Okay, good. I was thinking not caring about today's US-Guatemala game made me a bad person, but it's second-billed on the US Soccer site itself, with the Women's U-20 World Cup being the lead story.

So let's talk about you for a minute.

For the first time since 1996, MLS Cup has two newcomers. This means two sets of fans who aren't familiar with, and may not be prepared for, the vortex of emotions that pageant finalists go through. Allow me to take you under my wing, then, Bullies and Crewligans.

Who else can you ask? San Jose fans? They'd tell you "Just take 405 to the stadium," when it's actually THE 405. Like The Ohio State University. DC United fans? Chicago fans? Revs fans? Ask them where to stay in LA, they'd tell you to check into the Nickerson Gardens.

But you also need spiritual guidance. This is, after all, your first rodeo.

This is, what, Wednesday? Okay, by now hopefully you've got your transportation sorted out, both to LA and once you get there....click here to read more...

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Theo Walcott, a huge part of Arsenal's plans this year, has been ruled out for almost 3 months with a dislocated left shoulder. Walcott was also destined to be part of Capello's starting XI vs. Germany (a game which England fared pretty well in regardless). Luka Modric received a little more favorable news, only a two-week stretch on the sideline for him. The Spurs are going to need him as they continue to make their push out of the cellar.

If you thought the worldwide financial crisis could deliver a crushing blow to EPL franchises this year, you were part of the majority. Attendance, however, is still rather high - despite a pretty dramatic drop in Newcastle's pull - []...click here to read more...

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My esteemed colleague Dan TOOK A FEW SWIPES AT THE SUN'S GARETH WHEELER yesterday. He'd better watch himself or he'll find his picture posted at every Canadian border crossing right under mine. And I'm not certain but if "Shoot on SIght" means what I think it does, well, he'll just have to forego that long-anticipated trip to Niagara Falls. I've been there, and believe me, it sure is a lot of water.

It'll also mean having to miss out on all those Canadian Ballet establishments, but with a new baby at home he's got no time for that kind of thing anyway.

All of which brings me to ANOTHER STERLING PIECE OF CANADIAN JOURNALISM this time courtesy of the Globe and Mail.

The main message of the article seems to be that once a team makes it into the playoffs, "anything can happen", a brilliant piece of analysis...click here to read more...

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It's BEST BLOG OF THE YEAR TIME!

Last year when I was here, I tried to simultaneously make a more or less cutesy kidding-on-the-square joke ("Why wasn't *I* nominated? Where's *my* parade?", etc.) with what I considered to be a highly legitimate complaint (the official Women's National Team Blog? The one that ignored the Hope Solo fricassee? I say thee NAY). And, in doing so, I made myself look like a first-class, Grade A bitch.

Thank you. It was nothing.

Chastened, but wiser, I make the following observations.

Your nominays are Du Nord, Soccer By Ives, the official DC United blog, The Offside Rules, Unprofessional Foul, [i]the soccer blog hosted by the Chicago...click here to read more...

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MLS News & Analysis is pretty much treating Gareth Wheeler like Joe Pesci at the end of "Casino," so you would think piling on at this point would be superfluous. What can I say? Dead horses infuriate me.

Might as well have said "It's FOOTBALL not SOCCER" while he was at it.

Well, as long as Eurosnobs are saying the same things over and over, I will too. Once again:

Suggesting promotion and relegation in MLS is like suggesting we change the national anthem to "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." There are probably lots of good arguments...click here to read more...

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As we all know there's a good deal of controversy over the makeup of the football team Great Britain will enter in the 2012 Olympics in London.

As the host country, the Brits don't have to qualify for any event; they're in automatically, meaning that there will be a "Great Britain" team in the tournament.

But the "Great Britain" team will actually be the England side, since Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have their own national teams recognized by FIFA but are not considered separate countries for Olympic purposes.

There's a good deal of pressure being applied by FIFA, in the person of Sepp Blatter and others, for the four home countries to enter a "combined" or "unified" team in the Olympics, and while it would undoubtedly be a pretty formidable contender, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are refusing to cooperate.

For them, it's an issue of maintaining their independence and avoiding the setting of a precedent.

A big part of the problem is that the four Home...click here to read more...

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Boy, remind me not to piss Mateo319 off.

The central theme of this Sunday's game is, for want of tact, how badly New York stacks up against Columbus. If the Red Bulls win, it's going to be absolutely mind-blowingly tedious to read all about how "Nobody respected us, but we stuck together and believed in ourselves" and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo. Would it kill these guys, even in the heat of the moment, to admit that fortune and timing played SOME part? "We played some of the crappiest football outside Carson you ever saw, I feel bad we charged money for it, but we got hot at the right time and frankly we were luckier than Ringo Starr." So you'd be admitting you weren't Brazil 1970 - Muppet News Flash, some of us already suspect. Besides, wasn't it Abbie Hoffman that said stolen food tastes better?

That's not the same as "undeserving."* Columbus knows what can happen. Everyone knows. Them's the rules. If...click here to read more...

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...not that many, really.

Item one: don't overreact to Saturday night. The Royals weren't super-serious championship contenders, but they were a few clangs away from a shot at the belt. Just yell out "God damn it, Olave, you got smoked by WOLYNIEC?" into the mountain air, then let it go. And now that it's a couple of days later, you're back to being cool with Movsisyan, right? Hitting the post would have been a good option with a couple of the can't missables he had, sure, and I'm sure that's making you angry or depressed. These are valid feelings. Acknowledge them, understand them, then move on.

The positives are just as real. Even people who say "You make your own luck" are sympathetic to hitting the post four times. It was just one of those games. If Osorio had said before the game "Our plan is to get Wolyniec free then bunker for an hour," he would have been institutionalized. Barring that, Salt Lake would have been the legitimate champions of the West.* A weak-ass...click here to read more...

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I'm seriously down with some kind of cold/flu/bubonic plague kind of thing at the moment, so I watched last night's RedBulls/Royals match through a haze of those medications you take because you have to take something but which mostly just make you stupid.

(Go ahead, say it. I don't give a crap this morning)

As a result, I apparently missed the key tactical element of the game, the part where the goal standards pulled on Red Shorts and marked Movsisyan and Mathis out of the game.

I know this because today I keep seeing otherwise intelligent people saying that "the goalposts kept RSL from scoring".

See, I was so doped up that I thought the actual problem was that Salt Lake's attackers kept missing the goal.

After many years of devotion to the beautiful game, and countless hours of tatric contemplation, I realized that the deep, arcane, closely-held secret of winning soccer games is to put the ball into a goal which is eight yards wide more times than your opponent does....click here to read more...

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Not giving this one away, even though I watched in on a slight tape delay. If you mistakenly logged onto the BigSoccer home page before watching your tape, this is your second chance. Go watch the game. Full credit to the winners, full sympathy for the losers, full thanks for the incredibly entertaining game.

This is why I'm not in marketing. As far as I'm concerned, games like this shouldn't have to be sold. This is what our little sport and our crummy little league can do on the right evening. Don't like it? Fine, watch something else....click here to read more...

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EDIT - Someone In The Know tells me that Dema and Ronnie O'Brien really have buried the hatchet, and not in each other's heads. Maybe they had a drinking contest, or something. I would love to see an MLS drinking contest, come to think of it.

I'm going to take some heat for this, but I've got to call it like I see it.

The Volkswagen ads on the MLSnet site? The ones that are taking spots away from actual league news and information in favor of product placement?

They're funny as hell. Yeah, same to you, buddy. The Goofy Juice visuals are funny. The soccer mom leaving her kids out in the rain for a week is funny. So it's all really, really stupid. Seeing Chris Klein go from shilling Herbalife* to drinking high fructose corn syrup is totally awesome.

So now that the Crew are MLS champions, let's take a look back on WHAAAAAT? There are two more games?

I suppose so - the lead story in the US section on Soccernet is all about my very, very favorite player,...click here to read more...

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So today I'm thinking about the Fire, and I'm stumped. How do you fix a good team and make them great?

"We're going in another direction."
"But I had seven goals and eleven assists."
"Yeah, but you got no neck."
"It's a fair cop, but society's to blame."

Do you put up with Conde's moping because his youth and talent are worth it? Or do you try to upgrade, knowing how difficult it is to find someone who can play AND whose eyes are that close together? (Wait... youth, what the hell am I talking about? He's 26 - he just acts like he's 19.)

Do you assume that Logan Pause, despite last night, is ready to take the next step to MLS elite? Guy did mark Landon Donovan out of the game a couple of times.

Do you assume that King and Nyarko are going to develop? Where do you put in Pappa? Is it realistic to hope that he's good for a whole season?

Come to that, is it realistic to hope Busch has put his injury woes behind him forever?

Basically, how many changes do you make?...click here to read more...

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I've never been a gamer; never had a video game system since the Sega Genesis; never really played anything on a PC...except....



With the newest incarnation of the CM/FM family set for next week, The Guardian's blog post about the game's all-timers made me remember how much I loved the game (no Kennedy Bakirciouglu?) and reminded me how little free time I have now in real life.

I've tried with little success to get into the last two; didn't even buy '07 and barely have played FM '08 after my mother-in-law got it for me last Xmas. It's got too many layers right now; in the past, I could dive into things with full vigor but now there's just too much on your plate. Always had trouble with training, other things as well.

I'll give the '09 demo a run this weekend and see if there's...click here to read more...

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I've been trying all morning to come up with a dispassionate, arms-length professional-journalist-type approach to the Crew v. Fire match last night.

Since that isn't working out - how do you spend three hours standing smack in between La Turbina Amarillo and Crew Union on the night that Columbus wins the first Conference championship in their history and then make like Jack Bell or Beau Dure?

So in between making travel arrangements for LA and answering emails, I'm taking a stab at pounding out something resembling intelligent thought (yeah, yeah, "so why should today be any different?" you're asking) about the match last night.

If you saw it, then you know how it played out: the Fire pretty much owned the first half, scoring on a Brian McBride header (had to be weird, getting lustily booed in the very building that was once the world headquarters of the First Church of McHead) when - incredibly - the Fire got the exact matchup they doubtless spent all week praying for: BMB on...click here to read more...

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If by some mischance the winner of tonight's game does a Challenger in Carson a week from Sunday, I'd like to hear some acknowledgement that those are the rules, this is how MLS decides its champion, and we all knew going in that we might have to salute another sub-.500 clown car as our betters.

I'm not saying Crew fans are likely to do this...hell, I'm not even saying Crew fans will have to do anything except make scarves that say "Double Winners 2008." But the most tedious thing about the playoffs is when the Shield winner goes all Kursk, and Eurosnobs try to comfort that team's fans by reminding them of their regular season title. Yeah, and John McCain got more votes than any other white man in the country - that might have been the rule other places and other times, but not this country and not this year.

So, the game. Bill did a great job invoking the passion of tonight's game - MLS semifinals are, like the life of a repo man, always intense.

And boy, does Chicago look...click here to read more...

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