I confess

I've been way too caught up in what's going on with the sale of Liverpool FC to blog about something so trivial as neighborhood convenience stores conveniently acting as fences for neighborhood thieves.

Continue reading I confess

Seriously?

Congratulations to the US MNT for a great performance in the 2010 World Cup, and a thrilling round of 16 match against the Ghana Black Stars, which they actually could have won, despite being outplayed for large stretches of the game (ie - first half, and all of extra time.)

But what the hell does this mean?

When they had a chance to move into soccer's elite, against a Ghana team they should have handled easily, the Americans came out looking flat and uninspired.

No slight intended, but Asamoah Gyan eats Jozy Altidore's lunch as a striker, and Ghana's back four was superior to the US's in almost every facet of the game. Probably the best thing you can say about today's game was that losing to Ghana spared us the ignominy of going down to Uruguay 4-0 next week.

Continue reading Seriously?

So, what exactly was the problem?

The fan who entered the England dressing room after Friday night's World Cup match has been arrested and charged with trespassing. Pavlos Joseph, 32, will appear in court tomorrow morning and was tonight banned from attending any further matches in the tournament.

. . .

Joseph, a life-long England and Manchester United supporter, said he told a stunned Beckham that fans were bitterly disappointed at England's performance.

"I looked David straight in the eye and said: 'David, we've spent a lot of money getting here. This is a disgrace. What are you going to do about it?'"

The mortgage advisor said that when Beckham asked him who he was, he responded: "I'm Pavlos and I actually need the toilet."

. . .

Beckham, who gave a joint interview with Princes William and Harry, said: "Luckily it was after the princes had left – five to 10 minutes after.

So, what? Their royal fucking highnesses might have had to meet one of the small people? Christ on a cracker, the things we accept as normal in this world.

Continue reading So, what exactly was the problem?

World Cup fashions

Compared to the fashion disaster that was the US - Slovenia match yesterday, Cameroon v Denmark is a joy to look at.

Continue reading World Cup fashions

Coming soon to Amazon.com

Coming up next, an exclusive interview with Matjaž Kek, manager of the Slovenian national team, and author of the upcoming book, "How Not To Play The Second Half of a World Cup Group Match That Your Team Needs To Win To Move To The Next Round When You Have a 2-0 Lead at Halftime."

Continue reading Coming soon to Amazon.com

Teh funny

World Cup news:

"That American fan? He's harmless, I guess," bartender and lifelong Tottenham supporter Martin West said. "Though he gets pretty tiresome with all his footy rubbish, and he can really get annoying when we're all just trying to watch in peace. Thank Christ he's the only one."

Continue reading Teh funny

Best health care system in the world

AP:

David Beckham says he hopes to make a "swift and full recovery" from his torn left Achilles' tendon after leaving Monday for surgery which will keep him out of the World Cup.

"I am on my way to Finland to see a specialist and have a scan on the injury," Beckham said in a statement posted on his Web site. "I am upset but (want) to thank everyone for their messages of support. I hope to make a swift and full recovery."

Continue reading Best health care system in the world

Becks

For all that he's overpaid, past his prime, and didn't really make soccer a household sport in the US, i feel really bad for David Beckham, suffering a potential career ending injury just 3 months before the World Cup.

This picture really does speak a thousand words.

Continue reading Becks

Your next Flomax® ad

Jens Lehmann has been told he was lucky to escape punishment after appearing to urinate behind his goal during Wednesday's 3–1 Champions League win over Unirea Urziceni. The Stuttgart goalkeeper jumped over the advertising hoardings and looked as if he was relieving himself before being interrupted by a Romanian counter-attack.

The Guardian goes on to note:

Lehmann, meanwhile, has announced he is retiring at the end of the season but – as could be expected – he is refusing to go quietly

Let's hope not.

Continue reading Your next Flomax® ad

World Cup draw

It's the US with England, Algeria, and Slovenia in Group C. Will a win and two draws be enough to make it into the knockout stage?

Group of Death this time around is Group G with Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast along with North Korea. Also interesting are the four colony/colonizer matchups: in addition to the US and England in the group stages,and the Brazil/Portugal meeting, Spain gets both Honduras and Chile in their group. France, in a group with South Africa, Uruguay and Mexico, should have an easy time of advancing, damnit.

Continue reading World Cup draw

You will never see this happen in American sports

Mets fans, take note:

Wigan's players have pledged to refund the ticket price for any of the club's fans who attended their side's 9-1 thrashing at the hands of Tottenham at White Hart Lane yesterday,

. . .

"The club have announced that the players of Wigan Athletic have decided to personally refund every Latics fan who bought a ticket from the DW Stadium ticket office for the match against Tottenham Hotspur," a statement read.

The club captain, Mario Melchiot, insisted that the team will be able to respond to the defeat, but said the fans "must not be taken for granted. We feel that as a group of players we badly let down our supporters yesterday, and this is a gesture we have to make and pay them back for their tremendous loyalty."

Continue reading You will never see this happen in American sports

France . . .

Had better not win the World Cup next year.

Just sayin'.

Continue reading France . . .

My awesome powers of prognostication

Me, in an email to a friend earlier today:

I don't think i can get away from my meeting in time to see a 9 man US MNT get chastised 5-0 by Spain.

final score?

US 2-0 Spain.

USA! USA! USA!

Continue reading My awesome powers of prognostication

Final week

Last week of the English football season and probably time to give an update as to how the Dependables made out in my first ever attempt at fantasy sports.

I signed up for two separate leagues; one run by the English Premier League itself, the other by the Guardian newspaper. The rules are similar enough - Here's a fixed sum of money to spend on a team of 15 players, you can't have more than 3 players from any one time, you have to have a specific distribution of positions (2 keepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders, 3 strikers), and each week you select 11 players to be active. Again, there are minimum requirements for your active team - 1 keeper, 3 defenders, 3 midfielders, 1 striker - and you can add others to make a starting XI. Points are awarded based on certain specific performance criteria, which differed significantly between the leagues. You can make minimal changes to your team between games - 1 per week in the EPL league, 5 per month in the Guardian league. You can make more in the EPL league, but there's a 4 point per transfer deduction from your total for each one. That option isn't available in the Guardian league.

So, how'd i do?

In the EPL league, not so hot. After a fast start, i faded when my early hot scorers, Bacary Sagna, Arsenal defender, Amir Zaki, Wigan striker, and Roque Santa Cruz, Blackburn Rovers striker, all either got injured or fell out of form, or out of favor with their coaches. Things really went from bad to worse when Michael Arteta, Everton midfielder, went down for the season 5 minutes into the game in which i had just made him my captain. (The EPL league allows you to choose a captain for each game, whose point total is automatically doubled.) Totally disrupted my transfer plans, and i really never recovered.

Going into the final week, my position is about 790,000 out of about 1.9 million players, right around the 41st percentile. Among USA participants, i rank about 25,000 out of 60,000, also the 41st percentile. It's even worse in the local Bull McCabe's league where, barring either a spectacular collapse or even more spectacular performance from relegation bound Middlesborough striker Tuncay, i'll finish 12th out of the 18 participants.

Tough league.

Oh, and that 100 million pounds i started with? My team is now worth about 97 million.

Over at the Guardian, things are quite different.

Somehow, the modified scoring and transfer rules were more suited to my style of play. For starters, my team, and cash on hand, are worth a combined 140 million pounds, which i think puts me in the top 1 or 2% for return on investment. (Player values fluctuate during the season based on some not quite known combination of performance and demand.) As in any market, buying low and selling high is a good thing.

There are about 90,000 players overall in the Guardian league. Right now i'm sitting at 3663 overall, or right about the 96th percentile. For the month of May i'm up around 2300, or 97th percentile. I'm too far behind the leaders to have a chance at the $2000 monthly prize, but i could conceivably end up in the top 1000 with a good week.

Among American players, i rank 60 out of about 1000, or 94th percentile. I guess the Americans who sign up for the Guardian league are a little more knowledgeable than other fans? For May i'm at 34 out of 1000, with a decent chance to finish in the top 10 for the month. I'm doing slightly better among Bolton Wanderers fans (and they'll stay up for another season! Yay!) - 29th out of about 530, or 95th percentile. For the month of May i'm 25th. I've got a decent chance to finish in the top 15, depending again on who plays and who sits, and how well i guess that in advance.

So, even though i'd never seen myself as a fantasy sports guy, i admit to having fun with this, and i'm already looking to next year, when i will totally rule downtown fantasy soccer.

Continue reading Final week

Best sports paragraph. Ever.

From the Guardian:

Folk with a mental age of four will be amused to know that Chelsea are going to sign CSKA Moscow genius Yuri Zhirkov. They are also eyeing up Stefan Kuntz, Bernt Haas, Brian Pinas, Danny Shittu and Uwe Fuchs. Oh, and Emmanuel Adebayor.

Continue reading Best sports paragraph. Ever.

MLS cannot be liking this

David Beckham, he of the $250 million playing and endorsement contract with MLS and the LA Galaxy, quoted today in the Italian press:

"The Americans are doing everything they can to improve the level and reputation of their game. It's a young league and I think it needs another 10 years to become successful," said Beckham, whose contract with the Galaxy lasts through 2012.

"I have to admit that, having played in Europe, sometimes it was frustrating playing in certain games. But every now and then, moving from one state to another, I also enjoyed myself."

Compliments don't come much more backhanded than that, do they?

Continue reading MLS cannot be liking this

A tale of two teams

I ran into a reader last week who wanted an update on the fantasy soccer front. As i told him, it's a lot easier to do this stuff when you're winning. Stephen Ireland's piss-poor game last weekend certainly didn't help me at all.

some of you may remember the fine details. I actually signed up for two different fantasy leagues, one sponsored by the Premier League itself, and one run by the Guardian newspaper. Within the Premier League's game, i'm in 4 different groupings, one for Bolton Wanderers fans, one for people from the US, a small, 18 person Durham league loosely affiliated with Bull McCabe's, and a "head-to-head" competition with 19 other random strangers. I started out pretty well in that league, staying on top of the Durham group for most of the first 9 weeks or so, and in the top 3-5% of the larger groupings. Then i lost a few players to injury, made a few bad trades, benched players who should have been starting and vice versa, and now i find myself pretty much in the middle of the pack: 428,000 out of 1.77 million in the big game (25% or thereabouts), 2670 out of about 10,000 Wanderers fans, 12,600 out of 55,000+ Americans. And despite having the 5th highest points total in my head-to-head league, a run of bad luck has me languishing in 18th place as i've lost a whole bunch of matchups by less than 5 points each.

But let's take a look at the Guardian.

There are about 88,000 players in this league. In addition to the overall competition, i'm in three other leagues. Again, one for Wanderers fans (about 525), one for US players (about 1000), and one for readers of the daily soccer humor column, The Fiver (about 1000).

I currently sit around 5800 overall, or about 7%. For the month of December, i'm at 2809, or top 3%, and for the past weekend, i'm in position 315, or about the top .4% (99.6 percentile, if you've just taken the LSAT.)

But wait, there's more. Among Wanderers fans, i'm at 54 for the season, and among US players i'm #101, both just around top 10%. But check this out:


That's right. A top ten finish for the week among Americans, and the number one slot among Wanderers fans. I'm in the running for the December prize of a thousand pounds with another good week, and i didn't come that far from winning the signed jersey for manager of the week.

Like i said, it's easier to write about this when you're doing well.

Continue reading A tale of two teams

Fantasy soccer

Two words: Stephen Ireland

Two more words: Yellow card

Two more words: No goals

Aaaaaarrrrgh.

Continue reading Fantasy soccer

Los Catrachos

With my oldest daughter spending a couple of years in Honduras, i find that i'm paying slightly more attention to CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers than in other years. Anyway, Honduras goes into tonight's game against Mexico with a very good chance of qualifying for the final tournament to select the 3 (or maybe 4) teams from the Federation that will participate in the 2010 World Cup. Explaining how teams qualify for the various tournaments is difficult. See this if you really want to know how it happens.

Anyway, if all the stars align right, i might very well find myself in San Pedro Sula next spring watching a Honduran World Cup Qualifier, maybe against the US or El Salvador. Honduras has only made one appearance in the World Cup final proper, back in 1982. Maybe this will be the return engagement.

Come on, Los Catrachos!

UPDATE: Honduras 1:0 Mexico

Both Honduras and Mexico advance to the next round of qualifying. The draw is Saturday. Other teams in the mix are El Salvador, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago, and the US.

Continue reading Los Catrachos

Good news, soccer fans

Barack Obama's election could derail England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup, according to a "high-placed" Fifa official. The unnamed source told Yahoo Sports that Obama's popularity will be "a huge factor" in deciding whether the USA is selected to host either the 2018 or 2022 tournaments.

"How can it not make a difference," said the source. "Now when you think of America, you don't think George W Bush or war, you think of this man, Obama, who has made history and given hope to millions. The men who vote on World Cup hosts are not immune to those same feelings. If the US bid stacks up in terms of infrastructure and organization, then Obama could be a huge factor."

. . .

Fifa president Sepp Blatter is expected to visit Obama at the White House next year. Earlier this year Obama revealed that he had been a West Ham fan since he visited England in 2003. He can often be seen pitch-side at his daughter's soccer games in Chicago.

His election is also believed to be likely to have a galvanizing effect on Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics, meaning that, as in the 1990s, the USA could host the two biggest sports tournaments on the planet in the space of two years.

West Ham? Seriously?

Continue reading Good news, soccer fans