August 10 – 2007

For those of you who don’t know Lukey the Czech, turn your attention to the photo at left….and stare into the eyes of profitability.

Lukey ended last year’s campaign with a staggering $182.63 (based on $5 and $10 mythical wagers). The pilsner and cigar industries absorbed most of that, with any spare change likely finding its way to young ladies “working their way through college.”

Lukey, then, will be off and running from zero. His picks will appear every Friday along with odds from Ladbrokes and an update of his progress/ruination. He’ll offer his $10 “Lock of the Week,” followed by the $5 fixture run-down and, hopefully, some unsolicited anecdotes about life in America as a first generation Czech man. So, without further ado… (more…)

August 9 – 2007

The battle for my support rages on as Manchester City takes on Birmingham City. Yes, this tourney moves slowly, but I’ll be damned if I rush into the sacred union between supporter and club. I’ll take my time and leave no stone, no matter how caked in football crap, unturned. Onward!

The case for Manchester City: One of the few teams I’ve been lucky enough to watch in the flesh, Man City were another club vying for my late ’90s, pre-Hammer love. Thank God I didn’t make that mistake – City have since been one of the worst teams to watch even as a neutral. If you said “Premier League Limp Dicks,” I’d say Man City. Or Newcastle. Regardless, Man City have been a disaster.

The times, though, might be a-changing. Let’s look at the pros:

• “Manchester City” is the equivalent of “Not Manchester United.” When love of club falters, it’s nice to have hate of another club to fall back on.
• I already know (and like) the club song, “Blue Moon.”
• Holy transfer activity! Man City have signed a slew of players including a favorite of mine, Martin Petrov. The new look City seemed poised to erase the memory of their 10 (10!) goals at home last year.
• Supporting City would provide a solid year of Micah Richards watching before he inevitably signs for Chelsea’s bench.

Meh. Cons, anyone?

• One of the inspirations for this little tourney was corruption in the West Ham front office. Man City were recently purchased by disgraced Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Beyond the silly name, Thaksin is a corruption-demagoguery-extortion machine reviled by his own people. No thank you. And, yes, that’s a picture of him holding a United jersey.
• Sven-Goran Eriksson? That guy managed the most talented England team in 40 years into a state of utter purposelessness and confusion. Think what he’s going to do for the likes of Gorgios Samaras.
• “The Citizens?” You call that a nickname? What, was “People” taken? How ’bout “Townsfolk?” Makes me long for the days when the Latics were still in this.
• That’s not a badge, it’s a Nazi insignia with a boat on it.
• Remember this guy?

The case for Birmingham City: What’s not to like about a club that last played in Europe over 45 years ago? Truth be told, I struggle to find a good thing to say about the Blues. I’ll dig deep and do my best; I owe Steve Bruce that much at least.

The painfully produced pros:

• Wait a minute…I’m remembering…Mikael Forssell – I like that guy! Too bad his knees are Finnish meatballs.
• One of my favorite music acts, The Streets, is a Birmingham City fan. “Geezers, Geezers, Geezers!”
• The Blues have signed Franck Queudrue from Boro. My wife seems to think Franck is cute, and I know she would watch a few minutes of the match just to catch a glimpse of his chiseled features. This would officially qualify Birmingham matches as “our time.”

Yikes. I’m guessing cons will be somewhat easier:

• Steve Bruce’s nose makes me physically ill. I hear the sound of crunching cartilage. I feel the pressure of clotted sinuses. Good God, man: rhinoplasty!
• Yay! We signed Mido and Hossam Ghaly! Boooo. They want nothing to do with us and weaseled out of their agreements.
• Jermaine Pennant did his best work (crashing his drunk ass into a tree and having to wear an ankle bracelet) as a Blue.
• Take a look at their roster. Can anyone not see this group in the Championship 368 days from now?

The Verdict: With Joey Barton gone, Manchester City play like the threat of death by cigar-poking no longer haunts their every move. Sven does his best to confuse the situation, but in the end Man City prove too tough for a team better suited to a League Cup tie with Burnley. Pad thai for everyone!

August 6 – 2007

If you want to be the best, you’ve got to play against the best. And when the best isn’t available, kicking some blogger-ass can at least build your confidence.

The Celebrity Blogger Fantasy Premiership is your chance to pit your skills against the interweb’s finest football scribes (who returned my email). Register a team at Premierleague.com, click on “My Leagues”, and enter this code: 397684-77023. First prize? We’ll name next year’s league after you and you can have free run of Soccernista.com for one day. Share your masters thesis on why the 3-5-2 went extinct. Write “In your face!” with 48 font. Publish a Penthouse-letters-style account of your run-in with Andriy Schevchenko’s wife. I could care less.

But first you have to top the table, and that means besting the following collection of “celebrities”:

Blog name: Dave’s Football Blog

Team name: Off Constantly

My fantasy league strategy can be summarized thus: Pick names that I recognize, even if they’re not so hot. If they pan out later, I can call them “value picks.”

The player I had to have was: Clint Dempsey. Having him in the midfield helped me afford Christiano Ronaldo.

If I were a premier league manager (past or present) I’d be: a Coca-Cola Championship manager by mid-April. (more…)

August 4 – 2007

Ah…Sunderland vs. Wigan…the second pairing in the battle for my support. If you woke up on a Saturday, turned on FSC, and found this match-up staring you in the face, you’d be forgiven for crawling back into bed. No matter – let’s get this 6-pointer started. Note: Because teams make more than one appearance in this little tourney, I’ll only assess the two squads in so far as an obvious (for me) winner emerges. An updated bracket can be found at right.

The case for Sunderland: There was a time when Sunderland had some appeal. The striker-pairing of Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips was both comical and potent – a “Mutt and Jeff” routine with serious goal-scoring punch. Claudio Reyna performed well there, and I even recall a few top-half of the table finishes at the turn of the century. Then came 2005-2006. That particular team spent their pre-season in North America en route to a point total of 15 for the year. I remember speaking to my brother (who played for the Vancouver Whitecaps at the time) after his team had faced Sunderland and beaten them 3-0. His assessment of the Black Cats was this: “I felt bad for those guys. It was a sell-out only because people wanted to watch a Premier League team…and they were a disaster. ManUtd is gonna’ beat that team 10-nil.” And that’s pretty much how it went.

But it’s 2007, and Sunderland are a new team(?). The pros:

• If there’s one thing to like about the latest incarnation of Sunderland it’s their manager, Roy muthafuckin’ Keane. I’m no friend of Manchester United, but if you have a dram of testosterone coursing through your veins you gotta’ respect the Keano.
• The smiling assassin, Dwight Yorke, now plies his trade with Sunderland. That guy is old. And good.
• There’s something appealing about the Sunderland nickname, the Black Cats. Cute, but sinister. Devil’s spawn, but cuddly.
• Defender Nyron Nosworthy has what may be the best nickname in the league: Nyron Maiden.

And on to the cons:

• Memories of that 2005-06 team are burned into my retina. Good God was that team awful. Seriously. They made Watford 2006-07 look like world beaters, and that’s not hyperbole.
• “Stadium of Light”? In the North of England? How ’bout “Stadium of Steel Grey Overcast.”
• Sure, Roy Keane will start the year as manager, but after he is suspended indefinitely for choking Arsene Wenger into unconsciousness…

The case for Wigan: Wikipedia tells me Wigan is part of greater Manchester, which tells me Wigan fans must curse the day they were born inside Wigan city limits. Can you imagine staring over the offending line at the masses of Red Devil fans polishing their trophies? And what do you have? Emile Heskey.

Life is cruel. Let’s look at some pros:

• Wigan employ Chris Kirkland, the goalkeeper who netted his family tens of thousands of dollars when he appeared for the full national team; they had placed a bet on him (when he was 11 years old) to play for England at a price of 100/1.
• Wigan were originally members of the Northern Premier League. Now where have I heard that before?
• Remember two years ago when Wigan, newly promoted from the Championship, opened their campaign against Chelsea at home? They gave the champions all they could handle, and only an Hernan Crespo strike in the 92nd minute kept Wigan from pure ecstasy. That game alone was probably enough to make a small part of you a Wigan fan.

Some cons:

• Wigan is where formerly well regarded players go to die. The aforementioned Emile Heskey is joined by Mario Melchiot, Titus Bramble, Kevin Kilbane, Henri Camara…the list goes on.
• Wigan are notoriously under-supported. The height of the apathy hit during their League Cup semi-final clash with Arsenal when 12,000 and change showed up at the JJB.
• Their nickname is “The Latics” which, they say, is short for Athletics. Sounds more like a mispronunciation to me.
• The main terrace tune is “You Are My Sunshine.” That’ll rile ‘em up.

The Verdict: By halftime, this fight for bottom of the table-scraps looked to be locked in a nil-nil snoozer. Sunderland, however, emerged from the tunnel with fear in their eyes and purpose in their heart. 2-0 to Sunderland amid rumors that Roy Keane had bitten the head off a black kitten during the break.

August 2 – 2007

If you’re nine, can go past crappy Australian nine year-olds at will, and display an ability to play-on in the absence of a referee, you too can sign for Manchester United. His name is Rhain Davis, and Manchester United signed him to their academy this week on the strength of a DVD his dad sent in. The footage is pretty much what you would expect: underage dribbling-porn.

Good luck to you, Rhain. And let me know how your femur heals up after that disgruntled steel-worker’s kid tires of your twinkle-toes routine.

August 1 – 2007

Opening day, and boy am I nervous! My boyhood twenty-something heroes take on Derby County for the right to have me scream drunkenly at them from half a continent away. Good luck, lads. Note: Because teams make more than one appearance in this little tourney, I’ll only assess the two squads in so far as an obvious (for me) winner emerges.

The Case for Derby: Believe it or not, Derby and I have some history. When I went shopping for a Premiership squad in the late nineties, Derby damn near took the cup. How, you ask? Well, Paolo Wanchope for starters. The Costa Rican was an instant eye-catcher, scoring goals on the merit of his 5 yard stride and prodigious work rate. I even liked Derby enough to pick up a home jersey as an ebay afterthought.

But past history won’t cut it for this recently graduated side, so let’s get into the pros:

• As Premier League badges goes, I put Derby’s stylized sheep right up there. This, when compared to Newcastle’s larval seahorses, is a significant step forward in logo design.
• They have a mascot named Rammie. Rammie the ram. And the ram is wearing soccer shoes. Fantastic.
• Ummm…

That was hard. Let’s get on to the cons:

• Derby finished 20th in the Championship in 2005-2006. I appreciate the turn around, but does anyone really see them climbing 23 places in two years to stay up for 2008-2009? I don’t mind following a team into the Championship, but God knows I’d like to wait until November before I start talking relegation battle. Derby going down looks all but assured.
• Derby draws the majority of their foreign players from…wait for it…Jamaica! I’m sure those guys love the midlands, and that their performance doesn’t suffer at all.
• That kit belongs on the referee, thank you.
• Their main rivals are Nottingham Forest and Leeds. Can teams separated by multiple divisions be rivals?
• Even after he was sold on, Rory Delap is still the first player I think of when I think Derby. Why the long face, Rory?

The case for West Ham: My history with the Hammers only got rocky in the past year. Bad results I can handle. Poor ethics, desertion of academy players, and general chaos, I can not. Still, there’s something about those Hammers. eh?

For today, it looks like West Ham need only show up. Some pros:

• Not Derby County.
• Claret and blue is opposite side of color wheel from white and black.
• It’s much easier to explain to people (or your son) why you root for the “irons” rather than the “rams.” Sorry, Rammie.

And the cons:

• Oh brother. I want to keep my negative powder dry until West Ham faces some serious competition, but still…Craig Bellamy?! Craig Bellamy?! We’re struggling to maintain some dignity in the eyes of football fans across the planet, and you sign that neckless douche fresh off of playing Riise’s back nine?! Chriiiiiiissstt!

The Verdict: West Ham win 8-0 despite Bellamy being sent off in the 10th minute for attempting to sodomize Rammie with the corner flag. Derby are out, but were they ever really in? West Ham move on to face Manchester United, while County lick their wounds over a cold Red Stripe.