cklablog

They are already calling it the greatest US victory ever. An over-matched US side defeated Spain 2-0 in the Confederations Cup, using disciplined, physical play and resolute defending to shock the best team in the world. In so doing, they snapped Spain’s 15-game winning streak (a freakishly long streak in football), and prevented them from setting the world record for matches without a loss (35).

I’ve been immersed in the media frenzy this morning, reading the (richly deserved) plaudits and basking in the after-glow.

The victory was made all the sweeter coming on the heels of an even less probable result, wherein the US beat Egypt 3-0, and needed Brazil to beat Italy by the same score to get through to the semifinal. To put that miracle into context, the bookmakers odds of it happening were 9,000-1. Had you put down $20.00 on the US getting through to the semis, you’d be $180,000.00 richer today.

And that near-impossibility was required because of the dispirited, disinterested, clumsy and naive performances against Brazil and Italy that had US fans calling for Coach Bradley’s head, and had experts all over the world calling this the worst US side since the dark days of the mid-90s (which is essentially like saying “ever”).

So for that side to turn around and make a miracle, then make another? Damn.

And it’s not like we’re really all that good. Losing 3 matches against technically superior sides before slinking home with the only condolence being that American sports fans probably care more about John Calipari’s twitter feed than your performance is par for the course. Hell, it was par for last week.

But the victory over Spain, champions of Europe and best in the world was big enough to make the front page of the New York Times , and while the NYT article covers a lot of the same ground as the other more football-friendly outlets (coughanywhereelseintheworldcough), it had this interesting snippet to offer:

Nobody in the American soccer federation will dare to claim that this was the day the country came of age in the world’s most important sport. Not until American boys and girls play feral soccer on their own, for the love of the sport, will the nation develop its own Jordan, its own Pujols, its own Crosby or Malkin, its own Maradona.

“Feral soccer.” What a great term, and it’s absolutely right. With our current structure, with the development of our best players coming through a pay-for-play youth system of “elite teams” and “travelling teams,” we’ll continue to knock out enough athletic journeymen to dominate CONCACAF, but we won’t break into the ranks of the elite. We now know we have players who can (on their day) shut down Xavi, but we don’t have any Xavis of our own.

My wife and I have a running joke: “So long as our best players are named Landon*, Chase or Taylor, we’re not winning a world cup.”

We need feral players, players who develop their on-the-ball sensibilities and vision miles away from any well-meaning youth team technocrat, who don’t think of themselves as a position, or a set of tactical responsibilities, but as a person with a ball and a chance to express themselves.

*Disclaimer: We could actually use a whole lot more Landons.

It seems like every year, France anoints a couple of talented youngsters with the tag, “the new Zidane,” but this kid may very well be the real deal.

Check out that little dose of ridiculousness. It’s oh so Zizu. More opinon about young Monsieur Gorcuff from the Guardian. And, of course, Wikipedia Knows All.

The President of Argentinian football club Rosario Central kicked off a poo-storm of Biblical proportion when he was unknowingly recorded while threatening to kill his team and coaching staff.

Baby Caligula managed not to spray too much spit as he assured supporters:

"Central are going to get out of this situation," he said. "We are going to move forward. We are going to kill the players, coaching staff and anyone else.

"If Rosario Central was going to fall I will kill all those sons of bitches, be they players or coaching staff.”

Tense agreement aside, this is a great approach. Utilizing the massacre method, you don’t have to worry about existing salary requirements or termination clauses when you’re recruiting new players and coaches to take the place of all the dead players and coaches.

"Wow, the training facilities look great, sir. But . . . what happened to all your players and staff?"

"How should I know? Fuggedaboutit. Don’t worry about them. It was an accident. I wasn’t even in the country."

So Newcastle United are a football club in, you know, Newcastle. They’re also a caricature of a football club, with the owner getting filmed recently chugging beers at a home game (yeah, that really is the owner).

Their last manager quit before he’d even signed his contract, gets talked back into the job, is told he’ll have a tight budget, immediately starts agitating publicly to buy the most expensive players in the world, then quits again when he’s told no . . . and the fans who idolize this mug blame the owner and start protesting, complete with demands that the owner sell to a Nigerian consortium or they’ll boycoutt the games.

And who could follow such a ludicrous show?

Joe Kinnear hasn’t worked in years, but he used to be pretty good in the 90s, so Newcastle drug him out of mothballs and gave him the job, and his response was to take his first day at work off. The press reported it, and Kinnear flipped out.

From the guardian.co.uk:

SCENE: INTERIOR, PRESS ROOM, DAY

JOE KINNEAR stalks in, looking around at all the assembled football writers.

JOE Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror's north-east football writer]?

SIMON Me.

JOE You’re a cunt. Read the rest of this truly excellent ranterview »

So what have we learned? That they’re all fucking cunts. My favorite part is the Newcastle United press officer trying to keep this all “off the record” with a nudge-nudge-wink-wink approach. “Alright lads, off the record then?” You can just hear the obsequious smile.

They hate Pussneys too.

Benitez tells Liverpool owners to end their feud

I’m not saying they’re muppets . . . but they’re muppets. Still, even clumsy Texan muppets are better than *evil dictator* muppets (coughDubaicough).

Yesterday, I was surfing around teh intarweb, and I found these two snippets that kind of summarize the difference between the American approach to sports and that of the Rest of the World (tm).

One of my favorite ESPN writers, the Sports Guy, had this to say about Barry Bonds’ tarnished legacy:

The pre-BALCO Bonds was the single best player of the 1990s—a flawless leftfielder who averaged .302/36/108 with an on-base percentage of .434, joined the 40/40 club and earned three MVPs and eight Gold Gloves. Had he finished his career the old-fashioned way, Bonds would have cruised into Cooperstown. Now he’ll likely be left out until the day the Hall wises up and opens a wing for disgraced legends.

Here, American sports fan, have some numbers, statistics and then some more statsistics to support those other statistics. "A .434 OBP? What a stud!" Numbers are the symbols of the left brain, and they imply absolutes — rigid truths, facts; a way to parse into knowing a nebulous, frightening and mysterious universe.

Accross the pond, they’re okay with the fact that sport is as often as not approached simply as an entertainment. They write about it with a similar language to theatre reviews, or art critique:

The Guardian looks forward to the Champions League semi-finals:

Barcelona versus Manchester United is not just a football match; it is one of the great occasions. Chelsea against Liverpool feels more like a struggle for expression, one that brings back memories of Jorge Valdano’s withering assessment of their last semi-final.

"Chelsea and Liverpool are the clearest, most exaggerated example of the way football is going: very intense, very collective, very tactical, very physical, and very direct," he said. "But, a short pass? Noooo. A feint? Noooo. A change of pace? Noooo. A one-two? A nutmeg? A backheel? Don’t be ridiculous. None of that. If football is going the way Chelsea and Liverpool are taking it, we had better be ready to wave goodbye to any expression of the cleverness and talent we have enjoyed for a century."

God forbid.

I, for one, am not prepared to wave goodbye to cleverness.

Best fans in the world? Well, the hardest working at least. You don’t get that kind of physique by passing up beers and going home early.

(Pompey is Portsmouth — an English top flight football club.)

Now, I’m not myself a Tottenham supporter, but I do have a soft spot for the White side of North London (and a man-crush on Dimitar Berbatov). I think that as good as Martin Jol was for them, Juande Ramos is the guy to take them to the next level, but in the interim, there’ll be more rants like the following from the secret bomb-shelter beneath White Hart Lane: