July 31 - 2007

I was recently informed by the Union of Bloggers and Other Fake Journalists that I had a choice:  I could either move into my parents basement, or I could run a series involving a bracket-style competition decided by highly subjective and ultimately meaningless criteria.  I could no longer, they said, remain a member of the union without satisfying one (or both) of these requirements.  Dicks.

I’ve long been flirting with the idea of abandoning my 7 year romance with West Ham and could possibly be in the market for a new club.  To find out, I’ve organized a battle royale  featuring all 20 Premiership squads.  The teams are seeded according to last year’s table with the bottom five and 3 newcomers randomly drawn into into the pigtails.  As far as methodology goes, I have none.  I simply hope to talk through the match-ups, weigh pros and cons, and solicit the opinions of the small handful of extremely knowledgeable readers here at the ‘Nista.  The winning club will be mine, kit purchases and all.

West Ham will start on equal footing, and I’ll explore my reasons for possible defection when they face Derby later this week.

On a serious note:  My son is now 17 months old, and is giving fairly clear signals that he will be every bit as footie-obsessed as his jackass father.  As these things go, the team I select will likely be his team as well (or at least until he begins to sexually covet his mom and so feels the need to symbolically kill me my team).  I don’t take the responsibility of choosing my son’s first club lightly.

So let’s get started…

July 27 - 2007

The name “Tomas Brolin” means many things.  For Swedes, he is the architect of the national team’s surprise run in the 1994 World Cup.  For fans of Italian club Parma, he is the string-puller that led the team to the height of their Serie A achievement.  For English fans, he is the useless tub of lard Leeds paid $8million dollars for only to see him get fatter and more useless.

For me, he is the borderline obese extra in an obscure music video for a ridiculously awful Swedish dance track.  Yes, that’s Bjorn Borg in there too.  And yes, those are Swedish bikini babes trying to water-ski in a pool using a rope towed by other Swedish bikini babes. 

July 26-2007

No story from last season left me more sour than the Carlos Tevez affair.  It was a constant reminder of how money corrupts, how the FA is an inept organization, and how football, ultimately, is at the mercy of robber barons with new money and old-world ethics.  And even while the Premiership took a break for the summer, the Tevez affair proved to be that rare, putrid gift that just keeps on giving.

For the uninitiated, a quick review:

• Sleazeball Iranian businessmen (pictured) forms investment group consisting of other sleazeballs.
• Sleazeball Iranian receives controlling interest in Brazilian club Corinthians, but not in exchange for capital - in exchange for investments.
• Sleazeball Iranian purchases Carlos Tevez “for” Corinthians, but Sleazeball Iranian retains rights to the player. 
• Sleazeball Iranian makes bid to purchase West Ham, ostensibly using Carlos Tevez as capital.
• West Ham signs Tevez for an undisclosed, but likely nominal, fee.  Meanwhile, Sleazeball Iranian’s takeover bid is refused.  Sleazeball Iranian no doubt retains rights to Tevez.
• West Ham’s slide down the table is halted almost single handedly by Tevez.  The recovery coincides with the FA finally addressing the mysterious arrangement between West Ham and Sleazeball Iranian. 
• A fine of $12million dollars (rather than a point deduction) is handed down by the FA in a gross miscarriage of justice.  The Icelandic biscuit magnate who’s takeover bid did go through retrieves the sum from under his high-density foam, modern sofa cushions and declares the issue resolved.
• West Ham stay up, Sheffield United go down.
• Season ends.  Everyone and their brother knows Tevez is on his way to a club that doesn’t feature Matthew Etherington kicking balls off the endline every trip down the flank.

And it is here that you had to know more drama was in store.  Were we really to imagine that Kia Joorobchian (Sleazeball Iranian) simply walked away from his property?  That he and West Ham came to a satisfactory agreement ending Tevez’s third-party ownership?   

Enter Manchester united who, in a bid to become entirely unbeatable by pairing Wayne Rooney with Tevez, have forced the issue of who actually actually owns Tevez.  And guess what: it’s a mess.  Joorabchian is suing West Ham for breach of contract.  West Ham refutes the claim.  And FIFA, sensing that anyone who touches this case will end up with poop on the chin, has passed the matter on to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The Tevez affair is now being cast as an unfolding, courtroom drama (the fact that Joorabchian is now wanted on money laundering charges only bolsters this angle), but the real criminal prsence may never set foot inside the courtroom: the FA.  If Joorabchian’s claim actually merits arbitration, then it can absolutely be said that the FA mishandled the matter when they had the chance.  And the fact they collected a fine from West Ham while allowing the larger issue to go unresolved, well, that all but makes them co-conspirators.

In then end, their’s only one righteous victim here…and they smell faintly of french fries, stale lager, and closed steel mills.  Sheffield United went down because of Carlos Tevez, their appeals were denied by the FA, and all indicators are that they were 100% correct about the nature of the Tevez affair.  Blades’ fans should take a torch to the league.

My own status as a West Ham fan has been thrown into doubt by the matter, and recent events only widen the gap.  I’ll be watching as they come to their inevitable, shitty conclusion, but I won’t be watching as a Hammer’s fan.  Concerned fan of English football, maybe, but certainly not a Hammers fan.

July 24 - 2007

My feet, having grown up in the sweet embrace of kangaroo hide, are shocked and saddened by today’s news.

Soccer shoes and other athletic footwear made with prized kangaroo skin are banned under a state law that was upheld Monday by the California Supreme Court.  The court unanimously decided that a 36-year-old ban on the import and sale of products made from various wildlife species, including kangaroo, was not preempted by federal wildlife law.  Animal rights groups hailed the decision for giving states the right to protect species even after the federal government decided that they were no longer in peril.

Preferred for its supple feel and light weight, kangaroo leather is the organic material of choice for players who aren’t crap.  Calf-leather comes close, but unless it came with free veal…

For Adidas’ part, they say the ban won’t stand up in court.  I, however, believe animal rights activists can be moved from their position once they see the kangaroo for what it really is: a threat to public safety. 

July 23 - 2007

Enough worrying about what Beckham’s impact on America will be - let’s start worrying about America’s impact on Beckham.  Becks’ debut on Saturday left me wondering if Golden Balls is up to the perfect storm of weirdness and mediocrity he’s facing.  Some causes for concern:

• Beckham is keeping some bizarre company.  Much has been made of the TomKat connection and now you can throw in Will Smith and his clearly insane wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.  To make matters worse, ubercunt Eva Longoria was at Posh’s side for Becks’ debut.  And if that harpy is your go-to, non-cultist friend, how long can it be before auditing the Thetan with an e-meter starts to look like good, healthy fun?
• Beckham’s teammates are mostly crap.  Unlike most fans, I have no issue with the quality of MLS.  I happen to think MLS teams are quite good, and fit somewhere between lower-table Prem teams and Bundesliga mid-table teams.  Beckham’s problem isn’t the quality of MLS, but rather the quality of MLS’s second-worst team.  Can a man accustomed to playing alongside the Gutis and Stephen Gerards of the world be happy sharing midfield duties with Kelly Gray?  And if Landon Donavan was to be Becks’ port in the storm, his blown header from 4 yards out must leave Becks feeling especially adrift in a sea of Chris Albrightness.
• Beckham should not have played Saturday.  The guy has an injury, and was rushed into action anyway.  And not for a crucial, must-win game, but for a goddamn exhibition match.  This says a lot about the Galaxy and MLS, namely that the league is entirely purposeless.  Beckham has to be thinking, “If they were risking my health for weeks ahead for a Chelsea photo-op, how important are those games anyway?”  Yet another example of how MLS holds competition secondary to youth-soccer spectacle…and Becks can’t be happy about it. 
• Beckham experienced his first American crowd.  And he now knows the difference between 30,000 soccer moms politely clapping and woo-hooing, and 30,000 drunken Spanish/English laborers singing.  Beckham went on and on about the “atmosphere” at the Home Depot, but I ain’t buyin’ it.  The man’s last two games were a nail-biting League-finish at the Bernabeu, and an England International at Wembley.  He could only be underwhelmed by his LA reception. 

So if Beckham wants a “challenge” (as he’s so often labeled his American move) he now has it.  American apathy, MLS executive ignorance, and a date with L.Ron all loom.  Welcome, mate, to the backwater.

July 20 - 2007

Sure, there would be downsides to living in a world where surveillance cameras covered every inch of livable space.  But there are plenty of positives, too.  Like how if buses had cameras, we could all watch a member of the Chilean U-20s get tasered by a Toronto policeman.

Unfortunately, Canada is a free society, and so we have to make do with the following clip.  Background: If you’ve been watching the U-20 World Cup, you’re no stranger to the excitement the tournament has generated.  Canadian fans have turned out en masse and the football has been of the attacking, toothsome variety.  The Argentina-Chile match had its share of controversy - Chile pulled in 2 reds and 6 yellows to Argentina’s 2 yellows - and so the post-game atmosphere soured.  Below, please find video of the match officials pretending to chat casually before bolting for the tunnel, followed by a man in a chicken suit (of course) being restrained by security. 

July 19 - 2007

For my “return from paternity leave”, I was going to bore you with a piece about parenting and soccer.  But when I tried to sketch the details in the recovery room, all that came out was an Archie Manning-like, 12 step plan to turn my kid into a world class soccer player.  It culminated in the following drill designed to familiarize my son with the challenges of playing in front of a racist crowd:

In order to prepare Ian for games in the former Yugoslavian and/or rural Spain:

1)  Paint Ian in black-face.   I know this is socially unacceptable, but it’s meant to teach a lesson about teamwork and racism.  Plus no one can see into the backyard.

2)  As Ian kicks his little size-2 ball around the yard, make monkey noises and throw bananas at him.

3)  When he begins to cry, stop the exercises and explain to him that “what you’re feeling right now is 1/100th of what your black teammates will be feeling when every Slobodan/Franco in the stadium gets going.  Now get out there and deliver some social justice.”

4)  Console him.  But not with a hug.  Fist pound, maybe.

“If the nurses see that, they’re going to call child-services,” said my wife.  And when I reread it, I couldn’t really argue…so I scrapped it.  We’re all winners for that.

Soccernista will be coming back slowly.  Babies really do crush your soul, but I’ll be making every effort to get some stuff up here.  Until then…

July 4 - 2007

Without getting too graphic: when a man loves a woman he gives her a special hug, and nine months later a baby arrives.  And if the man happens to write a soccer blog rife with uninformed opinion and affected cynicism, that blog has to take a week off to help change diapers.

Soccernista, for the next few days, will consist mostly of…well…nothing.  But before I head to the hospital, here’s a video featuring Bruce Arena’s ridiculous voice, Gooch’s knowledge of psychological bias, and a contraption I first heard about through Dave’s Football Blog.

July 2 - 2007

If you are a reader of sportsblogs, you have no doubt been exposed to Adidas’ new “football vs. futbol” ad-campaign.  You know the one: an impossibly ripped Reggie Bush tries his hand at free kicks and goalkeeping, while an impossibly effeminate David Beckham tugs at Bush’s belt and plays dress-up in full pads.   Adidas seems to hope the spot will leave American viewers with a joint appreciation for these games that share a name and little else.  But “futbol,” with its slight build and peroxide hairdo, exits the encounter looking mostly gay.

Why Adidas wants to throw its ad dollars into the chasm that separates soccer and football is beyond me, and I won’t try to dissect the American soccer-psyche’s need for approval from American football.  But the occasion of the Becks-Bush video allows me to address the following, evidently false premise regarding soccer and football: 

• If America’s best athletes chose to play soccer instead of football (or basketball), the US would win the World Cup.

My sample includes two of America’s best athletes who decided to play soccer: Oguchi Onyewu and Marvell Wynne.  

After watching these paragons of American athleticism through one Gold Cup and 1/3 of a Copa America qualifying round, I have come to the following conclusion: they are not very good at soccer.  Or rather, they are not so good as the clearly less athletic defenders at the disposal of Bob Bradley, including (but not limited to) the skinny Jewish kid and the oafish 30 year-old.

The promise of sprinter-like speed, Herculean strength, and delicate skill was supposedly the grail of American soccer.  US Soccer coaches, especially, waited with crown and sceptre to corronate the would be wide-receiver who left hash-marks for touch-lines.  That moment is upon us, and behold: the sheer clumsiness of it.

Both Onyewu and Wynne look desperately in need of a game that is less dynamic (I don’t mean that as a slight, yet we can all agree that the permutations for a given play in football are less than an equivalent time in soccer).  It’s not that the game is too fast for these gentlemen, but rather that it is too fast in too many directions.  Gooch simply comes away looking too large, too strong.  Wynne, on the other hand, will have you marveling at his speed…as he chases the player who just worked his way behind him.  Both of these gifted athletes are serious liabilities when the game turns technical.

For further proof of our misplaced hope, turn an eye towards the underfed, positively brilliant backline of Argentina.  What’s Heinze’s “forty” time?  How much can Ayala bench?  Who cares, for they are at all times organized and technically superb. 

The idea of the football player cum footballer is a nice one, but for every Titus Bramble there is…well…a Titus Bramble - sheer brilliance canceled out by utter disaster.  Perhaps the world class soccer player who can carry ball for the Chiefs is out there, but I am closer to doubting it.  Adidas can force Becks and Bush to flirt all day and the fact won’t change: Becks would not last until 2nd down and Reggie would go nowhere really, really fast.    

Our game is a funny one and, strangely enough, Gooch and Wynne may yet succeed - by becoming less athletic.  But that won’t sell shoes…so, until then, maybe Adidas can give Gilbert Arenas a call.