I Am The Illegitimate Son of Diego Maradona

...now that I have your attention, what a weekend that was! Stateside we had the Super Bowl, or as the English like to call it, Ye Supre Bouwl. The game was mostly notable for the bad showing by Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who, by the way can out-WAG any footballer I've yet come across.

Over in the Premier League we had some interesting matchups. Spurs nearly pulled off a dream win against ManU before they Paul Robinsoned themselves. Liverpool finally found a strike pairing that worked, primarily because it didn't include Dirk Kuyt or Andriy Voronin. Chelsea was the first victim of years of pent-up Jermain Defoe frustration. They won't be the last.

Generally, this post is to make up for complete laziness and distraction of the weekend. I promise that Blue and I will have some cracking new content this week, including a feature on All-Continent teams, some analysis of football economics, and late-to-the-party coverage of the ACN and Lomegate (better known as the African Playe of the Year Award.)

Until then, I leave you with this:

Football in the Movies: Spiceworld

So last night I was watching Spice World and was struck by a couple of things. First of all, Sporty Spice was wearing a hideous England kit from the 90's as seen here. Second of all, she discussed soccer on two occasions. The second time she discusses the sport, she is doing so with a scantily clad Italian back-up dancer. She can be overheard say: "AC Milan? Nah, you're a bit weak in midfield..." (This happens around the 33 minute mark of the movie.)

Now, while the movie does an excellent job of avoiding sexual innuendo, it does a poor job of relating accurate statements about soccer. The movie was released at the end of 1997, and filming started in June 1997, which would have been after the 1996-1997 season. So lets take a look at AC Milan's 1996-1997 season.

The 1996-1997 season was not great for AC Milan as they finished in 11th place. However, if you look at the midfield personnel for AC Milan we can start to see that Sporty Spice's words were mere filler not fact.

From Wikipedia:

"Milan's primary line-up under Capello (1996): Sebastiano Rossi; Christian Panucci, Alessandro Costacurta, Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini; Roberto Donadoni, Demetrio Albertini, Marcel Desailly; Zvonimir Boban; George Weah, Roberto Baggio."

In 1996-1997 Donadoni was not back, but Albertini, Desailly, and Boban all were. Additionally, Edgar Davids was brought in for the season. All of those players had careers that went on strong until the year 2000. While that is not an indication of strength, the player with the LEAST number of international caps is Boban at 59. Some of that may have to do with the fact he was a Croatian international. So, I was not paying attention for the era, but the numbers seem to indicate that the midfield for AC Milan was in no way weak in 1996-1997.

Movie Rating: Fantastic movie, but Unrealistic!

-Blue!

Back Off!

Looks like FA chief Brian Barwick is running a pilot program - called "Respect" - which, among other things, is attempting to crack down on players' tendency to crowd referees. Soccernet has the full story here. The most important proposed change is a rule that would only allow the team captain to talk to refs about their decisions. I'm not sure how realistic that rule is, but I am a big fan of the gesture Barwick is making.

Ref intimidation has been a pet peeve of mine ever since I started following football. Ref crowding doesn't draw the same ire that diving or outright bribery does (see: Italy). Nor should it. Still, it can certainly influence the ref to call the game differently. To deny that would give referees far too much credit.

Laying hands on or crowding the ref is also pretty distasteful, and not just for the resemblance to prison shower beatings. It can make superstars seem petty (see: John Terry); and it can take the shine off of otherwise transcendent athletic feats (see: Cristiano Ronaldo). Is that really what we want on matchday?

Then again, I might feel differently about all this if I was a Chelski fan like Blue...

No Mo' Momo

The moment Liverpool fans have been waiting for all season has finally come - Sissoko has been sold!

The Soccernet story has him going to Juventus for ₤8.2 million. This is not as high as the rumors speculated - I had heard as much as €15 million - but I think the club and the fans are happy to recoup so much for such an unproductive player. This also brings us one step closer to locking down Monster.

I think this will be a critical moment in the careers of several people involved in the transfer:

• Rafa Benitez, who will finally be able to sustain his central midfield rotation and have attacking merit across the board - even Mascherano is a good passer. Also, since this transfer effectively kills the "Alonso, Sissoko, Gerrard and Mascherano" chant, fans will have more time to sing their songs glorifying The Rafalution.
  
• Lucas Leiva, who will start to show the Kop why he is so important to the Brazil national side. He is the smartest player on the squad not named Carragher. Expect more of this. (start at 15" in). Also, don't be surprised if he surpasses Xabi Alonso in the rotation, or convinces Rafa to switch to a 4-3-3 so he can take advantage of his glut of quality central midfielders.
  
• Alessio Secco, who is quickly proving to be one of the worst judges of talent in Europe. Secco has already spent big on flops Tiago, Sergio Almiron, et al. The Old Lady faithful are smart, they know what to expect from Sissoko, and as such they have been opposing this transfer from the get-go. I think this move is the beginning of the end for Secco. I get the sense that the Juve fans already hate Secco, and the owners will start hating him once they realize how much money he has spent on mediocrity. Blue would know the odds better than I, but I'd give 5:2 odds for him to be gone within the year. Juventus, after all, is not known for management stability in the last 10 years...
  
• And finally, Momo Sissoko himself. This is a player who Arrigo Sacchi referred to as a "plughole" - this should be his nickname, by the way - but I would refer to his style of play as Entropy. Both squads tend to devolve into ugly chaos whenever he is on the pitch. He got a pass from Liverpool fans (perhaps rightly so) because of his severe injuries, but this year I think it became all too clear that he wasn't going to be any more than a mauler. His style of play would fit better with the kind of smaller squad that gets its points playing cynically for draws - Middlesboro, Allardyce's Bolton, etc -Not an international powerhouse like Juve. He'd probably be more valuable to them as an ultra than as a footballer.
  
  That said, I do wish Momo the best. As much as I like to bash his playing style, he works incredibly hard and never seems to get tired. For his sake, I hope that endears him to the fans in Turin.
  

Welcome CONCACAF Champions League!

When I dream about future jobs, I dream about ones that allow me to go to continential cup ties on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings after work. That dream got a lot closer to happening without a life-altertering move today.

CONCACAF Champions League

The only real obstacle now is not finding a job on another continent rather having my MLS side (The Rapids) actually qualify for the competition. In other words, my dream is no closer today than it was 6 months ago.

-Blue!

Welcome Abdul-Salam Bilal!

While Red was flirting with cardiac arrest, I was sleeping. Kick-off for my FA Cup tie was at 10:15am my time and my kind neighbors above us woke me up with their powerful speakers and the thumping bass of... Shania Twain at 10:00am. True story. Anyway, my morning was not made any more pleasant after I got them to turn it down as I was treated to the new exciting same old efficent Chelsea football. Not really a game worth waking up for at anytime, the cup tie was pretty boring. However, the inevitable occured as Abdul-Salam Bilal (commonly known as Nicolas Anelka, or Le Sulk) finally scored for Chelsea. To add insult to the injury of watching the game, the trademark butterfly celebration Adbul-Salam engages in was not visable on my telecast. The assist for the goal of the diminutive English winger turned midfielder/adopted son of Ian Wright, was brilliant and sometime shortly after that the game was mercifully over, victory achieved. In short, I am excited to have Abdul-Salam at the club, and think it will prove to be a good signing. With the draw for the next round mere hours away, the march for the mythical quadruple continues!

Relevant links:
Nico's Islamic name
Abdul-Salam on scoring

How to give yourself a heart attack at the age of 23

I wanted nothing more than to wake up this morning, and see a nice, comfortable scoreline in the 4th Round Liverpool vs. Havant and Waterlooville FA Cup tie. 3-0, perhaps. Not too embarrassing for H&W, not too nerve-wracking for the Reds. This might have settled things a bit, and cooled some of the speculation involving Big DIC and THick and Mach 0. It would have made me feel better about our generally tepid play of late.

This is what actually happened.

I woke up, brushed my teeth, got a cup of coffee. Threw on my Torres jersey. Sat down at my desk and opened Soccernet. Saw this:



(telestration added for emphasis)

If I was a betting man, I'd lay down about $50 on at least seven cardiac arrests and one stylized ritual suicides in the Kop. This was bad. This was Iron Eyes Cody shedding a single tear because the White Man trashed his ancestral homeland bad.

How can this happen? I think there are more Liverpool fans who would pay to lick Steven Gerrard's feet than there are Havant and Waterlooville fans total. The cost of their stadium would not even pay our squad for a single week. I'm pretty confident that our WAGs are a lot hotter than theirs. This match is being played at ANFIELD, for Fowler's sake. If we lost this match, it would be like the Miracle on Ice magnified a hundredfold. And we would be the big, bad, forever-loser Reds.

Even though we pulled back to 2-2 about 10 minutes after I started writing this, the fact that we spent 30 minutes of the first half losing to a non-league side may be more humiliating even than the losses at Besiktas and Reading.

On the bright side, it looks like Rafa finally might be giving Babel a chance at striker. And I am sure at least a few of these Havant and Waterlooville part-timers will get a shot at playing in the 3rd or 4th division because of this display. Good for them.

Now, come on lads, it's time to crush these plumbers and salesmen under our boots in the second half!

UPDATE: 4-2, with a hat trick by Yossi! Benayoun. The angst is starting to fade, but after those two fluky goals Villa scored on Monday I still don't feel safe. Against Havant and Freaking Waterlooville. How pathetic is that?