For the first time in ages, St. Totteringham's Day has been held in reprieve for consecutive years. Finishing above Arsenal will make Spurs feel they've had a reasonable year, yet the past few years as title challengers will feel a bit of a let down. Struggling in Europe and a history of selling their best players will not help that feeling. I think this is all about to change though.
Glad you asked Ryan.
We may have found the reason why Spurs have not won a title since shortly after Churchill. A WW2 bomb was found under the training ground today and I think this may have been the cause of so many heartbreaks at the Lane. Stay with me. As the self-proclaimed "Yids", probably doesn't do anyone any favors to have a german bomb where you train everyday. Just bad juju city. Secondly, training over an dud bomb may explain the lack of killer instinct missing in the side over the past 60 years. Dud bomb = dud squad 100 times out of 100. With the bomb gone and Harry Kane in the side, you now have to LOVE spurs to win the league*.
Now if you are the management at Spurs and had to send a player in to get rid of the bomb, it would have to be Erik Lamela right? Talk about dud.
The soft-spoken Spaniard from Manchester United started a really admirable initiative this year pledging 1% of his salary to charity. He then asked all footballers around the world to do the same. Already known as one of the most kind players in the sport, he has already received four other players to join him on this task including two American stars, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. Our friend Georgio was the most recent addition to the five-a-side dream team of donators. Georgio sent his email to the communications staff asking for anonymity in joining the pledge and of course the email is now all across the twitter and for that I am happy, kinda.
Although he wanted it to be kept private, the world should know the amazing act being done by George here. Donating 10s of thousands of dollars is a hell of an act. More importantly, he was seemingly embarrassed about his English. If you are speaking in a second, third or fourth language and are producing a result like the above, you should be applauded. You will not be shamed, George. Not on my watch. Your level of English is higher than half of the deep south of the States anyways. Very classy by starting and ending with Hello and Bye as well. Who needs the business jargon of good day, dear sirs, and best regards.
Although I'm glad we know about Curious George's kind act, fuck this reporter for leaking it. Just let the guy live huh? No need to report on everything out there
And here we are almost two months after Juanny made his original pledge, we have our first available squad and I like the shape of it.
Starting forward and banging in the goals for Team Common Goal. Stars and Bars flying high
The deserved captain of the side adding
some flair and creativity. Auto start to infinity
Another american in a world XI, must be because of the women.
Pace, creativity, and work ethic. Run up and down the pitch for days.
Also best style by a longshot.
Football, a game of a played between two teams
with the Germans always winning. Welcome, Mats.
You take a bite off that werewolf and you can play
for my squad any day of the week and twice on Sunday
The squad is filling up quite nicely here for team Common Goal. I hope at some point in the near future we have a full 11 and some reserve players. The world would be a better place.
I've always wanted to put this thought to paper. I enjoy, to a much higher degree, the UEFA Europa League to the Champions League. This may be blasphemy in the mind of fans of the sport, but I'm right and I will prove to you why. I will not make this argument about the level of football that is played in each because it's not even a contest in that regard. If you want to watch the best players in the world play the best football, you watch the Champions League, no questions asked. However if you and your love for the beautiful game sits anywhere below obsessed/football tough guy, the Europa League is where you want to live. If you are new to football and just want to quickly learn about europe, I believe the Europa League is better in accomplishing that goal.
Point one: watching the Europa League, you are basically playing a game of where in the world is Carmen San Diego while watching football. This competition has clubs with names you do not understand from places you did not know existed. A quick look to some of the entries in this year's group stage: FC Sheriff, Skenderbeu, Young Boys (problematic), Apollon Limassol. FC FCSB just to name a few. That last side is just consonance. Not single vowel in the team name. Not a one. If you know where more than 50% of teams play their home matches you are a liar of epic proportions. By watching these matches, you get to see places of the world you didn't know existed with fans that didn't know cameras existed. Its europe's grandest social experiment.
Point 2: you still get some very good sides in the competition. Although there are teams that seemingly did not exist two years ago playing in this competition, you also get some really strong sides. This year, we have Arsenal, Everton, Villarreal, Nice, Lazio, Lyon, Athletic Bilbao all playing in the group stages. The competition gets even better when clubs are parachuted down from the Champions League after the group stages. You get some clubs like Celtic and Roma joining the fray making the round of 32 knockouts some really enticing stuff. Past winners of the competition are Sevilla, Porto, Man United, and Atletico Madrid. It may not be the Champions League but there are heavy hitters involved for sure.
Point 3: There are roughly one million games per match night. You have tuesday and wednesday for the Champions League. 32 teams split playing over two nights. Europa League? 48 sides playing all on one night. It is an absolute glut of games. This is the magic point for most casual fans, it is fun as fuck to bet on the Europa League. You can do all the ACCAs (parlays) you could dream of on a Thursday night. Some of my favorite nights betting on football have come from the Europa League because you are betting on teams or number of goals for teams you couldn't name a single starter on. Its life on the wild side and that gets the average fan/bettor going.
Point 4: If you are American, you need to support the competition because by doing so you are then supporting one of the greatest American players in our history, Clint Dempsey. Hear me out on this one. In 2010, Clint Dempsey was playing in the Europa League Quarter-finals with Fulham against Juventus. The Old Lady dominated the first leg to a 3-0 result and had the return leg at the Craven Cottage to manage to progress as they probably should have. If you don't know this match, Clint Dempsey and his Fulham side scored 5, count'em 5 goals with the American scoring one of the better goals the competition will ever see to have Fulham take the lead on aggregate and advance. They lost in the finals that year but this goal will live in the echos of the Europa League for a long time.
If you are an American soccer fan, you love this competition just for this goal. Clint Dempsey, take a bow my son. Europa League = Proud American. Math doesn't lie.
For now, I like to think I converted some of you to the madness of Thursday nights in Europe. It's a mocked night in Europe but as a casual fan, you will enjoy the hell out of it.
Alright, bye for now. Champions League starts in 30 min.
Passing as a useful statistic is officially DEAD. There is just no way on God's green earth that the Scottish Champions are also the Kings of Passing Football. Nope. I've watched too many of their matches, both in the league and in europe to see with my own eyes that they are a HORRIFIC passing side. Stringing together 8 passes? V difficult for our Glaswegian friends. Now, I understand how this happened. The Scottish leagues will never win awards for its quality and probably never will. Also if you have a exponential difference in salary between the top club and the rest, you will get rigged numbers. This however should have been kept under lock and key by the CIES to avoid the death of a once beloved and overused stat. Passing completion and percentage can never be looked at the same. Thoughts and prayers to our friends at Opta who now can no longer show these stats during the live coverage of a match.
Also, I'm just going to leave these here.............
PS. If you are interested in football stats, player evaluations, transfers, etc. CIES releases reports like these once a month and are really quite fascinating. I would highly recommend it, if you're into that.
Well, well, well. A story as old as time for the Old Lady of Italy. Juve president and new ECA head Andrea Agnelli has been suspended for quite some time for selling tickets to members of the Juve ultra with ties to the mafia. This coming from the club that allegedly use to kidnap referees before match's and gave them a lesson in Italian persuasion to make sure results went their way. Walking around the new Juve stadium, you can see references to past trophies and titles that were revoked due to previous scandals within the club. One trophy even appeared to be "mysteriously" absent from the wall with the bolts from the plaque still in the wall. Missing? Maybe. Stolen? Also maybe. This is a club steeped in tradition(s), winning and mobbing.
Now, I am not one to blame anyone that is facing the pressure of the Italian mafiosos. Even writing this blog has me on the edge of my seat. They are nothing to mess around with. They are the OGs of the mob business that's got levels on anything we may have seen in the States. Shit is really real. The questions is, as one of the shooting stars of the football world, being president of Juve, the ECA (a mob in its own right, kind of, maybe), and board member of UEFA, can someone even in your position turn down the advances of the ultras/the mob? It seems as if that is a HARD no. The mafiosos are pulling the strings in Italy, still to this day. Which for all of the terrible things they have done, is quite impressive. It's rare to see that type of longevity in sports these days. Kings true stay kings.
PS. If Juve doesn't come out on the pitch to their Champions League match on Wednesday to this, it would be a HUGE miss.
Congratulations to Iron Gareth Barry on passing Ryan Giggs for most games played in Premier League history at 663. He played for 19 years, again 19 years for four different clubs being as dependable of a player as you could have. Four clubs, 19 years, and still going. That's as impressive of a feat as I've ever seen especially since he is playing with West Brom, the Barcelona of Staffordshire.
I do have to say though. I like to think I am relatively informed on player transfers and the general goings on of football, but man I honestly thought he retired two seasons ago with Everton. It just goes to show that once you put in and survive 5 or so years in the Prem, you have a position on a squad for life. Same goes for coaches. Looking at you, Roy.
One of the lasting images from the Premier League this weekend was Wayne Rooney leaving the pitch with his bloodied eye as Everton struggled against Bournemouth. Everton are a mess at the moment. Currently 14th in the table on 7 points with the unforgiving adventures of the Europa League to further add to their headaches. The early part of the season encapsulated through this picture of their boyhood superstar leaving the pitch looking like the missing british member of the Legion of Doom.
Wayne has been carrying a lot of L's in the past few years getting iced out of Man United, ultimately forced out of international duty, a drunk driving charge, and now dropping his career boxing record to 0-3. Lets take a look at how we got here.
The punch heard all around Britain which probably killed ole Wayne was his knockout against friend Phil Bardsley.
Now I'm not a boxing guy but Wayne should have quit after this fight. Loved the flair with the pink gloves but his feet stunk and his jaw was made from the finest Liverpudlian glass. I would have walked away after this fight but I'm a coward so on to fight two..
Fight two was controversial as he wasn't really fighting anyone but still got knocked out. Losing a ghost fight is not something most fighters would come back from but the lad really showed some heart. NSFL if you're queezy.
Three punches then out?! Clean it up Wayne.
Now this weekend we have Wayne's third L in the ring. England and Man United top goalscorer being tossed around like a ragdoll. Now on top of it his mate Rio Ferdinand is taking up boxing (but for real). Sign of disrespect? Maybe. Is it to protect his good friend? Let's hope because Wayne-o could use it.
After another solid weekend of football, we have a gem of a story breaking from Spain and El Pais that claimed the PSG owners offered Edson Cavani 1 million euros to relinquish penalty taking responsibilities to Neymar. Cavani apparently turned down this offer because well footballers are rich and I guess a million more euros is loose change for us normal folk. As expected, the club has immediately denied the claim. I honestly couldn't care less whether or not this happened but god damn I love this story and hope it never dies.
The first point here is the level of spite that Cavani has towards Neymar. He turned down a FREE, F-R-E-E 1 million euros to prove a point that he is and will remain the big swinging dick in Paris. Although he will probably be sold in the next transfer window because, well, Neymar will make that happen, Cavani is going to go out in a blaze of glory and I for one respect the hell out of that. He may have missed the penalty immediately following the tussle with Neymar against Lyon but it seems you will have to pull his dead body off the penalty spot before anyone else takes his place, especially Neymar.
The second and more important point from this story is how could anyone turn down a fresh milli to do less work. A boss comes into your office and mentions to you that "you know what you've been working pretty damn hard around this office (probably a lie but it's rude to interrupt). Why don't you take a 20% salary increase and sit out those meetings with our top clients. We've got it handled, hoss." You think to yourself, man he has never called me hoss before which is odd and tell your boss "thanks but no thanks, hoss." uneasily because you're not sure if the hoss street is two ways. This is what our friend Edson here has just done. I am not sure if work ethic is different in Uruguay but he seems to have his work priorities all fucked up. Don't be a hero, Edson. Don't be a hero.
Edson, lets break it down for you:
Fact: You will be sold in January probably to Arsenal or AC Milan or someone with foreign money.
Fact: 1 million euros is better than 0 million euros.
Take the money and get ready to buy some nice nicknacks at Herrods or some fresh pasta in Milan. I'd recommend Signorvino by the Duomo. It's moderately price and has good service. You deserve it.
Welcome to Talking Soccer. We (just me) will be bringing you the best of world football as it happens. When Christian Pulisic scores a worldie for Dortmund and us Americans think that soccer has finally arrived as a major sport, I'll be there. When Messi bangs in 5 against Real Sociedad and Ronaldo fans still say he is better because he scored 3 against Sevilla and that's a better accomplishment in their eyes even though that's a ridiculous argument, I'll be there. When the Portland Thorns of the National Women's Soccer League outdraw Wigan from League 1 in England but people still say Americans don't care about soccer, I'll be there. Shout out the Portland Thorns and the NWSL.
What I'm saying is, I'm just a guy that wants to talk some soccer with some internet friends.
The second annual FIFA The Best Awards will be taking place, as I'm sure you all know, this October in London. If you don't know this event, its FIFA's version of the Emmys or Oscars in which they fly in players and guests from all around the world to give out an award that would have been better served being mailed. This event will lose more money then it will have viewers. If you weren't excited before, I bet the blood is pumping now. To the awards!
Even the most novice football fan could probably guess the three nominees for this award. You betcha, your guys Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar. Now, Neymar is a great player but is only here because they need to fill the quorum* to even give out an award. Facts are facts, you are either a Messi or a Ronaldo guy. I am a Messi guy but I think even in the face of the horrendous portrait statue of Ronaldo, Ronaldo had solid numbers and Real Madrid won the double. Your winner:
*sorry for the college word. It means minimum number.
The BEST Women's Award:Probably Lieke Martens since Denya isn't a pro and Carli wasn't great. The BEST Goalkeeper: Should be Keylor Navas but will probably be Manuel Neuer The BEST Men's Coach: If Zidane doesn't win, the awards shouldn't exist next year The BEST Women's Coach: Admittedly I have no idea. Probably the Lyon coach because they won the Champions League. I'll try to be better next year.
Now the award that puts the asses in the seats. I'm watching these goals for the first time as I write this so it will be completely reactionary and I'll probably pick three goals to win. But here they go:
Mousa Dembele - Celtic V St. Johnstone
I don't like to take the Lord's name in vain (shoutout Jesus), but Christ that was terrible for a goal of the year. The build up wasn't slow and unlocking St. Johnstone with 27 mediocre passes isn't exactly knocking my socks off. I love Celtic but no chance. Shame on you whoever selected this.
Jordi Mboula - Barcelona v Dortmund
Without doing much/any research, this seems to be a UEFA Youth League goal. For that, I take something off of it. ALTHOUGH, that was pretty awesome. La Masia knows what they're doing as if they have a cheat code. Subtle touches in half a yard of space. I see you young fella. I see you.
Olivier Giroud - Aresnal v Crystal Palace
Without having to watch this again, I remember this goal from seeing it live (from the bar). That's how you know it's a keeper. The Frenchman that can't seem to keep up with the pace of play anywhere manages this worldie. Kids, watch this and realize "if you dream it, you can do it" or whatever that saying is because this is straight from Olivier's dreams to the back of a North London net.
Mario Mandzukic - Juve v Real Madrd
Another instantly recognizable goal from the last year as it came in the Champions League Final. This was the goal that if you had Juve +1 goals bet that you thought "holy shit, we are back!". Well we were not back BUT this goal was from the top drawer and gave bettors some hope. God bless those few minutes.
Kevin-Prince Boateng - Las Palmas v Villareal
The Prince is still out here doing the damn thing! The build up from the spanish islander team was smooth and the finish was oh so sweet, especially coming from the ancient Boateng. There are already absolute monster goals on this list but a tip of the cap to the football prince.
Alejandro Camargo - Universidad de Concepción v O'Higgins
Outside of the fact that O'Higgins is actually a Chilean club and not from Ireland, this goal should win the Puskas. It probably won't because it's a bit of a gimmick but COME ON. The guy hit it first time from 63 yards off of a clearance which probably went 100 ft. in the air. Thats needle in a haystack type stuff. That skill is once in a career and my good man Alejandro just had. Felicidades caballero.
Please note: all distances were guessed as I have terrible spatial judgement. Please don't make fun. Bullying is ugly .
Aviles Hurtado - Atlas v Xolos
This may be a take but I couldn't be bothered by that. I understand every aspect of that was extraordinarily difficult but zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'll be honest, this is a long post and my attention span is waning but it didn't move the needle. And for that reason, I'm out. Sorry Aviles.
Denya Castellanos - Venezuela v Cameroon
Our 18-year old Women's Award candidate with the slyest of moves. Should this goal be on the Puskas award list? Probably not since the goalkeeper and her 12.75 in vertical probably should have done better there but in a classic international derby such as Venezuela/Cameroon, hitting the ball 50+ yards into the back of the net on the fly is a nothing to scoff at. Good on ya, girl.
Oscarine Masuluke - Baroka v Orlando Pirates (not the D-league team for the Magic)
Ladies and Gents we have a GK goal. There is nothing better than a GK goal and that't just a fact. This video has it all. We have a GK goal. We have a bicycle kick. We have a late winner/equalizer. We have the new dance that will take over the colleges of Baroka. This SHOULD be the Puskas award winner. To go even further, he should win it again next year as well. Oscarine, I hope you win and enjoy that first class trip to London because you deserve it. GK Union stand up.
Nemanja Matic - Chelsea v Tottenham
I saw this goal live and audibly gasped. You don't hit a ball better than that was hit. If that doesn't hit the crossbar and goes an inch over the bar, that sends a slightly overweight hooligan with too many unironic tattoos to an early exit. Hypothetical thoughts and prayers to Gareth. He goes by Chains though because he loves a good McDonalds or Nandos after a pint or two with the lads not because he used a chain one time in a fight after the Stoke match in 98'. I digress. Great goal by Matic but the real story here is Chains. Glad you're safe, mate.
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YOUR PUKAS AWARD WINNER: Probably Giroud/Mandzukic, hopefully Camargo, and should be Oscarine.
See you next year when FIFA wastes more money to host such an event.
Well folks, the honeymoon in Paris is over. The Qatari-funded club playing in the French capital has a problem with their two South American goal scorers. Nothing from that sentence makes any sense so I for one am shocked that this pairing is already on the rocks. Both of these players will probably score their 30+ goals this season but more importantly no one will care because it's Ligue 1. Neymar did not leave Barcelona to play the likes of Guingamp, Troyes, and Dijon (like the mustard, probably). He came to score 60 goals and win the Ballon d'Or. Ronaldo and Messi aren't slowing down anytime soon but Neymar wants, nay, needs to be the world's best player but it seems he has a long-haired Uruguayan bully that does not seem to care about his record transfer fee or his stutter-step penalty run-up. Listen, we've all had bullies in our life. Neymar took the tried and true "take my ball and go home" tactic. Admirable but shockingly it did not work. So obviously the next step is to unfollow Cavani from Instagram. I don't find this to be a bad tactic either. How does that affect my klout score? Will he tag him in the celebratory post game insta? Lots of questions going around Cavani's head now.
I, for one, am happy this is going on. When PSG v Caen is the only match on Friday afternoon, would I watch without the threat of a South American royal rumble? Probably not. Now? You bet your ass I'm grabbing my Kronenbourg 1664 and Foie Gras to see if a heavy open handed slap or minimum glaring petty eye roll will go down. Football* especially French football needs this type of drama. Somewhere the French version of Vince McMahon or David Stern is thanking his lucky stars while watching the Euros roll into the bank account.
*I call it Football because that's what I call it. Get over it. I don't care what you call it so just deal with it.
PS. Edson Cavani will score his goal in France but is still kind of trash. If you haven't seen him play for Uruguay, then you won't understand this take. I want him to be world class but he just isn't.
PPS. Edson is a terrible name for a celebrity. I know you can't predict these things but he really overcame the odds on that one.
