New MLS crush

Video courtesy of The Offside Rules.

Yes, Danny Cepero scored a record-setting goal against my team. Yes, he just eliminated Houston (and therefore Geoff Cameron and Stuart Holden) from the playoffs. But that boy is cute, and that's all there is to it. Well, that plus my well-documented weakness for keepers. Done and done.

Ugh.

I knew I spoke too soon about England being competent.

Redknapp sketchy -- who knew?

I guess this takes him out of the running for England. Though I guess you can't really transfer players on a national team, so maybe he was never in the running to begin with.

As Footie Girl said: "Next week: The exclusive revelation that Jose Mourinho is a bit conceited!"

(And yes, presumption of innocence and all that. I'm just saying.)

Friday linkspam

With an international twist this time, since we're coming up to the last round of Euro qualifiers.

• McClaren recalls David Beckham. Because for a must-win game against Croatia, you totally want an oldish midfielder that has barely played a game since he went to MLS. If anyone ever doubted that McClaren is completely out of ideas, this should be all the proof you need.


• The US named their roster for the friendly against South Africa. I'm glad to see some of the younger players get called up, like Altidore and Edu and Kljestan (...and Eddie Lewis. I don't know.) I kind of wish they were playing a European opponent, but I guess that's hard to do with the Euro qualifiers. Anyway, South Africa should be an interesting opponent, and it's probably a good idea to go down there before the World Cup. Um, assuming they qualify.


• I really have no comment on this story. Except that man needs a job, and fast.

All right, Liverpool

It's time to get your act together, kids. Well, really, the time to have gotten your act together in the Champions League was a couple of months ago. Being bottom of a group with Besiktas, Marseille, and Porto is an absolute embarrassment. As is the fact that Liverpool have yet to win a game against any of those teams. I don't think Liverpool are going to win anything this season -- especially considering they can't seem to win in the league -- but going out in the group stage of the Champions League is completely humiliating. Particularly when you can't even make it into the UEFA Cup. Just ask Manchester United a couple of seasons ago. I don't really understand how Liverpool are playing so badly right now; I know they're dealing with a lot of injuries, but were Alonso and Agger so essential that they can't put anything together until they return? Right now, the midfield distribution is horrendous. Sissoko can't manage to even pass successfully, we don't have a single fast defender, and I'm starting to screech every time I see Kuyt picked over Crouch. Right now, I don't care how pretty they play, I just want a win. And all our injured players back. And a pony.

In MLS playoff news, all of the teams I wanted to make it to the final (DC, Chivas, Dallas) are out. Now I'm going to have to cheer for Houston or Kansas City, I think, because I refuse to cheer on a team with Cuauhtemoc Blanco. Ugh, he's such a whiny little bitch. Hate. I don't love the MLS playoff format -- if you're going to do home-and-away, you need to have away goals -- but I don't really know enough about the league to say what would make it better. Though I did just look here, and seriously, the semifinals are just one game? Well, that's crap. Anyway.

In non-playoff MLS news, Alexi Lalas wants a 'sexy type of candidate' to manage the Galaxy. I'm not sure what that means, but if he thinks he's getting Mourinho, he's fooling himself. Player/manager David Beckham. That's all I'm saying.

The second annual end-of-season awards

Yes, Footie Girl and I are doing it again. Yes, we realize that the Premiership is already pretty much back in season, with friendlies and summer tours and meaningless cup competitions. But like everyone always says, the season's not over till Argentina choke in a major way, so here we are. Some of the categories have changed since the last time -- different season and all that. Anyway. With apologies for the delay, here are the Second Annual Footie Girl and You'll Never Blog Alone End-of-Season Awards!

Chav of the Year: Steven Gerrard. While his wedding wasn't quite as gloriously tacky as we'd all been hoping for, the best man's toast tipped the scales all the way over to chav. It takes a lot to have a tackier wedding than John Terry (Lionel Richie, that's all I'm saying), but Steven managed. Good job, kid.

Runner-up: Rio Ferdinand. For the Myspace page alone.

Most Valuable Spaniard: Pepe Reina. He had a good season overall, really, but basically, this award comes down to one thing: penalties. I've never really seen an alleged "penalty specialist" who lived up to the hype like Pepe does. I don't have a lot to say here, since the video really speaks for itself. Basically, though, our keeper's a total fucking stud, and maybe the best buy Rafa's made.

Runner-up: Cesc Fabregas. Scored basically no goals, but really grew into his central midfield role, and grew up enough (apparently) to be Arsenal's new vice-captain. Stop throwing pizza and see where it gets you, kids?

Most Emo Player: We've got a tie! This one goes to both Jose Antonio Reyes and Julio Baptista. Either Arsenal is really awful, or Reyes and Baptista both need to get a sunlamp or two and just deal with it. It's not like Real Madrid was the happiest place on earth, either.

Runner-up: Andriy Shevchenko. Left Milan in the summer, and pretty much immediately started batting his eyes at them again. Now he might go back, he might not, but ugh. We're over it.

Clusterfuck of the Year: England. Runaway winners in this category, especially after Real inconveniently ended up winning La Liga. For the analysis here, I'm just going to quote Footie Girl: "For the entire World Cup fiasco, the endless process of replacing Sven that ended up with ... Steve McClaren (woo), dropping Becks and then bringing him back, the ongoing attempts to shoehorn Steven and Lameass into the same midfield, the failed experiment with 3-5-2, etc., etc." Add in the incredibly lackluster, and likely doomed, Euro qualification campaign, and you've got a big old mess, and one that's not going to get better anytime soon.

Runner-up: Chelsea. There are so many links I could dig up here, but I'll just go for this one.

Gayest Team: Italy. The Internets are being remarkably uncooperative with photographic evidence right now, but come on. Gattuso was pretty much naked before they even laid hands on the trophy, and apparently the Italian way to congratulate your keeper for winning a penalty shootout is to straddle his crotch. Not that we're against either of those things.

Runner-up: Arsenal. Still and forever.

Best Fight: Craig Bellamy, John Arne Riise, karaoke and golf clubs. Everyone's heard about this one by now, but it's still awesome. The facts alone are probably enough for this to win, but the part where these two idiots -- and I say that with love -- went on to score in the Barcelona game? Seals the deal. I don't want to say it was ironic, but it was at least Alanis Morrissette ironic.

Runner-up: Inter/Valencia. Like, play with that much energy and one of y'all would probably have scored.

Douchebag of the Year: Mike Newell. Knowing that you're a sexist doesn't make it any less douchey, sunshine. (Yes, I did just call Mike Newell "sunshine." He's lucky that's all I'm calling him.) We would also like to take this opportunity to point out that Rachel Yankey wins. Unlike Mr. Newell or his team.

Runner-up: Jose Mourinho. No new links, but basically he gets this for everything he's ever said at a press conference ever. Also getting arrested over a dog.

Special Achievement Award: Daniel Agger. We'd like to be all high-minded here and say that this is for his goal against West Ham. Or even for his goal against Chelsea, which was less pretty but more important. But we have to be honest. Those helped, but this is really because somewhere along the line, Dan got hot. If this makes us shallow, we can live with that.

That's all for this season's awards! Hopefully next year they'll be done before preseason.

Bad news, good news

First, the bad news. Charlton are shutting down their women's team. The justification is supposedly that they need the money because the men were relegated. And that may be their reason, but it doesn't make a lot of sense regardless:

Despite their relegation, Charlton will receive parachute payments of £11million a year for the next two seasons, while the impending sale of Darren Bent to Tottenham is set to bring in £16m.

Killing the women's team will only save them about 250,000. Which they could get from selling a youth player or two. It's ridiculous, and really disheartening. Charlton are one of the most successful teams in English women's football, and they don't deserve to be shut down because the men couldn't cut it this year. So basically, this is complete bullshit, and I hope they can find a way to keep the team alive.

And now the good news:

• US 2 - Chile 1 (U20 men, friendly). I didn't get to see all of this one, but this is a good way to warm up for the U20 World Cup, starting next week in Canada. They've apparently drawn the Group of Death (again), so this should be interesting.


• US 2 - Brazil 0 (women, friendly). I watched all of this one, and god. How badass is Kristine Lilly? More national team appearances than anyone ever -- not anyone in the US, or any woman, but anyone. Admittedly, this was an under-strength Brazil team, but the US completely dominated this one. It bodes well for the Women's World Cup, I think.


• US 2 - Mexico 1 (men, Gold Cup final). This was the only competitive match of the three, and the one I was most invested in. The first half wasn't all that impressive -- Onyewu had an absolute shocker throughout, and they missed far too many chances. With that, though, things got a lot better in the second half; the defense tightened up and they were able to retain possession better. Ching and Beasley still threw away too many chances, but I can't really criticize too much. They did what they needed to, and Feilhaber's goal was absolutely gorgeous. I have a thing for long-range shots like that, and that was just about perfect. The most important thing here is that they qualified for the Confederations Cup in 2009, which should build some confidence. Now comes the Copa America, where they'll probably crash and burn. But it's good that they're going, and it should be some good experience for the younger players and the MLS-based ones. But, man, I fear that Argentina squad.

Welcome to the off-season

I guess this is what you do when you don't have a cup final to prepare for. Fine by me, though I do have serious issues with the choice of belt.

Also, who thinks Miss Simpson knew that Arsenal even existed before this very moment? Anyone? She's from Texas, and I know for a fact they don't have that kind of football down in Plano.

More bad idea theater

Dear English Premier League:

YouTube is the best advertisement for your sport in several decades. Leave it alone.

Sincerely,
an American fan too poor for Fox Soccer

I can almost get trying to shut down the streams; that's the entire game, in real time, and a much bigger violation. But highlights? There are entire shows, both here and in England, based around sports highlights. If you want people to talk about your sport and your league? They need to be able to see what happened. If you want to control access, at least set up a channel like Chelsea did. Otherwise, have fun trying to enforce a million C&Ds and throwing away whatever goodwill you have.

At least now we know a little Portugese.

Mourinho calls ref "son of a whore," escapes FA punishment.

"If you listen to me speaking I say the kind of word you mention 10 times in every 15 words," [Mourinho] said. "If you have a microphone on the dugout, I say that during the game 20 times, easy. The word can be abusive if you understand it as an abusive word."

Um, I think most people would consider that abusive, sunshine. The insult isn't the funny part of this, really, just his insistence that it wasn't supposed to be offensive. Seems like there should be more of a difference in how you talk to your players and how you talk to the refs. But I guess that's why I'm not the Special One.

Links of the week

It's kind of quiet this week in Liverpool news -- I guess that's what happens when you're out of both domestic cups and don't have another league match till Tuesday. Not that I'm bitter. So ahead of the trip to West Ham, some totally non-Liverpool news.

1. Zidane to MLS? Not so much. I'm not surprised that he said no, I'm surprised that they had the balls to ask. He's barely been retired for six months, and also? It's Chicago. Nothing against the town, but it's not exactly LA. In that it's cold. If you're going to end your career by whoring yourself out to a lower-tier league, it seems like you'd want to go someplace warm. Like Dubai. Or LA.


2. Speaking of whoring yourself out to lower-tier leagues, what does Beckham's arrival mean for MLS the brand? I know everyone's sick to death of this deal, but I thought this was an interesting take on it from a marketing and brand-growth perspective. Though if most of the article is about how Beckham is going to make the league more attractive, I really question the use of that picture.


3. Dear footballers, what did I say about sex tapes? Also, what's with everyone wearing their shirts while having three-ways these days? Because, I have to say: not hot.


4. The politics of pink and sports. Okay, this one isn't even in the same sport, but bear with me. The pink thing is, I think, symbolic of the whole female-fan problem. I've definitely had people question my fan credentials, even give me quizzes about it. (Yes, dude, I know what position Beckham plays. I also know who England should play in midfield and the last five winners of the Champions League. Anything else?) The assumption seems to be that if women like sports, they're either only interested in the cute boys or they're faking interest to make their boyfriends or husbands happy. Yeah, sorry, no. I don't know why people feel justified in jumping to that conclusion based on the color of someone's jersey. If the choices are wearing a pink jersey that fits or wearing a men's jersey that doesn't, I know a lot of women are going to pick the first option. And it doesn't make them any less able to understand the offside rule. Especially in soccer, and especially in America, there's about a generation of women who have grown up playing and watching and loving the game on its own terms, not as a way to make boys like you or whatever the easy assumption is. So if you're going to call me "a pink" and talk down to me about this sport I've loved for years, save yourself the trouble and fuck off.

Seriously, Real (Part 3 in a continuing series.)

Because they weren't being big enough jackasses already.

"David Beckham will be an average cinema actor living in Hollywood," said Calderon. "The proof that our technical team was right in not considering his continuity has been ratified by every single technical team in the world, because no one, with the player having been free, has wanted him."

Stupid, stupid, stupid. (There was more here, but Blogger just ate it.) Say what you want about the Galaxy -- what's a "technical" team, anyway? -- but the fact that Beckham has a contract would seem to indicate that someone did, in fact, want him. This almost sounds like sour grapes, but they have to have known that most players wouldn't be happy to sit on the bench forever, even at a team as indisputably awesome (cough) as Real. So either they're stupid or just bitter that he went to, like, America. How tacky.

Also, another "average cinema actor living in Hollywood"? Was he talking about Posh and got confused?

Bad idea theater!

Seriously, Real. Everyone knew you were going to get rid of Beckham -- the speculation's been intense even before this season started and Capello arrived. I'm not saying you were wrong to do so; he's aging, kinda slow, and if he doesn't fit into the team, he doesn't fit into the team. But, god, are you really getting this pissy because he made a better deal? Grow up.

God, it's a good thing I never liked them anyway. This is pretty tacky behavior from the self-styled biggest club in the world. Other players leave all the time, so why Becks? It's weird, and it kinda seems like bitterness that he left them to go to MLS. Calling them the redheaded stepchild of international soccer is probably being a bit too generous, so maybe Real feel spurned? Still. No excuse; this is incredibly petty of them. Bah.

Mascherano? Please. No. I don't want to dwell on this too much, because it doesn't look all that likely right now, but dear Liverpool. No. He can't get into the first team at West Ham. And really, there are more than enough central midfielders floating around Anfield right now. Do y'all really need another one? Or another overrated South American? I mean, you already have Aurelio and Gonzalez. (Yeah, I said it.) In conclusion: no.

New sidebar links: Losing the Dressing Room and I Dislike Your Favorite Team. Both excellent, but only one's challenging me to a tickle fight.