Why Soccer is on the Rise

With the success of the United States in the Confederations Cup, the runaway success of the World Soccer Challenge and the solid television ratings of Euro 2008 and the UEFA Champions League the sport of soccer is currently getting quite a bit of attention stateside. ESPN is solidly behind the sport, with pundits such as Colin Cowherd and Bill Simmons touting the positives of the US run and the Premier League, with other main stream media outlets following suit. With baseball mired in its neverending steriod slump and the NBA sputtering along now is probably as good a time as ever for soccer to build up it's fan base. I'm solidly in that fan base, listening to World Soccer Daily on a daily basis, keeping tabs with a number of web sites daily and tuning in to Fox Soccer Channel consistently. Like most US fans I still get the occasionally rolling of the eyes when I mention I'm such a fan, with the typical retorts of "boring" and "not enough scoring" etc. What's my comeback? A couple of things.

1) You can watch a 90 minute match in right around 2 hours and be completely entertained. An NFL game takes 3 hours. It takes two and a half hours to watch an NBA game and the playoffs are even worse where the last five minutes of the fourth quarter can often take a half and hour. Have you seen a Red Sox or Yankees game lately? Good luck watching a baseball game in less than three hours. The beauty of soccer is it's a commercial less sport. The 45 minutes of each half are commercial free. Get up at halftime, hit the restroom and grab a beer for fifteen minutes bypassing all the commercials. Sit back down and you can see another add free half. It's nice to watch a major sport and not be inundated with endless advertisements. You can follow the sport and not have it take up your entire day-- for someone with kids its a big deal.

2) High Definition television has completely changed my viewership of the sport. There is nothing better than watching a Champions League match in glorious Hi-Def with surround sound. Hi-Definition has opened up a whole new appreciation of the game and has really changed the way the sport is viewed in the US. With channels such as Setanta and Fox Sports I can easily follow the Premier League here in the United States. You know what else is great? Being able to get up and watch Aston Villa take on Arsenal at 9:00 AM, watch a full match and be able to have the rest of the day to do what I want.

3) The season is fantastically long. Unlike American sports where the die hard fan has to put up with a lengthy off season you can literally follow the sport all year. Take this coming year for example. The Premier League season starts on August 15th and the FA Cup will end the English Season at the end of May. Take a few weeks off in June and then the World Cup will start and run late into July. Take a couple of more weeks off and you're starting up the season again. With so many leagues to follow, from the Premier League to Serie A to La Liga, the Bundesliga and MLS, you can virtually watch the sport every day. The Internet makes it easy to follow leagues that you don't get on television. I travel for work and am often in a hotel room and bored. I can get on Justin.tv and watch games from Argentina, or Brazil, etc. Follow the NFL? There's a seven month offseason! Major League Baseball? 5 months. NBA? 4 months. That's why you get such ridiculous coverage of the NFL from ESPN. There are die hard fans that need their fix but have to put up with a half a year offseason. If you follow soccer it's a matter of weeks. Not too shabby.

4) Finally, it's a heck of a fun sport to play with friends or your children. There's little work in getting a match together beyond tossing the ball around, deciding what the make shift goal will be and kicking it around a bit. A lot easier to get together than a pick up hoops or baseball game.

So there you have it. Why I love following soccer.

Villa!

As the summer ticks by and Real Madrid and Manchester City buy everyone in site while just about everybody else sits back and waits you have to wonder if Aston Villa is going to make any noise on the transfer market. Past February of this year its been pretty tough being a Villa fan. First you had the decision by Martin O'Neil to send a B team to Russia to get crushed out of the UEFA Cup by CSKA Moscow. Then you had the poor bit of form to finish the Premier League season going from the pole position of potential Champion's League qualification to ten points south of Arsenal. Then the end of the year brought the difficult news that the captain and defensive leader Martin Laursen was going to call it quits due to injuries. Just when it couldn't get any worse, Mr. Aston Villa, Gareth Barry decided to forgo Liverpool (which made sense) to sign on with Manchester City (which made no sense). Some pretty difficult times. With Manchester City going crazy in the transfer market, Tottenham re-acquiring their striking squad (DeFoe, Keane AND Crouch!), and Everton and Fulham as consistent as ever the thought of a Champions League birth is a distant dream at this point.

Which begs the question: what the hell is going on in Birmingham? Rumors are a plenty, from Fabian Delph to Darren Bent to Sylvian Distin they've been linked with a whole bunch of different potential players. To this point the Stewart Downing signing is the lone move. Even worse rumors are constant of potential moves from the likes of John Carew and Ashley Young. Other than Downing, who's out until December, the one move the club has made is to sell Zat Knight before they have a legitimate replacement for him. Now they have to go and fill the hole of not only Laursen, but Knight as well. The lack of moves are being felt in the message boards amongst worldwide Villa fans where more and more are speaking badly of Randy Lerner and his ownership group. Even though the team spent 50 million to get in contention last year the mood seems more and more like a club happy to be a mid-place but profitable side.

It's difficult to see the club, who showed so much promise last year, to be a middling contender at best. There's no chance they'll compete for a Champions League spot and with the lack of depth they currently have they look about an 8th place squad at best. I'm beginning to agree with a lot of my fellow Villa fans in the idea that Martin O'Neil is the perfect manager for Villa. He'll happily work within the parameters of a shoestring budget and not go out of his way to gamble on expensive and slightly risky players. Like a prominent Villa blogger noted this week, he spends the club's money as if he's spending his own money.

So what does the season hold? I'll post a preview in the coming weeks.

Mexican B Team?

I think we can put to bed the notion that the team Mexico fielded in the Gold Cup final was a "B" team as we were endlessly told by pundit after pundit. As you can see here, 12 of the 20 players from the Gold Cup final will take part in the match at Azteca Stadium on August 12th. With Heath Pearce and potentially Brian Ching (unlikely) and Stewart Holden (maybe) on the bench the US will have 1 or 2 players on the roster for their "A" team. It's clear that Mexico took the match a lot more seriously than the United States, as I noted in a post yesterday. It makes me feel a bit better about the upcoming match but also still a bit concerned at the same time. Mexico will likely field the same attacking group of veterans and youngsters like Vela and Dos Santos--- and will be full of confidence as well as likely not be rusty at all since they just played several matches together. In the context of yesterday's El Tri squad release it's clear that the Gold Cup final was a Mexican A- team versus a US C+ team at best. It will be interesting to see how the young and talented Mexican attack holds up against the top US defensive pairing--- hopefully Guch doesn't display is slow and lacking AC Milan form.

MLS All-Star Game

It's been five years of the current MLS All-Star game format and I have to say it really works. Other than baseball the MLS All-Star game is the only other major sports (yes soccer is major) that fields a competitive matchup year in and year out. This year's game brought the third consecutive EPL team as Everton played a visit to Rio Tinto in Salt Lake City. Turned out to be an entertaining game for the whole family. Even though they lost on penalties MLS again showed that the league fields some great talent at the top. Take away a completely uncharacteristic boo boo by Stewart Holden for Everton's lone regulation goal and MLS totally dominated possession and action. They had myriad scoring opportunities, hit the posts on a couple of occasions (including a gimme by Landon Donovan) and if not for the superhuman exploits of Everton/American goal keeper Tim Howard MLS would have prevailed in regulation, if not the shoot out.

A few observations:

1) You can't help but be impressed with the facility in Salt Lake. A beautiful 20,000 seat soccer only facility that was a great location to showcase the MLS All-Star game. This stadium coupled with several that have already been built and a new facility being built in New York are a major step forward for MLS. As the summer turns to fall the the season heats up there are all too many occasions where a top game is contested with the football gridiron marks, making it impossible to concentrate and watch for the viewer.

2) MLS really boasts some skilled offensive talents with the likes of Blanco, Ljungberg, Donovan, Holden, Casey, Montero etc. Even though it's an All-Star game and you realize these players are only together for one night it gives you the chance to see some of the skilled (albeit aging) talent that MLS possesses. I'm in the middle of the argument on the quality of play in the MLS. I feel too many people dismiss it across the board and don't really appreciate the competitive teams and individual talents on showcase in the league.

3) I also feel the league is right where it needs to be at this point in it's life. With the down economy the league is still average about 16,000 fans per game which puts it right in line with the NBA and the NHL. Toronto and Seattle produce huge crowds every game with every single ticket sold out in Toronto since the club began and many crowds above 30K in Seattle. With Vancouver, Portland, Philadelphia and likely Montreal coming into the league this upward attendance will continue. Although criticized by many the league has really followed a pretty intelligent business model, not reaching out and over spending on talent, but allowing the league and the teams to grow in stature and attendance organically. As time goes by and the new cities enter the attendance and popularity will increase, as will wages. As wages increase the quality of players will as well.

All in all good entertainment for the whole family. Too bad Tim Howard is so damn good in shootouts.

AC Milan and Guch

Due to the World Football Challenge and Justin TV I've had the opportunity to see AC Milan play a good part of four preseason friendlies in the span of a week. My initial thought is, good god. My second thought is that it could be one heck of a long year. Granted they lost one of the top three players in the world and his absence is glaring. Even with Kaka now in Madrid I'm absolutely shocked at how mediocre they've looked.

All I can say is poor Oguchi Onyewu. I wanted to chalk up the misplay last week in Atlanta versus America of Mexico to jitters. One could also blame the early goal for Inter in Baltimore on Sunday to bad team defensive effort. But after watching Onyewu get torched again versus Bayern Munich today it's not looking good for Guch and for the status of American defenders abroad. A reputation is developed easily and not forgotten quickly. I can't imagine the anti-Guch comments on Italian message boards and in the media. If my three years of college Italian actually helped me learn the language I suppose I could have picked up Gazzetta della Sport myself and found out. I'm pulling for you Guch, I hope you turn it around. It's a big deal for American soccer that things work out in Italy for you.

Beyond our guy Guch I'm also pretty shocked at how mediocre Pato has looked. I didn't really start watching Serie A last year until the second half when Pato had Beckham and of course Kaka setting him up. He looked every bit the quality player worth the huge offer from Chelsea and Ancellotti. After watching him over the past week I'm not so sure. At this point he doesn't seem to have the ability to create his own space and score and with the absence of Kaka and the brilliant crosses of Becks he doesn't have anyone to set him up.

Still Pato can't be that high up on the worry list. Ronaldinho looks like he is absolutely done. He showed flashes of his crafty self in the states, only to lose the ball constantly and really create no legitimate scoring chances. At this point I wouldn't expect much from him either. There's a lot of quality names, too bad their all on the wrong and of twenty and pushing thirty, ala Clarence Seedorf.

It will be interesting to see if Leonardo is able to spend some money come August. With Juventus strongly upgraded and Eto'o on his way to Inter AC needs something to compete for fourth place.

Come on Guch!

Real Madrid and Ribery

Sooner or later you'd think the madness will stop. Is it just me or why isn't anyone asking how Kaka and Ronaldo are going to play together? Better yet why does Real Madrid continue to go down the road of courting Franck Ribery. Bayern finally set a ridiculous transfer sum of 94 million Euros, or about 80 million pounds--- the same amount as Ronaldo. I picture Beckenbauer and Hoeness and the rest of the brain trust coming up with a sum that they figured is so patently absurd that all Real Madrid speculation will end. Lo and behold the speculation continues. If they go ahead and reach such a sum, while fighting over relatively tiny amounts with other clubs, they are not just crazy, they are drunk with Galactico madness. With Ronaldo and Kaka, what is the point of Ribery? How could this group possibly play together? Why bring in Ribery when you already have Arjen Robben to bomb down the wing? He had a fantastic season and you already own him!

The Madness of King Florentino.

Gold Cup Second Guesser

I typically take the side of Bob Bradley in just about any decision. Contrary to those who constantly want his head I feel he's done a fantastic job heading Uncle Sam and deserves the right to continue to helm the team into next year's world cup. That being said I just can't understand the decisions behind the Gold Cup roster in lieu of the Mexico throttling. Yes, it may be 20/20 hindsight and I do realize the same roster made it all the way to the final, but the 5-0 scoreline makes you wonder, what was the point?

One thing I'll never understand is the inclusion of players who will never play in a World Cup qualifier not to mention never get close to playing in the World Club. Players such as Jay Heaps, Davy Arnaud and Jommy Conrad. I can understand getting quality time for young players like Stuart Holden who have the ability to not only occupy a roster spot but get real quality playing time for the US in the future. It was pretty clear that even prior to the Gold Cup there was no way a player such as Heaps or Pause we're ever going to play a legitimate role in any US world cup run. This is coupled with the decision to send Charlie Davies, Jozy Altidore, Jonathon Bornstein, Freddy Adu, etc back to their clubs. The Gold Cup was the perfect opportunity to give the above mentioned players significant playing time in front of large crowds. The Gold Cup was a fantastic opportunity to play a B team...not a C- team.

Beyond the roster decisions the loss also gives El Tri some confident prior to the massive August 12 qualifier at Azteca Stadium. The US has a real opportunity to finally win in Mexico City. The confidence that Mexico gained with the Gold Cup drubbing doesn't help.

Oh, and one more thing. What is the point of Brian Ching? It's pretty obvious that with the development of Davies and Altidore that Ching is no longer a reality for the US first team. Why even give him a Gold Cup match? It was yet another opportunity to give Kenny Cooper some real playing time and assess him as a realistic option for the US first team. Instead Bradley chooses to continue with Ching and his horrible first touch. There were multiple opportunities on Sunday where Cooper may have had an opportunity to take a long ball and make something of it-- in situations where Ching clearly couldn't. By the time Cooper did come on it was clearly too late.

Orient Crush

Pre-season friendly or not it's hard to not be utterly shocked by the 6-1 throttling of Newcastle United by Leyton Orient. I'll be paying more attention to the Championship then ever to keep tabs on the plight of Geordie nation. It's no surprise to anyone that the influx of wickedly insane Russki Oligarch, American leveraged and Middle Eastern cash has permanently changed the face of the Premier League and European footy. As a result, the idea of a Premier League club going down and immediately coming back isn't much of a reality an longer. In fact there are just as good odds (1 in 3) that the Magpies get relegated once more. It's been a meteoric fall for a team that once finished second in the league for consecutive seasons (albeit ten years ago), and has one of the most passionate fan bases in England. Let's be honest-- they're probably screwed and could be taking on Leeds in League One a year from now.

The unfortunate thing is that one could argue that it's as much arrogance as mismanagement that helped see Newcastle to the point they currently occupy. By not learning from the Leeds, Bradford City and Charlton disasters and not putting relegation clauses in the players contracts, Newcastle finds themselves with an unreasonable wage bill full of players who didn't perform at the top flight and surely won't perform in the Championship. With revenues down, TV money down and less fan interest Newcastle will surely have to go at it with a bunch of overpaid veterans who have little interest in the Championship, and a mixture of on-loan players and youngsters not fit for the physical brand of football they'll find.

The true test will be how they respond and whether Chris Hughton or whoever lame duck Mike Ashley appoints can make them respectable. He's surely going to have to get some positive play out of the Alan Smith's, Joey Barton and Mark Viduka's of the world. For Ashley this could be a chance to rebuild his legacy among the Geordie faithful. If he can somehow guide team to a respectable showing he may be able to salvage the ownership--- highly unlikely. One wonders how much Ashley regrest making a fool of himself during last falls visit to the Middle East, compelte with stiffing a potential ownership group to slam pints at the pub with Dennis Wise. Newcastle looked to be a lot more appealing potential club to own than Portsmouth-- now with their own deep pocketed Arab ownership. It's going to be a hell of a road. I'm thinking Obafemi Martins won't be hanging around too long, especially after the Orient drubbing. You'd have to think that Colicinni and Guiterrez will be on the way somewhere else by the December window at the least.

It's going to be one heck of a long year. At this point I think avoiding relegation another time would be a success. And just when things couldn't get any rose they reveal the most hideous road kit to come down the pike since...the new Everton road kit. At least their road shellackings in at Doncaster and Swanse City will be resplendant with the ugly mustard looking kit in history.

Stay tuned.

Another Blog Attempt

Lo and behold, starting another blog. This will be number three. Naturally the previous two don't exist any longer. Number one, "The Super Terrific Happy Hour" at a 9 month run where there was actually a decent amount of readership. This was followed by "The 4-4-2 Club" which made it about five weeks and then disappeared on the same day as the Happy Hour. The mistake I made back then was to really attempt to have a blog that people actually read and could even be monitized. I realized over time that what I had to say, albeit amusing at times, wasn't all that much different than what a million other people were putting out there. As I attempted to have a real following I found more and more of my time consumed with writing and updating the blog. This cut into my family time and even work time and eventually became something that had to be put away for a while. The one thing I regret is erasing all remnants of the STHH, which I spent a lot of time on and had some real well written pieces. I hit a creative phase there for a while that produced some decent prose and some real positive feedback.

So why am I here again? I love to write and share my opinions. This time it's going to be different. The posts will be occasional and will probably be an eclectic mix of subjects, from soccer to the Minnesota Twins and humorous everday life stuff. I probably won't delve into politics because that just got me worked up in the past.

So here we go again. I guess.