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Just to point out a few articles I found quite interesting in the last week or so:

* F365’s John Nicolson puts forth a passionate defense of US soccer fans

* Landon Donovan slags Beckham in a new book by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl called The Beckham Experiment, which they’ve also been talking about on World Soccer Daily

* F365’s Peter Gill makes a strong case for Spain having a stronger league than England based on the star power it attracts

The transfer season has only just begun but already things look quite interesting for the future in England and Spain. Conventional wisdom says that reigning Spanish league, Spanish Cup and Champions League champions Barcelona don’t need to change a thing considering they have a balanced, motivated squad that ended the season firing on all cylinders under a young, hip manager. The only big name rumored to be on the way out is striker Samuel Eto’o, and even that’s questionable. Even if he does go, plenty of strikers would pine to play with Barca’s midfield so a strong replacement wouldn’t be far behind.

Yet WTF is happening in Madrid? The Kaka’ deal wasn’t so surprising, nor the Ronaldo deal. Their move for Albiol didn’t make the big headlines but is a smart move, since the back line needs work. But now it looks like they’ve got Benzema, and perhaps Ribery not far behind? As many critics have pointed out, this flash approach wasn’t a huge success last go-round for Madrid, but I am reserving comment. If Madrid can latch onto another (perhaps unheralded) decent defender and a midfield enforcer, look out. Barcelona might still have the edge based solely on team cohesion, but this Madrid squad could push them. And they might make a dent in European competition to boot.

The other side of the Madrid shopping spree is that other clubs are now denied these players. Man Ure and the Ars* both had their sights set on one or two of the aforementioned, who are now off the shelves. It’s still early days but you’d have to say Man Ure are smarting. No more Ronaldo or Tevez, and Ribery and Benzema apparently spoken for. While I’m sure they’ll pry some decent players away here and there, can they possibly make the same kind of impact?

Chelski and Liverpool will be interesting birds this upcoming season too, depending on who moves where. If Liverpool loses Mascherano and Alonso, they’re screwed. You can’t gut the team of that kind of midfield talent and expect to push for the title. Besides the fact they’re not the most stable of clubs at the moment, so who wants to move there? The same goes for Chelski. The shine has gone off the club and they’re no longer the hot spot for big league transfers. The same goes for the Arse and Man City, both of which would have problems attracting a prostitute at the moment.

There’s a lot of shaking and baking to happen before September, but it’s fascinating stuff.

Current Mood: Good |

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The near-impossible happened: the US upset the #1 ranked team in the world, and what’s more they deserved it. They rode their luck hard and took enough of the few chances they created to win. In fairness, 2-0 was harsh on Spain. A more truthful scoreline would have read 1-0 or 2-1 considering the tilt of the game but no matter how you cut it, the US earned their win.

First, a word to those good friends throwing this result in my face in light of my last post: I have watched, in their entirety, the last fifteen matches involving the US national team (going back to Feb of last year), and I’ve only missed a couple overall since the ‘06 World Cup debacle. To be blunt, they haven’t looked very good in ALL of that time. Unlike a lot of folks, this team showed me very little in the games against England, Spain, and Argentina last year, and even when they’ve been winning in qualifying, they’ve largely looked apathetic and doing the bare minimum to get a result. The game against Egypt could have easily been a blip.

Frankly, I didn’t think this squad this kind of performance in them. Here’s what they showed yesterday that they haven’t in a long, long time:

* Foremost, heart. Guys diving into tackles, chasing down lost causes, tracking back, hustling. They played with passion and you could see it in their faces. They were up for this from the word ‘go.’ Props to Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey to acting like the leaders they’re supposed to be.

* Passing. Nothing says “we suck and we know it” like playing long ball. It’s an admission that your team is incapable of moving the ball on the carpet. Lumping long balls to a big striker has been Bradley’s primary tactic. The US hadn’t scored a decent game in open play in ages until they faced Egypt and scored some beauts. The two against Spain? Lovely.

* Committed defending. The defense has been particularly laughable lately. No one seemed to know who they were covering, and there a pall of tentativeness has settled over the whole group. They shook that off yesterday. How many blocked shots did they have? How many times were the Spanish strikers hustled or harried off the ball? While scoring two goals against Spain is nothing to sniff at, the real accomplishment is shutting out that offense. And even though the defenders lost individual battles all night (Riera worked over Spector something fierce) the US did enough when it counted. And where did this Onyewu character come from? He’s been spectacular the last two matches.

However. While it’s all well and good to crow from the rooftops, there were problems. The team needed a string of superb saves from Howard and quite a bit of luck to hold off Spain. Torres and Villa each missed chances they could have easily converted, and the US started coughing the ball up with alarming frequency (especially Ricardo Clark) when they should have been working on possession.

And if I may rant, what the @#$@ is it with these mother @#$@ing refs dishing out straight red cards to the US? A straight red? A straight red? Those should be brought out for decapitations and dismembering tackles. So far, the US has been dished three of them, and none of them have been warranted. Three in four games? Ludicrous. I would also point out that none of these allegedly violent tackles have led to the fouled opponent having to leave the field of play, much less suffering an injury. Not that injury should determine the color, but the fact that none of these fouls have even caused injury suggests perhaps they weren’t so bloody violent after all, no? Missing Bradley for the final is a huge, and unjust, blow.

Finally, might I point out that the US is a far, far better team when they’re the underdogs? What made WC ‘02 so special is that no one gave the US much of a chance against pre-tourney favs Portugal or hosts South Korea, against whom they played brilliantly. In US circles, people tend to conveniently forget that they looked past Poland and got their butts handed to them 3-1 and only made it to the second round thanks to the Koreans beating Portugal when both sides only needed a draw to go through. And what drove me crazy about WC ‘06 was how these same pinheads somehow thought the Czech Republic and Ghana were readily winnable games. I think the US squad thought it too, and again they got stuffed.

If Bob Bradley knows what he’s doing, he will cultivate this “us against the world” mentality that’s worked for the US team for the last two decades. The whole “we are among the best nations in the world so we better start playing like it” doesn’t work. And if this squad doesn’t want to get rolled over in the final, they should ignore the last two results and believe in their heart of hearts that they’re still massive underdogs.

As for Spain, this is not the end of the world even if it is the end of their unbeaten and winning streaks. Spain had three fairly easy games in the run-up to this one and they only really looked great against New Zealand, who were clearly the worst team at the tournament. What this team has shown me (and certainly many others) is how much they rely on a Xavi/Iniesta combo in the midfield to pull the strings. Sorry Ars*nal fans, Fabregas is a big time downgrade, as is Cazorla. Iniesta brings a different dimension when paired with Xavi, and it gives del Bosque more options when deploying subs. The midfield looked more or less the same after the subs yesterday, and that’s got to be a major cause for concern should either Iniesta or Xavi head into the World Cup less than fully fit.

Also, it’s worth pointing out that neither Torres nor Villa played blinders yesterday. It just goes to show that in order to beat a team like Spain, you have to be at your best and hope they have an off day. More or less, that was the story of the game. Let’s hope that carries over to Brazil on Sunday!

Current Mood: Whew! |

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Call me a traitor but I’m really having a hard time deciding who I should be rooting for more during today’s Confederations Cup semifinal betwixt my two most favoritest national teams, the US and Spain. Consider:

* I’m American. Believe me, if I wasn’t, it would be very hard to root for the USMNT lately. The squad has in the past quite literally brought me to tears, both for good (Copa America ‘95, WC ‘02) and for bad (WC ‘98, WC ‘06).

* I adore Spain. I adore the language, the landscape, the people, the culture, the wine, the food. And the football. Can’t forget the football. I started truly following the Spanish national team and La Liga in 1998 and my fondness has only grown for both.

Normally this wouldn’t be much of an issue as I’d be for the US hands down. But Spain is on a 36-match unbeaten streak (tying the world record) and an unprecedented 14-match winning streak. What irks me is that in some quarters, people consider Brazil and (how in God’s name) Italy as the best in the world. There is nothing more I would like than to see Spain dismantle Brazil in the final and put their marker down on the World Cup.

My problem with this US? They’re really not that good. They were lucky to advance in the tournament and should be thanking Egypt and Italy for not showing up for game three of the group stage. Should the US somehow pull off a miracle upset of Spain (unlikely) then I seriously can’t see them getting lucky three games in a row, meaning they’d likely lose to Brazil in the final. This would only add to the Spain haters’ argument about them not being the best in the world.

In an alternate dimension where the US consistently played well, I’d be for the US with all my heart. I predict I will root meekly for them and not be all that concerned if they lose. I am hoping for them to go down with some dignity though and put in a good showing. And if they’ve somehow transformed themselves and can beat Spain with grace and style, then all the better. The worst case scenario would either be a foul-filled bloodfest or an absolute walloping. After the US winning the Confederations Cup, the next best result is Spain coming in first and the US finishing third. That would almost be the best of both worlds.

Kickoff in 15 minutes. Nervy.

Current Mood: Eyes Peeled |

Like many critics of the US Nat’l Team, I have to take back a few things. I didn’t give them a shot in hell in qualifying after a hard-fought but disheartening loss to Italy and a complete no-show against Brazil. Frankly, I figured Egypt would mop the floor with this US squad. Happily, they proved me quite wrong yesterday.

But. We also need to recognize a few things. Like that Egypt were a shadow of the team that played Brazil to the wire and beat the Italians. And that the Italians had to completely capitulate against Brazil in order to help the US go through. However, all you can do is take the tournament one game at a time and forget the past. That’s exactly what the US did and it paid off big time.

Donovan played well and Bradley and Clark played very well. Onyewu put in one of the best, if not the best, performances of his USMNT career. Demerit, Spector, and Bornstein played pretty well. But you can’t gloss over the fact that Dempsey played poorly for about 70 minutes, giving the ball away way too cheaply. If it wasn’t for his crucial goal (and a nice header it was) then it would have been another disaster outing for me. Charlie Davies had highs and lows. Altidore didn’t do much, and neither did Guzan.

So while the US passed this crucial gut check, it may be a Pyrrhic victory as they play Spain next. Now, after the US, Spain is a close second. A close second. I can’t root against my own country, but I do hope that if the US loses (which I think they will) then they do so with dignity. Spain has the ability to hang six or seven on the US, and the US has the ability to prematurely end the careers of some of my favorite players. It should be a riveting watch.

Current Mood: Wow |

Over the past week or so I’ve read From Hell, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and V for Vendetta. Between Alan Moore and Frank Miller, I find Moore’s work to be far more nuanced and compelling. In undergrad I took a course on comics where we read Miller’s Give Me Liberty and, while I liked the graphic novel’s premise, I didn’t like the execution. I would also say that I had high expectations for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and felt a little let down. In Miller’s stories, he does a better job with his characters than the worlds he builds, which far too black and white. Media coverage is one-sided and absurd, politicians are narrow-minded and crooked. I also felt TDKR moved at a breakneck speed and could have easily been longer by two or three episodes. I loved the artwork though.

Moore in contrast understands the need for subtlety. The media in V for Vendetta, for example, simply broadcasts the state-scripted news without any hint of the absurd, which makes it more realistic and chilling than the cartoony reporters in Miller’s work. And From Hell is a brilliant and intricate work that places a lot of demands on the reader. Sunday morning funnies this is not. Good stuff.

The silly season began with a bang when Real Madrid made the double swoop for Kaka and Ronaldo. Why do I feel like I’m one of the few people on the planet who were not surprised at all with the Ronaldo transfer? Of all the news reports flying around over the past year, here are the two things that (for whatever reason) I seemed to home in on as being key:

1) Ronaldo wanted to go Real Madrid last year but Fergie, who was resigned to losing him, convinced him to stay for one more year to try and win the Champions League, World Club Championship, and Premier League before he starts blooding a new crop of players.

2) Ronaldo’s petulance at being subbed against Man City felt contrived. In fact, I suspect that his hilarious histrionics over the past year have been intentional in order to further alienate him from Man Ure fans and ease the pain of him leaving.

Will Real’s mad spending spree result in them challenging Barcelona’s throne? I kind of doubt it. It seems to me that they need to be buying the highest quality defenders available rather than buying purely offensive talent. And now David Villa and Franck Ribery are allegedly next? Not a lot of fellows there who enjoy tracking back to get a tackle in.

And let’s spare a moment for poor Valencia, who look to offload their best players in order to stay afloat. Villa, Silva, Juan Mata and Albiol seem pretty certain to leave in order to pay back the club’s debts. Valencia have unearthed some of the most exciting talents in the modern game, and I used to love to watch them play with the likes of Gaizka Mendieta and Joaquín in their heyday.

The US plays Italy today at 1:30. I predict a loss. I watched Brazil and Egypt play an absolute barn burner this morning. The US plays Brazil on Thursday and Egypt on Sunday. I predict… erm… um… a loss and a loss. I would certainly love to be wrong, but the order of the day at the Confederations Cup has been slick, quick passing on the carpet. The US’ long ball schtick will not work. Will. Not. Work. And if Egypt and Brazil play like they did today, they will both shred the US defense.

Spain? OMG. So frigging good it’s sick. Easily the most fun team to watch on the planet. They made the Kiwis look absolutely clueless. Gotta love it.

I scored again last Saturday. That makes it five goals in five games. Mad City United topped the tables with a record of 13-0-3 and will steam into the play-offs as the number one seed this upcoming weekend. If we win that, I will regrettably be out of town for the final the next weekend.

My end of the regular season stats? Six goals in the twelve games I played. Once again, I have to toot my own horn: a goal every other game from the defensive midfield? I’ll take it!

Current Mood: Fine |

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A few years ago I started tracking the champions of European soccer leagues in a database to see if I could see any definite trend in competitiveness after the introduction of major advertising revenues via television rights deals, which exploded in the early nineties. I also wanted to compare them against the major US sports to compare turnover, meaning how many times new champions were crowned. I dropped them into a grid going back to 1984 (twenty-six years) and the results surprised me. (full tables below the cut)

First off, from looking at a list of champions alone, you can’t say that things changed dramatically for European soccer. In each of the big five leagues, the champions have always come from a very select few teams. In England, they’ve had 3 different teams win the title in 6 years; not so bad considering that the number only increases to 7 if you go all the way back to 1984. Also, I was surprised to see that the other European leagues had been just as static over that time period. Italy leads the pack with 9 different champs since 1984. The numbers look even worse if you toss out the teams that have only won one championship; Spain’s the worst offender as it really just boils down to two teams in Real Madrid and Barcelona, with Valencia winning twice and Atletico Madrid, Deportivo La Coruna, and Atletico Bilbao only topping the table once.

This stands in stark contrast with US sports, whose leagues have tried to maintain a higher level of parity. Even though it seems like dynasties are fairly common in US sports, the table shows quite a bit of turnover: fourteen and fifteen different champs for NFL and NHL, a whopping nineteen for MLB, leaving only the NBA as having numbers similar to the European leagues with 9. Only the Champions League (formerly European Cup) comes close to those numbers with fourteen different winners. Of course, there are a couple important variables: it’s cup competition not a league, and it runs concurrently with a domestic league season.

This data also discounts the fact that many of these title races go right down to the wire, but it also reveals the fact that certain teams always seem to win out in the end. Still, it’s hard to see how an eighteen-team, single-table European league wouldn’t be significantly more competitive and perhaps more interesting. I also can’t see a salary cap being put in place anytime soon, considering the clout these major European teams have, and there’s also no denying that the rich have become richer and that vying for these domestic league titles is a very, very expensive proposition.

Draw what conclusions you will.

(more…)

The TOC for The Best Horror of the Year #1 has been announced, and can be seen here along with the cover art. Still pretty damn pleased with my inclusion in this volume.

Also, I was working on my CV yesterday and searched for my name in Amazon so I could get the dates of a couple publications, and was quite surprised to see that my story “From the Mouths of Babes” that appeared in F&SF awhile back is mentioned a number of times in a book on feminist science fiction entitled Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction. Quite cool.

I also saw that the YA book Stories from Songs: Ballads as Literary Fictions for Young Adults is also out, which features a detailed recap of my story “Black Jack Davy” along with some notes I wrote on how the various versions of the folk song helped inspire my writing of the story. Also cool.

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I watched chunks of the Champions League final yesterday and was more than a little pleased to see Man Ure flail against Barcelona. Remember the Man Ure team that was supposed to win everything? Yeah, well they ended up winning the World Club Cup (dubious), the League Cup (yawn), and the Premier League. Not to say they aren’t a great team but they’re also not even close to being the greatest of all time.

On the flip side, apropos of my post a few days ago, why isn’t the media going apeshit over Barcelona? They ripped through La Liga and did a treble of their own, winning the Copa del Rey and now the Champions League? For some reason, I sense a good many people feeling that Barcelona were the better team “on the night” as the saying goes. This would completely ignore the fact that Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi completely bamboozled the Man Ure midfield for at least an hour of the match, and Carlos Puyol devoured most of the attacks coming down the flank.

To underscore the stupidity of it all, Soccern*t’s main story today was Rio Ferdinand saying Man Ure will recover. If Man Ure had lost, do you really think the main story would be Carlos Puyol saying the same thing about Barcelona? No, it would be more fawning over SAF and commemorating Man Ure as the best team to ever play the game, ever ever.

Makes me want to puke.

Current Mood: Fine |

Mad City Utd lost 3-1 in our first game of the year three weeks back. We played listlessly, lethargically, without any energy. Our passing was bad, our movement was bad—we were bad. I played out on the wing and wasn’t too involved. The other team played quite well and deserved their win. Last weekend, our game got canceled on account of lightning.

This weekend we arrived at the pitch to find a triple-whammy—high wind, a horribly slanted field, and muddy turf. We had our full lineup this time and reverted to our traditional 4-5-1 rather than the 4-4-2 we messed with during the opener. The result? A 4-1 win. We had about a dozen other good chances and the only reason they scored is because our keeper literally threw the ball to one of their forwards inside the box. I played in the defensive midfield role and I was happy with the performance, busting up play and getting the attack started. I was rewarded with cleat marks on my thigh and my calves. Onward.

The last thing Chelski wanted to see ahead of their semifinal clash with Barcelona was the Catalan club pasting Real Madrid 6-2 away from home. I haven’t seen the replays, but reports suggest it could have been 16-2. Chelski beware. Hopefully they’ll actually try to come out and play at home…

Things have gone a bit flat as this stage of the Premier League season. Man Ure would have to lose at least two of their last four? Not gonna happen. Villa has faded badly and the race for fourth was over a month ago. Blackburn, Pompey, Stoke, and Bolton have picked up enough points to steer them to virtual safety.

West Brom is down. But who will join them? Newcastle and Boro occupy the last two spots and three points from safety and Hull, who sits on 34 points, has won exactly once in 2009. What must be maddening for these clubs is that the tiniest amount of quality is all it takes to raise them from the mire, but all three of these teams have been as dire as the day is long. Sunderland (playing Everton as I type) is not out of the woods either, but they at least show flashes of competence. It’s almost a shame all of them can’t go down.

Current Mood: Okay |

Well, this weekend we put a lot of work into converting my old office (the smaller bedroom in our two-bedroom house) into a nursery, and brought my desk and bookshelves into our master bedroom (and now office). I like the new arrangement quite a bit, except one minor problem…

Actually, it’s a major problem insofar as it’s driving me nuts. I don’t want to go into a long explanation but we have a lot of devices hooked up to our household network. The problem is that we did not put an Ethernet jack on the wall where we now have the desk. For whatever reason, I thought I had a simple solution in the form of a wireless network card. Cue the insanity.

I plugged in my formerly decommissioned Netgear wireless router, purchased back when these things used to be quite difficult to set up. It should have been setup previously but it was collecting dust for about five years, so I wasn’t too surprised when my computer could “see” it but couldn’t connect. And it was frustrating but not surprising when the thing kept refusing the username and password for setup, even though I reset it to the factory settings. Apparently, this is a common occurrence with this model of old router—when it gives up the ghost, it permanently locks you out. Terrific.

So I bought a new router, planning on returning it before the 30-day return policy runs out. The new one sets up in about five minutes and both laptop and computer connect. Perfect! Until I try to secure the network. The wireless cards I have are also five years old and they don’t want to play nice with the new security features. Except they don’t want to play nice with the old security features either.

Today, the first day I’m really working on this computer, I realize that there are a number of random sites that timeout for no apparent reason—Hotmail, Facebook, and some of the live score broadcasts from footie websites. Not good. It isn’t a browser problem and Googling reveals this is one of the wonderful issues that’s posted about in a million places but never resolved. All I know is that Friday when it was a wired connection, everything was peachy; today, on a wireless connection, everything is not. You be the computer tech and try to isolate the problem…

I have a suspicion that it’s the old, crappy adapter that’s somehow causing sites to hang. Amy suggested I just use the computer downstairs to check those sites but I used to do tech support stuff and I knew—quite rightly—that these are the only problems we’ve found so far. Sure enough, I can’t get into my class records online and I can’t update my website using Dreamweaver. It will, however, connect long enough to corrupt the file on the server and render a page useless. It shoots down Dreamweaver, FireFTP, and even logging into the server and either manually editing the files or uploading new ones. Unbelievable…

This is the kind of crap that will drive you crazy. The problem is difficult to isolate and working through the steps to eliminate problems takes time I don’t have. (sigh)

Unsurprisingly, Spurs lost the Carling Cup to Man Ure. As many fans pointed out on F365’s mailbox, there doesn’t seem to be much point in winning the thing and qualifying for Europe if you then field a C team in the later stages, which Spurs of course did last week and were eliminated (like Aston Villa) by some Eastern European team badly in need of some vowels in their name. But the problem of European competition won’t vex Spurs next year regardless.

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I watched a good chunk of Villa vs. Stoke and was heartily disappointed at them conceding two goals in the last two minutes after Stoke had hardly managed a shot on goal. The only good news was Ars*nal’s inability to beat Fulham on Saturday, leaving the gap between them at five points.

And the best part about La Liga is that the potential for meltdown is always on the cards. Four months ago, Barcelona were (arguably) head and shoulders the best team in Europe, never mind Spain. Now they haven’t won in ages and Real Madrid are a mere four points behind them. If normal business resumes, Barcelona will right the ship and Madrid will go flat and the title race will threaten to be interesting but, in reality, will peter out. Still, I would have loved to see the cracking 4-3 loss to Atletico Madrid. Damn Dish network for dropping GolTv…

Current Mood: Pretty Tired and Displeased |

The secret to watching the United States play some good attacking soccer? Have them face a tiny Caribbean nation playing with one man down. The US whipped up on Cuba to the tune of 6-1 last night and featured some pretty decent attack play. I was really happy to see DaMarcus Beasley bang in two well-taken goals and Heath Pearce, who I have been moaning about for the last several months, had a really good game, serving in great balls from the wing.

Still, I can’t be all positive. The US started with essentially the same lineup that’s been boring us to tears since qualification began. I was excited to see Altidore, Adu, and Torres in the squad, disappointed that none of them got the start. I thought Altidore and Adu played quite well in the minutes they did get, scoring and getting an assist respectively, and Torres looks like he could be handy too. But I don’t want to draw too many conclusions as Cuba was well-beaten and exhausted at that point. My sincere hope is that these fellas don’t step off the field for the next two irrelevant games and force their way into the starting lineup for the final round of qualifiers.

I watched portions of England’s win over Kazakhstan and was fairly unimpressed. The first couple goals game off set pieces and the team looked awfully plodding until the goals finally started dropping in late in the second half. So a big scoreline, yes, but watching England reminds me a lot of the current US squad and I find myself asking this question: what happens when these teams play somebody good?

Like Spain. 3-0 against Estonia might not have been a devastating performance by the Spaniards, but they sure do look tasty all the same. Iniesta and Xavi are ridiculous in the midfield. During the Euros I said you couldn’t get the ball off them if you had a pool cue to help trip them up; I’m raising that to a shotgun. If you want to criticize (and I don’t) you could accuse them of trying to walk the ball in the net, but it’s still fun to watch, and they still won handily—away, on a rain-slicked pitch. I wish the World Cup was this summer…

The less said the better. My prediction was that it would be ugly so I watched the US national team instead. It turned out to be uglier than I ever would have dreamed. Pure awful. After the Michigan loss I said that this team tends to lose in streaks, and boy, have I been proven right.

Mad City FC won again yesterday, 5-1, and I had nothing to do with it since I wasn’t in town. I should make the next two games though and hopefully close out the season with a pair of wins.

Current Mood: Fine |
Currently Listening To - Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - “Global A Go-Go”