A Journalist Running for Fifa President

For those who don't know, FIFA, the governing body of soccer, has elections to see who will be president. How does it work? Anyone in the world can be president... but one of the member countries have to PUBLICLY nominate you, then the same member countries (over 200 of them) choose the President by SECRET BALLOT.

Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl is not a fan of the lack of transparency... so he decided to make a run at getting nominated for FIFA President!

I highly recommend checking out his article here recounting what happened.

Some highlights:

-due to political pressure within FIFA, Chile decided it wouldn't even nominate a former soccer superstar from their own country
-Grant Wahl being told other countries would vote for him... but none could NOMINATE him for fear of the political reprecussions
-Grant Wahl running around the globe trying to convince one of the member countries to nominate him!

Baby Steps to Respectability? MLS Keeping Landon Donovan

Well, in the comments recently, we lamented the MLS and its 16 years of "progress." It's almost like they were listening to us, and in what I think is a marginal step towards respectability, the MLS declared that they will not transfer out Landon Donovan... despite the huge amount of money that would be given to the MLS/ LA Galaxy.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether this is merely a negotiation tactic, or whether MLS will stand by its initial statement. Something tells me that there always is a number that could change their mind...

Sien U In Suid-Afrika Hierdie Somer!

You don’t need to be able to read Greek (or Afrikaans) to know what I’m talking about right now!

Yeah baby!

Yeah Baby!

YEAH BABY!

Our hero, Dimitris Salpigidis, scored the only goal of the home-and-home series with Ukraine. As they say here in the US, Dimitris Salpigidis, this Bud’s for you!

It's Been a Bad Week for LeBron, but a Good Week for Point Guards Over the Age of 30

To say it's been a bad week for LeBron is an understatement. Check out happenings from the last 7 days:

1) Personal recruiting trip to convince Ron Artest did not succeed
2) Personal recruitiing trip to convince Trevor Ariza did not succeed
3) Ariza started a public relations disaster for LeBron, where Ariza alleged that LeBron said he would stay in Cleveland past 2010. Rather than LeBron just sit tight, he had it leaked that that is NOT what he said. I interpret that as meaning that he is not necessarily staying in Cleveland nor not necessarily leaving Cleveland. Whatever interpretation the public is supposed to have, I'm sure that public relations games with regards to his future were not on his list of things-to-do for the week.
4) Cavs assistant coach Jon Kuester, who called offensive plays during the season, left the team. The team now needs a new offensive coordinator, because the head coach (Mike Brown) is incapable of calling offensive plays for some reason.
5) To top it all off... he got dunked on at a camp by a sophomore from Xavier named Jordan Crawford... which prompted Nike to obtain all of the videos to ensure that no one ever sees LeBron getting dunked on. This just proves that LeBron is sensitive. Who knew?

You know who's having a good week?

1) Oguchi Onyewu - The huge 6'4" US Soccer defender signed a 3-year deal with AC Milan, becoming only the 2nd US player EVER, after Alexi Lalas, to play in Serie A, (the top league in Italy). Congrats!

2) Chad Ocho Cinco - Is planning to Tweet DURING each NFL game. I really could care less about Twitter, but I love how Ocho Cinco is always causing trouble for the uber-conservative NFL. Predictably, the NFL is not signing off on the plan, and I'm sure they will have a Twitter policy during the season, or at least fine Ocho Cinco repeatedly. I think Ocho Cinco should just skip the Twitter and move right into just using a mini-web-cam and microphone to broadcast his own color commentary on each game... as he plays.

3) Two Point Guards over the age of 30 - 31-year old Mike Bibby & 36-year old Jason Kidd - with very little NBA free agency dollars available this summer for free agents, Bibby somehow convinced the Hawks to re-sign him for 3 years, $18 million, and Kidd somehow convinced the Mavs to re-sign him for 3 years, $25 million. Congrats to them I suppose. I still can't believe a) how much money they received, and b) how they were able to get 3 years each. Did either of their GMs even watch them last season??? This does make it a bad week for some of the other free agents... like PG Andre Miller. The strange thing is, 33-year old Andre Miller posted an 18.71 PER (efficiency rating) on Hollinger's stats, compared to only a 16.95 and a 16.05 PER for Kidd and Bibby respectively. Miller also was more successful on 82games.com Roland Rating with a 4.3, compared to Kidd's 4.1, and Bibby's atrocious 0.0 (due to his terrible defensive skills). The point is, while Miller may not be as famous as the other two over-30 point guards, I'm completely surprised at how much the other two point guards are getting... and how Miller will be getting very little.

4) MJ & Gutsy Goldberg - For debating Tiger Woods vs. Roger Federer one year before Sports Illustrated did. Granted, Sports Illustrated calls it "the impossible debate." Either way, MJ & Gutsy Goldberg deserve credit for beating SI by one year on the story.

USA! USA!

If you had told me team USA would get the Confed Cup Finals by beating Spain after it had been blown out by Brazil I wouldve laughed at you. Spain. The team that hadn't been beaten in 35 games. It had won every game the last two years. I hadn't lost to a non-European team in almost 10 years. The number 1 team in the world. And yet the Americans did it through great defense, outstanding goal keeping and a few lucky breaks. WOW. Good work team USA!

North Korea Qualifies for the 2010 World Cup

Buried amongst all of yesterday's news (the US Open, the missile capabilities of North Korea, Sammy Sosa, etc) was one story that is simply amazing:

North Korea secured its place at the 2010 World Cup!

The reason this excites me is that I find it fascinating for at least the following storylines:

1) What will Vegas's over-under be on the number of defections by North Koreans?
2) Will North Korea actually get drawn into the same group as the US?
3) Will Kim Jong-Il suit up and score a hat trick?
4) Will North Korea playing at the World Cup push them closer to peace, or will they react violently if the refs treat them poorly?

It's going to be very interesting, that is for sure!

Soccer: Confederations Cup Preview

I really do not have the expertise to give a full preview of the 2009 Confederations Cup, but I wanted to at least write a short preview.

Just to briefly explain, the Confederations Cup is now held once every 4 years based off of who is the current champion from each of the confederations. The Confederations are (with current champions listed in parentheses):
1) Africa (Egypt),
2) South America (Brazil),
3) Europe (Spain),
4) Asia (Iraq),
5) Oceania (i.e. New Zealand),
6) North and Central America (United States).

The 7th team is the host country for the Confederations Cup (this year it's South Africa), and the 8th team is the defending World Cup Champion (Italy), though in other years, if the World Cup Champion has already qualified, then its the runner-up or even the 3rd place team that receives the berth in the Confederations Cup.

This year's groups are completely lop-sided: there is an "easy" group of: South Africa, Iraq, New Zealand, and Spain. The other group is immensely difficult and has: USA, Italy, Brazil, Egypt.

While it does not appear that past winners of the Confederation Cup necessarily succeed in the World Cup, this tournament should demonstrate whether this latest USA team has the talent to compete on the same level as Italy and Brazil. One columnist on Yahoo! has stated that the US soccer coach is under some pressure, and has basically been playing it safe (as opposed to playing to win?) by playing an unorthodox 4-2-2-2 formation. If you want another pessimistic view of the US soccer team, just check out ESPN's columnist which basically details how the US is still playing older players, many of whom were not only on the 2006 team, but also on the 2002 World Cup team. Please note that in soccer, I am of the opinion that it's better when you have fresh talent and fresh legs out there for the most part unless you have a superstar who can still contribute (i.e. David Beckham, or in the US's case Claudio Reyna). In both 1994 and 2002, the US's two recent successes, they relied heavily on younger, sometimes even unknown players. Granted, one could say that those teams have young talent... and perhaps that's something that's missing from the current team (or at least the coach hasn't played enough of these players). Nonetheless, it should be interesting to see how team USA performs at the Confederations Cup against other solid teams.

The Confederations Cup starts June 14th with semifinals on June 24th and the finals on June 28th.

In other soccer news, I always find European qualifying for the World Cup extremely interesting - only because it's designed to be difficult and leave out many quality teams because there are only 13 bids. There are 9 "final" groups, where each 1st place team gets an automatic bid to the World Cup. The 8 best "2nd place" teams fight it out in an insane home-and-away aggregate winner-take-all format, taking place November 14th and November 18th. The 2nd place playoffs are conducted by lottery. Yowsers! This year's European final groupings, has an insane Denmark, Portugal, Sweden group (group 1). Both Portugal and Sweden are well behind the leader Denmark at this point. Group 5 also looks to be rather interesting with Spain well ahead, a surprising Bosnia in 2nd place, with Turkey AND Belgium in 3rd and 4th place.

In other news, North Korea and Saudi Arabia will be playing each other in a winner take all game this coming Sunday. The game is at Saudi Arabia. I think it will be a very interesting World Cup if North Korea is there. I wonder if there is a fear by the North Koreans of their players defecting to other countries, as happens to Cuba when they enter international competition???

Miracle Man Guus Hiddink and his Guuseum

Guus Hiddink is currently the coach of the Russian soccer team. This past week, Guus Hiddink maintained his status as perhaps the greatest coach of the soccer world as he got the unheralded Russians through to the Quarterfinals at the European Championships (aka Euro 2008). Not only did he get the Russians through, they were simply relentless and attacked the entire game as they beat Sweden 2-0 (though it could have easily been 5-0 by my count).

I realize that most Americans may not know who Guus Hiddink is, so let's just go through his resume briefly:
1998 World Cup - taking the Netherlands to the semifinals
2002 World Cup - taking South Korea, a team that had never won a World Cup game, to the semifinals
2006 World Cup - taking Australia to the 2nd round at the World Cup (and possibly further had the refs not screwed up a call against eventual champions Italy)

Basically, Guus Hiddink does not fail. I really enjoyed this explanation by Grant Wahl of SI.com on the greatness of Guus Hiddink:

"Hiddink has mastered how to motivate players in short-term tournaments, but he also knows how to build teams over the longer haul, identifying talent (especially young talent), keeping one or two older players for leadership and experience and installing a balls-out attacking style. Bottom line: the man gets results when it counts"

As further evidence of Hiddink's impeccable resume and the fact that he does not fail, he has:
-a museum in his hometown honoring him, called the Guuseum
-honorary South Korean citizenship
-free flights for life with Korean Airlines

If only one day Hiddink could coach the US Soccer team!

Euro 2008: Official Video, Song by Shaggy!

Check this out... if this video does not get you pumped for Euro 2008, I don't know what will. And, the song is by Shaggy! I never would have guess Shaggy was so popular in Europe.
For those unaware, Euro 2008 is a European soccer tournament held once every four years opposite the World Cup (e.g. World Cup is in 2002, 2006 ; European Championships are in 2004, 2008). Most countries will simply shut down when their team is playing, because the European Championships are just as important to the fans as the World Cup.

Fulham Loses Two Americans in Five Days

In news from abroad, Fulham released longtime defender Carlos Bocanegra last week. Today, Brian McBride, the captain at Fulham, decided to return to the U.S. and to leave Fulham. Suddenly, Fulham has lost the services of 2 Americans in 5 days!

It is a very sad day for Fulham... perhaps they will find two more Americans to replace these two. If Fulham is unable to find more Americans, the U.S. economy is certainly going to feel the ramifications of these transactions, as these two Americans were making big money, and the money was coming mostly from foreigners. First gas prices rise, then this. It's going to be a long summer for the U.S. economy.

Fulham Survives; Americans Breathe Easier

A dramatic afternoon took place earlier in the day over in England. Fulham needed a victory to avoid being relegated (i.e. sent down to the minors). Fulham miracously had a 1-0 victory to just squeak out survival in the Premier League for the 2nd straight season. For those unaware, last season, Fulham needed a goal by American Clint Dempsey to secure a 1-0 victory and avoid relegation.

There is a simple reason that every American should care about Fulham avoiding relegation yet again: Fulham has a preposterous amount of Americans on its team, including: Carlos Bocanegra, Clint Dempsey, 24-year old Eddie Johnson, Brian McBride, and the fossil remains of Kasey Keller.

Now, I wil continue to have a team to root for next season in the Premier League on Fox Soccer Channel.
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Cheers and Jeers: Kobe Edition

Veritas Asshat = "A Kobe"
Directions: Fill glass with ice, add 2 shots of 151 (rum) then 2 shots of Midori (melon liqueur)then 2 splashes of sour mix and then fill to top of glass with sprite. Stir with straw and enjoy...you ASSHAT!

Thanks to the wonderful people over at Deuce of Davenport they've put together a nice long list of drinks that should be renamed after athletes. Oh and yes there's an Eli.


Cheers: TGIF. Its been a long week. From going to work to avoiding flying fireworks I'm worn out. I know what's in store for relaxation for tonight....
Cheers: To Transformers the movie. My childhood heroes and villains are finally on the big screen. I mean really robots that change into 1980s cars, trucks and the occasional microscope what isn't there to like. Anyway a tribute to my favorite uber transformer...Devastor. The combination of 6 construction vehicles, but without the Teamsters interfering.

Jeers: To Douchebags in sports. Sure it would be nice if the world was free of douchebags and that they didn't drive around in their new i-cars talking on their i-phones while listening to their i-tunes but can they at least stay off my tv. According to uber...no

Cheers: To David Beckham's arrival. Soon enough USA soccer will actually be seen by someone. Which is a shame because if you haven't you missed Freddie Adu making a sick sick goal

Jeers: To lengthy contract holdouts. Looks like Brady Quinn is asking for top 10 money as opposed to his slotted 22nd spot. Look buddy the Browns saved you from getting sent to the grave yard of QBs (learning from Brian Billick) you should thanking them at every turn. So shut up, get your contract and if you honestly can't beat out Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson you have a lot bigger issues on hand.

Cheers: Less than 2 months to go before the start of college football season. August 30th the Miami Redhawks take on the Ball State Scratchers. If that doesn't peak your interest Tennessee takes on California. Frankly I'm more interested to see those two schools fans interact.

What else are we cheering and jeering about this week?

Notes from The Periphery: Pazzo Calcio e Piu

Soccer-mania
Some thoughts over here in +1 GMT land. Over the weekend I attended an AC Siena game. It was an important game here in sleep Siena. If the home team didn't win they would have been demoted to Series B (read minor leagues). As such to bring out the hometown fans it was 1 euro ticket day, which given exchange rates is about 82 American dollars. They would need it as they faced SS Lazio (no really SS. I'm still not sure what that stands for but they have a really scary eagle on their flag that looks like it was stolen from the Third Reich. Also Lazio fans tend to throw flares around and give fascist salutes to one another.)

The game started under bad conditions as we got a good Midwestern/Baptist thunderstorm with the rain, wind and lightening. Luckily here in Europe soccer games aren't canceled just because people are standing in pools of water on metal stands. Despite blowing numerous good chances, the home team scored with about 5 minutes to go to get the 2-1 win. To celebrate the giocatori (players) ran around hugging, sliding on the rain soaked turf and throwing anything they could get their hands on into the stands (this included soccer balls, their shirts and their shorts. I'm still not sure how it happened but numerous players did end up running around in their underwear). Anyway moral of the story is that best celebrations here in Europe are either winning a Championship Game and not being sent to the minors.

NBA Semi-Finals
While continuing on the Lebron theme from Laz.... I can no longer go with the media as hating Lebron but merely Memento-like treatment. From Kelly Dwyer at CNNSI to Doyel at sportsline to Chris Sheridan at espn everyone was bowing to the king (well so was Rasheed Wallace after Lebron posterized him with an inhuman dunk). However wasn't it a few days ago that Lebron was ripped as being over-rated and never fufilling his hype. Nevermind his actual performance or his teams performance or his overall work but merely the score for THAT game determines how highly rated is Lebron. Its almost if everyone went on a roadtrip with Bill Walton....

Oh wait, isn't there another NBA semi-final game. Something about Utah v. San Antonio. But its so boring. Duncan v. Boozer. Who can get excited about that? Urge to write failing, urge to fall asleep rising. Better think of something else to wake myself up. Ah yes. Miss Johansson....

Notes from the Periphery: You want to take a dingy?

Well another update from a backwards place where football is a game primarily played with, get this, feet. Its crazy I know. Here in Europe there are a dizzying array of tournaments, side tournaments, champions league, friendly matches and soirées all involving only one sport, what is called in the States "soccer". While Americans may claim soccer is boring or full of pansies there is a certain beauty to game if you watch it long enough. Frankly baseball and Euro football have a ton in common in how traditionalists of each of the respective sports describe their own.

Americans sometimes just can't understand the subtleties that make football great

NBA Trading:
Now if your brain actually gets dumber the more you watch basketball then perhaps the NBA Trading Deadline fizzle was a call to arms about NBA general managing mismanagement. Luckily there are few people out there who have evolved beyond picking insects out of their fur. At the ESPN.com basketball that includes Marc Stein and thats about it. I highly recommend for actual analysis, instead of some combination of Conventional Wisdom and Yak mating calls, to read his piece. There were actually some logical reasons for the lack of movement. The first is simply is that trading in the NBA is hard given the luxery tax and high salaries per player. The second is the quality of the upcoming draft class means few teams are willing to send away draft picks. Finally the East lacks any dominating figure and therefore few teams are willing to throw in the towel given the real possibility of winning the East. The result is a dearth of teams willing to do trades and in the NBA multiple partners are needed. This of course is not to say a few teams were trigger shy (Orlando and Minnesota) but those were the exceptions. Most teams had very logical reasons for staying pat.

I hate to tell you this, Bill ,but the secret to a good column is not: Boston something something I hang with famous people in LA something something I'm smarter than all NBA GMs something something.

NFL Draft:
Silly Season is in full force as the NFL Combine aka the Meat Market is happening. I'm not really sure why an 1/8th of a inch is the difference between a good player or a bad player in the scouting world but they really do buy that claptrap. Every year some player randomly shoots up the DraftBoards based on a 40 time or benchpress reps or an ability to make a grilled salmon. That does not mean its completely useless. Players that show up out of shape tend to get the red flag for character/motivation issues. Which are a big deal. JaMarcus Russel gets the Lendale White Award for flabbiness this year. Obviously he will end up on the Raiders. This leaves Detroit as one of the key movers and shakers in the draft. Will they trade down and take a defensive player, pick Brady Quinn or Joe Thomas (Wisconsin bred left tackle) or simply settle for the physical challenge (don't tell Millen there's no physical challenge. He won't believe you). Also of note the Cleveland Browns are 1-0 in 2007 when Tampa Bay lost to a quarter . The result is the Brownies are slotted #3 behind Detroit and seem to be considering nearly any offensive player not named Calvin Johnson (who I'm willing to stand by and say will be the best player of the draft)

Matt Millen with the number two pick is leaning towards asking where the bathroom is

Baseball Overseas:
Of all the spring training stories I've come across this one about Israel starting a baseball league may take the coffe cake (Not Suitable for Workish)

Quick Tech Note
You will note that this post has labels at the bottom. Labeling a post allows for easy searching for past articles on similiar subjects. For example any past piece that talks about the NFL Draft that has the NFL draft label can be found by simply clicking on the label at the bottom.