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Soccer Is the New Football ❘ Blog 
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Yossi Benyaoun in the 91st minute… late late winner… emotionally and spiritually drained right now. Now I need Villa to play out of their heads on Sunday. Somewhere in Dallas a business is saved from going up in flames.
Liverpool has outshot Fulham 13-1 and has had four of those go off the goalposts and the game remains scoreless. If we tie I have every intention of setting fire to a private business ideally owned by large multi-national. In other news not even the great Alan Shearer may save Newcastle. They go down to Chelsea 2-0. And to Paul Tagg, my head isn’t fat it’s just big boned. Now Steve Bruce he most definitely has a Big Fat Head, Steve Bruce has a Big Fat Head.
South Korea beats North Korea with a goal in the 87th minute, and the head coach of North Korea gets sent off. North Korea = the borderline retarded cousin who is 100 percent a paranoid schizophrenic one has to deal with at family funerals. It’s uncomfortable and highly embarrassing, but when they fall on their face soooooo rewarding. And yes I was awake at five in the morning to watch the game. Two players sent off with injuries.
Tags: international break, Kim Jong Hun, Korea
As you may or may not know, I don’t get Setanta here in Las Vegas. Sure, I see some of their games in the casino, but it’s never with sound, so I don’t get to see/hear much of what supposedly makes this channel so far superior to FSC. With that said, I’m not so sure what to think of this show — Special 1 TV, formerly “I’m on Setanta”. I’m pretty sure it’s awesome, but might not be well-educated enough by Fox to fully get the idiosyncrasies of Sven Eriksson, Wayne Rooney, Jose Mourinho, and Alex Ferguson puppets:
Thanks, Steve in LA, for the tip-off!
Tags: Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta, Soccer on TV, Special 1 TV
ESPN just lost the rights for Champions League games in the US to FSC. Frankly there are pros and cons to this development. With the increased revenue FSC will definitely improve their coverage of the sport. On ESPN’s side this may force the largest sports channel in the US to focus more on the MLS to fill the soccer hole that now exists in their lineup. ESPN cannot ignore the growing Hispanic audience in this country and not have soccer somehow on its channel. Strangely enough ESPN lost out on a bid to televise games in England itself not too long ago. Wonder if Rupert is putting a full court press on the Bristol outfit.
Tags: Champions League, ESPN, Fox Soccer Channel, MLS, Rupert Murdoch, Soccer on TV
Well, I’m gobsmacked. Chelsea captain/England skipper John Terry’s mom and mother-in-law got pinched for stealing around 800 GBP worth of clothes and food from UK shops Tesco and Marks and Spencer. That’s a lot of HP Sauce.
Tags: Chelsea FC, england, john terry
As a follow up to the post by DA Hasselbaink (love the reference to Jimmy Floyd ), Pele not only took shots at Ronaldo and Robinho, but in the same speech also took a shot at Diego Maradona. Pele basically referenced Diego’s drug use over the year. Now the Argy Bargy starts with Maradona accusing Pele of having lost his virginity to a man. Interestingly this is the second time Maradona has issued such a claim on Pele’s sexuality. Frankly I love it when legends start acting like twelve year old schoolgirls. I smell a catfight.
There exists within the confines of the Soccerati offices a long simmering and divisive issue. It is an issue that has resulted in fisticuffs, lewd questioning of one’s parentage, and once the kidnapping of a beloved pet (never let it be said that Soccerati is a mature institution ). I have never admired the format of international breaks during a season. I find it disrupts the dramatic narrative of a season, and imposes undue pressures on clubs who are in a relegation or title battle. The only reason I find myself paying attention to any of the results is to scan the injury lists and pray no Liverpool player has sustained a knock or worse. Quite frankly there are too many games spread out over an unjust period of time. Eventually the qualification process has to become more efficient. I would rather see the qualifying process be compacted to the summer before a major international tournament. Friendlies could be played out during the first half of a season so as to give national managers time to organize an effective squad. Spreading the process out over months only endangers both club and country.
P.S. Yossi Benyaoun injured his calf playing against Greece. Peter Crouch almost suffered a leg injury that could have kept him out for an extended period of time. Both players’ clubs are in tight relegation and league title fights.
P.P.S. Emile Heskey injures his calf against Slovakia. Aston Villa loses a key cog in their race to secure a Champions League spot.
Tags: Emile Heskey, international break, Peter Crouch, Yossi Benyaoun
Admittedly, I am still learning a lot about soccer … I was in a tizzy today because ESPN 2 seemed to be showing reruns of the WSOP instead of USA/Salvador, only to have someone tell me that the game wasn’t til Saturday — phew! — and when I rechecked that out on the internet, indeed, he was right!
Anyhow, do we know yet who will be goalie in that game? Will Brad Guzan be making the trip — and would that have been different had Brad Friedel’s red card not been rescinded?
Sorry for asking more than telling here … but hey, we’re new, with only like a few hundred thousand readers a day so far … so I’m figuring it’s not too late to still get help finding links to the best soccer info out there.
Tags: Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan, ESPN, WSOP
Chelsea FC, Inter, AC Milan and Club America will be coming to the U.S. this summer for a six-city exhibition tournament called the World Football Challenge. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited (and already have tickets to the July 21st Chelsea vs. Inter game at the Rose Bowl).
Here’s more on the event from SiTV.com
Tags: AC Milan, Chelsea FC, Club America, inter, world football challenge
“First this Brazilian soccer phenom goes on television, lies and retracts it, and now Eric’s secretary is in a coma.”
Well, not exactly, but at a private function in Sao Paulo, the legendary Pele apparently did call fellow Brazilian footballers Ronaldo and Robinho uhhh…coke heads. But now the former New York Cosmos forward denies the incident ever occurred.
Very sneaky, Pele, very sneaky (God, I have to stop with the Adam Sandler movie references).
Here’s the full story from ESPN.com
OK, the Liverpool/Villa game didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped. And my “boy” Brad Friedel … well it’s hard to make the argument any more that he’s the best goalkeeper in the EPL after a 5-0 drubbing. But I did find it interesting to see, after he got sent off with red, that Aston Villa’s back-up goalie is also an American … Brad Guzan, who made his EPL debut today with an unsuccessful attempt to block the penalty kick he inherited from Friedel. Hopefully Villa’s understudy has learned a bunch of stuff from Friedel before he started sucking.
Guzan is also a Chicago Polack … so that makes me like him even more.
UPDATE: Of course, he’s a Chivas USA guy! The 24-year-old, in fact, was the 2007 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year … and super-beloved by the fans.
Here’s an official tribute to him from Chivas, celebrating his export to Villa.
And here’s a highlight reel of his saving ability from The Offside:
Tags: Aston Villa, Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan, Chivas USA, English Premier League, MLS
For some reason this gives me the chills … and confirms why Chivas USA is my favorite non-FC Dallas team in the MLS (and 5th favorite non-International team in the world):
From ChivaGirls.tv
Chiva Girls dancing and pimping their calendar (en Espanol) below:
Tags: Chiva Girls, Chivas USA, MLS, Soccer on TV
Big game tomorrow … Liverpool really needs to win, and can move within a point of Man U … Villa has been struggling of late, and with an Arsenal victory today, needs to pull of the whole 3 points to say, hey, we still belong in the top 4.
If they can do it, I might change my name to OMGBradFriedel.
Tags: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brad Friedel, Liverpool, Manchester United
Good, lengthy story in the New York Times about Inter Milan skipper Jose Mourinho:
A Coach Cloaked in Armani and Confidence
Tags: Inter Milan, Jose Mourinho
That’s what it looked like … they got a PK against Guarani … and two players fought over who got to take it. Forget the names … but the guy who got to take the kick … missed it. Looked like a forced miss to me.
Reminds me of Dennis Lundy fumbling twice in a row at the goal line at Northwestern (before it was discovered he was shaving points).
UPDATE: Marquinhos. That’s who missed the shot.
Tags: cheating, Dennis Lundy, gambling, Guarani, Marquinhos, Palmeiras
Rick Parry just got the sack at Liverpool FC. Clearly a victory for the Hicks/Benitez faction, but many will argue no victory will be complete unless both American owners are gone as well. However at the risk of sounding like a Homer, Gillet may be the real weak link of the two. Clearly Benitez is a stabilizing force at Anfield, and Hicks has been a strong supporter of the Spaniard for some time. I don’t believe for an instant Hicks will sell his portion of the club. According to the latest issue of 442, Hicks’ value actually increased due to the rise of Liverpool’s value, Gillet not so much. If anything what we could be seeing now is Tom Hicks solidifying his position at Anfield, and given the time he could very well turn the club into the financial equal of Man U.
AC Milan goes down 2-1 but the final ten minutes were frenetic. Inzaghi might have scored a dramatic equalizer late in the game, but Julio Cesar made a hell of a save to preserve the lead. Paolo Maldini the best defender of his generation, or any generation for that matter, plays his final derby and leaves with a bitter loss. Pato was electric and with more experience the chances he creates for himself will turn into goals, a lot of goals.
Pato scores in the 70th for AC Milan. Time to pour it on. A mini Istanbul in the works? I hope so.
Dejan Stankovic scores a nice goal in the 43rd minute and Inter is up 2-0. AC Milan is heading for a deflating loss here. Ronaldino has been a non-entity, he could be the key to unleash Pato.
