Aw,

Railhawks beat Chicago Fire 1-0 to advance to Open Cup quarters. Aw. Good job, boys. Maybe I can actually make it to the game next time. This one doesn't sound like it was much of a thriller, but knocking out the holders is always a pretty sweet feeling. Just ask Arsenal about that FA Cup match.

Sorry, y'all, this is what you get when Liverpool's boring me. (Babel's a good signing, but I know nothing about him, and I can't get worked up about friendlies.) Consider yourselves lucky I'm not talking about the u20s anymore.

The opposite of transfer speculation

First of all, this is a pretty nice little article about the Carolina Railhawks from the local indie weekly. (Named, cleverly, the Independent Weekly.) I'm going to my second USL game tomorrow night, and it's good to see them getting media coverage. The Triangle seems to love its minor league sports, and hopefully that'll hold true for soccer as well. Also, like I mentioned before, that game against Chivas was indeed awesome.

Second, in Liverpool news, Pepe signed until 2012. I never really thought that he was likely to leave, even with Valencia supposedly sniffing around, but I'm glad we have that confirmed. Of course, this leaves the question of his backup open, but Scott Carson's probably coming back from loan, so maybe that will work out.

Also in non-transfer news, Xabi Alonso and Momo Sissoko are supposedly going to sign new deals as well. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner this happens, the better, especially for Xabi. He doesn't seem like the sort of player to do that whole Steven yes-but-no-but-yes thing, but the rumors have been persistent, and pretty credible, that a lot of clubs are interested. Even though he had sort of an off season, Liverpool doesn't really have another player with the same skills, so while I'm happy that they seem to be close to a deal, I can't really rest easy until it's signed. And Momo is good, too, though I wonder what we're going to do with him and Mascherano. It's always good to have cover, though.

Finally, Alexi Lalas really needs to quit while he's behind.

Carolina Railhawks-Chivas USA

I might be in love with a USL team, y'all.

I mean, this was like their fourth game ever, so there's not a lot of history there, but they were pretty awesome. And by that I mean mostly they were adorable. (No, I don't know what a Railhawk is.) This was pretty clearly the Chivas B-team, in that I didn't recognize a single player's name, but it was really a good time. It was raining off and on all night, and it did my heart good to see all the slide-tackles and players going for it intensely. After the second goal, the players all came over to the fan section (the end behind the goal) and jumped up and hugged the people standing there, and it was so incredibly cute.

I realize that they're probably not actually going for cute, but too bad. In terms of play, it was pretty solid, but not that great; both teams had trouble keeping possession, but that may have been a factor of the wet field more than anything else. Mostly it was a good time. Since I'm here over the summer, I may try to go to a few more games. It's always hard for expansion teams at first, but they seem to have decent support already. The park wasn't sold out, but it got about 5,000 there, which is pretty good for a Tuesday night, I think. And for what it's worth, there's a fan section with flags and chants and a drum and all that; right now, that all seems a little bit forced to me, but maybe in a year or two it'll feel a bit more organic. Not that anyone besides me cares about that, really, but you know.

Anyway. In conclusion, it was a good time, I wish the Railhawks site had pictures, and I may try to get to a few more games this summer. Oh, tinies. I wish I had defenses against you.