November, 2009

Soccer — Comments Off
15
Nov 09

MLS Cup 2009: Real Salt Lake vs LA Galaxy

MLS Cup 2009

real-salt-lakevs LA Galaxy

Real Salt Lake (#4 East) vs LA Galaxy (#1 West)

The semi-final tonight between Real Salt Lake and the Chicago Fire was a wild one.  Some people might say 120 minutes with no scoring is a boring game – but this was far from boring.  The game eventually went to a shootout and went to 7 shooters before Nick Rimando took over saving the last couple of Fire PKs.

Real Salt Lake had the better of the Galaxy during this past regular season with a single win and a single draw.  Will they be able to continue in their first ever MLS Cup Final?  Any predictions?  I’ll have mine later this coming week.

This post is from the Major League Soccer Fan Blog

MLS Cup 2009: Real Salt Lake vs LA Galaxy

Related posts:

  1. Surprise Suprise, DC United Beat Real Salt Lake
  2. DC United Let Real Salt Lake In On The Fun
  3. Real Salt Lake one step closer to US Open Cup

Basketball — Comments Off
13
Nov 09

LeBron’s Tribute

LeBron James has suggested that the NBA should have its players stop wearing the number 23 in recognition of Michael Jordan. This came after Jordan showed up at his game last night in Miami, watching James and Dwayne Wade play against each other. Afterwards came James’ suggestion and it’s interesting to have such an idea coming out of him. He says he’s been thinking of it for awhile and will probably change his number next season in tribute. He hasn’t talked with the other 23s around the league, but he thinks that it’s at least a nice tribute to the player that influenced so many other players over the course of the last decade or so. It’s his example that they are all trying to live up to. Let see if this suggestion goes anywhere or if it was just a kind of niceness statement.

NFL American Football — Comments Off
13
Nov 09

American Club Soccer: An Offseason on the Brink

Does anyone really know what American club soccer is going to look like in 2010? Because after the news of the last two weeks, I’m starting to wonder.

For starters, we’re on the verge of having two competing 2nd-division leagues in this country next season. The Team Owners Association, a group of former USL clubs disgruntled with the structure of USL, made their big announcement on Tuesday that they were forming a breakaway league. The new league, which remains nameless for the time being, is slated to have seven clubs — Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina Railhawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps and St. Louis Soccer United.

Conspicuous by their absence: the Tampa Bay Rowdies. They had been siding with the TOA all through this saga, but they’re committed to USL for 2010 — probably because they had already signed contracts with and paid their expansion fee to USL and couldn’t afford to break the deal.

USL’s response to this new league? Well, it was awfully snippy. Down to 8 clubs in USL-1 and 8 in USL-2, USL seems a little eager to throw roadblocks at the TOA’s attempt to get the new league sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation and Canadian Soccer Association. The league also puffed out its chest and talked about expansion in new markets, even though that talk has the stench of the National Indoor Football League about it.

Meanwhile, there’s already a monkey wrench in the TOA’s breakaway plans. Joey Saputo, the Montreal Impact owner who was named Chairman of the Board of Governors of this new unnamed league, insisted that the Impact was still in negotiations with USL over the 2010 season. Why would he even say this publicly? All this did was undermine the TOA’s position and made it more difficult for them to attract the 8th club they might need to get sanctioning — or to lure clubs to their side in 2011, which could be the real battle between USL and the TOA.

The only good thing about this breakaway league? It won’t be a winter league. All the talk about American soccer adopting the FIFA calendar is still a non-starter — especially with a league that’s never played before. We have our own soccer calendar. So does Russia, and they’re doing just fine playing in the summer.

But this is all in the lower divisions, right? We’ll still have our Major League Soccer in 2010, won’t we?

Maybe.

The MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on January 31, and the Players Association, upset with the current minimum salaries and lack of guaranteed contracts, is threatening to strike. Both sides are at the negotiating table now, but MLS has already rejected the players’ first proposal and seems ready to dig in its heels and keep things just as they are, thank you very much.

I wonder if these negotiations will end up being a referendum on the structure of MLS itself. Players contracts are owned by the league and not the clubs, who still don’t control their own destiny within MLS’ arcane regulations, and these negotiations don’t look like they’re going to change that.

Even worse, though, is whether the public will even care if MLS doesn’t return next March. Outside of the clubs’ hardcore supporters, few seem aware that the MLS playoffs are happening right now, and that the league’s three most marketable names — Beckham, Blanco and Donovan — are in the thick of it. SportsCenter has made no mention of the MLS playoffs at all this morning.

In light of that, is it really a good idea for MLS to allow a strike to happen? It’s not like there’s no competition. Premier League ratings don’t suck for ESPN or Fox Soccer Channel right now, and the level of play remains much higher in Europe than it is here. Wouldn’t most soccer fans in this country just focus on the national team and the European leagues and forget about MLS if it’s not there?

The next four months or so could go a long way toward determining the future of American club soccer, and it would only take a few missteps for the whole thing to come crashing down, leaving this country back at square one, which would be a disaster. Let’s just hope the folks running the shows here do the right thing. We won’t be any better off if our clubs don’t play next year.

NFL American Football — Comments Off
12
Nov 09

Everyone Has a Go at Football Helmets

We have apparently reached the portion of the NFL season where everyone is bored to death and looking for random crap to talk about. Never mind that there are two rather important games this weekend with AFC playoff implications. (Bengals @ Steelers, Pats @ Colts) No. The world has decided it’s time to talk about football helmets, and whether they’re 1.) ugly, and b.) unnecessary.

First off, designer Ken Carbone spent Fast Company’s time telling people that NFL helmets offended his sensibilities as a designer. So he decided to make new ones — a concept that has “Oh, hell…” written all over it. First, he made a new helmet for the Washington Redskins:

new-skins-helmet

For the Washington Redskins I tried a design direction that might be considered more politically correct in most circles by removing the Native American portrait, emphasizing the feather motif from the headdress and using it more dynamically on the helmet.

Except, of course, that the end result looks less like an Native American feather headdress and more like your typical Halloween peacock outfit.

halloween-peacock

Hey, there’s an idea. Let’s just stop calling them the Redskins all together and make them the Washington Fightin’ Peacocks. Then all the cheerleaders can dress just like that, but in maroon and gold. (We should have Vinny Cerrato go recommend this to Daniel Snyder immediately, just to prove how bulletproof Vinny’s job seems to be.)

Then there’s Carbone’s design for the New England Patriots

new-pats-helmet

America! Fuck yeah!

While Carbone derides helmets for being ugly, though, some researchers have decided that helmets are actually hurting players more than helping them. Their ingenious solution? Take the helmets off. And who’s suggesting this? Australians. Of course!

One of the strongest arguments for banning helmets comes from the Australian Football League. While it’s a similarly rough game, the AFL never added any of the body armor Americans wear. When comparing AFL research studies and official NFL injury reports, AFL players appear to get hurt more often on the whole with things like shoulder injuries and tweaked knees. But when it comes to head injuries, the helmeted NFL players are about 25% more likely to sustain one.

Unless Barry Hall is playing, of course.

Andrew McIntosh, a researcher at Australia’s University of New South Wales who analyzed videotape, says there may be a greater prevalence of head injuries in the American game because the players hit each other with forces up to 100% greater. “If they didn’t have helmets on, they wouldn’t do that,” he says. “They know they’d injure themselves.”

What would be the end result of American football without helmets? Do I need to bring up 1908 again? Most NFL players aren’t going to suddenly stop leading with their heads right away — not until a few people die from on-field cranial fractures. When that happens, nobody will give the game time to slow down and look more like old-fashioned rugby. No. They’ll go right back to wearing helmets, and they’ll do so because the risk of slow, long-term brain damage seems better than the risk of instantly having their gray matter see the light of day.

More importantly, though, removing the helmet from American football takes away from what the game really is — modern gladiatorial combat without the swords. It’s a violent game for violent tastes, and it’s what the American people have chosen for the last century or so. They’re not going to quit just because a few jocks get their brains scrambled over time.

Maybe football helmets are ugly, then, for more than just design reasons, but it’ll be a long, long time before anyone decides to get rid of them. In the meantime… hey, Steelers v. Bengals. WHO YA GOT!?

NFL American Football — Comments Off
10
Nov 09

They Take Their Footy Seriously on Groote Eylandt

Groote EylandtUntil yesterday, I had never heard of Groote Eylandt, a small island off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territory that became part of the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve in 1976. Groote Eylandt is home to the world’s largest manganese mine, which produces 3.8 million tons of the mineral each year. It is also home to the Anindilyakwa people, who still speak in their native tongue.

And the Anindilyakwa don’t take too kindly to that call, ref.

Police feared for their safety when they turned up to a disturbance at a sporting field on Groote Eylandt to discover it had escalated to a full-scale brawl.

The brawl, involving several hundred people, some of them armed with axes and spears, broke out about 5pm (CST) on Sunday at the Angurugu sports oval during an AFL match.

It is understood the feud started on the football field when one of the teams was awarded a free kick.

Ummmm… did he just say “axes and spears?”

“A number of those people were armed with axes and spears and a large number were involved in hostile and aggressive behaviour, which was later directed at police,” (Police Superintendent Brent Warren) told AAP…

“As you can imagine, even when a number of police cars turn up, when you’ve got a crowd that’s potentially 500-strong, it’s difficult to take proactive action at the time.”

Oh, come on! You’re Australian! Be a man! Get a dick!*

Okay, maybe seeing an angry mob wielding sharp weaponry would encourage even the most hearty Australian to run away from confrontation. But let’s back up a bit. What got that angry mob started? A questionable call from the ref. They hated the call so much that they absolutely had to take matters into their own hands — kind of like the Dawg Pound, if you replaced the beer bottles with, y’know, axes and spears.

Let’s just hope and pray the Anindilyakwa haven’t given SEC fans any ideas.

(Spotted on The Sporting Blog.)

* – Australian blokes here in the Triangle shouted those last two sentences at the TV a year ago when Buddy Franklin took a dive during the AFL Grand Final. True story.

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