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Again, yes...I know it's pre-silly season.
If Mexico didn't scare you enough, he's 22 and only has a couple of caps with the National team. I expect that clip alone might get him a move to Europe.
I'm guessing there are different preferential options for:
- Live games
- Recorded games
- Highlights
Note: I don't know how to use bittorrents.
For the poor helpless Devil.
Should work.
The groups (the last two qualifiers are tonight):
Group A
Los Angeles Galaxy
Alajuelense
Morelia
Motagua / Municipal
Group B
Colorado Rapids
Real España
Santos Laguna
Isidro Metapán
Group C
UNAM
Tauro
FC Dallas
Toronto FC
Group D
Monterrey
Comunicaciones
Seattle Sounders FC
Herediano / Alpha United
Crispix, there are a number of answers to that question.
If you have ESPN, you should have access to ESPN3, which has a surprising number of European matches (primarily England, Italy, Spain and Germany). They are available both live and on an archived basis (for a week or so), and the service has the advantage of being both completely legal and quite robust.
On the other side of the legal divide are aggregators such as myp2p, roja directa and [url=http://www.veetle.com/index.php/listing#sports/popular/1]Veetle. They will provide access to a much wider range of matches, but quality and reliability are much more variable. The Veetle streams require a plug-in (which is very simple), some of the others require other non-torrent programs (such as SopCast or TV Ants) that are a bit more complicated). RojaDirecta also archives matches and highlights in a somewhat haphazard way.
There is also a web-based version of Fox Soccer Channel, which others on here have used with mixed results.
Highlights tend to be a league by league thing.
Not that I blame you for forgetting about them, but Toronto FC makes it 5. Woo hoo! The best part about soccer is that we get to be the underdog again, so here's hoping a few of these MLS teams can knock the smug off the Mexican clubs faces.
Pretty quiet day on the transfer front. And there will be a million Europa League games today, so we got that going for us.
In any event, I can't see TFC getting by UNAM or FC Dallas (which probably has the easiest draw of any of the MLS sides on paper). It's also nice not to have Jack Warner's playthings from Joe Public in the group stage.
Me, either. TFC aren't very good. Hopefully Montreal and Vancouver can start making their path to CL much more difficult going forward.
The money quote:
The MPs' report also criticised the lack of transparency around the recent ownership of Leeds before Bates took a controlling interest in the club and urged the FA to conduct an investigation. Bates hit back, criticising Collins, the MP who has been most outspoken about Leeds's ownership. "Why Damian Collins is carrying such a torch for Leeds when he is an avowed Manchester United supporter living in Kent, as many of them do, I do not know," Bates said.
"I suspect there is a hidden agenda here or he has a vendetta against the club or myself. I remember Harry Redknapp saying fans wouldn't mind if Saddam Hussein owned a club so long as it was winning games and signing players and I think that applies to most clubs and certainly Leeds. The report says clubs should be financially secure and upwardly mobile and we are one of the few clubs that are. What's the problem? I own it now, or 70% anyway, so let's get on with running the club."
Did he just compare himself to Saddam Hussein?
Grant Wahl stole my 14,000 Miles to Rio idea--sort-of--for his article in Sports Illustrated this week. His article is a little more on the serious side, while I remain convinced you could emphasize the comedy quite nicely.
Yes. And not really favorably, either.
Freddy Montero to Ajax during the winter window? That'd be pretty sweet.
It looks like their last game is Saturday, so it may have to wait until next season. I checked out the USL a bit today. They have a kind of strange set up--all the teams are on the east coast except for Los Angeles and Antigua (Antigua!) whom I guess get a lot of frequent flyer miles. Which is considered the US's second division--NASL or USL? Or are they about par with each other?
Freddy Montero to Ajax during the winter window? That'd be pretty sweet.
It's been a while since MLS sold a player to a big Euro club, no?
edit: Looking at the NASL standings I see the Montreal Impact are one of the worst teams in the league. Looks like they have a lot of work to do before next spring.
Yeah, no gravy for your roast beef! I think it'll be interesting. I honestly have no idea what to expect.
The US minor leagues are a complete cluster####. Right now, the NASL is the 2nd tier (but only has 8 teams), the USL Pro league is the third tier (with 11 clubs...because the 3 Puerto Rican clubs dropped out at the 12th hour). That is part of the reason why the USL Pro divisions are so screwy.
So the NASL is an expansion league that started last year, with many defections from the old USL-1, which was the 2nd tier. Then USSF got pissed that the two leagues couldn't play nice, refused to credential either of them, and made their own temporary league made out of the clubs for the 2010 season. How the expansion league ended up with the 2nd tier while the relatively historic league (USL-1 was the old A-league) imploded and rebranded as the 3rd tier I'm not sure, but maybe I'm just bitter because my Rhinos (who were flip-floppers about the new league) ended up dropping a tier.
So you're right to be confused, last year the NASL and the USL were both divisions of a second tier league, this year they are the 2nd and 3rd tier respectively.
Also to be pedantic there is no league called the USL, that's an organization that oversees many leagues, including the third-tier USL-Pro, the 4th tier PDL (where the U-23 Cosmos will play), and a bunch of pro-am and amateur leagues.
Edit: I shouldn't write before coffee, jesus.
Yes. And not really favorably, either.
That part was good. The other great part is that he touts their "upward mobility"... which they only have, because he took them from the CL to L1.
Zack, is there anyway the USL or the NASL can sue USSF for anti-trust? What's to stop some rich guys from getting together and creating their own major league of soccer to compete with MLS in non-MLS cities? Sort of an AFL to MLS's NFL.
That would be fun. Screw FIFA and the USSF. I suppose it might be hard to get players, though, as I'm sure FIFA would threaten them with many bad things if they went to a non-sanctioned league. The referees, too.
Well, it's Chivas so I guess not everyone came to see Barca, but that's still pretty cool to pull that off in what is basically the other guy's show.
For some teams the tiers have been formulated into an affiliated-minor-leagues-type system. Philadelphia Union have the Harrisburg City Islanders in the USL professional division, and the newly rebranded Reading United in the USL non-professional division.
Hey, I read Keith's quote. First time in this format (in its 4th year I think) that MLS has sent 5 teams. FMF fans must love that MLS sent more teams than FMF.
I'm worried about Colorado. I don't really know what's going on with them, even beyond the injuries. They play good against some good teams, horrible against some horrible teams. On top of that, I don't know how hard they're going to try in the CCL, and if they do try hard and play starters, I don't know how worn out they'll be. They're coming off a 7-game July where the starters played pretty much every game.
Considering how Seattle and the Galaxy bombed out last year, it seems you don't have to take your foot off the pedal much to be bounced out.
While I'm certain this would gladden the hearts of Spurs fans everywhere, it's quite unlikely. Villa were pretty clear that their summer recruitments ended with N'Zogbia, and they're unlikely to take on significant wages - the club still wants to reduce salaries from the O'Neill era.
Why don't you just come and take a crap on my birthday cake? Take them, take them now!
Last time I saw a list, Villa had like the 18th or 19th highest profits of any club team in Europe. Is their payroll really that high that they can't afford any new signings? I mean, in the past two years they have sold Milner, Barry, Young, and Downing for something in the range of £60-70 million(granted, they did spend about £20 million on Bent during this time). That's a lot of money coming in and a lot of salary coming off the books.
It's pretty high. I'm 95% sure they paid more out in wages than Spurs last year, for example. It's why I can't believe O'Neill had the gall to complain the club weren't spending enough. O'Neill threw money around like it was on fire.
It's the Canadian Cup, now, I think, and it's separate from MLS play. They do some kind of draw for two-legged ties which also includes Edmonton, but basically Toronto has "earned" it every year I know of. It was the final for this one that was washed out by a monsoon back in July, IIRC, and had to be replayed...
Right, I guess my question is can they also qualify via the MLS spots? The US has the Open Cup, and the Candian teams have the Candian Cup. Then there are...3? MLS spots. Can the Canadian clubs qualify via those?
The draw Arsenal do not want.
This. The top earners weren't way out of whack, but the remainder were often grossly overcompensated. Wages as a percentage of turnover got out of control.
Mind you, it's not so much that the club cannot sign new players. Lerner simply doesn't want to run the club on the bleeding edge of the market, especially (or so I infer) with the European (and world) economy in such a fragile condition.
Hey, we gave you Friedel, stole Collins from Wet Spam (thereby hastening their demise), and haven't done anything to aid Le Arse. Some other club will have to help you with the remaining heavy lifting. ;)
MLS gets four spots -- USOC, Supporters Shield, MLS Cup champs and runners up.
We were hoping Jol would take all these guys but it's as if he's thinking, "Those are the guys that got me fired!" Blackburn is our last hope. They seem weak-minded enough for a Jedi mind trick.
(Relatively) new faces include Edgar Castillo & Michael Orozco; a couple of retreads in Beckerman, Ricardo Clark, & Heath Pearce. I'm happy to see Torres, Beasley, & Chandler make the team. Where's Dempsey & Jozy?
Is Hamid still considered the future of US soccer? I've heard his time at DCU has been underwhelming.
But again, the CCL slots are distributed by country, not league. The US gets four slots, not the MLS. For example, the Canadian MLS teams don't participate in the Open Cup.
Digging around a bit, at least this is mention on the CCL wikipedia page:
Which would imply that only 1 of the 3 Canadian clubs can participate in a given tournament.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
I don't think Dempsey can play in London today, Philadelphia on Wednesday and London again next Saturday. The middle of those three matches make the most sense to skip for all involved. I don't think Altidore's recovered from the hamstring injury he suffered during the Gold Cup. Figure both will be selected, if healthy, for the September matches.
The EPL starts on the 13th and the Eredivise starts this weekend so I imagine their respective clubs would not release them. Of course, the same is true of Germany and Mexico as well of course of the ongoing MLS season so what the hell do I know?
If Klinsmann=More PT for Torres that alone makes it worthwhile to me. I understand why some are skeptical of him but dammit, I like him.
EDIT: Coke to David Letterman's former guest.
But why is that? It would seem to me that by becoming a free agent, you greatly enhance your value, because teams wanting to sign you no longeer have to pay the transfer fee. And thus you should be able to command a much higher salary.
Put it this way, assume I'm a 24 year old player, and have one year left on my deal. Now I know my current team is shopping me around, and a team is willing to pay them 30m, and then pay me another 40m in signing bonus and salary. So basically I know that team values my services at around m0m. So why don't I just wait a year and shop my services myself. Surely the other teams don't care if they are paying me 70m directly, or a portion of that goes to another club. If anything you would think that would be an advantage, since you potentially aren't paying your direct competition (either league or in europe). Yeah, there's some risk, and 25 year old me is likely a slightly less valueable commodity than 24 year old me. But I really don't see the incentive for me to sign that deal, when I'm leaving that much money on the table...
I've wondered this, too.
Players (and their agents) get a cut of the transfer fee so they are shopping themselves, to some degree, anyway. One of the relatively minor causes of Leeds United's financial implosions was the percentage of money they received, compared to that which players and agents received, once they started selling players. Paying ex-players salaries for years on end got a fair bit of attention (and a fair bit of scorn) but Kewell ended up pocketing more than half of the transfer fee on the way out.
edit: And, of course, Stoke score in extra time on their second attempt of the game to ice the game and advance.
Insanity?
Brain damage?
Complete lack of basic human decency?
The games are almost unwatchable the cacophany is that annoying; it's like trying to watching a soccer match with a car alarm going off in your living room.
Frankly, it's even worse than last year's vuvuzelas ...
edit: And Palermo is out on away goals. That's not going to help Italy get that 4th CL spot back.
WOOOOO! I was originally hoping that the totally undeserved EL spot would give the team a nice cash infusion, because in my head Europe = $$$$. But looking it up, it seems like they're looking at a couple hundred thousand euro, maybe a million or two if they somehow made it out of the group stage.
Yeah, Europa is about glory, not cash.
Fulham up 1-0 at the half on Split. Split goes through if they can steal a goal, though.
The current format is two legged ties, with Vancouver and TFC playing one of the non-MLS teams (Edmonton and Montreal) in the first round and the winners contesting a two legged final.
I was actually at the replayed second leg in Toronto, which TFC won. About 5000 people stuck around to see them get the trophy.
They will probably keep the format next season, even though Montreal will be in MLS.
The odds on any Canadian team finishing in the top three of MLS are so long right now that the question is academic, but my guess is that CONCACAF considers MLS to be the qualifying competition for US teams and the Voyageurs Cup to be that for Canadian teams, in much the same way as UEFA has said that the likes of Cardiff City can't take an "English" place in European competition if they win the FA Cup.
The contracts for good players in their prime are most often extended well before they are due. Refusing both an extension or to be shipped implies something like two to three years in the freezer training with the kids. Let's see how good a contract you would get after that.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work for me.
No worries. Next season is fine. I think I'd rather go when it's less sweaty, anyway.
Continuing his great run of form, he's apparently banned the BBC from Elland Road.
Dislaimer: My linking to The Scratching Shed does not indicate agreement with the description of the Guardian's banishment contained in the post.
2 other points: in your example case the player owed 40M in salary is a lot easier to resell than the player on 70M. Also clubs often have a fairly strict wage structure which effects this. (Related is the "highest paid player clause" Terry was reported to have at Chelsea).
That's an odd Freudian slip. "Fancy Pants was always a good boy. You should pay him more."
They do. Which AFAIK is a fairly recent ting, though I'm not entirely sure when it changed. Prior to this, the CW was that you want to play the second leg at home. But I do think this shifts the balance the other way.
Martin Jol will be squaring off against Juande Ramos in another Europa tie. Heh! Sometimes I think UEFA rigs these things.
Shooty: I will respectfully disagree with you on Udinese. They won't pull anything like a Sampdoria this year, but DiNatale is going to be pretty lonely up front for a while, methinks.
Do say: "Why on earth did no bigger club come in for their striker Papiss Demba Cissé? He's like a good Darren Bent"
Don't say: "What does new manager Marcus Sorg know about building a squad?" (He's got a degree in structural physics, actually)
Honigstein's comment on SC Freiburg. The lack of interest in Cisse baffle me, too.
edit: In other striker news, momentum is building up in the twitterverse that Spurs are close on BOTH Llorente and Adebayor. That would be a serious piece of business. I think I'll contemplate that instead of watching the stock ticker...
I like them more than any team outside of Bayern - but they're the clear favourites. Off the top of my head: 20-25%.
Woah, lets add some context here. It's an engeneering degree, not a physics one, even if the German word does contain 'physik'. AFAICT it's mostly focused on thermal and acoustical insulation.
Secondly, it's a Fachhochschule. Those tend to be extremely foused on the applied aspects of a subject, and not the theoretical. And you don't even need a friggin Abitur to get into one.
(I assume that's where the comment came from)
Elia was pulled quite early and I missed why. Injury? Transfer possible? He seemed to be giving BVB a bit of trouble.
AFAIK this is purely an MLB thing. I have never heard of a team in football taking a player out mid-game, because he was about to be traded. For one, in football the player has to actually sign off on the trade. Seems hard for him to give consent while he's playing...
I'm pleased with that draw. Less travel to grind them down from the start. Hopefully we get Celtic and Rangers in subsequent rounds before the glamor clubs start dropping in. I don't mind the prospect of the team shipping out to more distant Europe, but it's nicer to be playing a respectable club in that case rather than, say, whoever's the Hearts equivalent in the Ukrainian top flight or something.
(Oh my -- golazo from Brian Mullan. What a hit.)
Unfortunately BBC doesn't have the rights to stream the radio broadcast online. The site tells me to listen to it on my radio. RADIO?!!? Who the hell owns a radio these days?
EDIT: Oh, I see I do via my mp3 player. Silly me. George Boateng is apparently the exciting new addition. Is he any good?
But at least Schalke got its ass kicked v. Stuttgart.
Speaking of viewing/listening (really...listening to football?) options, I find myself enjoying the Bundesliga Simulcast that goes around to all the games. I miss game flow and all, but it's where I end up these days (same for the Serie B simulcast).
Meanwhile Sky has some stupid ass "simulcast" where guys scream updates while the game plays off-camera. It's radio on the television at its worst.
Another American to look out for in the Bundesliga -- Alfredo Morales. Made the bench today for Hertha Berlin. Know very little about him.
What's going on there? I can see a team putting pressure on a player for this date, but coming after the Gold Cup, this sucks.
Nuremberg is the English spelling. Nürnberg in German. With umlaut.
But at least Schalke got its ass kicked v. Stuttgart.
I can definately get behind that s.tatement
Steve Goff reports that he's still trying to earn a starting spot in Nuremberg, and he's committed to the September friendles.
I was really impressed with Gerard Deulofeu during the Barcelona-Club America game. He was always threatening with his speed on the wing and stayed on his feet to set up the second goal. And he's only 17!
And Spain-Australia in the U-20s is getting fun. Spain blitzed Australia early for four, but Australia got one back, all within the first 30 minutes. I don't anticipate Australia can come all the way back, but with the bad defending shown so far, there should be more goals.
EDIT: Make that a penalty and five for Spain.
The real strength in French football writing, however, are the magazines, especially France Football, So Foot and Les Cahiers du Football, the last two focusing more on "football culture" and commentary than match reports.
Luka Modric got a huge standing ovation from Spurs fans yesterday when he came in the game. Hopefully, Fernando LLorente was well out of town before the riots started in Tottenham. (No joke, there was looting and fires and everything!) As for the game against Bilbao...it's just preseason, but Bale is going to be a monster this year. He's doing this thing now where he'll blow by the RB a couple of times to force the RB to play back and then he'll start cutting inside and operating in the space the back is giving him. Last season he would be stubborn about continuing to try running past the fullback and he'd just get knocked around or lose position and I think it led to the injuries piling up at the end of the season. In baseball terms, it's like he's learning to go with the pitch.
In other Shooty's teams news, Partick Thistle lost at home to Dundee United and Freiburg drew with Bundesliga newcomers Augsburg, though the incredibly underrated Pappis Demba Cisse scored a goal. Bilbao, the team I'm hoping will become my La Liga interest, looked sharp the first half against Spurs. Lots of crisp, one-time passing.
Also, Kenny Miller joins Joey Barton and Mario Balotelli on my All Backpfeifengesicht team.
They weren't bad. They had what looked like a sure goal cleared off the line by a defender and Cardiff's keeper made a few great saves. Ilunga was beat horribly on the winning goal, though. Gestede--he set up the winner-- for Cardiff was very strong at the end.
As for MUFC, Young looks good today and you have to wonder if De Gea is the answer between the sticks. One also wonders what, where and how SAF would plug Sneijder in this set up. Would be fun to watch, though.
Edit: I swear "Shawn Bradley" scored the second I hit send on this post. I swear. And I repeat what I said about De Gea.
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