." Now it was the end but I watched it anyhow and what should appear next but "Web Junk 20."

I just had to watch it because if the Zinadine Zidane parody wasn't the #1 web video of the week, I was going to be quite angry.

Though looking around the interweb myself today, I can't say I blame Zidane anymore because the BBC found a lipreading analyst to see what was said.

He apparently told him that he hoped he and his family died a painful death. Now I think he overreacted just as bad as Wayne Rooney but at least he was provoked more than the younger hothead.

That's not the video that's the funniest though (it's actually pretty serious). There is a collection of all the various parodies set to friggin' Benny Hill!

Then there's this Nintendo one if you're feeling really old school.

And finally there's this super mega mix over Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" or this shorter one set to Blur's "Song 2" or this more touching one set to Take That's "I Want You Back."

When I say touching, I mean both kinds of touching. ;)

Though I feel really bad because in the end it's almost always Materazzi who becomes the butt of the joke (pardon the pun). Aw hell, he's got the silverware so I can't feel too bad for him.

So yeah, BRUCE ARENA IS OUT. But the sad thing is it wasn't of his own volition. He still feels like he did nothing wrong which is amazing.

Maybe it's just a Brooklyn thing but being fired just isn't good enough for him. He should be forced to apologize in front of the nation and do the talk show circuits after the debacle he made of everything in Germany.

His career's going to go on unlike Zidane's (rumor has it, he'll be coaching Red Bull New York in the very near future not that it will help that cursed team) and he's going to go through life not taking any responsibility.

You'd think if you got fired in the middle of LaGuardia Airport, it would turn on flashing lights that it really is all your fault!

The saddest thing I've heard (again, both kinds of sad) to come out of the whole debacle is that someone, in Sports Illustrated so it's kind of understandable, dropped Dave Sarachan as a possible replacement.

He's done such a splendid job with the Fire and all. Put him in charge and watch our FIFA rankings fall below that of Canada.

Have we really dropped that low in esteem so quickly that Dave Sarachan is listed as a possible replacement.

That's the kind of national morale that only Bruce Arena could muster.

By the way, the video in question was #1 on the list so I thoroughly endorse VH1's judgement in this case. :)

Just A Bunch Of Good Footcerific Stuff

2006-07-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

This is the best footcer news day in ages. Not is Bruce Arena canned (but give five months notice) but Juventus was relegated and AC Milan was docked 15 points in the Italian scandal.

Does this mean that we'll finally have a competitive top league in Europe?

Probably not. It just means Inter Milan will run away with it.

Only a month until the Colaship starts though. :)

From a couple of days ago:

The World Cup ratings are in and wow.

The finals drew 17 million viewers (12 million on ABC and 5 million on Univision). This puts it on par with the NBA Finals and World Series deciding games.

And the future looks bright, at least to advertisers.

And, well, fuck off footcer haters, your time will soon be over. Get with it now or be confined to the dustbin of history. Among "the kids" (actual kids this time, 12-17), the rating increased almost 400 percent for this World Cup.

But possibly better news is that people are still talking about the "headbutt heard round the world."

There were actually two incidents in this World Cup that are going to have legs in the United States for years to come and while both involve violence, at least once and for all people are talking about the real aspects of footcer as opposed to ones that the media seems to manufacture that in no way resembles the real game.

And now people actually watched it again for the first time since the nation was caught up in hosting hysteria in 1994 and can remind the old fucker punditry that their eyes and the ears no longer agree with the lies and misinformation (see, the problem is it just takes us Yanks a little while longer to realize things since we're stubborn).

By the way, the new FIFA rankings are out today and thankfully the United States is no longer horribly inflated (due to a welcome update in the ranking procedures). Most importantly, England is now ranked much higher so hopefully the English won't be so uppity about the rankings anymore.

Though I suspect Australians aren't that happy right now. So as was once said on bigsoccer.com, "the circle of life continues."

LINK OF THE DAY

http://www.ggzidane.com/

A site dedicated to all things Zidane headbutt.

The Cult Of Cristiano Spreads

2006-07-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this on the 3rd and meant to post this on the 4th (because the sentiment contained within pretty much matches the holiday) but, you know, drunkenness got in the way.

All I have to add is the real footcer winner as far as the United States goes is Cristiano Ronaldo. That is, at least among the ladies who don't hate footcer and are watching the World Cup. I was at this cookout with my indie friends and, damn, about five of them were drooling over Cristiano.

I am so mad at Wayne Rooney right now that I could, well, kick him in... No, I won't even go there. See, here's the thing. Even though FIFA officially announced that Wayne Rooney was red carded for kicking Ricardo Carvalho in an uncomfortable place, there are still those walking around calling Christiano Ronaldo a cheater.

What did Ronaldo do? He taunted Rooney until he lost his temper while the two were fighting for possession. Yeah, that's cheating. And he approached the referee to complain about the incident. Yeah that's cheating.

It was one thing to say that Christiano Ronaldo cheated when it was thought that Wayne Rooney could have been red carded for the direct incident with Ronaldo but only England fans honestly thought that it wasn't for the kick to the beans that Rooney gave Carvalho - while he was on the ground.

And now Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole are complaining that Christiano Ronaldo was out of order for complaining to the ref.

If anything the England team should be thankful to Ronaldo for complaining to the referee since the possibility could have existed that it would have distracted the ref from Rooney kicking a Portugese defender where the sun doesn't shine.

Yeah, there's no euphamisms about this - England should just have the balls to admit that Rooney's an idiot!

Oh and for cripes sakes! Hargreaves' performance was not a shock. I just love hearing, "he did so well, he'll probably play in the Premiership now." Sorry to burst the bubble but there are only three teams in the Premiership that are a step up from Bayern Munich.

One of them uses Essien in the Hargreaves role so they don't need him. Though one of them could sure use Hargreaves ever since they got rid of Viera. ;)

Finally, I hope MLS doesn't do anything to Youri Djorkaeff for choosing to be at the World Cup instead of with Red Bull New York. MLS shouldn't have even been playing during the World Cup.

Perhaps it was a not so silent protest by Youri about the fact that he's used to playing in leagues that respect FIFA events.

Though, saying that, there are other leagues that played during part of the World Cup (Colombia is the largest with at least Chile and Peru joining them) so MLS isn't alone but that's not really an excuse.

You know which country is in no danger of playing during the World Cup, though, Greece.

I've always said that Greece kills good footcer dead but it turns out it's not just on the pitch but in the back office as well.

A Confession From A Christiano Apologist

2006-07-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

So I have a confession to make that probably isn't that surprising but will make a lot of people on my friends list pretty angry - I was rooting for Portugal today.

Yeah, that's why I've been pretty quiet about it.

It has nothing to do with a dislike of England (despite my run-ins with England fans in recent times, though shutting them up is a great benefit of the loss) but more with the fact that I had to prove that I wasn't an England supporter to everybody.

It's so odd that if you're an English speaking footcer fan in the United States and talking to someone who doesn't know you're a United States supporter, people assume that you're an England supporter. The most recent person being one of the company lawyers on Friday. So today I decided I was going to really dislike England.

And so today I'm pretty happy about it.

Sure this is kind of mean as there are people out there who have lived and died with England their entire lives, including a few (though not many) in the United States.

Now I can go and get excited about the Premiership again and pay less attention to MLS. ;)

Seriously, though, it did allow me to root againt Brazil wholeheartedly and they came through for me and lost. Now the only two teams left that I want to lose (otherwise known as the forces of evil) are France (because I just generally hate them) and Germany (because they're the home team).

So to recap I'm pulling for a Portugal v. Italy final just to see a totally unexpected team winning it all - an unexpected team that isn't France.

Though let it be known that I was also pulling for Portugal on a positive note. It would be nice to see them win the World Cup with the remains of the golden generation (one of whom became the first goalie to stop three penalty kicks in a World Cup match) who really deserved to win Euro 2004 (despite the fact that it was on home soil).

So to avenge the loss to one of the evil teams (Greece), Portugal deserves a good turn.

And, hey, maybe Luis Boa Morte will get to play again in a bigger game than what he has already. Yeah, that's the ticket. I have a reason to be a Portugal supporter. :)

There Needs To Be Some Serious Changes Here

2006-06-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

So I've got to leave for work in about 45 minutes but it does not feel like a half holiday right now...

I changed my name on myspace.com this morning, it's now: FIRE BRUCE ARENA!

We got outplayed by Ghana, there's absolutely no way around it. But it's not necessarily the player's fault. A lot of blame has to be placed on DaMarcus Beasley and the most blame of all has to be placed on the ref for a really bad penalty call.

But beyond that a 1-1 tie, what the game should have been, still wouldn't have been enough to get us through. And what was Bruce Arena playing for the entire match? A friggin' 1-0 win! And once Ghana scored first, there was absolutely no point in still staying 4-5-1.

That was an amazing goal from Clint Dempsey though. I think that he earned himself a spot on some team in the Colaship next season - where he probably should have been already. Maybe Preston North End, eh? They still haven't replaced Eddie Lewis to keep their Yank quotient up to its usual.

Eddie Johnson started to make the game a lot more vibrant once he came on 62 minutes too late.

But, yeah, positives aside, Bruce Arena needs to be fired for playing tentatively the whole tournament. But it goes much further than that.

All of the neutrals I've talked to on the subject say that Bruce Arena didn't prepare the team properly during the tournament. But I think, and while thankfully they're not rubbing it in, that the preparation mistakes go all the way back through the friendlies.

We needed to schedule a lot more matches in hostile territory than we did. We needed to play more European teams. And for pete's sakes we can't turn down invitations to play in the Copa America!

In any other country on Earth, the coach would be gone after what happened to the United States team.

Well who did I recommend? I don't know. Anybody but Sven.

Actually, and I'm not kidding, Steve Nicol of the New England Revolution. He's never been afraid to take the Revolution overseas so why not the United States MNT? And he's a fiery Scot. Bruce Arena is fiery as well, during practice, but during the game he looked like he was sedated and resigned.

So yeah, in conclusion speaking of resigned...

If we want to be a realer footcer nation than we already are, Bruce Arena needs to go!

I Just Love This Time Of Every Four Years

2006-06-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing the World Cup is only once every four years or I think I'd explode a blood vessel. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate everyone who comes out of the woodwork and pays attention the U.S. Men's National Team once every four years - even though I get upset when you disappear the rest of the time and say, "yeah I like footcer, I wonder what's going on with it."

And they spend their time on the forum rehashing topics that those of us who actually keep it alive in the United States the rest of the time are sick of debating (i.e. the FIFA rankings are crap). Well at least I am.

But, hey, the events-only footcer crowd did a great thing! They drove the ratings of the U.S.A./Italy match to a 5.2 rating - on the English language stations (without including Spanish broadcasting). That's the highest rating since a 7.0 for the 1998 final.

But the news is better than that. In games not involving the United States, ESPN2 is averaging a 1.3 rating - for matches that are taking place during the day. The weekend numbers were a 2.8.

That's more than the NHL Finals are drawing!

But, get this, the World Cup outdrew NASCAR in the 18-34 demographic!

Yes, I'll repeat that...

FOOTCER FOR ONE DAY WAS BIGGER THAN NASCAR WITH THE DEMOGRAPHIC THAT MATTERS TO ADVERTISERS!!!

Mind you, these are nowhere near the numbers drawn by the NBA Finals, but it's huge.

In looking over the T.V. ratings (for an analysis I was doing to prove footcer had supplanted hockey as the #4 sport in the United States - and it's pretty convincingly so with MLS' attendance and T.V. ratings on par with hockey and international matches outdrawing olympic hockey) I realized something.

The United States really doesn't care about watching sports.

Think about this before you break out the straightjacket. The NBA Finals, in prime time, are drawing an 11. That's 14 million people. Pretty good. Not when you consider that is 5% of the United States population.

The only 95% are not watching the NBA finals.

Think about that. If only 5% of people in England were watching the World Cup, there would be a full scale government investigation. If only 5% of people in Australia watched any sporting event, the sun would implode.

Well That Was Quite A Violent Match Today

2006-06-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

I know that I've gotten in trouble for missing politics and footcer in the past, but I really can't help but to point this map from ESPN.com out:

It's not the current poll on which states Democrats are leading House or Senate races in vis-a-vis Republicans. It's actually a poll on which is a more interesting event. The "red states" are states that voted for the NBA finals game this evening. The "blue states" are those states that voted for the USA's match against Italy today.

If only this were the case more of the time than it would be a perfect world.

Well not really since I'm all for footcer and basketball laying down together and breaking bread (I did an analysis and 11 of the 24 countries in the World Basketball Championship in a couple months are in the World Cup right now), it's pointyball that I want to drive out of existence.

Not really, but the pointyball fans are getting on my last nerve in the trenches of myspace.com.

Back to first thing though. The bluest state is New Hampshire (67 to 22%). The reddest state is Florida (but probably due to their homestate Heat being in the NBA finals - 55 to 37%). But among those neutral states it is demographically interesting to say the least which are the bluest and which are the reddest. I'm not saying anymore.

But on to the actuality of today's match. First of all, anyone who took my 1-1 prediction to the betting house, I again want a cut!

The United States will beat Ghana 3-1 on Thursday.

Take that one if you haven't heeded my last two calls (alright if you took my 2-0 on Czech Republic/United States you lost money but only because the United States gave up when it was 2-0. See, I'm not just saying that because it will be one-half of assuring the United States gets the priviledge of being Brazil's first knockout victim, I'm saying it because Ghana's defense is crap (though that free kick showed ours leaves a lot to be desired) and we can exploit it.

Now I know what you're saying: "but Ghana pulled a clean sheet today against the Czechs."

Oh my friend it is not Ghana's defense that shut down the Czech offense, it was the Czech offense that shut down itself. It was as if the Czechs studied the United States' game tapes of how to lose a match by not really trying to play positive footcer in the slightest. I mean, it should have been an easy tape to find being as the Czechs were involved and all.

But unlike the United States in the first match, it wasn't the Czech's fault entirely as they're a team without a single healthy striker. Well at least a top quality one, one that doesn't play for Red Bull New York's sister team in Austria. Especially when you're playing them up top.

And it's not going to get any better against Italy as neither of their real strikers is supposed to be back - at least to the best of my knowledge.

So, see, Italy, barring a major disaster wil beat the Czechs. All we have to do to prove 75% of the world wrong and get out of the pool is to beat Ghana. And I think we are honestly more organized and have better players in 7 of the 11 positions.

And if not, today proves we really know how to fuck opposing players up.

See, if you look back, the Morocco friendly was useful after all. Getting our asses kicked physically by a dirty Morocco side made us better able to be a dirty side ourselves when it was necessary - basically when we were as outclassed by an opponent as Morocco was outclased by us.

We couldn't do it against the Czech because you can't bully opposing players twice your size but against the Italian, out constant fouling put them right off their game.

It's not the United States style that I like to see but we're actually quite good at it. We pushed the Italians around like rag dolls and actually controlled the portion of the game where the two sides were even because the Italians had no idea what to do.

Now I won't even get into the whole refereeing situation (Beasley's goal shouldn't have counted - as it didn't - but it was beautiful just the same) but this should tip my hand a little (from one of the footcer communities on LiveJournal)...

Here's the number for the Uruguayan embassy:

(202) 331-1313

For those of you in DC, the address:

1913 I Street NW

Not that putting diplomatic pressure on Uruguay will do any good, but you know the whole "phone your representative" thing is the United States way. :)

By the way, for anyone who says the own goal was our salvation, I have this to say. The United States had the ball in Italy's box so much during the first 20 minutes that Italy was bound to make a defensive mistake.

It was the pressure that led to that defensive snafu. Now sure it would have been better if we score the goal off one of our own players but it was our game that led to the goal either way.

And if we run like that at Ghana, they're going to break a lot easier.

I'd like to report that the hard fought draw down one man for the entire second half won the United States some respect in the trenches but the haters, while sudued, are still making excuses how the United States isn't good enough.

Well if we can lose 2-1 to Brazil maybe that will help.

Lies, Lies, Lies, And Bull Puckey

2006-06-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

This is an entry I posted both on myspace.com and my LiveJournal. It's not actual news, it's just a fit of anger I've been having for a time...

---

THE BIGGEST LIES YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BRITISH PUNDIT HAS TOLD YOU

Lie #1 : It's called football all over the world and soccer only in the United States.

TRUTH: Besides the obvious Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand (basically any country that has a second dominant football code besides Association Football), in Italy it's "calcio" which translated to kick and not football. In Swahili it's "soka" which requires not much translation. And in most Eastern European nations it translates to "kick ball." Mind you when these countries say it in English, they say "football" but from their own languages this is not the correct translation.

Lie #2: The United States are ranked #5 in the world because they play in CONCACAF.

TRUTH: While the FIFA rankings are flawed to the point where they're unusable, it's not playing against St. Kitts or Grenada that has the United States so high up the rankings, it's playing Mexico (so this is a half truth) over and over and over. The way the FIFA rankings actually work is the higher ranked the teams you play the more points you gain. As the United States regularly end up playing Mexico as the only two teams in CONCACAF that are close to world class. This creates a giant circle jerk where Mexico pushes the United States up the ranking and vice-versa. If Holland and England played as much as Mexico and the United States play each other, they would both be ahead of Brazil according to the FIFA methodology despite the results.

Lie #3: The United States has never won on European soil and ducks European competition away from the United States.

TRUTH: Another half truth. The United States has never beat a big five team (England, France, Germany, Italy, or Spain) on European soil. The United States has also never won a World Cup match in Europe. However in 2004 the United States did a three match tour of Europe, beating Denmark and Poland and losing to Holland 1-0. While this does not prove they would be a second place type team in a UEFA qualifying group it does mean they can beat second place type teams in UEFA qualifying groups.

Lie #4: England is the second best team in the world.

TRUTH: England has, possibly, the second most talented group of players in the world but are hit-and-miss as far as showing up. They are the biggest bunch of underachievers in sports. If you gave England's talent to, I don't know, Poland, they would dominate world footcer because they actually know how to play as a team. England is basically the United States men's basketball team of world footcer. Secondly since all but two of England's players are in the Premiership, there's really no way to judge them on a week-in, week-out basis against many of the other team's stars who play in Spain or Italy (and a couple even in Germany).

Lie #5: The United States sucks (or are just "not very good").

TRUTH: Sure this is a matter of opinion but nothing bears this out except for a really bad match against the Czech Republic. Sucks is a term that should be used for teams who are absolutely terrible like Zaire or The Bahamas. Even Angola does not suck. They're just not one of the best teams on Earth. Frankly a new classification needs to be created for teams that are in the #15 to #50 in the world type. I call them "second tier" but not "not very good."

Lie #6: Freddy Adu is the future of footcer in the United States.

Freddy Adu isn't even our best U-23 player right now. He's one of our best ball control players already but he's got absolutely no idea how to act in the final third. Plus he still gets shoved around and intimidated by larger players (as was seen at last year's youth championships, let alone in MLS). Freddy Adu will make the national team squad but he's not on the path right now to be our star player by any means. And don't even get me started on the bigger lie that he should have been named this World Cup. Not ever coach has a Theo Walcott mentality.

---

I also posted a big emo screed when Poland got eliminated but that's another story. Let's stick to the anger.

At Least There Were Lots Of People To Share The Sorrow

2006-06-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

I'm writing this entry from the Fado in Pioneer Square. At this point all I can do is fucking cry about what just happened to the Footcer Yanks. I predicted right when the draw was announced that we were going to lose to the Czechs 0-2 but I was hoping I was wrong.

Well I was wrong since we lost 0-3 to the Czechs and it wasn't nearly as close as I expected it to be. :(

We looked like we had reverted to the team we would have fielded in about 1995. Thank goodness I had a cider to drown out my sorrows a bit.

4-5-1? FUCKING WHY?

Eddie Johnson was the one bright spot when he came into the match and showed why by 2010 he'll be the best striker the United States has ever produced.

And will Bruce Arena start him in the next match against Italy? I really hope so!

No, forget it, I definitely don't want to talk about that. Plus for the most part I couldn't see the television at all.

The Fado in Pioneer Square was packed to the point where people were crammed into vantage points where you couldn't even see the television. And when the shot hit the goal post the whole bar burst into a collective sigh. I can only imagine what The Globe (or Chicago's Fado) looked like during the match.

Though I do have to say that Fado is now empty as everybody has left to go to work. Speaking of which, I should probably check my e-mail now.

A World Cup Just Made For U.S. Consumption

2006-06-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

I'm not missing entries because I'm in Germany or anything - just in Seattle but pretty much just as far from home.

And thankfully it seems that people here are actually decently interested in the World Cup! Of course it helped that Mexico won and a ton of people were supporting those colors on the streets of downtown Seattle. The big test will be tomorrow. If people are wearing the United States colors (after we, hopefully, win) then Seattle is being ripped off not getting an MLS team.

Yeah, I know, some of the footcerites have been saying that for a while. :)

I do have to say that thusfar this World Cup has been a publicist's dream and hopefully people in the United States are paying attention.

When the tourney starts out with a 4-2 match, that's an advertisement for how footcer can look. And then you've got David Beckham's free kick resulting in England's only goal (I have to disclose that I fell back asleep immediately after the Beckham goal was deflected in by the Paraguayan defender). And, then you had the story of Oswaldo Sanchez from right in our own region.

The sight of the Mexican players all in tears surrounding him after he played mere days after his father died will be an image that will stand out even if Mexico somehow loses to Angola and gets sent home (guess what's not going to happen).

I'd like to thank Mexico for so many reasons today. Though them beating Iran still didn't shut the (Iranian-American) kid I'm arguing with on myspace.com up. He is still under the impression that Iran is the better team and they only lost because they were playing for a draw.

Still, they represented CONCACAF extremely well.

Though not nearly as well as Trinidad & Tobago. Sure they went out trying for the 0-0 draw after Avery John became the first player to get red carded in the whole tournament (so one MLS player will go down in the history books in this World Cup at least) but they did it.

Shaka Hislop needs to have a national holiday named after him.

See, I think the United States should take their example into tomorrow's match. Anything's possible and even if we're big underdogs we're nothing compared to the Soca Warriors who Sweden was supposed to wipe off the map (would anyone notice those two little islands were gone?).

I still don't have a good feeling but if the publicity machine of United States favorable results keeps on there's no way we can lose.

Fun World Cup Stuff To Stay Alive For

2006-06-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

If there any way that one's faith can be confirmed in choosing agnostic humanism, a recent story out of Ukraine confirms my own beliefs. A suicidal man lowered himself with a rope into a lion's cage in Kiev screaming, "God will save me, if he exists."

The man subsequently had his throat ripped out by a female lion.

If there is a God than I'm thinking that he or she isn't going to bother with someone jumping into a lion's cage right about now.

I mean, come on, there are way too many prayers coming from all over the globe about footcer. :)

Instead of jumping into the lion's cage, the man should have looked at the following chart, gone to Germany and used the following two phrases:

and,

I mean, it's like those amp'd mobile commercials that were running a little bit ago where the slogan was "don't die, Amp'd mobile is coming soon." Except this is possibly the worst time to die (not that there's ever a great time to do so) since it's only four days until the World Cup.

I "drafted" my roster for Yahoo's fantasy World Cup. Here's my starting lineup:

G - Cech; D - Carragher; D - Del Horno; D - Dragutinovic; M - Lampard; M - Ronaldinho; M - Deco; M - Riquelme; F - Henry; F - Van Nistelrooy (aka the Golden Boot winner); F - Shevchenko

I won't go into my 12 reserves since, you know, I've got to keep some secrets. :)

The reason? I'm founding my own little group to compete against anyone who wants to bring it on. It's group #28295!

Footcer Ball Of Destiny

Password is: footcer

E-mail me at displacedbeatnik@yahoo.com if you want help joining.

Don't worry. I'll probably do pretty bad as my team is closer to Ronald McDonald's than it is Goleo VI's as far as the celebrity league picks (the ones that are open to the public).

I think Ronald, being a footcer Yank is overestimating Mexico and the United States. But, it's alright that he's thinking with his giant clown heart and not his curly haired head. After all, it's only four days from the time every four years where anything is possible in 270 minutes.

It's, you know, the 270 other minutes that follow where only about six teams will do anything. :)

Just one more quick footcer related note. The Independent (aka my paper of choice when I'm in the United Kingdom) published a list of exciting little side stories that might or might not have anything to do with the World Cup more than tangentially but are the kind of silly little footcer stories that I love. The list is at http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/comment/article624177.ece.

LINK OF THE DAY

http://www.click2translate.com/worldcup2006/

The complete list of World Cup related phrases from the above cut and saved list.

After One Year, Eddie Lewis Is Still #1 In My Blog

2006-05-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing that I absolutely love is when one of my off-the-wall predictions comes true.

So regular readers of the footcer sections will realize that I've long made fun of Ecuador for their complete inability to win when they're off their mountaintop. Well back on May 18 in a thread on myspace.com, I made the following claim:

"Look for [Ecuador] to lose to Colombia in a warmup friendly in the United States (Ecuador is Colombia's whipping boy and beat them almost every time) followed by a loss to Macedonia in Spain.

Seriously, they will lose to Macedonia but they couldn't find a weaker UEFA team willing to play them. :)"

Sure enough, by giving up a late game penalty kick, Ecador managed to lose to one of the worst team in all of UEFA 1-2. That's a 53 place gap in the FIFA ranking (39 to 91) outdone by the fact that Ecuador is a joke.

Uruguay has got to be really pissed off right now that they're not the 4th team representing South America.

I just love this time of year for the very kind of phallus measuring going on in the footcer world as teams that would ordinarily never play each other meet in Europe (or wherever) and kick the ball around in friendlies.

Other fascinatingly meaningless scores today include:

Ukraine 4, Costa Rica 0 - speaking of embarassing results for a federation, Costa Rica is quickly becoming, for my money, the worst CONCACAF team at the World Cup. Sure Trinidad & Tobago lost to Wales but they scored in the effort. And had a 1-0 lead at one point. Meanwhile Costa Rica lost to Iran (don't even get me started about Iran as I've been in an argument with a few of their supporters in which I've had to, of all things, defend Mexico).

New Zealand 3, Georgia 1 - this match answered the question of just how bad Georgia is. Or it could just mean New Zealand is ready to take over the mantle of OFC team that no one respects despite their results.

Serbia & Montengro 1, Uruguay 1 - besides being one of the last friendlies that S&M play as one country (possibly the last one), it marks the first time they've been scored on in ages. Maybe the defense was ready to split in two or something. Or the goalie went schitzophrenic.

France 1, Mexico 0 - la, la, la. Tin foil hat on. Mexico is a legitimate contender for the quarterfinals. La, la, la. France was the much better team in this match and I don't see El Tri's chances being better against Holland in the next friendly. Like I said, phallus measuring. There's no real reason for Mexico to have scheduled france. Though Holland was a good idea as they actually have to play Portugal which is similar.

Spain 0, Russia 0 - of all the foreign friendlies I chose to watch live, why'd it have to be this one? It was a good match but by the 20th scoring chance Spain botched, I was honestly hoping for a good fight.

Czech Republic 2, Saudi Arabia 0 - the good news is the Czechs looked human, for a while. At least the Gol TV announcers were high on the United States' chances after this one. La, la, la. Tin foil hat on.

Chivas USA 1, Chicago Fire 0 - this international friendly really sucked. Though to call Pablo Palencia's performance friendly is a misnomer.

Of course the only friendly that really, really mattered yesterday and today was the United States against Latvia. Wow! How was that game not 5-0?

Who game the United States team magical spinach? Was it Landon Donovan, the California hippie?

The picture of Brian McBride's forehead needs to be made into an inspirational t-shirt!

Good thing he's right headed. :)

Speaking of which, I noticed something really odd. The United States could, if it starts a midfield of Beasley, Convey, and Lewis could start a 3/4 or 3/5 left footed midfield.

You could line it up Lewis - Beasley - Convey - Donovan.

Reyna and Mastroieni lining up behind it.

That could confuse the opposition. Though it probably wouldn't be the best formation idea.

Yeah, always thinking like a left hander. Sorry, it's a hard habit to break.

By the way, Bobby Convey can impregnate my future wife any time he'd like to (so long as this girl I've yet to meet agrees). I want a little piece of Convey's recent performances to keep for my very own. Videotape just isn't good enough. I want any kid I have to be that good a crosser from the left.

And, well, Eddie Lewis is going to be too old to have truly healthy seed by the time future children come into the picture.

On that pleasant note, I think I'll end this entry here. :)

Oh, not quite yet. It all comes full circle as one year ago tomorrow I wrote about Eddie Lewis' attempt with Preston North End to secure promotion to the Premiership as the first entry ever in footcer!

Happy One Year Anniversary to the Footcer Socblog. And, hey, why does no one include Socblog when they talk about this thing? It's half the name.

I Have Become Footcer Blind

2006-05-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

It's very odd that I have completely missed the fact that Northern Ireland and Romania are playing at Soldier Field tomorrow evening. The crackhead is with the Romanian team so it would be cool to see one of the most talented players on Earth in Chicago.

Though I don't think I'll be bringing the Romanian flag that I picked up right before taking the 36 hour train ride back to Warsaw. That would probably be pretty dangerous.

If I miss the match, it won't mean that much since Northern Ireland, who are crap to begin with, is apparently missing half of their team. Odd when the underdogs bring their "B" team.

I'm just confused as to why this match is happening at all since neither team have anything to prepare for and neither team has any fan base in the United States.

The first match that Northern Ireland played on this tour was against Uruguay at Giants Stadium. It drew 4,152.

I have to guess that the attendance at Soldier Field will draw even less since there are more Uruguayans around New York than Romanians around Chicago.

And the cheapest tickets are $35.00. This crap match should probably be free.

I mean Adrian Mutu is a force to behold but even Andriy Shevchenko isn't worth $35.00 all by himself.

Though a Ukraine match would be huge here!

And this isn't the ROI. I'm not sure there are that many people from "the north" here in Chicago.

That and, cripes, if I didn't know about it chances are no one else has a clue. Though apparently it made the news because there are "hooligan worries."

Yeah, from the 15 Northern Ireland supporters who show up. :)

Where I Try To Play Serious Pundit

2006-05-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

So as regular readers know, strategery is not my strong point when it comes to footcer. I understand formations and the like but somehow I can watch the same game and come up with different results than anybody else. This is why I usually stick to the circus around the match, which is more my forte, rather than the match itself.

But yesterday I was too upset to come up with anything funny about what had happened so I wrote a relatively serious synopsis of my feelings on the United States/Morocco friendly.

---

How can we lose to Morocco on a last minute goal? Morocco wasn't even trying to win!

Seriously, I love my Yank Footcerlers (I mean they're my default icon) but they seriously embarrassed me tonight. Morocco came into the game ready for ritualistic slaugher at the hand of the Yanks. They clogged the midfield and hoped for just some sort of counterattack. Unfortunately both teams fulfilled their parts of the bargain. The United States pounded Morocco's goalie at least in the second half one John O'Brien was pulled for Bobby Convey. And Morocco scored a goal against the run of play.

Can I just say that if Bobby Convey wasn't going to be playing in the Premiership already come August, we'd all be screaming that he's good enough to play in the Premiership without being pulled up with his team (though to be fair, he was a major, major reason Reading is coming up).

But I will say that tonight Bobby Convey secured his place in Reading's midfield for next year (not to be replaced by a close season buy). Wow! I forgot how good that guy was.

He may still be snatched up by a bigger team in the Premiership if he plays like that.

DMB was a little spark plug like always, O'Brien proved he is still amazingly talented (damn you Landon Donovan for missing a sitter when O'Brien lobbed the ball over two defenders for you) though still not healthy, Josh Wolff showed unexpected international level class I didn't know he had. Eddie Johnson showed he's still better than Wolff when he can actually play. Brian Ching came in too late to evaluate.

Our defense gives me heart palpatations. They got away with some things against Morocco that any of the three teams they play against in the World Cup are going to knock into the goal without blinking. Even Gooch. Even Gooch. :(

And of course the big news is Claudio Reyna got injured again.

Now I'm not saying this is a good thing because Captain America is a lynch pin but I am not arguing against the chorus of some people who say it's time for him to give up the armband to let a young midfielder who's not injury prone start.

Anyhow, like I said, the United States offense looked good, but not great. Once they got through some jitters, they put in a few shots. And they were not content to leave it 0-0 in front of a home crowd.

I think if Ghana does the same thing in Germany, the United States won't open themselves up in the back trying to put on a fireworks display in the last five minutes. Unless they need the win against Ghana.

I thought two things at the end of the match:

1) There goes our #5 ranking so now I won't hear about that on the message boards anymore.
2) I'm going to hear about losing to Morocco for ages on the message board - especially after all the shit I've been talking about Iran not being able to beat second tier teams and can't advance (defending Mexico in the process doesn't exactly allow me to sleep at night).

And now back to the silly rumors from the silly season...

While Wigan looks to be the prime contender to snatch Andy Johnson away from Crystal Palace (their bid now stand at 8.5 million pounds), there's an interesting thing that could happen instead...

Everton may re-up them and put in a higher bid (and Johnson is reported to want to play for Everton and not Wigan). Now rumor has it (a Jennifer Aniston movie I refuse to watch) that Everton is also interested in Eddie Johnson based on his performance at the World Cup.

I think if they land Andy Johnson, they have to also pay for Eddie Johnson (though their reported bid is less than Benfica offered for him).

How cool would it be for Everton to have Johnson and Johnson up top?

I mean if they do something that cheesy, I might have to actually care about them!

The other news is England's got a B team match against Belarus tomorrow. The starters are as follows:

G David James
D Owen Hargreaves, Sol Campbell, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole
M Aaron Lennon, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas, Stewart Downing
F Peter Crouch, Michael Owen (captain)

Interestingly enough, Theo Walcott is on the bench. Now he may still get a start for England's first team in the near future but, wow. That's certainly something to talk about.

Also Hargreaves being put back to left back. This is just proof that Sven wishes he were Bruce Arena. Owen Hargreaves is better than Eddie Lewis but neither of them should be playing left back.

Oops, slipped into on-field pundit again -- time to back up and go back to making fun of Serie A's eventual downfall en masse.

Proving Once And For All I'm Not A Cartoon Dog

2006-05-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

For those people who live in Chicago, read the Red Eye, and also actually read the entirety of my footcer related entries in here, let me tell everyone once and for all that I am not Whizzer.

Though I think that Whizzer, who is a cartoon animated dog with a daily column who also makes Red Eye's pro football predictions, reads my mind.

Here's the proof that I am not him. He does much better than me picking the football. Though we do seem to have an unnatural obsession with mascots and making fun of David Beckham whenever possible (even if he's not in the news).

But there is distinct proof that I could be him in today's column as he devotes three items to footcer and in a funny, yet educated manner. Hades, I should ask him to guest write an entry of footcer.

I mean, I really need the street cred!

Anyway the three items that I'm on a similar wavelength to Whizzer on are:

"I'm amped for soccer but I'm already sick of the World Cup hype. Either that or I had some bad sushi."

- O.K. I lied. I'm really still giddy about the World Cup so it's now obvious I'm not Whizzer.

"My money is on the Netherlands as Ruud van Nistelrooy tries to lead the nation's squad back to the finals for the first time since 1978. Plus, I enjoy hollandaise sauce."

- Creepy! Though I don't think Holland is going to win the World Cup, I am going on the record as saying van Nistelrooy is going to win the sacred Golden Boot.

"Once the soccer games start, Cubs fans will have a familiar feeling since they're used to seeing their team get kicked all over the place. But seriously, folks..."

- Mean on a few levels but true. I am not, however, one of the total doomsayers, as Whizzer seems to be, that is predicting the United States to lose to Ghana - a team so desperate for world class players that they tried to steal Freddy Adu from the United States in order to have greater depth. Now had they done this in 2010, it might have made sense, but I'm talking this year.

Let me just also say in conclusion that I am also not Sparky, the Fire's dalmation costume mascot (aka the best mascot on Earth), as there are people, mostly my friend Nicole who can verify that we've been in the same place at the same time (and is down with the team to an extent so probably knows who Sparky actually is).

I pulled this little gem from Football365.com's Mediawatch:

"It's what we've all been waiting for. Rio Ferdinand, the man who claims that his ideal day involves curling up under a blanket and watching Trisha, has finally been given the chance to present his own TV show. And, oddly enough, it's not a chat show. From The Sun:

'England star Rio Ferdinand has played a series of hilarious 'Gotcha' pranks on his World Cup team-mates for a new TV show.

'The Manchester United ace winds up crocked striker Wayne Rooney - who is told his dog has been KILLED. Roo's fiancée Coleen McLoughlin plays along with the trick - before Rio bursts in to tell him it's a joke.'

Before we go any further with this, we feel we should let you know that Rio apparently 'spent months planning the elaborate stunts'.

To which Mediawatch's first response was 'surely telling someone their dog's dead isn't an elaborate stunt. It's not a trick, a joke or a gotcha either - it's just a lie'.

But then, we would pay good money to see this:

'In another Candid Camera-style prank, fiery full-back Gary Neville's anger boils over when he is confronted by bogus traffic cops. Man Utd team-mate Ryan Giggs joins in on the gag as Gary is collared in the car park underneath his Manchester flat.

'He fiercely protests his innocence, then Rio steps in with a camera crew to a tirade of abuse from his furious club colleague.'

Incidentally, if you're a fan of Rio's work, you'll be pleased to know that he also has a 'film in the pipeline' (we don't know any more than that, but given Rio's past memory lapses we're expecting it to be along the lines of Memento) - and that three TV channels are 'bidding for the rights to a Rap Idol show - featuring Premiership footballers.'

We'd sell our soul to watch The Neviller freestyle.

Rio Ferdinand. The U.K.'s answer to Ashton Kutcher. I think we should all hope the end is near! He really does take asshattery to a new level. Right now Anton Ferdinand is walking to the cliffs of Dover to throw himself off before Rio can do any more damage to the family name. Roy Keane is right behind him but it's going to take a bit longer as he's walking from Scotland. :)

Finally, just a couple of links that I've been storing up that are footcer related:

http://www.pa-sport.com/en/products/actim.html: The final Actim index for the Premiership and the Colaship. The Colaship one is especially exciting because Bobby Convey is #2 and Marcus Hahnemann was #6. Hopefully this will mean that teams in England's second division will finally see that the way to have a kickass awesome team is to bring over a bunch of Yanks and then have them lead you to the Premiership. :) Or, hey, bring over the Yank's manager after the World Cup. Not that I want to lose Il Bruce but I have a feeling he would make the United States so proud as the coach of Derby or Leicester City or whatnot and leading them to the promised land. Hey Cardiff City's coming over to play some friendlies in August. Wonder if they're going to bring Bruce Arena back with them. :)

http://chicago.fire.mlsnet.com/MLS/chf/fans/offers/2006/banners/: This is probably a dangerous link to post with all the D.C. United and Columbus Crew fans circulating around these parts but it's a link to make a banner for Fire matches once they come home from the road trip of insanity. No mean anti-Fire suggestions. :)

We Interrupt Footcer To Bring You This Message From My Other Blog

2006-05-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

So the danger of my new policy of just dragging the footcer specific stuff from my LiveJournal over here without editing (besides the spelling errors) is that some things sneak in - like politics. I apologize if I offended anyone else with the "idiot George Bush followers" comment.

Well, sort of. I still believe it. :)

Anyhow, another danger is that I tend to talk about movies a lot in my general personal blogging life away from footcer. My consumption of movies (so far this year I've watched 128 movies in 132 days) has really distracted from my footcer time. It's rare that the two collide but on Saturday I went to see "Goal! The Dream Begins."

It was truly a heartening experience as the theater I saw it at had sold about 75 tickets for the 4:00 p.m. showing. After the box office disaster that was "The Game Of Their Lives," it's good to see us Yanks finally coming out for a footcer movie where the footcer is played by grown ass men and not school kids.

The box office for "Goal!" for the weekend was $2,003,000 on 1007 screens.

For those who pay more attention to footcer than movies, this is a small run. To contrast, the other two movies of any consequence that openened this weekend were "Poseidon" and "Just My Luck." The upsidown boat movie opened on 3,555 (total box $$20,325,000) screens and the teen girl movie opened on 2,541 ($5,500,000).

To extrapolate, if "Goal" had the same number of screens as "Just My Luck," it would have taken in $5,054,000 (just barely less). Had it taken in $120,000 more - basically about six tickets to a U.S. cinema? :) - it would have cracked the United States top 10.

SO GO AND SEE IT THIS WEEKEND IF YOU ALREADY HAVEN'T!

Oh, but don't expect pure brilliance as it's pretty much "Rudy" but with a player with talent. Here's my review on Yahoo Movies (well my LiveJournal but it will be posted to Yahoo Movies shortly):

LOGAN SQUARE MOVIE QUEST, BONUS MOVIE

"GOAL! THE DREAM BEGINS" (Yahoo Rating: B-)

We football (soccer) supporters who were born and live in the United States are a weird lot to be certain. Many of us go to MLS matches knowing full well that the quality of play is less than that in Europe and those who do this support the league wholeheartedly. Now of course there are the Eurosnobs who go to the bar every Saturday, pretend they're British, and then ignore that football (soccer) is played in the United States too. Except every four years when even we "Yanks" turn on and watch the game the rest of the world is rivited to most of the rest of the time in numbers.

On that timing logic, it's very fitting that the first movie in the goal trilogy (or maybe even more, who knows based on the worldwide success - especially in the United Kingdom and Mexico) come out in the United States exactly one month before the United States kicks off in Germany against the Czech Republic. Therefore the rest of the people in the United States who don't follow football (soccer) will probably realize this movie exists just like they realize MLS exists for about a year after the World Cup is over.

"Goal! The Dream Begins" is the story of a young Mexican illegal working in Los Angeles for his father's landscape company who while playing in a local Spanish language rec league is discovered by a former player and scout from England. So impressed is the scout that he goes to bat (pardon the mixed sports metaphor) for the kid - his age is never revealed although he's definitely young enough not to be out of place with other U-23s in the film and is said to be the youngest player on Newcastle United at one point - with the current coach of Newcastle United (who had fired him when he took over) making him promise to give him a tryout. Once he gathers the money together (in a heartwarming moment) he flies to England. The rest of the movie is the story of Santiago's trying to get into Newcastle United's first team facing such obstacles as learning the physical nature of English football (soccer) in the reserve team, being forced to realize he's no longer the big fish in the small pond and the like. All in a very English context.

This film is worth promoting for one simple reason - it's really the first movie made by an American production company that treats the game with the respect it deserves. Almost every United States production involving football (soccer) has portrayed it as some kids game just like the media likes to do. I haven't even bothered with the likes of "Kicking And Screaming" and its ilk for that reason. Unlike all of these, this film tries to get to the pulse of the actual top quality sports that only top quality athletes can play.

The movie makes a point of this early on when it has a bunch of little kids playing kick and chase and then it flashes almost instantly to Kuno Becker's Santiago Munez dribbling in ways the even the casual observer will be floored by (though the question if it's actually his feet being shown is brought up). The professional teams in England are treated with the same quality of treatment as NFL or baseball teams are treated in most United States produced sports films (and better than most basketball films which just degenerate into stereotypes).

In short this is the first movie that treats football (soccer) like a real sport from the American perspective.

And therein lies the problem. It's given the American treatment. There's the older bully who's trying to thwart Santiago's progress, for example, because he wants one last shot at the team. There's the senior player who takes Santiago under his wing. But most importantly, it's the underdog trying to overcome obstacle after obstacle that's thrown at him in an attempt to inspire the crowd.

And in the end, it is an inspiring film of about the same quality of most. Kids and their parents are going to love this movie for that reason alone. "Follow your dreams, you will reach your goals," may as well have been plastered across the top of the screen the whole time.

Therein lies the overwhelming problem with the film, however. In an attempt to reach the widest under 18 audience it can, all of the really complex emotional issues are left on the cutting room floor (I really want to see the PG-13 version the rest of the world got to see because it seems like it would be much better). All of the really gritty (even dirty) aspects surrounding the English game are left out - such as the constant threat of match fixing due to legal gambling, violence in the supporters' groups, etc., etc. But the bigger sin of omission is actually those dirty secrets of Santiago. It's mentioned he was in a gang only because he had a gang tattoo. But where are the emotional scars?

The only storyline not handled with the kid gloves is the relationship between Santiago and his father. In this the film has its one unique and guiding force that makes it worthwhile. There are some surprising decisions that both have to make and there is genuine character development. Where was this in the rest of the movie?

So in the end the question is: is MLS ready for general public consumption in the United States but more germane to this actual review is if "Goal! The Dream Begins" is ready for general public consumption in the United States?

Unfortunately, I have to say, "not quite." So just like we actual football (soccer) fans in the Unitd States try to get our friends to go to MLS matches (or USL matches or just watch international matches on TV), it feels like a lot of the reviews on here are really trying hard to convince the general public to see this movie. And will I be guilty of trying to get my friends to see it (despite the flaws it has)? You bet I will. I'm part of the weird lot that promotes the lesser American product because it's our lesser American product of the world's game (on the pitch or on film).

Though I do have to say that this is not the film to try to win over the football (soccer) haters with. Eventually there will be a great football (soccer) movie made by an American production team. And hopefully that will be way before the 2010 World Cup.

NOTE: As this came from my movie reviewer hat world, you'll note me using the s-word. :)

I do have a bunch to say about the World Cup rosters for the various nations as today was the deadline for managers to submit them. But that will have to wait until later. Maybe until I've watched another movie. :)

One Month, One Month, One Month, One Month

2006-05-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

This entry is from my LiveJournal from yesterday night. I am in not some sort of timewarp and I know the schedule in Germany. :)

---

One month. Exactly one month from much earlier today, the United States kicks off in Germany with the long awaited (or dreaded) match against Czech Republic.

And if I'm not mistaken, I will be watching it in Seattle. Yes, phew, I didn't accidentally schedule my flight home on the 12th. That would have been asinine.

Thinking back, I think my best World Cup experience happened on the road. It was in Boston during the 1998 World Cup - because everything good happens in Boston - when Wellman and I (back when he wasn't a leach who I should have punched in the face) were on a trip out east in both the United States and Canada (this was the only time I've been to Ottawa and Montreal). Anyhow, the joy was spending three days of the tournament in the hostel in Cambridge and seeing everybody gather in the TV room.

Now I would stay in the hostel in Seattle (ugh, I still need to figure out where I'm staying on the 10th through 12th) but staying in a hostel in the United States with no backpack at my age would make me seem like the world's biggest sicko.

Especially asking tourists from other nations ten years younger than me where they're watching the matches. :)

The hotel I'm staying in for work is something like $160 a night. And I don't have that. Maybe I should take my backpack but then I'll look like the biggest sicko at the work related functions.

This is why it's always awkward for me to travel for work. It's like I'm living a double life. Only this time the non-work life is for longer than any trip since I went to Denver in 2002.

I'll probably just stay at a Red Roof Inn. I mean, sure it might not have cable to watch the matches (though the United States matches are on ABC of course) but at least I'll be supporting an MLS sponsor.

Speaking of footcer, as you know I tend to do on Fridays, go Hammers. Yeah, I have no shame in pulling for the mid-sized London team. There's no neutral here.

And still speaking of footcer, I've collected a couple of links that I need to get out on my inbox on the subject.

The first is a somewhat politically neutral story on Dubya.

It's really odd that he was more forthcoming about footcer than he's been about most everything else during his entire administration when he said the following:

"As a boy I never even saw a soccer ball. Where I'm from soccer wasn't played. The sport just didn't exist. So there is a generation of Americans who really aren't soccer fans. A lot of us grew up without any connection to soccer -- me, for example. But there is a new generation that has grown up with soccer. They obviously have a great interest in the World Cup. And some of us older fellas are starting to understand how important the World Cup is for the whole world. Of course the U.S. is my team. I've been told that we have a good team. But who knows whether it's good enough to win."

Now, it would be so fun to dissect this comment line by line like I would the State of the Union address or something but instead I'll just say that on this particular subject it's good that Bush is a uniter and not a divider.

Though I don't think he's going to be convincing any of his friends to help with the school district plan for building the soccer specific stadium in Houston but baby steps I guess.

For a baseball man to admit that footcer exists is definitely a step ahead of what has gone on in the past.

Now if only the idiot followers of this man would join suit!

Now a lot of people still discount the United States' chances of making it out of the group phase (except people who know nothing about the sport who expect them to win it all) but there is going to be one representative of the United States in Germany all throughout the tournament - Budweiser.

The great war on myspace.com about footcer's place in the sporting world rages on (I think this has been three weeks now) and in relation to that news bit, there was actually the stupidest statement of the entire war made:

"It's one of the many things you fellas have that we Americans have improved upon. Other examples would be beer and dental hygiene."

The irony of the statement being that this comes from someone of the footcer side of the debate - a fellow footcer Yank. He drew some friendly fire (not from me) over the beer comment - mostly by the European participants.

Does this war ever stop? I hope not since it's not yet lost its fun. It's like a battle scar of footcer. Kind of like debating footcer with some Aussies in a hostel in Boston in 1998. It was actually the first time anyone declared me winning a footcer debate.

Ah, the memories. :)

LINK OF THE DAY

http://www.coolgorilla.com/ipod/germany.html

Speaking of the World Cup as I've been doing all entry, this is a great little iPod resource. It has all of the rosters, club stats, international stats, schedules. Oh my fate it has it all! It's just a thing of beauty. If only my iPod was World Cup size compatible! :(

Sven Should Just Pick The Winning Team In Division One For England's Squad

2006-05-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

As is usually the case when Sven-Goran Eriksson makes a decision, I'm glad to be a United States supporter.

I don't think Sven is qualified to coach the Columbus Crew, let alone England and today was a confirmation!

But I would like to thank Sven for doing one thing - choosing England's version of Freddy Adu for a starting spot. One of England's four strike choices is 17-year old Theo Walcott. Theo is supposed to be, well, the second coming of Wayne Rooney (sad when you're already being replaced at 20 by the next wunderkind). But while he's on the books at Arsenal, he hasn't played a single minute in the Premiership.

He's spent most of this season at Southampton where he scored four goals.

Now to be fair, he only played half the season there so he was on pace for eight goals in the Colaship! Meanwhile, Darren Bent...

Oh never mind!

The stupidest thing is that Sven decided this when he woke up this morning. Nice to know his final selections were based on a whim, eh?

Another funny fact from this whole selection. If Wayne Rooney doesn't play, none of England's three strike choices (the other two being Peter Crouch and Michael Owen) scored as many goals in England's top flight as Brian McBride. :)

Oh and one more note - serves Shawn Wright-Phillips right. If he were still playing for Manchester City, he probably would have made the squad.

Hope he enjoy sitting at home thinking about his three starts for Chelsea and counting his money.

I have no idea if I'm supporting Preston North End or Leeds United in the second leg of their Colaship semi-final right now. PNE is my favorite Colaship team due to last year's support of Eddie Lewis.

But now Eddie Lewis plays for Leeds and there are no Yanks on PNE.

Therefore, now that I think about it, I'm pulling for PNE because Eddie Lewis needs to get himself to United States national team camp to get more practice at left back.

Oh, and Watford looks like they're going to cruise to Cardiff after beating Crystal Palace 3-0 last week.

If they make it to the Premiership next year, however, they are going right back down. Then again, I said that about Wigan, eh?

And Now My Footcer Heart Rate Can Return To Normal

2006-05-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

On the bright side, I'm now free of worries on Saturday mornings until August. But, this is still the saddest day of the year - the end of the Premiership for another year. This year was especially sad since Alan Shearer retired and Highbury closed. Sure it's two teams that I could care less about but it's still the end of something big.

Just a quick aside on a related note, "When The Lights Go Out In London" by The Charlatans U.K. is possibly my favorite new song in the past couple months of 2006.

And as the lights go out on another Premiership season, I guess it's time to look back on all my smack talking predictions and see how accurate I was.

First the biggie (the whole league predicted #1-20):

Actual place in parentheses.

#1 (1) Chelsea - Got that one, but that was a gimmie.
#2 (2) Manchester United - Nailed this one too and I'm much more proud of it since everyone was predicting Malcolm Glazer would mean the apocalypse way before January of the year.
#3 (4) Arsenal - My exact reasoning was: "still looking for a goalie and Viera is going to hurt." Huzzah, got the logic right, just the place one wrong. :)
#4 (3) Liverpool - This is one where I should have gone with my gut because I stated: "actually considered putting Liverpool ahead of Arsenal but there's no way the Gunners finish 4th." I could claim oracle like wisdom on this one since really the Gunners should have finished 5th or 6th. :)
#5 (8) Bolton - My picks start turning to crap here. ;)
#6 (5) Tottenham - Another place where I thought one thing and typed another. For the record I said, "more talent than Bolton. This is the year they take the next leap." Yeah, next time I say a team has more talent, I should probably place them ahead of the other team.
#7 (16) Aston Villa - Looks like I bought into the big club hype. Relegation next year? :)
#8 (14) Middlesbrough - Well, maybe the reading I was getting was on a UEFA Cup run, not near a UEFA Cup spot.
#9 (11) Everton - Oops, just the wrong side of mid-table. But I did predict their meteoric fall back down the standings.
#10 (13) Charlton - Who knew they would start their new year swoon in October?
#11 (18) Birmingham - The exact comment I made was: "no real comment, they're just there. Teams that are just there finish mid-table." Or teams that are just there with no scoring punch at all get relegated.
#12 (6) Blackburn - I did have them rising ("the team everyone will love to hate will make people hate them by actually winning this year.") but I didn't realize the heights.
#13 (15) Manchester City - Close enough predicting gloom and doom. Ironically I said they were in disarray to begin the season but really the chaos only started once Andy Cole got injured. Which is odd because last year the chaos ended at Fulham when the same thing happened.
#14 (17) Portsmouth - I said people were underestimating Pompey. No, I was overestimating them but it all evened out in the end.
#15 (12) Fulham - They were all ready to make me correct and then they had to start winning to make me happy instead.
#16 (6) Newcastle United - My news of Newcastle United's impending death proved false. 6, 16, they look similar. The crystal ball was just foggy.
#17 (9) West Ham - "they're putting the pieces together to do some damage in the future. Enough is in place now to keep them up." To which the Hammers responded, "this season is the future."
#18 (20) Sunderland - Hey I said they were going down, didn't I?
#19 (19) West Brom - This was my favorite of my predictions: "won't be pulling any escaping acts this year except escaping the Premiership." Therefore I'm glad it was 100% correct.
#20 (10) Wigan - Again, 20, 10, they look similar. Here's my prediction: "you can't compete in the Premiership on an MLS level salary structure." In other news, the Los Angeles Galaxy just signed Henri Camara. Just kidding. :)

I'm much more proud of my side bets, however. The one I'm most proud of was getting the number of losses for Chelsea exactly right. I wish I had put down money on it because I think the odds of Chelsea losing five was probably enough to let me quit my job. I can't find where it's in writing but I've reminded people of the prediction in my LiveJournal every time Chelsea lost.

Next year, however, Chelsea is back to losing only three so we should all revel in how many times Chelsea got beat this year. :)

By the way, I also predicted the top three in La Liga correctly and won my fantasy league if anyone wants to hire me next year.

The actual picture of the victory standing tomorrow (as I'm sure Yahoo is just calculating accuracy) but I had goals from Defoe, Pires, and Saha today (with Saha's being the game winner) with assists from Greening and Nolan. Jaaskelainen got a clean sheet as did Gary Neville.

My main competitor bet the house on Steven Gerrard. He no longer has a house. But he does still have his second place trophy. I finished ahead of him four weeks in a row to end the season. Yeah, I just spotted him a 90 point lead as of week 34 to give him a false sense of confidence.

I had some really crap weeks, but I can't argue with having a good week when it actually really matters.

Too bad he's a sore loser and even though he made five changes he said that he forgot to make any. I wonder who it really is and if I can rub it in his face at Fire matches since it was a Chicago Fire Fans league.

FROM 5/6/06:

I almost turned off the Revolution match on ESPN2 this afternoon because there was a really close Valencia (who are battling Real Madrid to the wire for 2nd in La Liga) match on Gol TV. Then I said to myself, "why not just watch the Revolution demolish the Galaxy until the end with a huge smile on my face."

Sure the Galaxatives won the match that mattered last year and are MLS champions but the Revolution proved yet again who the better of the two teams are.

And , Cobi Jones is still an overrated bigmouth who can kiss my ass! :)

Anyhow, back to the positive. Taylor Twellman scored the first goal of the match after only five minutes to show something to Bruce Arena before leaping into the crowd in front of a giant red, white, and blue sign that said, "WHY NOT TAYLOR?"

While I really appreciate the sentiment, I'm one of the few people in the entirety of the United States footcer community who agrees with Bruce Arena for the selection of the fourth striker (assuming Josh Wolff was the third).

Here's the reason (that I probably should have expressed on here some time ago), Brian McBride and Taylor Twellman both wear #20. That's not saying the reason not to include Taylor Twellman is because there would be a numbers squabble but because they wear the same number for a pretty good reason - both are the same type of player.

Now, mind you, I think Brian McBride is the best player the United States has behind DaMarcus Beasley but he's not the world's greatest goal creator. He's a great goal scorer - as a poacher. He can get his head to any cross and he sniffs out rebounds like a bloodhound. But don't run him at a defenders - it's not his strength. The same is true of Taylor Twellman. Twellman needs the rest of the United States B Team Revolution to create for him. Hence why he's not a #9.

Which of course is a position that the United States really, really lack and why we're not considered a real world power. I mean there are entire clubs in Europe and many other national teams that don't have one - at least a real one. But why bring a spare poacher when you can bring three creators along with one of the better poachers currently playing.

But I do understand the logic of bringing the best player available in each position and Twellman is our second best striker available.

Though that being said, the joke that I've made to other "WHY NOT TAYLOR?" folks is that he's the next big United States star in Europe so why would we want to give him a free ticket over - he might not come back. And, well, this way only one Revolution player is going to get taken away during the summer transfer window on European wings.

But back to the sillier footcer news which I do better rather than that boulderdash serious stuff that I get wrong half the time anyhow. Or not as the only story that I've come across is "next year maybe in England?"

For those who don't want to click the link, it's the story on Shakhtar Donetsk playing Dynamo Kiev for all the marbles as the teams stand deadlocked at 74 points at the end of the second and final half of the Ukrainian split season.

Hades, what am I saying next year in England. Next year in the United States? MLS needs to institute split season by the time of 2010 World Cup at least.

When The Worlds Of Footcer And Yahoo Collide

2006-05-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Yahoo and I are not friends right now. They have done so much recently to screw me over that I may...

I was going to say that I might find some other be-all, end-all complete interweb experience (besides AOL) but who am I kidding? The amount I would miss Yahoo Movies alone would make that more painful for me than Yahoo. Especially since Yahoo, you know, is just programming code and has no feelings. :)

What did Yahoo do to piss me off, you ask.

Yahoo created an amazingly technically advanced World Cup information system including making Matchcast streamable on cell phones. The only problem is the content is only available on Cingular (and Cingular still hates me so I wasn't about to beg them to take me back) and T-Mobile.

Well, thanks to Yahoo, you're now looking at the proud owner of a T-Mobile controlled Nokia 6101.

Can anyone who was bored enough to actually follow that last link guess what feature lured me to that particular model? I mean besides the fact that it was one of the free phones.

It's the built-in FM radio. I mean the only time I really use cell phones to an outrageous amount is when I'm on the road for business or pleasure. And, conveniently enough, that's also the only time that I really use a FM radio. I don't think I've actually heard terrestrial radio since I blasted it in the car on the way home from Columbus last August. Hearing "Hollaback Girl" just turned me off to new music forever I guess. :)

Except I just remembered something - BBC Radio Five Live is an AM (I mean medium wave for all the actual Europeans reading this) station. Oh well, I guess listening to live footcer while I sightsee later this year will still involve a radio. Except Fulham's usually on BBC Radio London anyhow and don't warrant the nationwide coverage. And that's a FM station.

But I digress, sort of. The other reason that I got this particular phone is that it's tri-band with capabilities to pick up a signal on the 1800mhz wavelength (er something else scientific sounding - which basically means it can jump onto the T-Mobile UK or Orange UK networks but not O2 or Vodaphone, but, you know, fuck those two companies anyhow for not so obvious sponsorship reasons). Any European will also realize why this is important since European cell phones use 900 and 1800 mhz while cell phones in the United States use 850mhz and 1900 mhz.

For this first time, I have a phone that's European compatable without having to buy an entire new card. Hooray international roaming!

Oh one last related note on Yahoo's World Cup coverage. I really am pissed off that they chose to use this as their sample match on their front page modulator:

Though if the United States does end up playing Germany it means that we got out of the group phase and most likely through Brazil. Hades, I think it could even be in the final. Maybe I don't hate Yahoo as much after all. Oh, but, come on, Landon Donovan doesn't really even draw that many yellow cards let alone red cards for double yellows.

Oh yeah and Yahoo is pissing me off about fantasy footcer in general. I survived Middlesbrough benching Mark Viduka for all three matches last week and beat my closes competitor in the Chicago Fire Fans league 96 to 88. This makes me tenuous lead going into the final week 2864.5 to 2830.5.

Oddly enough the second place team FC St. Pauli played Wayne Rooney in a 3-4-3 formation and his getting injured helped my fantasy team as much as it hurt England. But, again, being from the United States, I'm not much bothered by the Rooney injury. ;)

I mean I've definitely clinched a trophy (168 points ahead of 4th) and a 34.5 point lead is pretty hard to blow in one week. The only way I can do it is to play a bunch of players who end up benched in the garbage 38th games. I made semi-sure only to play those who don't really have cover or whose teams are playing in meaningful matches - that being Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United, and Liverpool.

Though for some reason I'm also playing Stellios, Brian McBride (probably a mistake because he proved that his mind is already back in the United States in the Fulham loss to Sunderland), and Milan Baros who is returning from injury and playing Sunderland in the Villa end of Birmingham. I smell hat trick. :)

So why do I hate Yahoo over this? It's pretty simple. Even though there is no match until 9:00 a.m. United States central time on Sunday, Yahoo wants the picks by 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. I really don't want to think about my lineup tonight.

Therefore, Yahoo sucks.

Are Arsenal Going To Sue For Copyright?

2006-05-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

This isn't really fair. I think Chicago and FC Dallas started up their rivalry far too early. Look what the Waldos have chosen as the reward with their inner-state rivals Houston Dynamo...

A FRIGGIN' CANNON!

When Milwaukee comes into the league, I want the Fire to play them for a pirate ship (hey it is the Lake Michigan derby) just to out-do those sillies in Texas!

What better way to publicize the match? Even footcer haters who are obsessed with the pirate trend would show up. We could be like Chivas and have a mascot player. Except instead of being a clown, it would be a guy in an eye patch.

Alright, that's taking it a little far but man I want a pirate ship to be up for grabs to be docked in whichever harbor belongs to the "Cup" holders.

For some reason Ethon Zohn, the professional footcer player who won a million dollars on one of the United States versions of Survivor, came up yesterday in World Cup discussion.

I think the rest of the world thinks the United States must be the most desperate country ever in picking World Cup squads if we'd take a person who never made it above the USL-PDL to a training camp.

I don't know Englishy types, do you all draw players to your World Cup side from the Conference?

But that's completely besides the point. The more interesting aspect is this little piece from his Wikipedia entry:

"Zohn is currently dating Survivor: Amazon winner Jenna Morasca. He previously dated Survivor: Pulau Tiga contestant Jenna Lewis, and Survivor: Australia contestant and Survivor: All-Stars winner Amber Brkich and Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt."

When did he actually find time to play footcer before he retired? Maybe that's why he alway played in crap leagues.

Hopefully The Anouncement Won't Be Underground As Well

2006-05-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately the big announcement of the USMNT World Cup team is this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. if you live in the United States central time zone. Stupid ESPN and trying to put the announcement of the provisional United States World Cup squad in prime time on the east coast. Sure the midwest is a footcer wasteland but it's just not fair that I'll be on the train when Bruce Arena is live on ESPN telling the world who the United States is going to send to be sacraficed.

I think more upsetting to miss is that Arena is going to be on PTI this afternoon staring the haters right in the eye.

I'm willing to bet that Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon don't ask him a single question about the actual selections and instead make him spend his entire time defending footcer itself and why the World Cup is even relevant.

I probably will make it home in time to watch the post-coverage on ESPN2 - fate, the World Cup roster announcement is starting to sound like the NFL Draft or something. :) There are supposed to be interviews with the European based players. And, hey, nothing says good quote like tired other side of the Atlantic calls. Too bad Brad Friedel retired because Blackburn is playing Chelsea today so he'd be extra tired. ;)

Although it's not like Il Bruce has any really difficult decisions to make. Sure there are bubble players to pick and choose from but Claudio Reyna is healthy *knocks wood* and such so there's no injured players to decide whether to take or not. Unless you count John O'Brien but he's not currently injured, he's just not entirely match fit but would be by June 9.

It's just great that the United States team has a dilemma of having to choose between six strikers whereas England's strikers seem to be dropping like flies.

I'm not sure right now if a higher power just hates England's MNT and doesn't want them to win the World Cup and will smite any player who could make this happen (Frank Lampard is probably next now that he or she has struck down Rooney) or if a higher power just hates Wayne Rooney. I think I'm betting on the second but I wouldn't disregard the first.

Fate has been relatively nice to France (but who knows why). But while not striking down any major players, it did make a member of the French MNT look really silly. Fabien Barthez, playing for his club team, Olympique Marseille in the finals of the French Cup. When his team lost to PSG, he decided to skip out on the runners up ceremony since he had to go to the bathroom.

Hopefully he'll be just as absent in the World Cup and annoying France will be eliminated early. Though he's not necessarily be the number one goalie as France may choose Gregory Coupet.

In The End, I Am Still A Yank After All

2006-04-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2006-04-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

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.

---

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

2006-04-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

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!

---

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

2006-04-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

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!

Just Going To Butt In Here For A Second And Then It's Back To Hiatus

2006-02-14T09:48:00.000-08:00

This was just too good to pass up...even though this blog is still on hiatus until I can find the time to devote hours a day to combing footcer news for silly stories again.

Nicky Butt walked away from Birmingham City's team hotel prior to their game against West Ham yesterday when he found out he had been dropped from the team's 16 players to bring to the match.

Team manager Steve Bruce - who apparently can't even control his own Butt, let alone be considered to be able to control England after the coaching vacancy - is trying to decide what to do about the player who constantly got his ass into trouble throughout his playing career.

The funniest aspect of the story is actually, however, the headline that Setanta Sports chose to use to talk about the story: Brum promise internal Butt probe!

And Nicky thought that Alex Ferguson's infamous "hair dryer" was bad. Apparently Steve Bruce plans to do much worse to him than Sir Alex ever could. :)

Setanta Sports has been waiting to say that for years, I'm sure!

I Really Still Do Blog About Footcer, I Swear

2005-12-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

Oh cripes. I've been so neglective over here that I didn't even post my two reaction posts from LiveJournal on the World Cup draw. Even though it's been about week since the draw, here they are. This is part of my trying to catch up everywhere day:

DECEMBER 9

Looks like the comment that I made to kat_chan in the entry, "The Reward For Hard Work Means Nothing" (December 6, 2005) has proved to be the understatement of the newest footcer century.

Seriously, when I watched the draw this afternoon on espn.com, I got sick to my stomach.

Actually I'm not even kidding though my flu-like symptoms had very little to do with the draw, I didn't even make it halfway home before having to get off the train for an emergency bathroom break at the Clark and Lake stop. For anyone who's looking for the most disgusting toilet in all of Chicago, the second floor men's room at the Thompson Center would be a great place to start!

But back to the heartbreak in Leipzig.

I almost called it in the same entry referenced about when I said to americanrefugee in the same comment section, "The Czech Republic scare me to death. They're an impossibly hard team. They're my sleeper pick to make the semi-finals. People see them coming but it really doesn't matter. Except for Romania, no one's been able to beat them and that Romania game was a fluke as the cokehead's first game back."

With how much I've been hyping the Czechs since the end of Euro 2004 as the best team in the world outside South America (and now their #2 FIFA ranking really helps out that uphill battle that I've been fighting) it was inevitable that the United States would draw them in the World Cup.

And I stand by my earlier words. The United States is seriously fucked! We might as well start planning for 2010 now and hopefully another horrible performance won't be held against the United States by the fans who show up every four years.

That being said, I don't think the World Cup next summer is a complete loss. We can advance out of Group E. The problem is that I think we'll end up coming is second to the Czechs if we advance. Yeah, I know, Italy. But, see that's the match that I think we can sneak a nice 1-0 upset in.

The Czech Republic/United States group opener is going to be pretty rough because it's two of the best five goaltenders in the world in Petr Cech and Casey Keller. Cech has shown himself a little bit vulnerable in recent play for Chelsea. Sure Chelsea's only lost once but the days of the clean sheet run to start their season seems like a distant memory.

Now, having said the United States can advance to the round of 16, we are still fucked!

Group F should be a cakewalk for Brazil and they would be the second round opponents for the United States barring a group trip-up of epic proportions putting them in second. So, the goal now is just to avoid embarrassment and lose to Brazil in the round of 16 like so many other teams have in the past who were a lot bigger names coming in.

Short of getting out of our group the United States should have two goals, or should I say two teams they need to finish ahead of: Japan and Australia. Basically, those are two teams in the same boat as us domestically so it would be nice to beat them place-wise in the World Cup internationally.

And for fate's sake, please no 32nd like in 1998! At least come away with 2 points!

All that I'm really pissed off about is Mexico's easy draw but it does mean one CONCACAF team should make some noise.

They have a fading Portugal team, a weak Angola side and Iran. It's pretty odd that CONCACAF's "top" team (at least according to the seedings) is in an almost identical group to the one that the United States was in back in 2002. The only team missing is Poland.

I like the chances of my fourth favorite team being in Group A with Germany, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. The CONMEBOL and CONCACAF representatives are jokes. So all they need to do is pull an upset of the home side and they can win the group.

And my third favorite team, Ukraine, has a pretty favorable group in the weakest one in the tournament Group H with Spain, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia. The winner of this group gets second place in Group G in the round of 16 and that should be Switzerland. Ukraine could go really deep.

This is exciting!!! There's a possibility of a Czech Republic/Ukraine quarterfinal. Holy crap!

My second favorite team, Ireland, is, as everyone who followed the qualifiers knows, watching it from home. :)

So, without further Adu (yeah, it's cheesy that I said that but an interesting fact is he was born in Ghana and, therefore, still won't be playing for the United States this summer) here are my really, really, really, preliminary World Cup predictions:

GROUP A: 1) Germany (2-0-1), 2) Poland (1-0-2), 3) Costa Rica (1-1-1), 4) Ecuador (0-3-0)
GROUP B: 1) England (2-1-0), 2) Sweden (1-1-1), 3) Paraguay (1-1-1), 4) Trinidad & Tobago (0-3-0)
GROUP C: 1) Argentina (2-0-1), 2) Netherlands (1-0-2), 3) Ivory Coast (0-1-2), 4) Serbia (0-2-1)
GROUP D: 1) Mexico (3-0-0), 2) Portugal (2-1-0), 3) Iran (1-2-0), 4) Angola (0-3-0)
GROUP E: 1) Czech Republic (2-0-1), 2) United States (1-1-1), 3) Italy (1-1-1), 4) Ghana (0-2-1)
GROUP F: 1) Brazil (3-0-0), 2) Croatia (2-1-0), 3) Japan (0-2-1), 4) Australia (0-2-1)
GROUP G: 1) France (1-0-2), 2) South Korea (0-0-3), 3) Switzerland (0-1-2), 4) Togo (0-2-1)
GROUP H: 1) Spain (2-0-1), 2) Ukraine (1-1-1), 3) Tunisia (0-2-1), 4) Saudi Arabia (0-2-1)

The all important 32nd spot that someone has to get goes to the Soca Warriors. :)

And then the knockout phases...

Round of 16:

A1 v. B2 - Germany 2, Sweden 1
A2 v. B1 - England 2, Poland 1 (AET)
C1 v. D2 - Argentina 3, Portugal 1
C2 v. D1 - Netherlands 1, Mexico 1 (Holland on PKs)
E1 v. F2 - Czech Republic 1, Croatia 0
E2 v. F1 - Brazil 3, United States 0
G1 v. H2 - Ukraine 1, France 0
G2 v. H1 - South Korea 1, Spain 0 (AET)

Quarterfinals:

Q1: Argentina 1, Germany 0
Q2: Czech Republic 2, Ukraine 0
Q3: Netherlands 3, England 2
Q4: Brazil 5, South Korea 1 (yes, I am dead serious)

Semifinals:

S1: Argentina 1, Czech Republic 1 (Argentina on PKs)
S2: Brazil 2, Netherlands 1

3rd Place:

Netherlands 3, Czech Republic 2

Championship:

Argentina 2, Brazil 1

Of course there's always one or two sleepers who pull upsets. My dark horses to actually go against my own predictions are Croatia and Mexico.

Let the debate rage for the next six months. Just for the record, I finished in the 96th percentile of pick-'em in 2002 so I've got a resume to defend. ;)

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DECEMBER 10

The reason that I no longer hang out on bigsoccer.com is because I got so sick of constantly having the same arguments about things like the world rankings and Euro-bias that I figured I didn't need the stress in my life. Not that the arguments aren't still in me as obvious by the fact that I got into a nice little war over on the community world_cup_2006.

You know I think every amateur footcer pundit is entitled to their own opinion but some push the edge of insanity. This one girl, _cereza pushed the bounds of sanity by making the following statement:

"I agree that C is harder,mainly because I consider Serbia a tougher team than Ghana or the USA. :/"

Now, it's fair to say a lot of teams are better than the United States, but Serbia is not one of them! The United States has proven that it can beat the second tier European teams at home (and tie them away) and Serbia would be no exception. Naturally I took this person's opinion down to European bias and told and fun ensued, mostly in the form of a Scot saying the following to me:

"If someone happens to think Serbia are better than USA, fair enough. You'll just have to deal with it. Easy group my ass. They did play against Belgium don't forget who had until this year qualified for 6 world cups in a row. Oh yes, they must be crap. By contrast, the CONCACAF is by a country mile the easiest qualifying zone. If the USA played in UEAFA, they would never qualify for a major tournament."

Just lovely. Here I thought we could shut them up by tying them with our C team (a 1-0 win for the United States' 2 starters and 9 subs could have done that). Obviously that's not true. But what I pretty much told this guy (and the complete response can be viewed in the link) is that past records really don't mean much and that regardless of how many times Belgium has qualified in a row this was a down year for them. I added that the problem with European amateur footcer pundits is they rely a lot on history and really don't bother looking at present form and player makeup.

Hence why they all just love to underestimate Ukraine (or for that matter the United States) and overestimate a team like Belgium.

I am just so sick of Europeans, who don't even - for the most part - get to view North American (or for that matter African) qualifiers think their continent is somehow better from top-to-bottom.

On a final footcer point, check out 's entry on why the media is overblowing the fact that the United States is in a group of death in her entry, "Entitlement trolls, USA soccer edition" (December 10, 2005). She brings up a great point that part of the reason Group E is considered so hard is the overestimation of the Italy team.

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DECEMBER 12

Anyway, what's really pissing me off is two conversations I'm having about the World Cup draw. The one with the Scot I've already mentioned and that's just degenerated into his saying that Kasey Keller would be the sixth best goalkeeper or lower in Serie A.

But, whatever. He does have a point that none of the bigger clubs have snatched him up. But I'm not pulling calling him one of the top five international goalies in the world out of my ass. I've seriously heard it said by at least five other sources. ESPN the Magazine named him the #1 goalkeeper in the world (at international, not club) which is just insane and was an attempt to get one American on the World XI they presented. But, seriously, England would kill for Keller over Robinson (and especially over James). And, frankly Scotland would too.

The other one is with this Canadian member of eastofprague (who knew all of my headaches could be traced back to that community). Anyway, this guy jumped in defending the idiot who said Serbia was a better team than the United States.

I don't even remember where this little war has gone to but I remember wanting to sing "Oh, Canada" to him. If there's one thing worse than an American footcer Eurosnob, it's a Canadian footcer Eurosnob.

And, yet in the whole thing, trying to stay neutral, I'm getting accused of being a provincial American.

For fuck's sake. It's like I can't win. From one side I get that I'm an American hating commie bastard and from the other side I get that I'm George fucking Bush or something. And, if there's one thing that I hate more than anything else it's having to defend my bonehead countrypeople who give us a bad reputation since they're indefensible.

Oh, this is a real winner comment from that second conversation though. had the following pearl of wisdom:

"I don't know, but I would like to state for the record that not ALL Americans are assholes, and in fact some of us don't care whether the U.S. does well in the World Cup or not; we just want to watch some good football."

Yeah, that makes you a good person. For cripes sakes, love your country's home team or root against them if you want to (I pull against USA Basketball for those who didn't know) but being indifferent to them is just obnoxious.

The Reward For Hard Work Means Nothing To FIFA

2005-12-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

I'm alive. I don't really have anything funny or new today but I figured I'd transcribe this entry from my LiveJournal about the World Cup seedings that were announced this morning:

Um, fuck. The World Cup seeding this morning went pretty horribly from a United States perspective. The United States got placed in pool four (which for the most part is the third seeds) with the following teams: Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago, and United States

So the good news is that we get to escape Japan and South Korea in the group stage (though a match against Saudi Arabia would have been so nice from a political perspective).

However, the bad news is that we don't necessarily avoid Mexico.

Not that I don't think the United States can beat Mexico in Germany but who wants to play them there unless it's a knockout match?

The problem is that FIFA got their underwear in a bunch about the possibility of having three European teams in the same pool. So they created a pot of death (to be served with breadsticks) with seven of the eight unseeded UEFA qualifiers. The eighth, Serbia & Montenegro, will be placed with Argentina, Brazil, or Mexico automatically.

Pool Three: Croatia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine

Yes, one of those teams is going to be in the same pool as the United States and while I'm hoping for Croatia or Sweden, with the luck of the United States, it will probably be Holland.

Or maybe we'll get to play Poland for the fourth time in four years. :)

All this because the United States missed out on being seeded by one point in the FIFA formula (44 for Italy and Argentina; 43 for the United States).

Of course a big "thank you" (with one finger) goes out to FIFA for deciding to throw out second, third, and fourth seeds in general and grouping by geographical region.

I want to know whose bright idea that was!

What was the point in teams continuing to play at all after they qualified (not that a lot of teams didn't rest their best players anyhow) if there wasn't the golden ring of a two seed at sake?

If anyone complains about weak qualifying groups, they need to point the finger squarely at FIFA and their geographic grouping.

By the way, I just want to say that just because England was ranked number two in the seedings doesn't mean they have an easy road. I just love that the first thing posted about the draw in the premiership community on LiveJournal was:

"So no great surprise, but surely this means that England are amongst the favorites to win the World Cup."

Come on. This is from the same fandom that cried the sky was falling during the entirety of qualifying. What this guy seems to forget is that being seeded in the first round doesn't mean anything when it comes to the second! That's all dictated by your performance on the pitch.

Not to be mean or anything, but I hope that the draw sticks the Czech Republic in England's group for that comment alone. :p

Getting Back In With One Footcer In The Water

2005-10-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

To answer the question that may have circulated around some people's minds, yes I was in Section 8 for the flare incident in last Friday's 0-0 draw against D.C. United (and I saw it all) but no, I wasn't one of the Soldier Field Five.

I'm too old for that stuff. Though I totally cheer on the kids who did light the flares!

Of course, I was having a bad week so I didn't have my camera. Well I did, but my memory card was full.

And I also wasn't passed out drunk for the past three days after Fulham's shocking 2-0 win over Liverpool at the Cottage. Though I will be drunk by 8:00 a.m. to watch them (hopefully) beat Wigan - though if they lose, it's not like anyone's beating Wigan anyway.

The truth of the whole matter is that I've been trying to get my life together before November starts since I participate in National Novel Writing Month. So, in doing some research, watching a lot of movies, and such, footcer hasn't always been the first thing on my mind.

However, rumors of this blog's demise are highly exaggerated.

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Great news on the "shut up you dirty Scots" front. The United States will be playing a friendly against Scotland next month - in Scotland. I'm glad to see that the United States is choosing to play European teams on their own turf for the leadup.

Though the preferred match against the Czech Republic is of course not going to happen as they're fighting for their World Cup life on the same day. I like the matchup but it's not really the kind the United States needs. Sure it's the kind of starless team that we might draw in the group stage which is great. But it's not the kind of superstar matchup, need to shut down a powerhouse up front that we'll need once we get past the group stages (of course that's an if, but I'm being optimistic).

Ukraine was sitting right there but instead we choose to play someone who speaks our own language.

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Speaking of playing for their lives though, I really do feel bad for the San Jose Earthquakes. They play their asses off all season to get the Supporter's Shield and then let a much inferior L.A. smack them around. Unlike New England who should be able to come back from a 1-0 deficit to MetroStars (probably on a last second Taylor Twellman goal to send it into extra time), San Jose looks to be done.

And then maybe we'll finally know if this is their final game in California.

Other than that, I swear I'll write some more stuff this week.

Speaking In Limericks In Manchester

2005-10-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

Even though he's expressed disinterest in taking the Ireland job (although once Brian Kerr is fired - as early as tomorrow - we'll have to see), he's definitely practicing talking in limericks and riddles.

Or at least he's confusing the hades out of me.

Sir Alex is claiming that the Champions League is Manchester United's best chance of silverware this season.

Hmm...

Wait a second, didn't a certain Red Devils team come in second in a certain English domestic cup last year? Somehow I think beating Bolton or (yikes) Arsenal will be a lot easier than beating Bayern Munich or Ajax.

Maybe I don't want Alex Ferguson taking over my second favortie national side since he's obviously gone senile.

Then again, he may just have a competition without Chelsea in it to win anything. Maybe falling to the UEFA Cup would be their best chance of getting silverware. :)

Arsenal, on the other hand, may as well just pack it up so Alex has got something on his big rivals. You know things have gone from much bad to much worse when you lose to West Bromwich Albion and when Martin Jol has room to call you average.

Strange things happen when you're a.w.o.l. for almost a fortnight, eh?

West Brom, however, had quite a bit of a bee in their bonnet this weekend. In an interview on BBC last week, FIFA President Sepp Blatter did everything but accuse them of throwing matches by benching their best players when the big boys come to town.

Of course, they wouldn't really need most of their big boys to beat Arsenal as of late.

Oh why, oh why do the schedule makers hate Fulham? Never has one point felt so good. Never.

The International Break Is Over

2005-10-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

So I was just watching "American Soccer" on Gol TV and they made an announcement that made my night. Somewhere in the deep, dark reaches of the dungeon of Garber's mind (or, well, technically U.S. Soccer) it was decided that the Supporter's Shield winner was going to be one of the teams representing the United States in the CONCACAF Champions Cup (with the MLS Cup winner being the other).

Is this true? Does this begin next year? I hadn't heard.

In other great news on this side of the pond, the gauntlet has been thrown down for Toronto to get together a stadium and expansion proposal for 2007 - it's Halloween. So by the MLS Cup, hopefully we'll know one of the next rounds of expansion. Hopefully they'll represent a better cross-border rival than Cardiff City, Wrexham, or Swansea in the Coca-Cola Leagues in England.

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Speaking of Welsh minnows, besides Ryan Giggs announcing he's going to try to play for Wales in 2010 qualfying, they had the good news today of beating Azerbaijan 2-0 to salvage not last in their group.

But, of course, that was just a silly transition to the actual qualifying that mattered in Europe. By now, I think everybody has heard that the following teams have qualified from UEFA: Netherlands, Ukraine, Portugal, France, Italy, England, Serbia, Croatia, England, Poland, and Sweden.

So, unfortunately we won't get to see the second place battle that Sven seems to have been hoping for in all of his qualifying antics: England v. Sweden. And, honestly, it would be in question who he was rooting for. No, sadly, both qualified (England not even needing to do it through the back door as they took care of Poland on a late goal by - who else - Frank Lampard (why is Steven Gerrard still starting?) to secure a 2-1 win in Manchester).

But even without the battle in Sven's head, there are six interesting teams in the second place playoffs: Czech Republic, Turkey, Slovakia, Switzerland (on goal differential over Israel), Norway, and Spain.

Of course the favorites there have to be the Czechs, Spanish, and Turks. By nature of the FIFA rankings, the 4th, 8th, and 12th ranked teams respectively get to draw the three lesser nations (though all three definitely have a shot). The draw takes place on Friday and then the real speculation begins.

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How much do the Uzbeks have to be hating life right now?

In a result that was pretty much inevitable as soon as the first leg of Asia's playoffs had be replayed, Uzebekistan finds themselves having to watch Bahrain lose to Guatemala (sure I'm putting the cart a little before the horse but Trinidad is not going to win - that's almost a universal certainty) on television instead of getting to do it themselves.

Yes, the former Soviet republic that had a chance to go to Bahrain with a 1-0 lead, instead were forced to replay their home leg. As soon as that tied 1-1, they had to know the dream was over. Sure enough, Bahrain dug in and came up with a 0-0 draw at home to advance to play CONCACAF's fourth on away goals.

Of course hindsight is 20/20, but what team would say, "yeah, let's replay this really tough match even though we got a win."

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By the way, I was really hoping to report to end this that Serbia v. Bosnia went off without a hitch, but alas that political footcer ball was a little too hot still. Six fans were seriously injured in match related violence.

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But to close on a happy note - this just in...Clint Dempsey's sister is hot! That's some news you'll probably get a few other places too but I just had to say it. :)

Home Field Advantage Just Isn't For MLS

2005-10-10T06:39:00.000-07:00

Again I'm still loving how the English can freak out even when their team wins a game they're supposed to. They won in Chelsea of 2004/5 style with Frank Lampard scoring on a penalty in the 24th minute. Sure one call different and England tied the talent challenged Austria (matching them with neighbors Germany in that regard) for the second time in qualifying but they qualified.

But there was something good that came out of all of the commotion - another look at Peter Crouch (the world's favorite "baby giraffe") in action. And, of course, the flood of "he's got great touch for a big man" (though not in this match apparently). The Guardian decided they were sick of hearing that statement and searched the rest of the news for alternate phrasology.

My favorite comes from Michael Owen:

"He's fantastic on the ground but he's obviously really tall."

That man's got a future in sportscasting. Sign him up right now. :)

And while we're at it, perhaps he has an inside track on the seeding formula since apparently no one knows.

There were a lot of other international games this weekend but I did such a good job of ignoring the run-up and not giving my usual pithy predictions that I may as well continue the streak. Especially since I really don't want to mention the United States result.

Pulling all of those players out of MLS for nothing.

Though the good news is that with all of the outs is it sorted out the Eastern Conference playoff picture nearly perfectly. With New England missing key players they could only tie Kansas City but that was just enough to clinch the east. D.C. United, maybe missing players I couldn't tell, however lost to MetroStars meaning that they come in second as the Fire (with an experimental lineup) lost and come in third.

The only question now is 4th place with Kansas City and MetroStars tied.

But here's what I don't understand. So, apparently in contrast to both the rest of the footcer world and sports in the United States in general, the home pitch advantage means you start on the road in a two-legged playoff. Which is great for the Fire and all but I still don't get it.

With the Fire missing the playoffs the last two seasons, I hadn't noticed that. But what is MLS thinking making the reward for a better season record having to stress out about winning at home in the second leg if you lost on the road in the first?

In the end it's just another reason to wonder if MLS has lost their minds. But, hey the Fire are doing better than Fulham so I won't really gripe that much.

The Footcer World Tour Continues

2005-10-05T19:58:00.000-07:00

So I've been taking a little international break myself (though without leaving Chicago oddly enough). Of course the footcer world hasn't stopped turning in the meantime but I have been lacking the energy to really pay attention to the news (amazing how an English or Scottish accent blurs together when you're really tired).

As I begin this with the goal to go to sleep at a reasonable hour for once, it appears as the Fire finally got their act together against Kansas City tonight (though it took them injury time in the second half to get the tie) to clinch a playoff spot. While it appears as though Kansas City has the tie break on a +2 head-to-head goal differential (the season series was 1-1-2), I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Fire appear like they'll be the three seed as D.C. United is easily dispatching Real Salt Lake.

I've taken quite an interest in the results of the match since me and my Fire buddy Nicole may be flying east to Boston or Washington D.C. to see the Fire's first road away game (which now looks to be the 22nd or 23rd). Too keep plane fares down, I'm now rooting for one or the other to clinch soon, I don't care who.

And the sad part is that while I'm there, I'll probably get more entries in than I did in the past week. :)

Speaking of travel, my Everton loving buddy Todd just got back from his honeymoon in Panama (at which point he probably felt no sadness about the Toffees since, well, he had other things on his mind) and came back with the report that Central American leagues suck. Hardly news but he did come back with the impression that they really like MLS down in central America. Perhaps MLS should concentrate on overseas revenue much like Manchester United. :)

Though of course the ultimate footcer destination is still Brazil. But, while we can't all make it there, Real Madrid's core decided last weekend to bring it to the world demonstrating some of the strangest goal celebrations the world has ever seen.

Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos swear they're not trying to taunt their opponents writhing on the ground after goals and leapfrogging each other on the pitch. And I believe them. They're just demonstrating Carnivale for Spain. They should be getting paid by the Brazilian Tourism Bureau or something.

It looks like Rio Ferdinand is also very interested in traveling. But he doesn't want to go all the way to Brazil. He just wants his ticket to Germany paid for. Or, well he wants to make it to Germany at all. If he has issues against Austria, his younger brother Anton from West Ham, however, has a better shot of making the England squad.

Someone is going on vacation for certain or a certain group of people. The German national team is planning on vacationing in Italy. Perhaps they can gain some talent from the country as well.

Though if they really wanted that, they should probably travel to Brazil.

From Australia To Mexico, Footcer's Back

2005-10-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

So yeah, how about Reading. They kicked some serious butt this weekend, right? Well, it wasn't without controversy on the Sheffield United end but come on you Royals and all that (Bobby Convey needs a new pair of World Cup shoes and all that)!

For the third weekend in a row, talking about the Premiership is just too painful. Though, thankfully, Manchester City sent Everton further into the depths of hades.

And what do you know? David Moyes is finally taking my (and a lot of other people's advice) and resting Tim Cahill. Or well, I should say that he's trying to force Australia to bench Cahill in their upcoming friendly against Jamaica at Craven Cottage.

I just hope he doesn't curse Fulham's home pitch since they're doing bad enough on their own. :(

---

The expletives I want to use to describe Wigan right now are innumerable. That little f*c*ing team is doing stuff with nothing that is making much larger teams from much larger cities extremely upset. Though at this point it's like the words Wigan and upset should no longer be used in the same sentence.

Wigan is pissing me off. There's no mincing words on that.

They're like that precocious kid in movies and TV shows that is "wise behind their years" and make the grown-ups look like fools. At first there's a certain novelty to the small character's spunk ("ah look, little Wigan is acting like an Italian village team in Serie A challenging Chelsea in their first game before falling like they're supposed to.") but eventually you just want to scream at the scream for them to get back in their place ("that kid needs to be locked in their room.").

It's so rare for a team from such a small city to make it into the Premiership that I guess it's something that the league wasn't prepared for.

Whatever it is, I wish Wigan would just go back to playing rugby.

---

Speaking of which, I'd like to thank the NFL for playing a game in Mexico City. The stadium looks packed and if they can get the Mexicans hooked on football instead of footcer it can be nothing but a good thing (though watching Univision and Telemundo and according to the linked article, Mexico and Mexicans is/are already in love with "futbol Americano").

Except it didn't work with the Europeans so I wouldn't expect this experiment to work either. :)

Though I have to say it's little too late to short circuit at least the next generation of Mexican footcer players as the baby baby Tri won the U-17 World Championships 3-0 over Brazil.

Not that I want the United States to be the top team in the region by anything other than their own successes or anything. ;)

Things To Be Ashamed Of Or Not

2005-09-29T19:28:00.000-07:00

If you want something to feel proud of as a United States based footcer fan check out last week's BBC Radio Five Live's "Fighting Talk" (which is, by the way, the absolute best sports pundit show on Earth) on mp3. I won't say anymore, but it's a beautiful thing. But check it out soon because the new one will be on the interweb before the sun rises in the United States.

Something to be not as proud of was pointed out by Du Nord. MLS is ranked the 71st best top flight footcer league in the world in their rankings of all things club related.

Now Du Nord makes the point that 71st ranks the MLS as just ahead of India. But that analysis (though it was made as a joke) is a little faulty. Here's the problem with the International Federation of Football History and Statistics ranking formula. The criteria are as follows:

"The classification of the best leagues of the world is made objectively without any out side influence of any sort. We follow the criteria that the level of performance of a league is reflected by the best classified teams of that league who in turn usually represent their country in international club competitions. If one looks at the football power-houses of the world, one notices that regularly 4 or 5 clubs of their leagues are always competing in con tinental competitions. By adding the points won in all competitions by the five best placed clubs of each league, we have the points for the country which in turn helps to establish a fair classification. It is important to note that only the yearly classification is representative, since all competitions move along the whole season and over twelve months, we have an objective view of the best. This system has been used since 1991, and it is recognized today as the most precise in rating the leagues of the world."

Their criteria is going to be unnaturally biased against CONCACAF whose club competitions are basically a joke. For one thing, the main club cup here doesn't have five teams from any league to even carry the banner (Mexico only qualifies four if I remember correctly). For second, the league is so short that there's really not a huge set of data to analyze (whereas in UEFA or the AFC the competition goes on ad infiniteum). Though I think their methodology counts knockout phase relatively equally.

A few other interesting things come out of these statistics. The first is that the world is considering the wrong four when it talks about the Big Four European Leagues - England, Spain, Italy, and Germany.

Sure enough La Liga, the Premiership, and Serie A are the top three leagues in the world (in that order which might surprise the English types but not a lot of others) according to the rankings (though Italy is tied with Brazil). But the fourth best league in Europe isn't the Bundesliga. It turned out it's League One in France - by over 100 points over Germany. Too bad I can't stand Lyon's domination enough to care about the fourth league in Europe. :)

More promising for the United States is the rankings of the individual teams. The MLSers come in at the following slots:

#273 Kansas City Wizards
#317 D.C. United

"What's so great about that?" one might ask. Here's why it shows promise. Ranked below DC United are the following Champions League and UEFA Cup qualifiers: Dinamo Tiblisi and Malmo. In the gap between the Wizards and D.C. United are: Lokomotiv Plovdiv and Maccabi Haifa. And those were just the names that stuck out (because I'm too exhausted to come up with the full list).

Amongst the general top league sides from all over the world ranked below the Wizards are: Cruz Azul, Racing Santander, Twente Enschede, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Real Socieadad, Denizlispor, Siena, Livorno, Charlton Athletic, and Messina. There's also a certain west London team who lost to the Columbus Crew and are ranked #328.

So by all accounts, the two MLS entries who crack the top 350 are actually better than four Premiership teams (plus at least couple that miss the list completely) according to the rankings. While I don't know if that lends credence to my contention that a couple of MLS teams could make the playoff spots (at least) in the Colaship or not, but it doesn't hurt it. :)

By the way, Catholica Universidad, the team that knocked D.C. United out of the Copa Sudamericana, they're #51 in the world according to the rankings. Just saying is all.

Though having said that, I question the entire list since the #1 club team in the world right now according to their formula is: Inter Milan. Chelsea ranks #14 behind Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, and Arsenal.

On what planet is Inter Milan the best team? Sure if they win the Champions League this year (as the betters have them as one of the favorites of doing), I'll have to eat my hat but I'm thinking it won't happen.

And in what world is Real Madrid #36 and Barcelona #37 (both behind Celtic)?

Fate, I sound like one of those people who knock the FIFA rankings on this one. ;)

---

There are a couple things for Germany to be ashamed about besides having the Bundesliga lose its status as the fourth best league in Europe and both involve the World Cup.

The first is beyond Germany's control but the name and likeness of its World Cup hosting is being used in an internet phishing scam. FIFA warns to avoid taking seriously all e-mails that advertise a FIFA lottery giving away rewards for information. So, there's your footcer public service announcement for this decade. :)

The second act is just shameful by the Germans (and I'm only saying this half jokingly) and involves hiring a passion play director to direct the opening ceremonies of the World Cup.

Well, gee, let's think about this for a second. When was the last time Germany hired passion play types to get heavily involved in a sporting event? Perhaps it was the 1936 Olympics. Maybe they're just trying to scare Israel off from qualifying as they could possibly do early next month (though now it's an outside shot involving some crazy France, Switzerland, and Ireland scenarios).

Yeah, that was in as poor a taste as Germany hiring the director. But two can play that game. And my embarrassment is more easily forgotten. :)

Tracking Down Jose Mourinho's Safe Area

2005-09-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

Poor Jose Mourinho. It seems as though he's adopted the Chris Rock strategy for trying to gain popularity. He's started a new interview strategy of "Everybody Hates Chelsea."

In his sudden fit of paranoia, he's established that there are only about 200,000 possible Chelsea fans in the entire universe. Now, Jose being the master tactician that he is established it scientifically by limiting the space where possible Chelsea fans might exist to a GPS-ish accuracy.

"It is the world against Chelsea. The Fulham Road, the King's Road and Setubal - my place in Portugal which is very small, only 50,000 people - are the only ones with us. Apart from those places it is the world against us."

I shouldn't quite call it that accurate since he seems to forget that the Fulham Road, not surprsingly, starts in Fulham where it intersects with the Fulham Palace Road - ground zero for Fulham support. So even those he thinks are for him are partially against him. :) Though I think that all the bandwagon Chelsea fans all over the world are scratching their heads as to why they're left out.

Since it's the group stage of the Champions League that he's talking about, I'm thinking for this he might be right. However, once it's in the knockouts, he'll be surprised (how he didn't learn this last year I don't know) how many people root for Chelsea just because they're an English team.

Though being involved in footcer for as long as he has, it's outrageous that he doesn't realize that most neutrals root for the underdog (this is true in any sport). I think he just needs to get used to that fact now that Chelsea is no longer the upstarts displacing Manchester United and Arsenal, but now they're the targets. Jose is not in Porto anymore.

Actually, today he's in Liverpool but the GPS location, I'm not sure. :)

---

Sarcastic clapping has become the new swearing at referees. I can't believe in my giant screed against other teams from Monday I forgot Portsmouth.

In their 1-0 loss to Bolton last weekend, Alain Perrin (aka "the poor team's Arsene Wenger") got ejected from the match for sarcastically applauding the referee about a call. I'm not sure exactly what he was expecting after Wayne Rooney and a La Liga player (whose name I forget) got ejected from games for doing the same thing.

What I really can't believe about the whole situation, however, is that the FA let him get off without a touchline ban for Pompey's next match. If anything is true in the EPL it's that managers have the spotlight more than players. And, well, they should be a little more mature at the end of the day since it's their job to control situations, not create them.

It's one thing for Wayne Rooney to be a bad role model but who on Earth could have expected him to be a bad role model for Alain Perrin?

While the FA didn't dole out any punishment, there may have been reprocussions from a higher power. Almost immediately after Perrin was let off the hook it was announced that Tresor Lua Lua, pretty much the only player clicking in the south coaster's offense, has malaria and will miss approximately two weeks.

He seems to have picked it up while on national duty for his home country the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the last international break.

Now, it's been a big story this season that managers are getting really upset about injuries being picked up while stars play for their national teams. But what kind of outrage is this development going to cause?

Are the powers that be in the coaching ranks going to suggest the players all wear GPS systems to make sure they don't travel into any disease areas?

Or maybe mandate that it's only safe for them to travel to those limited areas where Chelsea fans live. At least, that could be the case if Jose Mourinho gets involved.

I'll Kick Alex Ferguson's Dog If He'd Like

2005-09-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

Since Fulham seems to be in a terminal tailspin right now (not that anyone except us supporters expected otherwise) with no respite in sight entertaining Manchester United at the Cottage next weekend, I'm left with nothing to do except for make fun of other teams who are worse off. ;)

Target #1 of course is Everton who with Sunderland's unexpected victory against Middlesbrough find themselves pretty much where everyone expected them to be two seasons ago - in last place in the Premiership with three points in total.

Now, there are still those who say that sacking David Moyes might be a little premature (such as chief executive Keith Wyness). But I say that it's possibly the one thing that might save the team from being one of only a handful of teams to play in European competitions and be relegated the same year (and to the best of what I've seen, it's only happened to UEFA Cup teams and never to a Champions League qualifier).

Here's why I say this - it's entirely Moyes' fault the Everton offense is sputtering - only one goal in six matches. Or, well not entirely his fault since James Beattie and Lee Carsley are out. But, there is one move that the embattled coach could choose to make at any given point that he's refused to - bench Tim Cahill.

Flashback to last season - Everton's no offensive dynamo either scoring 45 goals but who lead the team? Tim Cahill with 11 (nearly doubling second place tiers Darren Bent, Duncan Ferguson, and Leon Osman).

But see the problem with Tim Cahill is he's Australian. Not just Australian but a really proud Australian who insists on playing every meaningless game for his home country. I mean, come on, they could have beat the Solomon Islands with Cahill watching from a comfortable chair in Liverpool. But the midfielder insisted on flying halfway around the world. That is not even to mention the fact that he played for the socceroos in the Confederations Cup.

And he didn't even pull a Jared Borgetti and take a nice long siesta on a mysterious beach somewhere. No, as soon as it was done, he reported to Everton's training facilities like a good little camper.

Unless he's borrowed some of Adrian Mutu's coke, he's not superhuman and that whole adventure has got to be taking a toll on him. He's played in 516 of 540 minutes for Everton this year so obviously he's pretending not to be tired but his 0 goals and 1 assist in the six games states otherwise.

In a situation like that it's up to manager to step in a sit the young man down until he gets his legs back under him. Perhaps Moyes is trying to hold out until the international break but if Everton loses again this weekend to Manchester City, he might not get the chance to explain that was his strategy all along. I mean I dropped Tim Cahill and I'm not even that good a fantasy manager. :)

---

Target #2 is the usual suspect - Manchester United. Now, I think as is the usual the spoiled and prissy fans at Old Trafford are overreacting. But as usual Sir Alex Ferguson is not making matters any better by pouting and storming off stage at his Champions League press conference today.

While I wish I could find a picture of him sucking his thumb after that reaction (I'm sure someone on bigsoccer.com has doctored a picture into doing so), this is not the face of a defiant man by any means:

But it's alright, his right hand (yes)man Arsene Wenger was there to defend him. The fact that he still denies he pretty much echoes everything Ferguson says (and vice-versa is amazing, but to be fair to him, here's Arsene's full quote as reported in the press vis-a-vis the fans booing Ferguson at Old Trafford after the loss to Blackburn (I can't mention that nearly enough):

"You know I am not his best friend, but I found it really appalling. Of course like the players we are only as a good as our last game, but what this guy has done for the club, I find it horrendous and nearly unbelievable."

Or to paraphrase: "I'm shocked, shocked that the Manchester United supporters are not letting Ferguson live purely on reputation. Why soon the fans at Highbury could realize that we've already lost two matches and turn on me."

With all this going on, it's a small wonder why David Beckham wants to renew his contract at Real Madrid. Though apparently his Spanish isn't good enough yet to realize his current club coach is about to be fired way before Alex Ferguson is.

---

And finally, I thought there was a bit of good news for Newcastle United (though now that they're winning, I can't really make fun of them) in that they got rid of Kieron Dyer (though he's not a player they really want to get rid of for anything except for bad memories) - to the Notting Hill Nothings no less (as long as no one points out that QPR play an entire neighborhood away from Notting Hill, I'm going to keep using it).

But alas, it was West Brom's Lloyd Dyer (who I'm not sure is related or not) who is being cursed by being sent to the little stepbrother of the other West London teams.

Here's an interesting tangential fact, Arsenal currently has the first best record in London behind Chelsea, Tottenham, Charlton, and West Ham with only a better record than a team I won't mention that play in the most wonderful place on Earth right on the River Thames.

Not mentioning that fact makes it easier to make fun of Arsenal, Newcastle United, and even throw in Colaship QPR for fun. :) And no I'm not making fun of QPR in advance of next year when Fulham and QPR are in the same division again. :(

Another I Don't Want To Talk About It Premiership Weekend

2005-09-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the San Jose Earthquakes (I think if they are moved after all this, they should become the Western Wanderers) on becoming the Western Conference Champions with tonight's 1-1 draw with FC Dallas.

Back at the start of the season, who would have thought they would clinch before the New England Revolution? Who would have thought San Jose would even be contending for much more than the Western Conference playoffs (which, come on let's be honest, were decided as soon as Kansas City was realigned to the Eastern Conference).

What was amazing about the match was that both teams actually really cared. It seems as though with Carlos Ruiz out, his aura spread to the rest of the team as it was quite a chippy affair.

Not that New England didn't have their own accolades today as a late winner that, surprisingly, wasn't scored by the usual suspect for such an achievement Taylor Twellman became the first team in the Eastern Conference to clinch a playoff spot. The Rev's magic number (which supporters have been calculating on BigSoccer since May) is now 4. A combination of gaining four points from the Revolution or dropping four points by D.C. United and the Revolution hang their second conference champions banner next year (and first outright since in 2002 they were awarded the ECC by a tiebreak over the Columbus Crew).

Meanwhile Colorado moved within two points of Los Angeles for the third playoff spot (with a game in hand) trying to avoid a first round matchup with the Earthquakes who have only lost one out of their last 19 matches.

But the best part of the Rapids match had to be the goal celebration by Dedi Ben-Dayan. This wasn't it but it does closely resemble what it looked like. I'm not sure this picture is even entirely work safe. There seems to be some pretty intimate stuff going on here. :)

---

This morning, before the debacle of missed chances that again befell Manchester City (please get well Andy Cole, you're the only hope), the Carling Cup third round was announced and there are some absolutely amazing matchups. Or, well, they're intriguing as the Premiership and Colaship now stand but since the matches don't happen until October who knows at that point. Here are the six matches I see as best in the round:

***

Gillingham at Doncaster - the team that eliminated Manchester City faces the team that eliminated Portsmouth. The draw means there will be at least one League One upstart in the 4th round.

Liverpool at Crystal Palace - every Reds supporter should be salivating over this revenge match. It was Crystal Palace that pretty much cost Liverpool 4th place last year (not that it all didn't work out for them in the end of course) winning 2-1 in London at the end of last April.

Charlton at Chelsea - nothing about today's performances would lead anyone to think that Charlton won't be in the top three in the Premiership in four weeks (especially with Manchester United losing at Old Trafford to Blackburn for the first time in 43 years today). It could be a Cup battle of first versus second in the Premiership that doesn't involve Chelsea and Arsenal.

Sheffield United at Reading - take exactly what I wrote in the last snippet but substitute "Colaship".

Millwall at Mansfield - if there's a draw that next year's Conference team can win in the third round of the Carling Cup it's this one (Millwall, quite simply and I've wanted to say this all season, is pants).

Leeds at Blackburn - despite today's shock, this is kind of matchup that every neutral loves to see. A bottom of the Premiership team (though after today's win, Blackburn are mid-table I don't expect that to last) against a top of the table Colaship team. This is what second division dreams are made of. And, as an added bonus, it's a sweet, old-timey reunion between Eddie Lewis and Brad Freidel.

***

Fulham drew West Brom at home so that's somewhat good news. Both teams will still be in the relegation zone barring a miracle at Tottenham on Monday for the Cottagers so the Carling Cup may be all either has to play for. But, it could also be an awful snorefest as both are more worried about Premiership survival as the 10th game will have just passed.

---

The Colaship reached the magical 10-game plateau today. You know that mystical spot that is kind of like Nirvana. "Wait until the league reaches the 10th game before you start making predictions," the pundits say, "by then it should be enlightening."

Well, Sheffield United and Reading just keep on winning. This doesn't mean as much as in the Premiership, of course, but it could be just like MLS, everyone fighting for the four playoff spots after these two gain automatic promotion.

After ten games, the Colaship standings are as follows (Leeds has only played nine so I gave them a little star):

1. Sheffield United (9-1-0) 28 pts.
2. Reading (7-1-2) 23 pts.
***
3. Watford (5-2-3) 18 pts.
4. Luton (5-2-3) 18 pts.
5. Wolverhampton (4-2-4) 16 pts.
6. Stoke (5-4-1) 16 pts.
***
7. Southampton (3-1-6) 15 pts.
8. QPR (4-3-3) 15 pts.
9. Leeds (4-3-2) 14 pts.*
10. Ipswich (4-4-2) 14 pts.
NOTE: Cardiff and Crystal Palace also have a game in hand and should they win that game, they would be in the top 10.

Does that look as refreshing to everyone else as it does to me? I mean besides the fact that the Notting Hill Nothings (a geographically incorrect nickname but I love the way it sounds) are in 8th. :)

---

Thank you to Alex Ferguson for the most honest statement of the year. He didn't try to spin the loss to Blackburn (which I just love saying over and over) and followed through the mid-week statements from his team camp (though not by him) that Manchester United had to beat Blackburn and Fulham to have any shot at the title.

And, after dropping all three points today, he basic said, Manchester United is now playing for pride:

"I am concerned at the gap between us and Chelsea but I am more concerned with getting our game back together and playing with enjoyment and passion."

Well if it's fun the way Blackburn has fun, I just have to make the request to whoever can control it that Manchester United not injure Brian McBride or Luis Boa Morte next weekend. :)

Meanwhile, in contrast, Arsene Wenger is still living in a fantasy world. Despite drawing at West Ham today (which is actually a good result unless you consider your team a title contender) Wenger insists the race for the title is not over:

"If everyone is right about the championship, then let's stop, give them the trophy and then start again. If you think it is over, that is all we can do because it will be really boring until the end of May."

But if I were in Wenger's shoes, I might want the season to end today since it's more embarrassing to miss a Champions League spot after seven games than to miss one after 38. Though I'm sure in the end Arsenal will end up top four (since despite what they've been doing this year, they're only one point out of Europe right now).

Have A Hearts Team, Score Against Chelsea

2005-09-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

We have the answer as to who is going to be the first team to score against Liverpool this season and shockingly it's Birmingham. There was a little bit of everything in this game - an own goal, a penalty kick, both teams actually scoring a goal from open play (which is something that hasn't happened to Liverpool all year). And, in the end, the result was much the same, just more exciting - Tyerpool 2, Suckingham City 2.

The thing that no one knows yet is who is going to be the first team to score against Chelsea. The Sun, however, in an ask and you will receive move, has offered 10,000 pounds to the first player that does. With the 0 goals conceded, I'm sure they'd rather take the beer offered in Germany in pure relief.

Plus, with the amount of goals that Chelsea is scoring themselves, the one goal probably won't do much. It would be funny, though, if it was some junior player who made his week's wages.

It would also be funny if Chelsea drops points before Hearts. Hearts now sit at 8-0-0 in the SPL by beating Rangers today 1-0.

There was one streak broken in the game, however, as Czech striker Rudi Skacel didn't score for the first time in eight games. But, with his seven goals in seven games (all singles surprisingly) he already destroyed the record of amounts of games in a row scoring from the start of the season. The goal did still come from a Czech, however, Roman Bednar.

Hearts did prove they were human, however, as they lost to (last place) Livingston mid-week in the CIS Insurance Cup.

Not much more yet this morning since I was up pretty late finding Podcasts for my new iPod Nano. One thing that I learned was that Soccergirl, Incorporated has absolutely nothing to do with footcer.

And yet, somehow it still provided hours of enjoyment yesterday. Warning, don't click on that link anywhere that you might get in trouble for doing so. It's even less work safe than my usual "feel the pain" links. :)

By the way, in case it's not obvious, I posted this seemingly pointless entry so Aston Villa will score against Chelsea today. ;)

Nothing Says Excitement Like An Alcohol Fueled Bet

2005-09-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

Now some Chelsea fans have an overinflated idea that their team is not going to lose this season. But the second most dominant team in Europe right now, Bayern Munich, the only other 6-0-0 team in the continent's biggest leagues, has a set of corporate types which are really putting their money where their mouths are.

Bitburger Beer of Frankfurt has offered 1,000 litres of free beer to the supporters of the first team that can beat Bayern.

And, for each game that passes, the kitty goes up another 1,000 litres. In short, a team that beats Bayern Munich on the last match week of the season should no one else have, could supply their supporters with 31,000 litres of free beer.

Now, if a certain major ale of the northeast of England would do the same, there could be some more incentive for teams to beat Chelsea. Or maybe if Peter Kenyon is so confident that Chelsea can't be beat, he should talk to Roman about offering the same offer but with vodka.

It's not like the owner couldn't afford it if he has to pay up.

---

Ironically 31,000 litres of beer may have been the amount of alcohol consumed by a set of Gambian fans who faked an emergency landing for their plane just to watch the U-17 World Championships in Peru.

The Rum Air (because you can't make this stuff up) flight was allowed to land at a small airport in northern Peru and the supporters were actually allowed to attend Gambia's match (a 3-1 win over Quatar). Of course I think this was probably just to avoid an international incident as the flight was chartered by the President of Gambia himself (though he wasn't on board).

---

I think they haven't been sober in Vigo in Spain for at least 18 hours as Celta Vigo is back on top of La Liga after yesterday's 2-1 win over Villarreal (condemning the Yellow Submarines to last after four match days).

Just in case I haven't mentioned this before, Celta Vigo is brand new to the league after a promotion. So West Ham ain't got nothing on them. :)

Meanwhile my pick for second place Valencia pulled out a major shock tying the consensus pick of ever pundit's (or at least every pundit who cares about Spain's) pick to win the league, Barcelona 2-2 at the Nou Camp. It took an 81st minute goal from Deco to salvage the draw.

Why does Barcelona have to copy Real Madrid in everything? Los Galacticos go into the crapper so Barca has to also?

Well I guess the pain of tying Valencia is nothing that a little alcohol can't cure. Though I'm thinking Barcelona are in no position to have anyone put up casks of wine for anyone who beats them.

My Mind Is Cup Tied Right Now

2005-09-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

Nothing says increasing excitement quite like having a series of meetings about increasing excitement in the Premiership.

What I want to know is just what they're planning on doing about it. The two things being cited are television saturation, ticket prices, and lack of competition. The first set of recommendations that could come out of the meetings would be to show less footcer on television in the United Kingdom. Let's see if Sky Sports is willing to negotiate what they've got now.

If attendance keeps falling, TV revenue is the stream that's going to keep a lot of teams going. Ticket prices they can reduce. But lack of competition would take the kind of tough decisions that the EPL isn't willing to make - such as salary caps.

But here's the thing about competition. If you take out Chelsea running away with the league, there is some serious parity in the Premiership this year. Sure the season is only about 15% over but looking at the bottom of the table, there is a serious logjam from Aston Villa all the way down to Everton, all the teams are beating each other - unlike the last few years, no team is really separating themselves out as relegation locks - except for Sunderland.

And there's a similar situation from Bolton to Tottenham looking for European spots.

Anyone who was thinking anything else would happen at the very top than what's happening now coming into the season was deluding themselves. And, even that's not true because Arsenal has looked beatable.

That being said, how about the Carling Cup today?

Too bad it was Manchester City taking the bullet on behalf of underdog supporters everywhere. I am getting extremely worried about my second team as it's pretty obvious Vassell and Sibierski are not a strike pairing that will take City anywhere but into the mix at the bottom. But with Cole gimpy, Ireland too young (and he didn't play well today either), and Fowler still not up to full speed, the blue side of Manchester is going to be screwed for a while.

But I mean, come on, it's Doncaster "Our Ladies Team Is First Rate" Rovers!

What's really disheartening is the fact that City lost the same way in the Carling Cup that they did on the weekend. The possible game winner in extra time hit the crossbar (as did one of the missed penalty kicks). And I've said it elsewhere but that's where Cole makes the difference. He sneaks the same shots in under the crossbar that everyone else on the team seem to be knocking into the woodwork.

Fulham nearly had a similar result but Brian McBride headed one of the biggest goals of his career against Lincoln City to give Fulham a 5-4 win over the League Two side! The reason it's one of the biggest goals he'll ever score is that it happened in injury time of the second period of added extra time.

Had the game gone to penalty kicks, Fulham would probably have lost. The goalie was playing like garbage (thank you Tony Warner from saving Fulham from having to start that guy) and if David James let in three penalty kicks for Manchester City, who knows what Ricardo Batista would have done.

Blackburn, at least had an easy time of it.

How's that for excitement? Though if that fails to raise the excite-o-meter there's are some various other kinds of excitement going on around the footcer world like Djibril Cisse posing nude for a French calendar (though that does nothing for me personally) and Wayne Rooney starting a verbal sparring match with Peter Kenyon.

But, that doesn't really do anything for me either. I'm sure there's more out there, but I'm too depressed to look right now - stupid crossbar!

Feeling The Pain In The Carling Cup

2005-09-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

So much for Bradford being the team to pull the upset in the Carling Cup second round. West Brom pretty much sent the city the message that they should stick to rugby demolishing and demoralizing them 4-1.

However, the day was not without a couple of major surprises. Portsmouth pretty much maintained their Premiership form, practically beating themselves. Jamie Ashdown had the goal that tied the match at 2-2 go off of his backside after it ricocheted off the post (in a move that will now forever be known here as a Tony Warner now that it's happened twice) before Gillingham (current 20th in League One) scored an extra time winner to advance to the third round 3-2.

But I guess that's not a major surprise.

The Spurs loss to Grimsby Town 1-0 on the other hand is Earth shattering (and, well, were I a Tottenham supporter, I wouldn't want to respond to this entry, would I?). Poor Robbie Keane. All week after he scored the tying goal against Aston Villa, he's been asking for a start. From all reports, he didn't play badly but it can't look good for any of the bench players (and there weren't many as Tottenham really fielded a strong lineup) who broke in for this match.

The only other two Premiership or Colaship sides that "crashed out" were Southampton who lost to League Two's Mansfield, and Plymouth who lost to Barnet. But Argyle is barely registering a heartbeat in the Colaship so can we even really count them?

Funny thing about Mansfield. If the season ended today, they'd be in the Conference next year. Their manager just quit and they are the lowest ranked (because the BBC loves to combine all the tables when talking about Cup ties) team left in the competition.

There were other Colaship sides to bid adieu to their Carling Cup hopes but they all went out to other Colaship teams (or in the case of Sheffield Wednesday, a Premiership team). Wolverhampton, Coventry, and Luton all met their unlucky fate head on. Each of them lost by one goal to their equals Watford, Crystal Palace, and Reading respectively.

Sheffield United needed penalty kicks to beat Shrewsbury but at the end of the day, at least the league leaders are still alive. The same can not be said for most other teams at their level. It's not a good year to be a Coca Cola Championship team in the Carling Cup. The survivors from the 24 team league are (in order of current league standings): Sheffield United (1st), Reading (2nd), Watford (3rd), Leeds United (7th), Cardiff (12th), Crystal Palace (14th), Leicester (15th), Norwich (17th), Millwall (22nd), and Burnley (23rd).

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It seems as though it's inevitable that the United States will be paired with Italy in some way at the 2006 World Cup (as the two countries seem to be running into each other at every tournament they play recently). Though if they can turn up a result like the baby baby Yanks did today against their Italian counterparts, it might not be so bad.

The United States U-17s are 2-0-0 at their championships in Peru beating Italy today 3-1. I know absolutely nothing about this level of play, but I'll be a flag waving, chest bumping kind of guy and shout about it to the world anyhow. :)

---

And in today's "feel the pain" story, Reuters has a pleasant link about Argentina and Manchester United defender Gabriel Heinze.

Be thankful because this link is a little further below the belt than the last couple.

Or, I guess you can just count the Tottenham link above as falling under the same category if you're not big on the squint factor.

You'll Have To Excuse Me, I'm Still Shellshocked From Speed

2005-09-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm just going to pretend like this weekend in the English Premier League didn't actually happen. Seriously. I don't want to talk about the games themselves (or else I might put myself in the hospital with a popped blood vessel over the Manchester City match). Yes, tomorrow and Wednesday are the second round of the Carling Cup, so I'll just talk about that instead. :)

The bottom eight survivors of last year's Premiership drop into the tournament in this round (plus the three promoted sides).

The games to watch are:

- Barnsley at Burnley: A bottom dwelling team in the Colaship hosts the sixth place team from League One. This one could be the upset of the day.
- Luton at Reading: Could be a preview of the playoffs in the Colaship (of course I believe they haven't even played each other regular season).
- Cheltenham at Sunderland: A match against a mid-table League Two team could be just what's needed to get the Black Cats their first win of the year in any competition. If they lose, they might as well just forefeit their match in the FA Cup.
- Wolverhampton at Watford: Wolverhampton tries to prove they're the big boys and Watford's a fluke on the road.

Um, yeah, it's a pretty thin list unless you've got a vested interest in the match (goodness I hope Fulham doesn't lose at home to Lincoln City). The only Premiership team who can even be considered slight underdogs are West Brom who face Bradford City at home. Dean Windass may be using this match as a trial for a transfer to a Premiership team in need of offensive help. And poor defensively challenged Albion may serve as an opponent to showcase his skills against "Premiership" competition.

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Luckily there's plenty of other action around Europe. If you haven't looked at La Liga recently it's gotten really odd (this message was brought to you by the Console A Poor Real Madrid Fan Association). After three games of the season, the table has gone haywire. Using North American style record lines for Spain's Champions League participants, Barcelona is 1-1-1 (9th), Real Madrid is 1-2-0 (15th), Real Betis is 1-1-1 (12th), and Villarreal is 0-1-2 (19th). Getafe, Deportivo La Coruna, and Celta Vigo sit top of the table!

I think this weekend may have been the first time in years that both Real Madrid and Barcelona both lost on the same weekend!

It's gotten so strange and not-worldy in Spain that David Beckham was accused by an Espanyol player of slapping him during Real Madrid's weekend match.

Now, logic would say that if Sven were in the crowd, Beckham was just trying to prove that he was tough enough to be a defensive midfielder but as far as I know he wasn't. :)

---

Congratulations to FC Dallas for finally winning at Pizza Hut Park yesterday. Nothing wakes a team up like threating to pour a little Real Salt in their wounds.

Speaking about MLS in a tangential form, does anyone else notice that the big buyout doesn't seem to be Mexican investors looking for a stake in the MLS, but Russians looking to purchase everything they see in the United Kingdom?

While it's worked wonders for Chelsea and Hearts (though their owner has Lithuanian citizenship, I'm pretty sure he was actually born in Russia proper - though at the time of his birth both countries were part of the U.S.S.R. of course).

Now they've come for Aston Villa. Or, well, the rumor mill is flying that a Russian consortium is looking to buy the Villans. The confirmed fact from the club is that they've been approached but it's in the very early stages of negotiation.

So, that means basically you can start coming up with witticisms now. Personally I like Villanov Park.

Villa's been holding out for some time from a number of buyers but Doug Ellis is about one cheeseburger from selling off the club away from his own volition and in the estate courts so this one may be the real deal.

---

This afternoon was the FIFPro Awards. And, of course, no Americans were anywhere near the podium but the world's favorite role model was. :)

Which brings to mind something we do in the United States that the rest of the world should really adopt. Get rid of the Young Player of the Year Awards. I mean they're just silly. The same player can win the award for seemingly years even though there are players coming up behind them that may deserve some recognition.

There needs to be a Rookie of the Year Award pure and simple (or since "rookie" lacks the class that European awards like to put on things call it "first year player" of the year). It should be awarded to one player under 20 from the countries whose leagues are allowed to vote in the FIFPro awards if it is their first full season in any of said leagues.

And for pete's sake! If they're going to keep the Young Player of the Year Award, at least only give out one! I'm sorry but Christiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney shouldn't get young player awards from two different categories!

I'm just wondering how much advice poor Mr. Rooney had to put up with. I mean, the list of people who have come out in the press offering free conseling is just stupendous. Even David James got into the act over the weekend stating that Wayne Rooney needs professional help (but in the nicest way possible).

In the end though, where I think Rooney really needs help desperately isn't in his behavior but in the selection of his tie. Obviously he didn't call David Beckham for advice on that (though thankfully he didn't call Beckham for advice on how to slap an opponent either).

A Boring Entry Defending The "Boring" Premiership

2005-09-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

Not in a very good mood today as far as the footcer world goes. I usually know so much better in fantasy footcer than to start who everyone else does. But, Jermaine Defoe just looked like such a good play today against Aston Villa. And when he stepped to the penalty spot in the first half of today's match, in theory, he could have made my week - instead he broke it.

But it doesn't stop with a missed penalty kick (though it wasn't like he pushed it over the crossbar, it was just stopped by Thomas Sorensen). Had it gone in, the goal by Robbie Keane in the second half would have matched my 2-1 Tottenham prediction. Instead I lost a point for the tie. My +1 this week on I Know The Score just doesn't match my +12 from last week (thank goodness Birmingham and Portsmouth forgot how to score after the 5th minute and matched my 1-1 scoreline exactly).

See how you're feeling right now? That is what a fit of boredom feels like. Boredom is not, as so many Premiership fans seem to be claiming right now, watching Chelsea.

Not that I'm going to defend Chelsea on this one. Over the course of a season one club being dominant, no matter which the team, is boring. But match to match, Chelsea is more interesting to watch - at least when they have the ball - than a lot of teams. Sure, the match isn't really in question when it starts, Chelsea will win. The question is how they'll win. Who will score that brilliant goal that makes the game 1-0?

I think people are forgetting the feeling of anger or disgust or thank goodness a relegation bound team behind us lost they had when Hernan Crespo scored the last second goal to beat Wigan back in week one.

Of course once that first goal is scored, the fans in the stadium or TV viewers may as well leave or turn off the TV and do other, more productive things. Though this year Chelsea does seem to be adding a second goal for a little more value. :)

Perhaps I'm just being contrarian against Arsene Wenger since it was his quote that brought the whole "is Chelsea boring?" debate to the surface. Wenger had the following to say:

"I’m very concerned. I feel the attraction of English football has always been positive but now the trend is to attack less. If this starts to get into the brain of football it will go downhill quickly."

Would I love to see every game in the Premiership end 3-2 or 4-3? Or course I would - I'm an American. :) And I agree with many of the e-mails linked above that the possibility of a barnburner or a nice 6-0 shellacking is what makes leagues like the Eredivisie and Colaship and La Liga (Gol TV has a brilliant, live, La Liga doubleheader with Villarreal playing at 10:00 a.m. U.S. central, followed by Real Madrid at noon) more exciting than the Premiership.

Personally, however, I watch the Premiership because it's the world's best defenders up against the world's best attackers (on aggregate). It's just unfortunate that a good defense will beat a good offense.

I'm just not going to show anyone I'm trying to convert to a footcer fan a Premiership game. :)

But it's hard for me to blame Chelsea for the boring when they've scored more goals this year than anyone! That being said, if I could wave a magic wand and ban the 4-5-1 from being used in England, you bet I would!

You Should Use A Cup For That

2005-09-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

There are many kinds of cups in this world and usually I only talk about the silver kind that can be hoisted in the air. But, Ramblings Of A Soccer Junkie posted a story that I couldn't pass up involving a very different kind of cup. Warning, this link is about as nauseating as the story I once linked to about the Isaac Romo incident.

Now that everyone male has regained consciousness, I'm going to continue on with talk about the U.S. Open Cup and the UEFA Cup - though no less painful.

The first painful question is, how much is the English FA regretting not denying Everton as spot in the Champions League by sticking Liverpool in as the fourth team from the Premiership at this moment (as the Spanish FA did to set a precedent a few years back)?

Of course that decision wouldn't have made much difference in the Champions League as Everton didn't make much difference in the Champions League, but had Liverpool been knocked down to the UEFA Cup, it's pretty improbable they could have invited the shame on the entire league that Everton did in that competition today.

Everton should have known today just wasn't going to be their day when the first thing that happened on the fallback tournament of their European adventure was a bunch of their fans getting stranded at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

Though besides Bucharest being a lovely city to visit in the autumn as the leaves begin to change - yes Footcer, your one stop source for Americanized EPL and eastern European travel coverage - they really didn't miss much.

Everton fell behind in the 27th minute to Dinamo Bucuresti but a goal by Joseph Yobo tied it up in the 30th. Now a goal by a defender can always be looked at two ways. Either you're so far superior that anyone can score in the match or you're so desperate that your front line players aren't producing that you need you backs to score. I didn't see the match (or hear it since it was a BBC and premiumtv.co.uk blackout) but it would seem from the Romanian onslaught that followed the second reason was probably more applicable.

The final scoreline read a depressing 1-5 loss for Everton. Their is a huge change from their usual Premiership scoreline of 0-1 this season. Perhaps there are a bunch of EPL managers on the line to Bucharest right now looking for advice on how to demolish the Evertonian defense. :)

Ordinarily after a crushing blow like that, the team would admit they were toast in the competition (or at least say, "we'll just have to win at home 5-0," as Celtic almost did in the Champions League though against lesser competition than a pretty solid Romanian side) and that they would concentrate on the Premiership, Carling, and FA Cups from now on. Though Everton is quickly seeing their Premiership dreams (even the dreams of staying up) sailing away.

Everton doesn't really seem to know how to right the ship (sorry had to put a couple of shipping references in for a Liverpool team) as evident by the following quote from manager (but for how long who knows) David Moyes, though I appreciate his candor:

"I'll look to make some changes and see if I can find a winning formula because, at the moment, we've not got one."

Well, he better find it quickly or the millions of fans waiting to call "fluke" (and that's just supporters of Liverpool) about their fourth place finish last season who are currently licking their chops are going to go into full attack mode and the knives brough out in response from Everton will be chopping Moyes free.

Folks, we've got our new front runner in the manager firing sweepstakes! ;)

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It was, however, a great day for eastern European teams in general in the competition as defending champions CSKA Moscow (who I swear got booted from the Champions League just to defend their title) won 3-1 over FC Midtjylland from Denmark. Krylia Sovetov also of Russia upset AZ Alkmaar of the Eredivisie 5-3 (though on Russian soil). Alkmaar currently sit on top of the Dutch top table with Feyenoord (who themselves could only tie one of the other Bucharest teams, Rapid, 1-1 at home) and RKC so this is huge.

Another Bucharest team, Steaua (I've been to Bucharest as I mentioned and I don't remember nearly that many stadia there to hold all of these teams) who fell from the Champions League, pummeled Valerenga 3-0 in Norway. Lokomotiv Moscow beat SK Brann 2-1.

Also, Dnipro of Ukraine held Hibs to a scoreless draw in Scotland. Slavia Prague beat Cork City of the Eircom League 2-0.

So, to be fair to Everton, they were just following a storyline. If you were from Great Britain or Ireland and you played an eastern European team, you didn't win. Well that's not entirely true since Bolton beat Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv 2-1 but they fell behind 0-1 and it took an injury time goal from Jared Borgetti to get the victory!

There were 40 matches played today and I'm not going to cover all of them, but there were quite some interesting results if anyone wants to dig deeper.

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No, instead I'll switch gears and come back closer to home to spew my thoughts on the finals of the U.S. Open Cup between Los Angeles and FC Dallas. While I'd have loved to have seen both results turn out different yesterday (and Chicago v. Minnesota final would have been a no lose situation as it would have either been my Fire or a USL-1 team (which is always an interesting propostion) hoisting the cup), it's a good final.

Because it's two teams who seem to have chosen to focus on the Cup when the MLS title is beginning to seem out of reach.

Of course with the playoff system in MLS pretty much anyone can win the title despite how horrible the regular season turns out (but that's another can of worms - four playoff spots now!) but obviously these two teams realize that with their current form, this is the silverware they can hoist.

It's good to see the teams be less narrow minded than the league about the Cup. Everton could even learn from the pain of these two MLS teams and try not to get eliminated in the FA and Carling Cups in the first round they enter too. :)

Feeling In The Spirit Of Shockers

2005-09-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

Being an outspoken proponent of corporate sponsorship of kits in MLS (which goes entirely against my ordinarily politics oddly enough), I'm probably the last person who should be mentioning this but even I have my limits. Did anyone else notice how ironic it is that a team named Universidad Catolica (which is a cognate and hopefully needs no translation from the Spanish) is sponsored by Cristal champagne?

There are a bunch of Real Salt Lake fans at least who should having some serious objections to that particular matchup of team and sponsor. :)

I have to say that I was actually pretty impressed with the way D.C. United played the Chilean side yesterday. The game honestly looked evenly matched for the majority of play and United seemed to have the upper hand at a lot more points than the 1-1 final scoreline would demonstrate - despite what the South American side's coach is babbling on about.

Certainly I agree that Catolica had a lot of great chances (Nick Rimando came up in a way that made MLS proud) but so did D.C. United. Perhaps Jorge Pellicer missed the fact that his team pretty much let Dema Kovalenko, of all players, get onto their goal from the left wing unimpeded five times in the first half. It's been said many times that the only thing separating MLS from many top tier leagues in the world (which, realistically, the top Chilean league isn't one of) is the finishing ability. Dema demonstrated that pretty well but it still felt to me like he was trying out for a stint in South America. :)

Chances are United are not going to fare well in the return leg in a couple of weeks but they still it's was a good showing. But I again find myself saying, if only New England was representing the United States in all of these competitions.

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A showing of a completely different kind, though it did have a flair for the dramatic, was Wayne Rooney's sending off in Spain in Manchester United's 0-0 draw with Villarreal in the Champions League.

There's a few funny aspects to this story. The first is that it happened in front of Sven Goran Eriksson who had to have a little internal giggle that Alex Ferguson can't control Rooney any better than he can. And the second is how the sending off happened.

Rooney, no stranger to any referee anywhere in the world of course, was given a yellow card for a hard tackle on Villarreal's captain. And, rather than just take it, he decided he was going to have a little bit of fun. Pretending to really agree with the referee's decision he started to applaud the ref.

Not taking the taunting lightly, the referee game him a second yellow for dissent (can someone who's plauditing something, even in jest, really be dissenting the same thing) which automatically sent him off.

Now I know I'm a little hard on Wayne Rooney on this blog but I actually have to give him some credit this time. His red card infraction was one of the most creative displays that I've seen from a player arguing a call in any sport. It's certainly more humorous than his usual three year old style tantrum.

So, were I Wayne Rooney, who might be having a good long spell on the bench for the Red Devils, I would usually use this to my advantage. He can use the time riding the pines to come up with newer and more interesting ways of getting sent off.

It can be like Clint Dempsey's goal celebrations but for red cards. Perhaps instead of swinging an imaginary baseball bat after scoring a goal in RFK, Rooney could pretend to smack the referee across the midsection with a cricket bat at Old Trafford (and if his swing is good enough perhaps Lancashire can give him a trial down the road at their Old Trafford with the free time he'll have).

Goodness knows Rooney can gets enough practice of "red card celebrations" to make him the best in the world. :)

---

Arsenal nearly had a similarly shocking result at Highbury, beating FC Thun 2-1 on a last second Dennis Bergkamp goal. Now Villarreal is a much better team than Thun (despite their terrible start in La Liga) and being at home an Arsenal tie would have been a head rolling scenario.

But, see, it's a little unfair since Arsenal had something on their side that Manchester United didn't -- spirit!

Yes, that magical substance that was seemingly limited to high school cheerleaders has found itself into the Gunners' locker room. At least according to Arsene Wenger whose thoughts on the match were as follows:

"We could improve the passing and create more chances, but one positive thing of tonight was that the spirit was good until the last second."

Now, there's spirit and there's spirits and on this occasion, I think Wenger was under the influence of the second to make that quote.

See Sven, see Alex, all you need to pull out games where all seems lost is a little spirit. And, perhaps a little less Wayne Rooney. But he'll take care of that part himself.

Being A, Mostly, Good Boy In Talking Colaship

2005-09-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's the reveal for the new FIFA rankings and so I've got my plastic rain gear on preparing for the crap storm as the United States leapfrogs Mexico and into the top five in the world.

But, in the words of that sage Jose Mourinho on his team's adventures in this year's Champions League, "if they want to start with a clean sheet, I will do the same."

Of course, Mourinho can't entirely leave well enough alone as it's not in his nature and he added one of his classic quotes:

"So, if the competition is absolutely normal without anything strange, I would love that and I would love to be a good boy and to behave well. But if something strange happens, I have to do what I have to do...I don't look to people with bad eyes."

Some day Jose will perfect his English and look back in laughter at how silly he sounded back in the day. :)

Chelsea, of course, let their play do the talking in the end and came away with a win at Stamford Bridge over Belgium's Anderlecht 1-0. Though many people called the performance uninspired (at least it seems to be every source's headlines), they seem to have missed the fact that Chelsea wins 1-0 over pretty much everyone they face.

They could face a rec league team and win 1-0 or they could face Brazil and win 1-0.

Alright, so the first claim is a huge exaggeration but we won't get to find out about the second. Chelsea actually asked the world's #1 to play a friendly for their 100th anniversary and Brazil turned them down.

Chelsea should be a little embarrassed about that since Brazil agreed to play Sevilla for less than half of what Chelsea offered. Though Chelsea could play this the other direction and say that Brazil was just scared. Though Mourinho would probably find some way to make that sentiment sound sillly.

One thing Chelsea should be shocked at is how few people showed up in London for the match. Chelsea only drew a little above 20,000. Sure everyone in the capital was hung over from The Ashes win but when Leeds United outdraws you at the same time in an unattractive proposition of a mid-week game against Sheffield Wednesday (though to be fair Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday is a derby) there might be issues.

That match actually saw something really interesting (besides Wednesday scoring a huge 1-0 upset on the road), an American man marking an American.

Eddie Lewis has been leading Leeds United on a tear in the Colaship but today he met his match, Frankie Simek.

Hearing the BBC commentary of the match this afternoon was just classic, "the two Americans going at it again...Lewis tries to go around his countryman and oh, Simek has been brilliant...Frankie Simek is a good prospect at only 20."

Ain't nothing to make players look better than a match against familiar competition (though I'm not even sure they've done training camp together). It almost felt like Bruce Arena was in the crowd in Leeds.

Elsewhere in the Colaship, Bobby Convey participated in the match of the day as Reading outdueled Crystal Palace 3-2 in festival town (as opposed to the town of today's festivities). Convey had a blank scoreline. However, forgotten Yank Abroad, DaMarcus Beasley more than made up for it with an assist on Jan Venegoor of Hesselink's goal in PSV's 1-0 win over Schalke 04 in the Champions League.

However, the bigger news out of the Reading/Palace match is that Andy Johnson got injured for Palace. But, luckily Palace recently acquired Clinton Morrison. Arsenal should watch and learn while its valuable to have a striker as good as your first (though in the Gunners' case, that's pretty difficult) as Thierry Henry's injury will now keep him out up to six weeks.

Suddenly Arsenal's passing up of Michael Owen is looking like a worse idea than it did at the time.

And, in the non-surprise of the day, Norwich found yet another way to lose falling behind to Watford 2-0 in the first 25 minutes and never quite clawing their way back (as Southampton did). Norwich after eight games now sit tied with Sheffield Wednesday in the highest spot in the relegation zone - and Wednesday has a game in hand. Milwall won today (their first win of the season) beating Wolves on the road so Norwich now sits two points above last.

Perhaps they were looking too far ahead as the first East Anglia derby of the season with their rivals Ipswich is this Sunday at Portman Road. Perhaps they're taking the Jose Mourinho tactic of looking way too far ahead. But Norwich is not Chelsea so it bit them in the behind.

Hammers Four: The Wrath Of Footcer

2005-09-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness! "The cricket" is finally over and my main news Premiership news and rumor and silly manager's quote source BBC Radio Five Live can finally get back to covering a less inane sport full time. Well, they'll still of course have a bunch of blather on rugby but at least the rules in that make some sense.

Yes, I know I sound like one of those anti-footcer people here in the United States picking on cricket but in what other sport can a defensive team get hammered for 300 runs and it's called a great defensive stand? I mean, a bowler can get pounded for 50 by one batter, get one out and it's called a great performance?

It's like saying Aston Villa had a great moral victory today only getting beat by West Ham 0-4 because it seriously could have been much worse!

Looks like I seriously underestimated just how pissed off the Hammers were about "Green Street Hooligans." when I made fun of them in the entry, "West Ham Whining About The World's Spotlight." The Villans sure felt their wrath. I hope they let it all out now and have nothing left for the Fulham match on Saturday. With the Cottager's defense, today's game could have been 8-0! :(

West Ham could have loaned Blackburn and Bolton a few goals yesterday to actually made that an interesting game. I hope the Magpies enjoy their first win this weekend playing at the Northwest Pentitentiary All-Stars - that team has scoring issues! :)

The most shocking aspect of the West Ham victory, however, was who got the first hat trick of the Premiership season -- Marlon Harewood, West Ham's striker that's not a pensioner (yes, technically he has played for long enough to earn a footcer pension upon retirement, don't mix hairs with my age jokes)!

I guess with Thierry Henry out for up to a month the race for the first to three was wide open, but this is a man who hasn't scored a premiership goal in seven seasons! The last goal he scored in the top flight was for Nottingham Forest back when they were in the Premiership!

And, everyone's going to pick him up tomorrow in fantasy footcer. May they waste their money in peace! FC Footcer actually saw pain from this match on Yahoo.com since I dropped the scorer of West Ham's fourth goal, Yossi Benayoun when Michael Owen became available. FC Footcer on Premierleague.com, well we shant talk about that team as it's dead to me. :)

What a genuinely unpredicatable week in the Prem! Screw England beating Australia in sillyball, this was the upset of the day!

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But the anger was all around on this particular day. Before the spirit of international brotherhood that is the Champions League starts tomorrow, there was chaos all over the footcer world.

It's the usual eastern European suspects. In the news today, we have Croatia vowing to crack down on hooligans, police arresting 77 fans in post-match violence in Bulgaria, and Polish club fans rioting in the streets.

Reuters doesn't need an eastern European report, all they need to do is publish various police reports from around the region.

But, the story coming out that's really disheartening is one coming out of the Ivory Coast. Didier Drogba has vowed not to retire from international competition after his compatriots or "supporters" (in the loosest sense of the word) from the Ivory Coast threatened players after two weekend ago's loss to Cameroon that for all intents and purposes knocked the west African nation out of the World Cup.

Here's a man who chose to play for Ivory Coast when he was eligible to play for France and he's getting threats because they lost one game? And Drogba scored two goals in the game so he doesn't even deserve it. There are certain lines that shouldn't be crossed and threats against players are one of them.

It serves the Ivory Coast right if Drogba retires. The worst Chelsea fans are going to do is call him names in the press. Drogba doesn't need the Ivory Coast and until the fans down there understand that, they don't deserve to go to the World Cup.

Then again, I think he has more need to worry about West Ham than a lot of the countries the Ivory Coast plays - those guys have a huge chip on their shoulder!

Proving That I Still Watch MLS

2005-09-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

I've been holding off on saying this for a while but I'm seriously coming to the conclusion that Pizza Hut Park is cursed. I think they should do some research on what used to be on the site in Frisco. Maybe it was the spot where someone planned to assassinate Pele and angered the footcer gods or something.

With tonights 1-2 loss to D.C. United, who are not exactly beating the world right now either, FC Dallas now stands at 0-3-2 in their new stadium. Mind you, it's not like they're faring much better on the road since they're winless in ten no matter where they lay their hats.

Perhaps they need a footcer shaman to come in and remedy the situation. But not, of course, before the Fire come to town for the U.S. Open Cup semi-final on Wednesday. ;)

The Fire for their part tuned up with a 4-1 demolition of the Milwaukee Wave in an outdoor friendly against an indoor team to build hype for the hopeful expansion team north of the border (and I don't mean Toronto).

Or perhaps the curse is just Carlos Ruiz (for those who don't believe in curses). He flew down to Guatemala even though he was suspended for the game against the United States and when he got back he apparently complained he was too tired to play. He's already expressed his wishes to get out of MLS at the conclusion of the season and that can't be good karma in the locker room.

I actually feel really bad for Colin Clarke since if he plays Ruiz, he's gotta be worried about him not giving 100% but we all see the results when he doesn't.

And that's the only time you're ever going to see me feeling bad for FC Dallas. :)

Though one silver lining came out of tonight - the game drew 15,263. Meanwhile a team going in the opposite direction again, the New England Revolution only drew 9,167.

Though those fans who did show up witnessed a well rested Taylor Twellman (who didn't seem to expend too much energy showing up about as much for the United States as Carlos Ruiz did for Guatemala, except Twellman was actually in the match) score a hat trick to take the MLS lead with 14 goals. How he can't translate this on the international stage, I'm dumbfounded to contemplate.

I'm kind of tired of hearing people who only follow the United States MNT thinking Twellman is overrated (and a bad goal finisher to boot). Anyone who missed the header on the first goal tonight or his break dancing for another might think that.

But the attendance story of the night has to be the San Jose Earthquakes. I think the fans finally realized that boycotting the stadium after the rumors about the team's eminent demise really wasn't helping their cause much. Tonight they drew an astonishing 22,311 (their highest attendance of the season in a game that wasn't against their cross state rivals by almost 7,000).

This was almost the first time this season that they outdrew Los Angeles (who missed a home sellout for only 7th time this season) with the Galaxy drawing 25,874.

Does anyone worry that the country's footcer attendance is just going to tip over as it seems to be a little west coast heavy?

West Ham Whining About The World's Spotlight

2005-09-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

I try not to give away results because there are a couple of readers who wait to watch the matches of certain teams on Fox Soccer Channel when they're shown (amazingly when the match from Saturday shows on Tuesday). But since this game the live 11:00 a.m. (U.S. central time) match, I just can't wait to comment on it.

The question that arises after the Arsenal lost 1-2 to Middlesbrough on the road today is are the Gunners done?

Of course with two losses Arsenal is hardly going to be relegation rumor fodder but after their loss in the six pointer with Chelsea and today's loss in the northeast have the already lost touch with their London rivals (who I hope I'm not giving anything away by saying they beat Sunderland today) and for that matter Manchester United?

Everyone was worried about Thierry Henry missing (except for the dozens of people in the fantasy leagues I'm in that started him) and all worries were confirmed. Reyes had a ton of chances (seven) so it wasn't for lack of opportunities that Arsenal didn't score. But without their proven finisher this could be a very long stretch.

But it could be worse, they could be Everton.

---

Though it would appear as though West Ham is feeling better about themselves than Arsenal right now. How good is it to be a Hammer?

Apparently not good enough since they've found something to gripe about. Yesterday night in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, "Green Street Hooligans" opened up. And, for the first time, West Ham is a name that's on the lips of people in the United States (and eventually in the rest of the world that shows independent cinema).

They're going to sell a ton of jersey on the back of Elijah Wood. At least a lot more than Chelsea sold from Tara Reid. :)

But instead of getting behind the movie, West Ham United is complaining about how the club is being represented.

The problem seems to be that the club gave the producers of the film permission to film at Upton Park on the condition that "Green Street Hooligans" was going to be an anti-violence film. Now club officials are complaining that the film is too violent. They've even got the borough chief to complain along with them.

But here's where it gets really stupid! He's complaining that people might come to Green Street for "the wrong reasons."

What exactly are tourists going to do, look for hooligans that no longer really exist to pick fights?

The club officials have obviously never heard that "no publicity is bad publicity." They should just be happy that their little club (in terms of the rest of the world) is in the spotlight and stealing it from much larger clubs.

Now to be fair, those quotes are from the end of last month but I haven't seen any news stories about West Ham retracting the statements. Hopefully Fulham will give them something next weekend to really whine about!

The Blues, The Reds, And The Reds, Whites, And Blues

2005-09-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

With the internation break ending tomorrow, the attention of the footcer world turns back to the domestic leagues. Which, of course, can only mean one thing - Chelsea's in trouble again.

Not that I feel any sympathy for the team with the golden wallet (of course is their any other kind) with the manager with the golden tongue but in this case, I think the FA is on a witch hunt.

Chelsea's big crime this time around? It has nothing to do with trying to illegally recruit another teams' players or manager or front office staff or the guy who sweeps up the stands after the matches. No, their crime was drug testing their own players -- OVER A YEAR AGO!

The reasoning the FA gives for not letting teams drug test their own players has some logic. The first reason is that they're afraid the teams won't report positive results to the league and the second is that most teams can not afford to drug test their own players and it gives the ones who can an unfair advantage.

I guess in some ways then, like everything else Chelsea, it does come down to money. And it does give Chelsea and unfair advantage in that they can send their players to rehab before the league catches them in a standardized drug test and suspends them.

But, come on, the whole idea of the rule is stupid. If the team can clean their own house and want to spend their own money doing so, why should they be in trouble with the league? Either way, the player's going to be out of commission for a while.

How's about the FA take the money that they're using to try to persecute Chelsea and give it to the have-nots in the Premiership (that's a little bit of a misnomer since all the teams in the Premiership have more than 95% of footcer clubs around the world) to administer their own tests too?

---

On a lighter note, I make no secret of which side I'm on in the Manchester derby. But, there's a something-a-silly-a-brewing with my chosen horse in the battle.

Manchester City, ahead of tomorrow's blood match with the Red Devils has just ordered a fleet of new company cars. The stipulation? None of the cars the manufactured are sending are allowed to be red.

When I first read the story, I figured the whole thing was joke. But, it's serious. It's in the Guardian which, of course, is the paper of record politically for many people I know. If you can't trust The Guardian, who can you trust in the media? :)

Another aspect of tomorrow's matchup will be a sea of American flags in the visitor's end. It's not the usual celebration of Claudio Reyna, it's actually to make fun of Manchester United for having an owner from the United States.

So if you're waking up early to watch the match - which promises to be one of the most even Manchester City/Manchester United matches in years - Sam's Army hasn't invaded Old Trafford (but if they did, could they burn it to the ground on their way out?). It's just City supporters being some of the most creative in sports.

---

Stopping the patting of myself on the back, it looks like the World Cup organizers have found a great way to get people in the United States to watch.

At least the draw.

German supermodel Heidi Klum will be the one pulling the cards out of the pots.

Now, if she's wearing a bikini or some lingerie, the average American football fan will watch it for sure. Though it's no guarantee they'll watch the actual World Cup.

That would just blow the 300 million viewer estimate up to 350 million viewers at least. I mean if people will pay to watch the linegerie bowl, FIFA could even charge for the draw if there's some chance of, you know...slippage.

FIFA should get on top of that (I'm trying to avoid the innuendoes, seriously I am) or they're missing a golden opportunity. And while they're at it, maybe they can find another way to fine Chelsea too. :)

UEFA Today Is A Humorless Place So Instead Here's A Bunch Of Stats

2005-09-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

So, yeah, this is one of those situations where I make a big statement like, "but if England can't beat one of the worst teams in Europe that England won't do anything in the World Cup. Strip the favorites marker off them right now because they are t-o-a-s-t," and then when it occurs I have to backtrack a little.

I, like everyone else, expected absolutely nothing out of Northern Ireland today so when they won 1-0 today over an England team shaken to the core by a horrible formation, all my jokes just went right out the window. :)

But while still in a state of shock (and actually sadness because stupid France beat my second favorite team) I came up with this one...

Did anyone else notice that the scoreline was the same as in "Game Of Their Lives"? Well, it looks like we've lost the title as the greatest upset in England's history. Can't anyone in UEFA throw us here in CONCACAF a bone and let us keep some sort of title.

Alright, it was short notice. And my mind's been numbed tonight by watching "Varsity Blues" to get prepared for the American football season. :)

All around, it wasn't a great day for England. Wayne Rooney, who Sven decided it was simply a brilliant idea to play on the wide left in a 4-5-1 formation (even though it's doubtful Rooney has played midfield since he was an U-13), had the worst day of all. A fish out of water, he got really upset (as he tends to do anyhow) and actually cursed out David Beckham (caught on worldwide television) when the captain tried to calm him down. He also picked up a yellow card on a wild challenge and will be out when England entertain Austria in Manchester on October 8.

England should just count their lucky stars that many people (even within the English national boundaries) were watching Ireland play France.

The thing most people don't mention is that England could have almost gone into the World Cup through the back door today. That's how bad things went for England today. Sweden was being held to a 0-0 draw in Budapest all the way though the 92nd minute before Juventus striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic slammed home the winner for the Swedes.

Had Hungary (who by all reports were dominated as the Scandinavians couldn't finish) just held out, Sweden and England would be tied at 19 points. In that case, England would have had their destiny completely in their own hands. As it stands, the lucky loser 2nd spot stands at 20 with Croatia.

Someone on LiveJournal actually figured out the current 2nd place standings and they are as follows (this takes away the games against the current 7th place in the groups with the extra teams so if you see a 9, that means that team only has one game left that counts towards the lucky loser):

Poland--------9-24 *
Sweden--------8-21 *
1. Croatia----8-20
2. England----8-19
3. Czech Rep--8-18
Switzer.------8-16 *
4. France-----8-16
Serbia--------8-16 *
5. Russia-----9-16 (3)
6. Israel-----8-15 (3)
7. Spain------8-14
8. Turkey-----9-14
9. Slovakia---8-13
10. Norway----8-12
11. Greece----8-12 (3)
12. Slovenia--8-12 (3)

Note: * = current group leader; 3 = current third place

Currently England stands in the second spot and will still qualify automatically but it's obviously what would be the case with an England win (or even a draw). Poland should really be the ones kicking themselves over the Sweden last minute heroics since they actually would have clinched a World Cup spot had it not happened!

Offically.

It would be really odd for Poland to have clinched a spot as a guaranteed second before anyone in Europe besides Ukraine has clinched as a winner. Holland and Portugal actually had a chance to do so today but both failed. Holland only failed because the Czech Republic succeeded in beating Armenia 4-1 (just a fantasy heads up, Peter Cech didn't play today due to a minor injury so Chelsea may start Cudicini this weekend with all the implications that brings).

Portugal on the other hand flat out failed on their own. Russia showed the spirit of defense of the motherland that had everyone so scared for about 80 years holding Portugal 0-0 in Moscow. This was the case even though Russia went down to ten men for over a half after a bad challenge by Charlton's Alexei Smertin.

Boy those Ruskies really will fight to the last man. :)

There were lots of blown opportunities today so England should take some solace. All they need to do is look at teams that were upset that actually could have knocked themselves out of the World Cup being upended. The best example is Norway who lost 1-2 to Scotland in Oslo. The loss leaves them five points behind Norway, tied with Slovenia, and only two points ahead of a surging Scotland (Kenny Miller will not be playing for Wolverhampton in the Colaship for much longer if he keeps scoring international goals - all three of Scotland's goals in the two matches during this international break in fact).

Similarly a couple of ties could seriously tie the hands of Croatia (who handed, though not literally, Malta their second point of the entire campaign with a 1-1 draw) and Slovakia (who got the same scoreline at Latvia). Both could look at those two squandered points, especially in Croatia's case next month and realize they took themselves out of the competition on this very night.

They can look at Belgium (sorry I accidentally eliminated them last time I made the list) who took care of business at San Marino 8-0 and put themselves back in contention. Joining the list of the gone today, however, were: Finland, Georgia, Albania, Latvia, Cyprus, Moldova, Austria (leaving officially only Poland and England battling for first and second), and Hungary. Add them to the list of 15 already gone and they're now down to brass tack in UEFA.

So, buck up England supporter, you're not on that list nor will you ever be. The worst England can do is a playoff spot. Though their pride will never be fixed, that's for certain.

A Big Day In UEFA Tomorrow, Just Not In Belfast

2005-09-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

A poster on bigsoccer.com who unfortunately wasn't me summed up the England way of justifying everything pretty succintly when after an England supporter started going off on how difficult England's group was (he would later deny that was what he meant by saying Poland and Austria are amazing teams), "talk about turning ********** cats into tigers."

That's the England mentality and I'm really sick of it. So, rather than let my righteous indignation get the best of me, I'll just post the second in my unwritten rules of footcer (the first is somewhere back in June):

UNWRITTEN FOOTCER RULE #2: "Any team that England plays will instantly be hyped as infinitely better than they actually are. Any team the United States plays will instantly be hyped as infinitely worse than they actually are (unless they're Scotland and then see clause #1)."

And David Beckham is the worst of the bunch saying, "nothing's unthinkable in football - sometimes these games go wrong." Please, yes we all know that Northern Ireland can pull an upset (and shouldn't be underestimated) because any team can. But if England can't beat one of the worst teams in Europe that England won't do anything in the World Cup. Strip the favorites marker off them right now because they are t-o-a-s-t.

Michael Owen similarly has come back at Wales manager John Toshack hard for stating that England is not one of the top teams in the world.

Toshack summed his feelings (he obviously kept going when the reporter said, "tell me how you really feel") with the following statement about England's inflated egos:

"They still have to prove they can be one of the top six in the world. Against 60% of the sides some of the things they did against us they will be OK with, but against the top four or five in the world they may just need a rethink."

But what really set the English media aflutter from across the hills (er mountains) was the fact that Toshack stated, flat out, that Poland is "the best team in group four and deserve their position in the table."

With that, he might as well have cussed out one of England's respective mothers. To dare say that England is inferior to any team, especially an eastern European one is a cardinal sin.

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So in this roundup of tomorrow's most important World Cup qualifiers, I am not even going to mention any from UEFA Group Six. You know why? Because there are only two real teams in UEFA Group Six and unless they're playing each other, the game shouldn't register on the footcer richter scale!

There are, however, some absoulte "big ones" taking place in UEFA tomorrow. But truly, there's only one match that should bring the footcer world to a dead standstill to actually care. Even the BBC realizes this because they knocked the Scotland and Wales games off the broadcast spectrum for it. Hence, of course, they're not real England fans. :)

The biggest match of World Cup Qualfying that's taken place in 2004 or 2005 is:

FRANCE AT IRELAND: Even before UEFA Group Four became a four team battle royale stalemate, the footcer punditocracy was circling the date of September 7 on their calendars. The brain trust of the footcer world figured it would be France in the driver's seat with Ireland needing the points to get second over Switzerland. Well, that was before the wheels fell off of the French machine (and that's not a reference to the debacle at the Formula One United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis a couple of months ago). The match truly is a winner take all in Dublin. If the two teams tie, they need only look behind them at the Swiss and the Israelis to realize they could both be eliminated. Israel actually plays a home and home with Faroe Islands in their last two matches (the first of which is tomorrow) and are next to guaranteed to finish on 18 points. France, Switzerland, and Ireland all play each other one more time. France and Ireland have the advantage of playing Cyprus once more over the Swiss, but the three teams could (and it wouldn't be surprising since this is the way Group Four has gone) draw each other out of the tournament. So, in these desperate times, France and Ireland are both going in with guns blazing tomorrow looking to get all three point at Landsdowne Road. France has much better guns (but they haven't really shown it scoring three goals against teams not named Faroe Islands) but Ireland has the home pitch advantage. Shay Given and Fabrien Barthez are both going to have their hands full. If they're lucky and the catch the bombardment being vollied at them. :) This game may, however, come down to injuries and with Djibril Cisse probably out for France and Damien Duff probably in for Ireland this could make the difference. Or it could come down to Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira getting into a huge fist fight at midfield (Vieira called out Keane wrestling style in pre-match interviews). It's that intense.

Sweden at Hungary: There are a couple of other important matches as well. The biggest match in this group is actually October 8th as second place Sweden take on first place Croatia in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. But without a victory over the Hungarians in Budapest first (assuming a Croatian win over bottom feeders Cyprus), that game may be meaningless.

Scotland at Norway: Another second place team, but this time at home, attempts to avoid a land mine (or perhaps a water mine if you're talking about what separates Scotland from Norway). Norway's got an easier run in (home against Moldova and then at Belarus) than first place Italy but they're still trying to hold off a Slovenian challenge from behind. Slovenia plays at Italy on October 8. Norway holds their destiny in their hands but can't drop points to a resurgant Scotland (who are that really annoying ghost still trying for second from way behind). A loss by Scotland means the Tartan Army can finally be put out of their annoying misery.

Turkey at Ukraine: The match that could actually still decide second place in UEFA Group Two. Ukraine showed a little bit of weakness against Georgia and Turks have been historically known to exploit weakness. A loss for Turkey (who lost to Ukraine 0-3 in Istambul on November 14, 2004) and Greece, playing at minnow Kazakhstan could leapfrog them. Denmark similary plays at home to Georgia and would pull within one point of Turkey with a win in Copenhagen and a Turkish loss. In short, this is a must win game for Turkey and it's uncertain what kind of lineup the Ukrainians will throw out now being the first team from UEFA to qualify so it's possible they can actually do it.

Serbia & Montenegro at Spain: This game between the top two teams in Group Seven (and not in the order you'd think if you'd been living away from footcer this cycle) just got a lot more interesting as Liverpool striker (at least sometimes) Fernando Morientes is out with a calf injury. Serbia can virtually clinch second place knocking off the favored Spaniards. Spain's coach Luis Aragones has created some expectations by stating Spain would win this match 3-1. Serbia has been intense defensively, holding opponents to 0, that's right 0, goals through seven games. When these teams met in Belgrade on March 30, 2005 it ended in a 0-0 draw. So to answer the question, it appears as though Serbia can shut down Spain - though I'm not thinking it will happen to Spain in Madrid. Something's got to give and it will probably be Serbia's defense rather than Spain's offense.

Portugal at Russia: I saved the second best for last. :) Earlier this qualifying campaign, the Russians made a little trip to Lisbon to play the opposite leg of this matchup. You can't start a land war in Russia but you can, it would seem, whoop on the Russians at the other end of the continent. Portugal won 7-1. So on paper this match doesn't look very appetizing. But Russia have turned things around since that match going 4-0-2 and now find themselves tied for second in Group Three with Slovakia (who they play away at Braitslava on October 12). The Slovaks play at Latvia tomorrow. Latvia is barely - BARELY - still alive so the little Baltic republic (leaving its golden generation) should put up a fight but the end result will probably be Slovakian victory there. Russia will be looking for revenge and World Cup redemption when Portugal tries to battle them at home.

Any of these matches should prove about eight times more enteraining that England v. Northern Ireland. You know, that great team that just won its first home match in four years on Saturday (and probably won't win another for quite some time).

Collina Is Needed Off The Field Right Now

2005-09-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Long time readers (well as long time as can be with a blog that started in May) and footcer friends who know me in real life will know my fascination with the J-League in relation to MLS (with how similar the two are). And, often I leave myself saying, "why didn't MLS think of that?"

This is one of those cases.

Japanese officials have asked recently retired (or well, retired if that word means "forced out" given the ultimatum have Opel as your sponsor or keep on the uniform) Italian referee Pierluigi Collina to come to Japan.

Of course he won't end up there and the whole thing is just a publicity stunt (if we're to believe Bobby McMahon) and Collina will never end up in Japan.

But why couldn't it be our publicity stunt?

Sure there are more people in Japan than in the United States who know who he is but the Japanese reasoning could work just as well here:

"The level of J-League referees is not low but they tend to be criticised for their judgements. If Mr. Collina blows the whistle, it will help the fans understand the authority of referees."

Those words would never come out of Commissioner Garber's mouth but the sentiment could be the same. Having Collina come in and referee a few matches could at least teach the MLS' referees a thing or two (such as when it's appropriate to call a penalty kick). I mean, hades, it could teach the top level English referees a thing or two as far as this season goes (but, the EPL is way past the point where it needs gimmicks).

MLS fans have had many reasons to doubt the referees this year and at least for those who really know footcer, Collina could set their minds a little at ease.

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Speaking of refereeing, I think Bulgaria coach Hristo Stoichkov, thinks that the UEFA WCQ that took place on Saturday was a corruption filled Bulgarian domestic league match (recent news reports say there might not be any other kind).

The former Fire and DC United player (and yes I'm pretty pissed that Fox Soccer Channel didn't mention that fact once during the broadcast or on the Fox Sports World report) got red carded out of the loss that eliminated Bulgaria from qualification contention for arguing the ejection of one of his players.

He then went on the offensive (and that's putting it mildly) saying that the referee was fixing the match because he had the scoreline (Sweden winning) already set with a gambling ring.

He actually went as far as to say that he hates Sweden. Not the team, per se, but apparently the whole country.

In other "Coaches Gone Wild" news Italy's Marcello Lippi swore at a camera man in frustration after his team's 1-1 draw at Scotland. The funniest part is that he called him a "dickhead." News reports don't say if it was in Italian or English since it took place in Scotland but was aimed at an Italian reporter.

To be fair to Lippi, the cameraman did follow him to the Glasgow Hilton.

Keeping on the Isles, Republic of Ireland coach Brian Kerr allegedly got in a fight with Roy Keane over training schedules (and the curfews there attached to).

But what I want to ask is: who hasn't Roy Keane gotten into a fight with?

Anyhow, the best part of this story is the fact that Kerr bascially said (to paraphrase), "if the game's on Wednesday, I could really care less if my players go out drinking the Friday before?"

Of course what else do you expect of the Ireland coach? Were he to say otherwise, his players would run him out of town faster than you can say Ricardo Lavolpe. :)

It's just a good thing Pierluigi Collina isn't around off the pitch to blow the give the red card - there might not be any managers left.

Down In Mexico All Hades Breaks Loose

2005-09-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

In the interest of equal time, I'm going to present this link to a positively reactionary right wing footcer story and a great post on why Mexico deserved everything Landon Donovan dished out at them from Ramblings of a Soccer Junkie.

The interesting pulled quote from the story linked in Eric's post is from Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe who I have to come to the defense of here. Of course he had to come off with bravado since if he didn't, he'd definitely be out the door as coach of the Mexico MNT.

A lot has been made in the last few months of the pressure that the smoking man faces back home with El Tri. Foremost in this pressure is a coup d'etat being planned by a few domestic managers who want his job, most notably UNAM Puma's Hugo Sanchez.

Part of the problem is very similar to what Sven faces in England as a Swede. Lavolpe is Argentinian and many south of the border feel that only a Mexican can successfully guide the Mexican team. Thank goodness we didn't feel that way here in 1994 or we'd be writing quite a different chapter in history right now.

It is ironic that Sanchez cited something that we get a lot of here in the United States too. Mexicans appreciating the Mexico team less than Europeans (subbing in Ameicans and United States of course). In an article I found on Yahoo's World Cup coverage, Lavolpe had the following to say:

"In Europe, where the media understand these things, everybody was talking about how well Mexico played [in the Confederations Cup]."

He's not referring to yesterday, of course. Was yesterday completely Lavolpe's fault for going out to play for the draw? Yes. But if the Mexicans want to blame her for that, they should at least credit him for engineering Mexico's rise to one of the elite powers in the world.

These are the same kind of people who called for Bruce Arena to step down after we lost to Mexico at the Azteca. Must be Republicans because they have no sense of past or future historical context. Sorry, had to sneak that it. :)

Surprisingly enough, Jared Borgetti is the voice of reason in all of this hay down Mexico way. In his post-match interview, he said:

"Today, we lost a single game, nothing more. That shouldn’t be cause for us to say, 'Let’s fire De La Tore, or Ricardo,' just because we lost to the United States. Were they hired to get us to beat the States, or to put us in the World Cup? You can’t judge everything on one single game."

All that bland food and drinkable water he's getting in the nortwest of England must be helping his reasoning skills. :)

Or maybe it's just getting away from the self-feeding inferno of hate that is the Mexican League because the other European based Mexians player, Rafa Marquez from Barcelona is planning to lead a boycott of the Mexican team if Lavolpe is fired. Borgetti has signed on and, surprisingly, first string goaltender for life Oswaldo Sanchez who plays for xenophobic (at least as far as his Mexican team) CD Guadalaja owner Jorge Vergara (among those calling for Lavolpe's resignation) did too.

Though in a fit of irony, who did Chivas Mexico just sign as their manager? A Spaniard!

I'm wondering what makes Vergara think a Mexican will coach Mexico any better than a Mexican would could Chivas?

And did he ever think that maybe Mexico would take that next step in the World Cup, if they would ever get their house in order before leaving on the plane to get there?

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On a related note, even though England beat Wales 1-0 yesterday in Cardiff, the calls for Sven Goran Eriksson to step down just keep on coming. And the English former players, unlike even the Mexicans didn't even wait until after the game to start (I think they're still angry about the Danish loss).

He's been dealing with the pressure all week of a full fledged media mutiny that says he's soft on the players and lets them dictate who starts and who doesn't.

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Stories like these make me even prouder to follow the United States and have them as my national team. While there are a few amateur pundits out there who think Bruce Arena is entirely wrong for the USMNT despite his growing resume, by and large we're standing by our man and hopefully the success will keep on coming as England and Mexico descend into chaos.

Perhaps we just save more of our ire over here for club managers (Graeme Souness aside) and on that note, I hope the Fire help the Galaxy boot Steve Sampson out the door by beating Los Angeles at the Home Depot Center.

You know, I'm just trying to help is all. :)

Excitable Boy They All Said

2005-09-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

So much for clearing things up today in the World Cup Qualifying. Almost every game that could make things fuzzier than Woody Allen's vision did. Yeah, that's a dated analogy but I'm feeling rather 1990 right now. :)

Not since we threw down the gauntlet in 1990 with the "shot heard round the soccer world" has the United States team made such a dramatic statement. Sure we broke the gauntlet in 1998 but we've obviously bought a new one. The 2-0 win over Mexico in Columbus, Ohio in front of a sold out stadium (it will be good for the rest of the world to see a full stadium here in the states for a qualifier) was saying, "we're contenders in Germany, you better look out."

Now I don't want to get too excited since for the first 45 minutes I was glad I didn't hype the match to my non-footcer friends since it was ugly. But in the second 45 we really did what the top teams in the world do, we finished our chances. Though what was DaMarcus Beasley doing in that chance to make it 3-0. He needs a little work on his chip shot. Good to know he'll have a chance to golf back in Holland on Wednesday as opposed to going down to Guatemala.

About the only thing that was done to embarass us were Landon Donovan's post game antics. I understand he's excited because he needed to "put up or shut up" after his various pontifications throughout the leadup.

Call me blinded by the FIFA Fair Play type stuff (not that chippy Mexico follows them) but this was a little inappropriate:

"I think that's what angers them about us, because we have lives beyond soccer and many of them don't...That's why they talk and say the things they do, because they can't do it on the field."

I mean sure Landon's young but that's pure high school. ;)

Though I do have to agree with his sentiment, screamed into the microphone accidentally after the match when he just summed it up perfectly with a "fuck yeah." That must be the first time that's ever been heard on ESPN Classic. So, I shouldn't give Landycakes too hard a time.

And his tribute to New Orleans was pretty touching (walking around shirtless wearing a stars and striped Doctor Seuss hat). Though I don't think anyone's going to be throwing any beads at him any time soon.

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As I began before Landon Donovan (who really wasn't that much of a factor this match) distracted me, the rest of the world's results were not so cut and dry. Romania and Senegal were the big culprits today to muck things up, both keeping themselves alive through impressive wins.

Senegal's 1-0 win at Zambia put them temporarily on top of Africa's Group One - with Bolton's El Hadji Diouf sealing the win. Togo still has a game in hand but the Lions of Teranga (one of the greatest national team nicknames on Earth) are obviously not going to be left out of Germany without a fight.

Romania's win in Constanta (a beautiful city on the Black Sea which I highly recommend visiting, if you want, I'll e-mail you pictures from my trip there in October of 2003) against a highly favored Czech Republic similarly makes Europe's Group One confusing. Romania vaulted to second place in the group with two games in hand with a 2-0 win. Adrian Mutu, fresh back from a drug suspension, showed why Romania was considered a contender in one of Europe's groups of death (there are three) when he plays.

Suddenly, the Czech Republic is the team with their backs to the wall. Romania has actually won three in a row by a 7-0 aggregate since losing 0-2 to The Netherlands back on June 4. The Czechs on the other hand who had scored 28 goals in their first eight games and were being mentioned in the same breath with Brazil and Argentina as one of the best offensive teams on Earth were held scoreless.

The central Europeans (ask any Czech and they'll confirm that, ahem, they're not eastern Europeans) country has a very difficult remaining group of fixtures. On Wednesday they play at home to Armenia. But then to close out it's at home to Holland and away to Finland (who practically eliminated themselves tying Andorra 0-0 and that's just the worst result any team can muster anywhere in the world). If Romania can win their last game in Helsinki on October 8, they will put pressure on the Czech Republic to win out. Tying will not be an option. It would be a shame to lose one of the best teams in the world. But, if you're looking for any underdog to pull for, look no further than the Romanians.

Meanwhile, speaking of upsets, Scotland pissed me off today tying Italy 1-1 to keep their hopes alive for second in Group Five. Sure they'll still in fifth place behind a perennial power like Belarus - but don't tell that to a scot. In the match that really mattered in that group, Norway beat Slovenia 3-2 (did I not say it was the match of the day in my preview?) on a goal in second half injury time by Fulham's #1 hated man (for the goal he scored for Blackburn to give them the win back in EPL week two) Morten Gamst Pedersen.

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And now it's time for the testimonial portion of this entry. While only the Ukraine and United States booked their tickets to Germany today, many teams we knew and loved throughout qualifying can cancel all plans for the 2006 World Cup (as they've been officially eliminated). In South America, only Bolivia's gone and Africa would take too darn long with all the teams gone.

So here's a run down of the eliminated list from UEFA (in the interest of time). Everybody bow your heads for a second and remember the following teams who could have been contenders (well, at least before the first ball was ever kicked):

Group One: Armenia, Andorra, and Macedonia. Finland can only come in second and the magic number to eliminate them by Holland, Czech Repubic, or Romania is one.

Group Two: Georgia (who did put a scare into Ukraine today) and Kazakhstan. Albania and Denmark are only still alive for second.

Group Three: Estonia, Liechtenstin, and Luxembourg. Latvia can only come in second.

Group Four: Faroe Islands. Cyprus is mathematically still alive for second which shows how close this group is.

Group Five: Not a single team is eliminated and that's weird. Moldova can only come in second.

Group Six: Azerbaijan, Northern Ireland, and Wales (finally, thankfully on those last two because someone had to put them out of their misery). Austria can only come in second.

Group Seven: Belgium and San Marino. The fact that the Belgians are eliminated this early is surprising, not so for the small principality.

Group Eight: Bulgaria, Iceland, and Malta. Iceland went down fighting taking a 1-0 lead over Croatia before getting dominated the rest of the game and losing 1-3.

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Alright, I know there is some dispute in the world that Ukraine also qualified tonight so I put on my research cap and tried to figure out how (also read as went to bigsoccer.com and posted the question in the Eastern Europe forum). They eliminated Turkey from taking away their first spot when the Turks tied Denmark 1-1. But, I know what everybody is saying, "Greece has a game in hand and are nine points back, they could still win the group."

The answer is yes and no. By some sort of tie-break mechanism, Greece can not qualify ahead of Ukraine if they finish on equal footing. I'm not sure how. But since I like the Ukraininians, I'm going with the fact that they qualified because every major source in the world says they did.

Yeah, I'm scratching my head too but I'm too ecstactic over the United States qualifying for certain to want to think about it too much. :)

The Rest Of The World's Games May Be More Meaningful But This Is Our Game So Who Cares

2005-09-03T00:21:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy as my alterego, the politically tinged LiveJournalist, to get around to summarizing the most important fixtures today in World Cup qualifying. And by the time most people read this, some of the matches I'm about to describe will have already happened.

I'm going to leave out, in the interest of time, the fixtures that are obvious like the Australia v. Solomon Islands to decide the OFC title (and to take on the fifth place team out of CONMEBOL for a World Cup spot) and the AFC fifth place match between Uzbekistan and Bahrain (to decide who faces the fourth place team in CONCACAF for a World Cup spot). Those matches are more important in the second leg taking place midweek anyhow.

Here are the most important matches in Africa, Europe, South America, and here in our region (going simply by start times):

South Africa at Burkina Faso: South Africa, the hosts in 2010 of course, currently sit tied with Ghana for first place in CAF group two at 15 points. The tie-break, however, heaving favors the west African nation (+9 goal differential to +0). South Africa needs a win against fifth place Burkina Faso to put themselves in the drivers seat and assure themselves a spot in the World Cup before they host. It helped the United States immensely in 1990 to qualify before hosting in 1994. The news isn't great for the southerners, however, as Ghana faces last placed Uganda tomorrow and then finishes at 4th place (currently) Cape Verde Islands. South Africa finishes up with third place DR Congo at home. Both matches take place the first week of October.

Tunisia at Kenya: Tunisia can clinch a World Cup spot by winning on the road. Morocco, currently in second is at home to Botswana today so it's not likely. If the two sides both win, lose, or tie, the biggest match in the entirety of African qualifying this campaign takes place on October 8 in Tunis, Tunisia as the north African derby between Morrocco and Tunisia will be decided.

Senegal at Zambia: This is do or die for the Senaglese as a loss to Zambia, who sit ahead of them in the table will deny one of the surprise teams from the last World Cup a spot in this one. Similarly, Cameroon plays at Ivory Coast on Sunday. A loss in that game and one of the other African surprsie makers goes out. Ivory Coast with a star studded lineup lead by Didier Drogba, can clinch a spot in the World Cup with a victory at home.

Czech Republic at Romania: This game between the second placed Czech Republic and third place Romania isn't as important as it looks on paper. Romania with two games in hand, however, can still put pressure on Holland and the Czechs (sung to the tune of "Benny & The Jets" of course) by pulling ahead of both with a victory. Holland plays lowly Armenia tomorrow (though without Bayern Munich's Roy Makaay and probably without Arjen Robben on Chelsea) but a victory for the Romanians still means they pull into second position and, most likely, one of the three lucky loser spots in Europe when all is said and done. Though the Czechs should be able to bounce back with two games in hand. Oh to have the problems that The Netherlands does - to have to replace Arjen Robben with Jan Venegoor of Hesselink or Dirk Kuyt (both Premiership big money targets over the summer).

Liechtenstein at Russia: Slovakia and Russia are jockeying for the second spot out of UEFA Group Three. Russia can pull even with the Slovaks with a win over one of the weakest teams in all of Europe. This group will be more decided on Wednesday however as Russia travels to Portugal and Slovakia travel to Latvia. Neither is a small task. However, it must be said that Slovakia's road is much easier.

Bulgaria at Sweden: A loss for Bulgaria and the one time threat is eliminated from contention. A win for Sweden puts them in a nearly unknockoffable (it's late here in Chicago so I can make up words) position of 2nd in Group Eight and they can make a run at Croatia in the final three matches. Croatia, for their part, travel to Iceland tomorrow still in the driver's seat.

Israel at Switzerland: I can't even crunch the numbers in this group (especially with France getting reinforcements ahead of their game in Dublin on Wednesday and the French play the Faroe Islands, who like to give teams a hard time and then roll over this qualifying around) so I'll just call this another 1-1 draw like all the teams with a chance in this group like to do.

Ukraine at Georgia: Believe it or not, last year I was at the opposite number of this fixture in Lviv, Ukraine. Back then, Ukraine seemed like a fluke. Tomorrow they can clinch a spot in World Cup 2006 with a win even further east than they already sit when they're at home.

Italy at Scotland: I have to give the Scots some credit, they never say die. And, well, a win at home against the Italians and all we'll be hearing is how Scotland will make the World Cup no matter what (the what being that they're still behind both Norway and Slovenia). I actually hope Italy wins because I'm so tired of hearing Scotland supporters say they're better than the United States. Sure we wouldn't beat Italy at home either but the less points they finish with the better.

Denmark at Turkey: Another scorcher in UEFA Group Two (they all are though). Denmark wins, they're alive. Turkey wins and Ukraine loses - well it's anyone's game who wins the group between the two. Greece has something to say about that, but anyone who's seen them play recently knows that's mathematics and not actually on the pitch quality talking.

Poland at Austria: This game shows if the Poles are honestly contenders to win the group ahead of England or just pretenders. Group six is basically a two horse race and will be in reality one too if Austria loses. Yeah, there's a little game between England and Wales in this group too but, come on, if Wales wins it will be an upset the likes that we're rare to see again. Anything's possible in a United Kingdom derby but that game is all hype (the English press hype an opponent as better than they are? NEVER!) and no substance. Meaningless.

Lithuania at Serbia & Montenegro: The tiny Baltic republic is looking to pick up the torch of the aging Latvia side that's been making minor waves. But if they lose in the balkans, their ship is sunk. Belgium also goes to Bosnia and an upset by that balkan state over the lowlanders means Spain and Serbia play for all the marbles here on in.

Norway at Slovenia: This is, by far, the biggest match that will take place tomorrow (even though it doesn't look that way on paper). Italy holds the pole in Group Five but these are the two teams that have a chance of grabbing the second spot playing each other. That is, unless Scotland pulls off a William Wallace sized miracle run.

Ecuador at Bolivia: Ecuador has a pretty hollow third place in CONMEBOL qualifying. They've yet to lose at home and yet to win on the road. They, along with Paraguay, Colombia, and Chile are all vying for the third through sixth spots. Bolivia is dead last in South America and can actually be eliminated tomorrow with a loss and an upset of Argentina by Paraguay (not likely, but still). If Ecuador can't win this game, they're my pick for 32nd place at the World Cup (if they even make) because they're aren't many mountains in Germany (at least the World Cup venue) to give them an altitude advantage.

Peru at Venezuela: Only interesting because if they tie and Colombia or Chile win, both are eliminated from World Cup contention.

Costa Rica at Panama: Costa Rica wins further down Central America way and Panama can only grasp onto hopes for the the 4th spot in CONCACAF and that's only if Guatemala doesn't take care of business out on the islands.

Mexico at United States: If you need to know why this game is important, get the hades off my blog right now and go back to watching college football or take up darts because you are not a footcer fan. Seriously. I don't care if I lose a reader. Alright, maybe I do. ;) Anyhow, in the grand scheme of things this is about the 20th most important match tomorrow in terms of qualifying. But that don't even matter. This is the be-all, end-all of matches for the United States (unless of course we lose and then it's just another qualifier) since it is the two 500 pound gorillas of North America going head-to-head, mano-a-man. If there's a winner, they qualify for Germany. The other one will qualify on Wednesday barring disaster -- BUT WHO CARES! If you don't watch this match, Bruce Arena will hunt you down. Swear to fate!

Yeah, I'm being half sarcastic and half not. I will be watching the match with baited breath hoping to shut our friendly neighbors to the south up about how much better they are (and that they won in Mexico City in the same way that Ecuador always win in Quito - the altitude problem) than us. Given the choice of matches to watch out of the whole spectrum, this wouldn't be the one but this is our game and I hope we "protect this house" and qualify early.

I've Been A Little Angry Recently, Eh?

2005-09-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'm feeling much better now so I'll be positive in this entry. Bruce Arena is such a nice peacemaker. Even though MLS decided to play a full slate of games on Saturday (which I guess is kind of nice for those who, for some reason, only care about club footcer), Arena has done his usual and released all unncessary personnel back to their MLS teams.

Yes, the day after the transfer window closed is a day for reconciliation.

The kumbayas are heard all around the world as Sepp Blatter is ready to embrace technology in the game (I forget his earlier position on goal line sensors but I'm thinking it was negative) to an extent and allow touchline censors to call a ball in or out should a test run at the World Junior Championships prove they are workable.

And in the name of world peace, Dutch authorities are now going that extra mile and making sure convicted hooligans are not at matches by calling them.

A computerized system will call them at home and make them say a prearranged sentence to prove its them at home and not at the match. But here's what I wonder about that. What if they wanted to run out to the store or something?

Oh, why am I even saying that? No true Dutch hooligan would possibly miss the beginning of the match to go out and grab a pint to bring home. Sorry.

Oops, almost got angry there...breathing in and out... :)

Ah yes, here's a nice story with wavy purple flowers and such. Two members of the Northern Ireland MNT decided to get really friendly and see the late night sights in Belfast before their next match against Azerbaijan. The mean, mean manager kicked them off the team for "missing curfew."

That's not very nice. :(

They should all apologize to each other since this is one of the few wins the crappy Northern Ireland team can get. Oops. I mean, the poor souls who have been underachieving but are really better than their record and game play would indicate should try to win this match and start building for Euro 2006. ;)

But the most important story of reconciliation of all is that FIFA will allow the United Kingdom to have a joint footcer team at the 2012 Olympics with no reprocussions.

As I've mentioned here before, the sticking point has been that Scotland (and to a lesser extent England, Northern Ireland, and Wales) worries that to join in an all-Britain team would jeopardize their independent status for post-2012 World Cups.

Now the question is will the four FAs all agree to it now that this hurdle has been lifted? Probably not.

The most interesting proposal I've seen is that the four FAs will have an all Great Britain qualifying tournament with the four teams playing round robin to determine which of the four teams gets to represent the whole country.

Now that's not very reconcillatory. Can't we all just get along in the footcer world for one day?

Back From Owen World And On A Soapbox

2005-09-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

Reason #5000 why I love the bbc.co.uk web site. They published a complete list in yesterday's transfers involving English and Scottish teams. But instead of just an ordinary ticking off of "Solano goes back to Newcastle United" they did it in chronological form.

Guess the people who ordinarily do the ticker were bored. :)

Not that there wasn't more "Owen Goes To Tyneside" mania to report about yesterday. The reason that I didn't post anything yesterday was if I typed the words Michael and Owen yesterday, I might have exploded in a fit of rage from the media overload on the story.

Though there was some silliness in the fact that people in Newcastle revealed they're all loonies. I'm not sure if it's sadder that 15,000-25,000 (jeez, the difference in the reporting of the numbers is like a march on Washington) people turned up to cheer on the news conference officially announcing the striker's move to St. James Park or that it outdrew most MLS games.

Discuss. :)

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There seemed to be no transfers involving any of the European based players from the United States (though I didn't search every wire) but there is one American story from England that I want to mention - the new Actim Index.

The top 10 players in the index (that tries to measure objectively which players have made the most contribution to their team's success during the season) include a lot of the usual suspects - #2 is Frank Lampard and #5 is Jermaine Defoe, for example.

This week's #1 is a shocker, however.

It's "Captain America", Claudio Reyna.

While as a Manchester City fan, I can clearly say that he's not been the best player this year, Joey Barton has been by leaps and bounds this is great news for American footcer in general. Also in more realistic rankings, Bobby Convey shows up at #6 in the Colaship rankings.

It's surprising that he wasn't looked at more closely by Premiership teams with how he's starting out this season for Reading.

By the way, it's all fine and good to worship Claudio Reyna as he's captaining the United States to one of, if not the most successful runs in their history, but dressing up as Captain America in his honor, that goes a little too far.

What are you? Toon fans?

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Though there is going too far the other direction to so congratulats Bruce Arena on telling us American footcer fans to "put up or shut up."

Seriously, all I've heard is griping that the match is going to be on ESPN Classic. So how's about we all make the United States/Mexico game the #1 viewed thing the channel has ever shown.

That shouldn't be too hard since the channel only shows live games once in a blue moon. Still, if it ends out outdrawing the crap college football game on ESPN2, what are ESPN going to do but rethink their priorities (they can't reschedule one stinking pre-conference season game?).

If not, than we have nothing to complain about.

Aston Villa Is A Growed Up Big Boy Now

2005-08-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

It's official. Michael Owen is now Newcastle United's second striker. Yeah, I know he's better than Alan Shearer but, come on, does anyone think Alan is going to play second fiddle to anyone? :)

This signing is just sad news. For one thing it's coming right before Fulham travels up to St. James Park. And just like with Milan Baros' transfer to Villa Park, I get the sneaking suspicion that he'll score in his first match for the barcodes.

It's also sad because I lose my jokes about how bad Newcastle is. While I don't think Owen will make them contenders for Europe (unless he scores 30 goals by himself since no one else Tyneside seems to be able to get one) or anything but he'll definitely take them out of the relegation zone.

So, um, Pompey you're it! Portsmouth is now the target of all my bad established clubs in trouble jokes. :)

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There's a much sillier signing in the world today - Fred. I mean, this guy is obviously good or Olympique Lyon wouldn't be signing him, but what self-respecting Brazilian takes the nickname Fred?

He's an up-and-coming striker in the Brazilian system but I guess all the good nicknames were taken. At least, the sportscasters and pundits won't butcher it like Juninho or Ronaldinho or even Juan.

It's a nice easy English sounding name. Of course he's playing in France so I don't think that's going to help much. :)

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In still more transfer news, is anyone else getting the impression that Aston Villa is a "big club"?

After Milan Baros decided he wanted to go and be a Villan, it's become almost the company line for new signees and transfers to refer to the Birmingham club as "big." The latest transfer, Wilfred Bouma formerly of PSV described Aston Villa in the following way:

"I had a good feeling about Villa -- with their history of being a big club."

Not to be conspiratorial, but I think all Aston Villa signees have a clause in their contract this season that they must try to recruit others by hyping how major a footcer team it is. It's like a pyramid scheme in the midlands. :)

The funny thing is that this "big club"'s manager David O'Leary is always complaining that he doesn't have the resources to compete with other "big clubs" like Chelsea and Manchester United. So if Aston Villa is a big club, I guess the others are super humungeouly gigantically large.

What I wonder, though, is if PSV actually has anyone still playing for them? I've lost count of this year's transfer. Sure they're always a farm team for bigger clubs but now it seems like Eindhoven is really a farm team - DaMarcus Beasley and a group of local Dutch farmers.

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Another team that no one's quite sure of who's on it is the United States men's national team which will play Mexico this weekend. Bruce Arena has made a point of keeping his lineup a secret (though he claims it's a media glitch).

Yeah, I had to use the Fox News link for that - it seemed fitting. :)

Go tell the world indeed. Just don't tell them exactly who's going to surprise them in the next World Cup.

Batten Down The Hatches For More Of Hurricane Owen

2005-08-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

I interrupt this blog for an urgent news announcement...

Michael Owen did not play for Real Madrid yesterday!

I repeat...

Michael Owen did not play for Real Madrid yesterday!

Citizens of the entire universe are asked to stay indoors and don't consume any Spanish products for at least three weeks. Unless you're Canadian and then you are allowed to watch the friendly between Spain and Canada this week. But, please be cautious and wear a gas mask. The drubbing might make you feel sick anyhow. :)

Michael wasn't even selected for the 18 man squad by Vanderlei Luxemburgo. This has led to even more speculation that he'll be in England before the end of the day today - or at the very least by tomorrow.

Or dogs may start living with cats.

You may all now go back to your lives.

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A player not being named to the England squad for their qualifier at Wales on Saturday is David James.

Now this entirely understandable after the adventures he had in Daneland. But, what I question is who England named in his place - Chris Kirkland and Robert Green.

A colaship goalie (though to be fair he's been named a number of times) and the guy who has let in more goals (eight) than any other backstop in the Premiership. Then again, there are not a lot of choices. For example, Nigel Martyn of Everton is waving his hands like a little schoolgirl saying, "over here, over here, I'm interested in playing for England again!"

Nigel Martyn is still one of the better goalies in the EPL - but he's 39. Of course in goalie years that's 27, but still.

Cripes! If the United States called in a Colaship goalie and a 39 year old, we'd never hear the end of it from the Brits! :)

Oops, wait...nevermind. ;)

Marcus Hahnemann is awesome and Kasey Keller is only 36!

Not that any of the above mentioned goalies will start for England (especially the Americans) with Paul Robinson goalie until he decides otherwise.

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Should be a very tumultuous near two weeks on the international and transfer stage, that's for sure.

Still nothing's going to make the beginning of these long 12 days without the Premiership easier than a nice triple header on BBC Radio Five Live from the Colaship.

Even though it started with my alarm clock going off, I made it to work to hear the end of the Preston North End/Ipswich match.

That was more like it! Away at Portman Road, David Nugent (England U-21 internation) scored two goals (and apparently thought he was playing up the road for Blackburn instead of for Preston with a violent yellow and an uncalled red) in Preston's 4-0 win over Ipswich who sit near the top of the table.

And that was after selling their best striker, Richard Cresswell, to Leeds. The bad news is Wigan is looking to buy Nugent before the transfer window closes on Wednesday - not that it will help either them or David Nugent.

Ah, such is life in the soda leagues! :(

The other game of interest is Plymouth at Brighton. The winner may just very well survive or they might both go down to League One. It's only August but through a combined ten games, the two have one win between them. Milwall already lost to Luton (who regained first) 2-1 so at least that gives the two teams a little breathing room - from last.

Give Me A Red Card For Ranting

2005-08-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

Chivas USA is the Gol TV of the MLS now. It seems as though it really excites the CONCACAF besides the United States contingent of the league with its new look. Of the five goals scored against Chivas USA since the introduction of their three new Mexican internationals, four have been scored by foreign players. Mind you, three of these was Amado Guavara's hat trick for the MetroStars, but Carlos Ruiz added one tonight for FC Dallas.

The one goal scored by a United States player? Ramon Nunez. I had to actually check to confirm that he was born in Dallas, TX.

I'm on the fence of how I feel about Chivas USA right now. If nothing else, they're finally living up to their promise of increasing attendance. Two weeks ago against the Revolution, Dallas drew 12,101. This week FC drew 14,102. Still not what they should be drawing at Pizza Hut Park but better than before (of course there haven't been that many games to analyze). New England drew 18,049 in Foxboro today which is simply great. It's great to see success breeding attendance at least one place (east coast derby or not).

One the downside, it was kind of nice to make fun of them as whipping boys. :(

My mind flashes ahead to next year if Chivas USA starts out strong with these three players and the rest of the league tries to play catchup. Will MLS finally think of rescinding the international caps and allowing CONCACAF players to not count against the three senior internationals?

It will be interesting to see if a true Mexican internationals v. the rest of CONCACAF internationals rivalry develops in our backyard. Of course United States players won't be on the sidelines by any means.

Sure it might seem a little bit reactionary but I'd love to see a "who will protect this house?" on a national level in MLS like it has been for the USMNT.

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Keeping on MLS a little, it's so sad that it appears as though the officials in the EPL this season attended a clinic sponsored by the MLS referees earlier this summer.

They're not handing out penalty kicks left and right or anything but they are handing out some of the worst red cards known to mankind. Thusfar, nearly half of the ejections they've handed out have been overturned. And the Mido red card in the Tottenham v. Chelsea match will probably join the list.

Martin Jol is not pleased at the card as it, as red cards tend to do, changed the nature of the match entirely. I'm not pleased because despite the fact that I shouldn't (who starts a striker against Chelsea's defense?) I started Mido as one of my two strikers on premierleague.com. :)

And, what I love about the salary cap league on the EPL's official site is that politics plays into it. Even if the Mido red card is suspended, they won't give you back the points, stating in the FAQs of play the following:

"A yellow/red card or goal scorer in an earlier game has been changed. Are you going to alter the points?

No, the decision at the final whistle is treated as final."

Way to protect crappy referees from fan's ire, Premiership!

But back to Jol. According to the Spurs manager, "the red card killed the game. I don't think he deserved it. If the striker is coming from the flanks, you try to protect yourself, you try to be brave. He was too enthusiastic."

What I really want to focus on, however is Jose Mourinho, amateur psychologist who stated his philosophy on red cards:

"As for Mido, maybe it was a red card but I think Mido is the right man to say if it was intentional, if he meant to hurt the player or not. It's something very private, very personal."

Um, well, sort of. I mean, yes the thought goes on inside of the culprit's mind, but at the same time it's played in front of thousands of fans, with betters and fantasy players and distance supporters of the team hanging on the decision. I think it's a little more public that Jose makes it out to be.

It was actually pretty surprising when today there was a double yellow on Phil Neville of Everton that, 1) he actually deserved as a reward for his four chippy fouls and 2) it's not appealable so there won't be any controversy.

The calls have been so bad that FIFA is getting involved, scolding the England FA last week. Unfortunately it's not for the calls in the first place that the EPL is in trouble with the world governing body for, it's the overturning (FIFA insists that players who are red carded must be suspended for the next match).

FIFA insists that their rules state: "appeals against red cards only in the case of mistaken identity."

So England is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one (though this isn't new since England has been a target of the FA since they allowed appeals in the first place). The refereeing has been so bad that if they don't grant appeals, there's liable to be a player revolt. If they keep on, who knows what kind of FIFA sanctions England will be liable for.

Frankly, in my opinion, the whole nature of what's been red carded this year is the issue. England footcer is famous (and popular) for two things: its fast pace and its physical nature. Awarding red cards for clean but overly physical challenges (as two of the overturned red cards have been) is going to either scare players from making them or scare referees from calling actual red cardable offenses.

Either way the game is going to suffer.

Solutions? I don't have any. Just wanted to spit at the referees for decisions that personally cost me fantasy points. At least that's still a red card for sure with no dispute. :)

If You Can't Beat Them, Beat Them Up

2005-08-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

There's a scene in "Shaolin Soccer" (which, by the way parting with general opinion I hated) where an opposing manager (of a corrupt team) has a wrench fall out of his shorts. He plays it off that he's a mechanic and it would be perfectly normal for this to happen but he swears his team will play clean.

I think that manager has about as much credibility as Mark Hughes of Blackburn when he promises that there will be reprocussions against Rovers players who play dirty.

Already fined by the league for last years shenanigans, the Northwest England Penitentiary All-Stars could be in trouble again for events that happened in their match against Tottenham yesterday.

Thusfar in the league through three games Blackburn has three goals to contrast with five yellow cards and two red cards (one of which was a double yellow, so statimatic that one however you choose) - three of which have gone to Robbie Savage.

But the strategy seems to work. I was talking to my friend Todd (the other big EPL fan in my office) today who's a Spurs fan and we got to talking about Tottenham's one shot on goal. He said, "they benches everyone important so of course they only got one shot." I said, "if you have the chance to get three points from Blackburn, which most teams will get, why wouldn't you take it?" His logic was flawless responding, "they've got Chelsea on the weekend and they want their side healthy - and Blackburn injures people."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how true the words were. Other teams don't fear Blackburn's offensive fire power, they fear Blackburn's elbows and spikes (and even teeth). If it means that other teams will bench some of their stars and Blackburn can steal points then Hughes isn't going to do anything.

The only thing that will prevent Blackburn from being Blackburn is to take away points. Unless they get fined 500,000 pounds it doesn't mean more than one place's worth of money in the Premiership.

So Hughes can tell the media, "I don't go out and tell my players to get thrown out of games and get carded, that would be crazy," all he wants. But, it doesn't mean that he tells them straight away not to do it either.

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UEFA hates Real Madrid. Sure Liverpool fans are whining about drawing Chelsea in the group stage of the Champions League but Real Madrid has a much harder group as a whole.

The second fiddles to their one seed are Lyon - four time defending French champions Olympique Lyon. Knockout round survivors Lyon (though they eventually, thankfully, fell to PSV in the round of eight if memory serves). And the third seed are Olympiakos and what a pain in the posterior Greek sides can be. And that's just spelling their names. :) They even drew one of the strongest fourth seeds in Rosenborg.

The second toughest group stage seems to belong to AC Milan. They draw PSV (though this year's side is a shadow of its former self), dangerous German contender Schalke 04, and Turkish champion Fenerbache (and a trip to visit them is actually dangerous in a different way than footcer).

Dates for the Champions League group stage matches are preliminary but the first games out of the six are scheduled to begin on September 12 and 13.

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Much closer to home, congratulations Minnesota Thunder! The USL-1 side defeated the holders Kansas City in their quarterfinal match of the U.S. Open Cup. du nord has a great writeup of the match and an incident that happened afterwards (among the 5,000 fans that showed up). Just another reason why Kansas City needs to be the team moved and not San Jose.

The loss by the Wizards (and D.C. United losing to FC Dallas) means that the Chicago Fire are the only ones left with a chance at the domestic treble. Not that they'll do it, but I'm just sayin'. ;)

On All Leagues Great And Small

2005-08-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Alright, I know I said I wouldn't bring this up again, but come on, how much does Newcastle United suck? Seriously. Three games thusfar and not a single goal. Now, yes they're tied with Fulham on one point but at least Fulham's scored twice (though letting in six goals is more than a bit little worrisome). Today's Newcastle loss to Bolton seriously took the cake for the team that a baker wouldn't let into their shop.

In the 0-2 loss to Bolton, Newcastle managed to entirely stink up the pitch offensively. And this is a Bolton team who Aston Villa scored on twice in less than nine minutes!

I'm still thinking Michael Owen doesn't have enough of a Christ complex to walk into that though the Magpies have a huge offer (a record expenditure by Newcastle) on the table that's been accepted by Real Madrid.

Though, to be fair, Spurs - huh? High octane Tottenham? - only managed one shot on goal against Blackburn (and it was Andy Reid). Brad Friedel must have thought he was playing Montserrat (I had to look up a good example of a toothless team in CONCACAF and losing 0-20 to Bermuda definitely qualifies you for that). He had time to get his hair done - if he had any.

Not that today's EPL action proved boring. Chelsea and Arsenal played a couple of practice matches against league two teams and scored eight goals combined. Wait, that was Fulham and West Brom? Son of a...

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Don't forget to hug an Australian domestic footcer fan today. I'm sure they've been the bane of your life after the MLS Select Team's defeat but they're going to need some moral support.

They're restarting their top flight league down there and no one is sure that anyone is going to turn up.

There is one pretty sad aspect to the story - that they've decided to stop referring to the sport as soccer when it comes to the league. Now that doesn't leave us alone in the world (well when I'm not calling it footcer at least) but it's a major defection. :)

Here are some interesting similarities and differences to MLS:

- There will be playoff where the majority of the teams in the league make it (though they only have eight teams).
- Fox Sports is going to be the major broadcaster.
- They're allowing a team from New Zealand to enter the league.
- Australia has decided to market to youths and families in their advertising.
- Too many of the few fans they have in Australia will be busy watching the EPL durin the season.

It's kind of odd to be in a country that has a relatively established domestic league in comparison. Now this isn't Australia's first try at a league of course, but MLS wasn't our first try either.

I say we play the bigger footcer nation and wish them luck despite how much the Aussies like to insult all things American footcer.

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Speaking of MLS, it looks like there's hope for the San Jose Earthquakes after all. And it's coming from a really unusual source (well not too unusual since they've been kicking around the idea for a while) - Ajax Amsterdam.

It turns out Mr. Clean FC has made it publically known that they are interested in buying a minority stake in either San Jose or Kansas City along with a group of local investors (Soccer Silicon Valley a name pretty much known to all in San Jose's case). They already have a minor league affiliate in the PDL, but it's not doing great.

I only say it's odd because unlike an America or a Manchester United or a Real Madrid (three other teams whose names have been bandied around of purchasing MLS teams or expansion franchises), there just aren't that many Ajax fans in the United States to try and build a fanbase on name alone.

Of course Ajax's intentions aren't entirely pure. They want to kick the tires around a little bit before going all in the purchase an expansion franchise in Orlando - a Chivas USA type arrangement to develop talent. Still, if Soccer Silicon Valley's bid is accepted (with the financial backing of the Eredivisie club), San Jose's bacon could be saved!

But it's going to have to happen soon. The deadline that AEG set for announcing San Jose's future is -- TOMORROW (today by the time most people read this)!

Again, as I've been saying, best of luck northern California types. I really do hope you stick around in your current location. Well in a better stadium made just for you but you get the picture.

Gambling On Eastern Europe Champions League Success Is Not A Good Idea

2005-08-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

Good thing I never put it in writing on here, that the MLS Select team could hold run of play close against Real Madrid (on bigsoccer.com it's another story entirely). I sure would be embarrassed to have said that out loud. :)

So instead I'll just mention another 5-0 loss by an entirely different team in the first round of the Carling Cup. I have a new favorite name in all of footcer. Dean Windass of Bradford City sure beats Nicky Butt. At least as far as silly names go. Apparently he used to play for 'Boro but it was before I was seriously following the Premiership so it's a brand new name for me.

Windass scored a hat trick in Bradford's 5-0 crushing of Rochdale (one of the many Manchester Area lower division teams).

The winds of ass were obviously blowing all over the Carling Cup as seven, count them an unlucky seven, Colaship sides were eliminated: Brighton, Crewe (who lost 1-5 to Lincoln friggin' City), Hull, QPR (ha! ha!), and Stoke all went down. Of course so did Preston so I guess I shouldn't be laughing at the Notting Hill Nobodies.

No one pulled a bigger upset though than Yeovil. It hasn't been a pretty start for one of my regular reader's second teams in Division One but they knocked off Ipswich (one of last year's Colaship playoff teams) quite handily today.

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On Thursday, the day before the UEFA Supercup between Liverpool and CSKA Moscow (Roman Abramovich's first team before he also bought Chelsea), the group pairings of the Champions League is being announced in Monaco.

The funny thing is, FC Monaco will not be there to hear the announcement. Well, the team might be there but they'll be waiting a long time to hear their name drawn from the pots as they were eliminated today by Real Betis - losing in the same stadium where Liverpool and CSKA will be meeting (aka "at home").

Liverpool also lost at home but had built up a big enough lead where they're advancing anyhow.

The other Champions League outs were mostly Eastern European - Lokomotiv Moscow, Wisla Krakow, Partizan Belgrade, and Steaua Bucharest were all shown the door (or the hole in the floor as the case may be). Shakhtar Donetsk and Slavia Prague should give up hope now!

And well Debrecen never had much hope to begin with. But before they bid their curtain call, I just want to write how to pronounce their name (not that anyone in the English speaking media will ever get it right) - it's DE-BRET-SEN. I've heard it said every way but the correct one. You'd think that at least the BBC would ask a Hungarian how to say the name of the city!

Unless they find some way to convince everyone they're Western European teams and fast!

Advancing however at Partizan's expense was the little Eastern European train that could that eliminated Celtic - Armedia Bratislava. There wasn't much choice but for one Eastern European team to make the group stages though. Both teams in that game match that description.

Thun also advanced in a romp. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our shockers.

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There is one good bit of news for an Eastern European as Milan Baros finally escaped the striker logjam at Liverpool for a much safer spot at Aston Villa today. Everyone start salavating that this frees up a spot for Michael Owen at Anfield in 3...2...1...

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Then again, maybe the whole Curse of the East is karma of some sort. Today Latvia's mens national team captain admitted that the Baltic republic's side was offered bribes to throw last week's WCQ against Russia.

It ended 1-1 so obviously there's not as huge a scandal brewing as there could be. The fact that there's corruption in the federations of the former Soviet bloc isn't news and since their leagues are not exactly in media sunshine, rich gamblers and organized crime types can get away with a lot. Stay tuned for what FIFA ends up doing in this case. Slovakia may end up advancing to the World Cup UEFA playoffs (just like their Champions League representative) even if they finish behind Russia.

Just think, a few days ago the biggest footcer gambling news was that the Portugese Premiership is now being sponsored by betandwin.com.

Somehow it was much less disheartening that way.

The Things These Minnows Will Resort To

2005-08-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

Just to start off by capping off last weekend, I entirely forgot to mention that the first of the 78 times Celtic and Rangers play this season occured on Saturday. Rangers won 3-1 with a brilliant double damage role.

Then I knocked over the Dungeon Master's shield in a fit of rage. :)

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And now on to games that actually matter outside of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland that are happening throughout this busy week.

Tomorrow the Champions League starts up again with the aggregate winners advancing to the tournament proper (I've never understood why this part is just qualifying but there's a lot of things I don't understand). The storylines of this two days of fun have been gone over ad nauseum (but yes Everton is toast). But there is one story I think I touched on that I want to revisit.

Last April, Jermaine Pennant then sort of a Birmingham City player (on loan from Arsenal) and now completely Birmingham City player became the first person in the history of the Premiership to play under police custody (being forced to wear an electronic tracking device during the Brummies match against Tottenham.

Well in that case he fit right in since half the fans of Birmingham City have to also wear police issued ankle bracelets as well. He was just one of the masses. :)

A similar event is occurring in the Champions League as Ardian Gashi of Valerenga (from Norway) is being released from police custody (also on a driving charge though speeding in this case and not drunk driving) to play against Belgium side Club Bruges. It's similar to the Pennant incident in that he's being released four days early after serving nearly his complete jail time. Is someone in the prosecutor's office a Valernga fan? The world may never know.

Gashi won't have to wear an ankle bracelet. Unless he really wants to. I mean some players might want to wear them for good luck or something. ;)

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On a much sadder and more important note, Rangers match against Anorthosis Famagusta has a footnote of importance. Famagusta's captain Niko Nikolaou lost four members of his family in the tragic plain crash in Athens last week.

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Anyway, back to the goofy and funny. Borussia Dortmund became the second big club casualty in the club cups around Europe losing to Eintracht Braunschweig (a third division team) in the first round of the Germany Cup 1-2.

Alright, who put those stories next to each other? Swear to fate, I'll have their head on a platter? Oh yeah, it was me. Um, never mind.

So, back to the story. This match was actually marked by a giant power outage that left the eventual winner's home grounds dark for 13 minutes. What the other news sources won't tell you (because, well, they take more pride in reporting the truth) is that during said outage, the home team snuck in Bayern Munich and switched kits with them.

Oh, those sneaky third division German sides, is there nothing they won't try?

Cologne (or Koln as they're known in the league, but with those two little funky dots) were actually the first big team knocked out as they lost to Kickers Offenbach 1-3. What I want to know about this match is who let the USL Board of Directors decide the names of lower division Germany teams? Seriously, it's not a good idea.

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Which brings me to the last story. The Carling Cup starts tomorrow. Well, technically it started today as Southampton beat Southend 3-0,

The bigger news about the Saints is that according to Yahoo, they applied for additional uranium concessions in Niger. Now that's one hades of a transfer. Didn't we go to war over something like that? I mean is there nothing these Colaship sides won't do for a little advantage?

Oh wait, nevermind that's Southampton Ventures, Inc.

Anyway, there are some fascinating matchups in the first round of the Carling Cup tomorrow. Here are the highlights:

o Yeovil at Ipswich - if you've been paying attention you know why. ;)
o Luton at Leyton Orient - the high flying Colaship newbies play the last team to lose in the lower league (any of them).
o Swansea at Reading - a Colaship duel. Reading should demolish the Welsh side but anything's possible at this stage of the competition.

And 26 others all for the low price of you're not going to see them anywhere since, HELLO, there are Champion League matches going on. :)

A Great Day For England-Based Yanks And Butt Jokes

2005-08-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Now I know I woke up pretty early to watch Aston Villa play Manchester United this morning, but I don't think I'm halucinating.

Still, it feels as though I must be since ESPN the Magazine has now run footcer related stories two issues in a row! On the front cover of the August 29 issue is the sub-headline, "Peace on a Mideast Pitch." While it's not the actual cover story like David Beckham was last issue, there's a five page story on the lone Muslim member of the Israeli men's national team.

It's a human interest story to be sure, but it beats nothing.

This was also the issue that the feedback came in from the Beckham story. The letters that ESPN the Magazine chose to run two negative letters and a letter from a Beckham fangirl. However, they chose to run the letters as the lead story in The Post. One quote they pulled simply said the following:

"News flash, America doesn't care about soccer." - David Suart of Phoenix, AZ.

I'd like to flash his news. There is a growing portion of the population that does care about footcer and ESPN the Magazine is realizing that through the feedback they receive.

Still, it was as if ESPN was trying to say to the footcer crowd, "sorry guys, this is the reaction we get, better luck next time." I'd just like to say to the editors (of course they don't read this), "buck up little campers the time will come in about five years when you'll be selling magazines because of footcer and not in spite of it."

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Maybe I'm being optimistic but I think I have the right to be today because it was a huge day for Americans in England today.

Leading the way in the Colaship were midfielder Bobby Convey and goalie Marcus Hahnemann in a 5-0 thrashing of bottom dwelling Millwall by their Reading team. Convey had the first two goals of the match before being pulled in the 57th minute.

Add this to his performance against Preston North End with an assist on the first Reading goal and he's putting together quite a season (as is Hahnemann who is averaging 0.50 goals against a match with three clean sheets). Reading sits in first place in the entire Colaship with a 3-1-0 record and a +9 goal differential.

So if anyone else is looking for a Colaship team to follow, don't say I never gave you anything. :)

Myself I'm sticking with Preston North End even though they lost 1-2 to Sheffield United today and are wallowing in 18th place just ahead of perennial losers like Brighton, Cardiff City, and Millwall on four points in four matches.

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But the United State success doesn't end with Convey. Eddie Lewis scored his first goal for Leeds United (which proved to be the game winner) in a 2-0 win over Wolverhampton. This win actually snapped a 21-game unbeaten streak by Wolves and knocked them off the league's pedestal (making room for Reading) and vaulted Leeds into 5th.

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In the Premiership, similar good tidings were had by the Yanks. USMNT captain Claudio Reyna didn't score for Manchester City but his team did win 2-1 at Birmingham City.

I hate the other City but the match was fascinating to watch if only because any match involving Nicky Butt is fun (hence why he's on my fantasy team). The classic line from the commentary today was, "Butt has a minor groin injury, that's why he came out."

How can English presenters keep a straight face? :)

David James (not an American and neither is Nicky Butt) managed to keep it together and Butt's goal (yes, Butt was the one who knocked it into the crease) wasn't really his fault.

One other point of silliness happened in this match when Claudio Reyna was subbed out. The midfielder subbed in for him in the 72nd minutes was Sun Jihai of China. Look at that. Now there's even outsourcing in the world of footcer replacing American goods with Chinese. :)

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Meanwhile, Blackburn goalie (and former United States national team member) Brad Friedel nearly pulled off a clean sheet against Fulham (look at me putting a positive spin on my favorite team losing).

But who broke it up?

None other than Arlington Heights, IL native Brian McBride. :)

About the only United States citizen who had an awful day today was Carlos Bocanegra who wasn't even selected for Chris Coleman's bench for the Cottagers. But, I'm sure with Convey and Lewis doing well in the Colaship this year, some second division team looking for a central defender will give Boca a nod.

Now if it's Reading, I'll have to become a fan since no team in any English division has ever had three Americans on a roster at once to the best of my knowledge and, well, they would then deserve it. :)

Rays Of Hope Everywhere In The Footcer World

2005-08-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

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. ;)

There's Nothing Rotten In Denmark

2005-08-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

I always love an England loss if for no other reason than there is no group of fickler fans on the Earth. Before England got handed a 1-4 loss to Denmark in Copenhagen, everyone was talking about how this team could win the World Cup. Now, the reaction is that there needs to be a reshuffle of the highest order and that no one in the starting XI for England cares about the team.

The majority of English boast that friendlies don't matter but give them one loss in a non-tournament sanctioned match and suddenly the sky is falling.

Most of the blame is falling on Manchester City keeper David James. If there were still the carrying of heads through streets on pikes, he'd be a prime candidate. But from the commentary, it would appear that only one of the goals was directly his fault.

Though I think he banged his own nails into his England coffin with the following brilliant quote:

"Because I knew I wasn't going to start, for once I didn't do my starting preparations. You should prepare to play. The watchwords are practice, practice, practice. For once I didn't adhere to that and everyone saw the result."

There are a lot of people coming to James' defense including the opposition keeper Thomas Sorensen of Aston Villa, and his manager at Manchester City Stuart Pearce.

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What I want to really rant about, however, in the match is actually the fan's reaction. Everyone is blaming an England collapse but no one is crediting the fact that Denmark is actually a good team!

The latest FIFA rankings (surprisingly uncontroversial since everyone seems to have burned themselves out after the July tally) have them at #18 in the world.

Beyond the constantly in question list, person for person the Danes match up with any team in Europe. This is especially the case with the scariest, if not best, defensive midfielder in Europe Thomas Gravesen. Practically their entire team plays in England, Spain, or Germany and of those who don't, the remainder are all concentrated at Brondby and FC Copenhagen. In short, they've got a dangerous formula.

They probably won't make the World Cup being in UEFA Group One (it would take a small miracle to leapfrog both Turkey and Greece). Though their run-in leaves their World Cup fate completely in their own hands. Their remaining matches are: 9/3/05 @ Turkey, 9/7/05 Georgia, 10/8/05 Greece, 10/12/05 @ Kazakhstan.

So it's the two bottom dwellers and the two teams they need to beat. Even if they don't make the World Cup, they're a team to watch for Euro 2008.

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There were two other major events in yesterday's World Cup qualifying. The first was that Jared Borgetti (now of Bolton and that still sounds nice to say) is now Mexico's all-time leading goal scorer.

Also, Uzbekistan shocked Kuwait 3-2 to clinch a spot in the AFC playoffs against Bahrain and eliminate Kuwait from World Cup qualifying.

Kuwait, unlike Denmark, will not do anything in Euro 2008 barring a shocking merger between the two confederations. :)