All it took was a Carling Cup final loss for Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to get antsy and begin pressuring manager Avram Grant.
Abramovich has again made his way into the British tabloids demanding that Grant begin putting a side on the pitch that not only wins, but also plays attractive and stylish football.
Oh those billionaires just want it all don’t they? Read More »
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Was Martin Taylor’s tackle on Arsenal’s Eduardo da Silva, leaving him with a broken leg requiring surgery, dirty?
As I sat in the stands and watched West Ham steal a victory from Fulham, I couldn’t help but notice that even though the team sits at the bottom of the table and can’t seem to get any momentum going, the fans are still completely behind the squad.
And that doesn’t go on for five minutes here and there.
Oh no.
This goes on all game long. Winning or losing. Raining or, well ok, probably raining.
It is this kind of whole-hearted, unsullied passion that MLS teams need. It doesn’t have to be anything creative. Just something like this:
(For FC Dallas supporters)
Super Ken, Super Ken, Super Kenny Cooper!
Or even…
Oh when the Hoops, go marching in, Oh when the Hoops go marching in, Oh how I want to be in that number, Oh when the Hoops go marching in.
You see. It’s that easy.
Dare I say that we might see a bit more passion on the field if we can get a bit more passion from those of us off the field, and no, teenage girls screaming for David Beckham to take his shirt off does not count as passion.
Start a chant, make up a song, do just about anything, use the fan forums to help stimulate your creative juices, throw in a few jibes about your rivals and lets have some fun in the stands.
Cheers!
With the first legs of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 over with it’s time to take a look at who has the advantage heading into the next match.
Liverpool 2, Inter Milan 0
Marco Materazzi’s sending off for a second yellow card in the 30th minute was a severe blow. However, despite playing a man down Inter did not concede a goal until the 85th minute. A 1-nil loss road loss would not have been too bad, but Steven Gerrard’s goal in the 90th minute is what really hurts Inter’s chances of moving on.
Inter will be without Materazzi in the second leg and even with a wealth of attacking options to make up the difference it will not be enough. Liverpool knows how to play Champions League football and is too experienced to give up such a commanding lead.
Our preview pick: Inter
Our pick now: Liverpool
I think this article might start a little debate between everyone that reads this blog and that can be the fun part.
In honor of the Four Four Two Magazine, I am going to make a quick list of my best, current, XI players by position in the world. Basically my dream team. And I do mean by position – four center backs are not allowed, etc. So, without further ado:
GK Petr Cech – Chelsea/Czech
RB Sergio Ramos – Real Madrid/Spain
CB Carles Puyol – Barcelona/Spain
CB Nemanja Vidic – Manchester United/Serbia
LB Philipp Lahm – Bayern Munchen/Germany
RM Steven Gerrard – Liverpool/England
CM Ricardo Kaka – AC Milan/Brazil
CM Francesc Fabregas – Arsenal/Spain
LM Cristiano Ronaldo – Manchester United/Portugal
ST Lionel Messi – Barcelona/Argentina
ST Fernando Torres – Liverpool/Spain
What a team! Do you agree? I better put my defense up now – I know I am going to get drilled with my selections. First things first, I don’t know if there could ever be a unanimous best XI.
Cech over Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon was tough when they are clearly the best three in the world. I do prefer youth when building a team so that threw Buffon out. Casillas or Cech was a close call, but a keeper wearing a helmet is intimidating!
The one big time defender that was left off the list is Chelsea’s John Terry. I want a player that can play 90 minutes and odds are that Terry wouldn’t even be able to start the game – he would break his foot walking into the locker room. I think Lahm might be questioned, but I like how he can get forward. He scored the first goal of the 2006 World Cup, a missile hit from outside the area, that was definitely one of the best goals of the tournament.
In the midfield, can you go wrong with any of these four? Ronaldo plays on the left at times so he qualified for me there. He just roams around and scores goals. Kaka is a no brainer. Fabregas was known as one of the better players in the world going into the season, but he has been so good this year he might be the most improved player in the world this year. And he’s 20. Being a Man U fan – I’m not an Arsenal fan and that’s being nice – I admit he is sick. Gerrard was tough, but you have to have him on the list for free kicks alone. This team would get plenty of free kicks around the box and Stevie G is the second best in the world on dead balls. David Beckham is still the best and I almost put him on the wing, but I am going to get drilled as it is. One man can only take so much.
For my forwards, with Messi, I don’t think there will be any complaints. Torres, however, will surely have some calling me an idiot. Here is my reasoning. The pace that this kid shows is amazing and he has proven this year that when he has talent around him he can be great.
So there’s my team. What do you think? Let the questioning begin.
It’s February and we all know that means that our outdoor soccer leagues will be starting up again if they haven’t already. With this in mind I’ve decided to offer up a few training ideas to get back into the swing of things, and get back to fundamentals.
This weekend was an adventure. I left the bustling streets of London for the countryside of Germany. Maybe I needed some home cooking or maybe I just needed to drive on the right side of the road again (that’s right as in not left, and not right as in the opposite of wrong, I wouldn’t want to upset anybody), but whatever the reason may have been, I made my 7:45 Friday morning flight and found myself cruising along winding country German roads an hour later.
Now this is where things get interesting.
I was expecting a quiet weekend in Germany full of Cable TV and sleep, but what I got was just a bit more than that.
Saturday was spent watching Bundesliga football in the morning, then watching as Manchester United sent Arsenal crashing out of the FA Cup that night. It was at this point, relaxing on a large plush sofa, that I let out a sigh and though life probably wouldn’t get a whole lot better.
How wrong I was.
Hey! Who loves lists?
Though American football may have some excellent names to offer, world football can offer countless other gems for your pronouncing pleasure.
I’ll start with the most natural starting point possible, Africa, our
great continent-mother which has blessed us with these most wonderful
offerings:
Mamadou Doumbia
Papa Bouba Diop
Papa Waigo N’Diayè
Manuel ‘Junior’ Agogo
Constant Djapka
Gilles Yapi Yapo
Bonaventure Kalou
Yaya Toure
Excellent Walaza
Europe:
Ryan France
Stephen Ireland
Florin Lovin
Glyndwr Hughes
Jaap Stamm
Milos Mrvaljevic
Kim Källström
Kyriakos Papadopoulos
Samuele Pizza
Tom Huddlestone
Magnús Þór Magnusson
Hrafnkell Helgi Helgason
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink
Luis Boa Morte (Luis Good Death)
Rod Fanni
Nicky Butt
The Americas: (With the penchant for nicknames that Brazillians have,
the list is endless. These are just a few good ones)
Kaka
Oguchi Onyewu
Jeroñimo Wendes
Vagner Love
Wellington Gum
João Victor Albuquerque Bruno
Bobo
Dida
Dede
Dodo
Dudu
Fred
…and billions of others. As you can see, I didn’t even touch on Asia
or Oceana. Feel free to add to the list!
This is when UEFA Champions League football gets really good.
Now that we’re in the round of 16 we get to see the best of the best battle it out. No more minnows. Getting to see the best clubs from the best leagues around the world battle it out is what makes Champions League football so enthralling. So even though we might not have picked every group perfectly in our first round picks, that’s not going to stop us from picking the winners from this round.
As always, feel free to let us know how wrong, or right, we are with our picks. Enjoy!
Liverpool vs. Inter Milan
Recent Champions League history, two finals in the last three years, seems to favor Liverpool, but the club’s recent form is what is more disturbing as it sits in fifth-place in the Premier League, 19 points out of first.
Meanwhile Inter has continued its run atop Serie A and with Zlatan Ibrahimovic filling the net, it is a strong contender to take the entire tournament.
As good as the Reds are in the Champions League, Inter should move on.
Olympiacos vs. Chelsea
Here is a case of big versus small, but don’t sleep on Olympiacos (like we did). Olympiacos finished second in its group, ahead of Werder Bremen and Lazio, so it knows how to play against big clubs.
However, Chelsea has played extremely well and consistent under Avram Grant and it would be a shock not to see it move into the quarterfinals. Read More »
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Recently I finished reading the book How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer. I picked it up after it was recommended to me by a soccer playing friend. The book gives many examples of ways in which soccer transcends everything we know and brings people together like no other game in the world. After reading the book I can definitely understand the power that soccer has.
Each chapter of the book speaks about a different situation that displays soccer’s global reach. Chapter topics include Red Star Belgrade and their fans in Serbia, Africans playing in small European leagues in Western Europe, and Chelsea’s hooligans. The author took two years off from his job at New Republic and traveled the globe to write the book.
He talks about how Tottenham Hotspur supporters came to be known as the “Yids” even though the club is not based on anything Jewish. Celtic and Rangers play the “Old Firm” match, but it is much more than just a rivalry. The clubs are backed by separate religious groups and Foer details the history behind the rivalry and its impact today. Foer spends a chapter on his favorite club, Barcelona as well. He explains the underachievement of the club as well as the political relations between Catalonia and the Castilian capital of Madrid. Another topic covered in the book is Italy and the problems that it has had with scandals. Teams like Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan are all praised and criticized in this chapter. Foer also details the struggles of the Brazilian game and their fight for financial stability despite producing some of the world’s great players, such as Ronaldinho, Robinho, and Kaka. Finally the author talks about soccer in America.
Overall I think this is a great book and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for something to read in his or her free time. I’m a busy college student and wasn’t able to sit and read it all in a short time span, but every time I came back to it, I found it easy to pick up exactly where I left off. I wouldn’t recommend it to younger readers because the book has a lot of vocabulary that is hard to understand. This is a serious book and will make you think, instead of just being a happy story about soccer. You will read about things that soccer fans have done that will surprise you, but I think it will help open a reader’s eyes to soccer on an international level. The book really does show how soccer is a very global game. The impacts of the games carry over the touchline into personal lives and effect people and countries on a level that we have yet to see in the United States. After reading this book you will hopefully have a bit of an idea of how big the game of soccer is and how much it means to people all over the world.