Pack Your Bags, Boys

You're going to South Africa.

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Get to da Soccah?

California Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar has joined the bid committee seeking to bring the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup to the United States.

Californian venues hosted games in the 1994 World Cup, and 1999 and 2003 Womens' World Cups, and at least one Californian venue is expected to be included in the 10-12 stadium US bid.

Said Schwarzeneggar, "Soccah is tha wulds most papulah spoat und Kowlifornya has bin hom to some uv its moast eggziting gayims, unt I yam pwowd tuh be ah paht oof bringing tha Wuld Kahp bahk to theh Yoonited Statehs. Theh millyens oof fans from arauhnd de glohbe thaht will travel to ze Yoonited Statehs to cheah theah teams will pwoove a great benfit fo ouah stayte, ouah nation, ahndze wuld oof soccah."

Schwarzeneggar is believed to have meant, "Soccer is the world's most popular sport and California has been home to some of its most exciting games, and I am proud to be a part of bringing the World Cup back to the United States. The millions of fans from around the globe that will travel to the United States to cheer their teams will prove a great benefit for our state, our nation and the world of soccer."

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Back in the Day when athletes endorsed more than just shoes and Gatorade

Former New York Cosmos goalkeeper and current RBNY broadcast and MLSnet.com Extra Time color analyst Shep Messing in an ad from his playing days, which judging from the size of his fro and stache, appears to be from his time with the Cosmos from 1973-1977 (with a short stint with the Boston Minutemen in there).

Shep Messing Classic Commercial
Uploaded by flg8or99

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Kick them out

While I have been known to give the Olympics a lot of crap for being a bunch of sports no one cares about outside of the Olympics (Gymnastics, Fencing, etc.) I more than appreciate what the Olympics are. However, despite the celebration of obscure sports like team handball and water polo, I think the Olympics could be better served by kicking some of the more mainstream sports out of the ring.

In my opinion, the Olympics should be the greatest stage of international competition in a given sport. This is why everyone remembers Michael Johnson winning gold in Atlanta 12 years ago, but hardly anyone remembers who took home the title at the next World Championships. With that, I would like to recommend the following sports be eliminated from the Olympic program.

Men's Soccer
Baseball
Tennis

For each of these sports, the fact remains that the Olympics are not the grandest scale for athletes to compete in international competition.

BASEBALL

Baseball has already been taken out of the rotation for London 2012, and I imagine the advancement of the World Baseball Classic may send the idea of Olympic baseball sliding even further into irrelevance. While winning the World Series may be the dream of every baseball player since they were a child, I'm differentiating club and international competition. While the idea of national teams is still a new one for baseball (Hell, players actually coming from different countries is only a handful of decades old), the World Baseball Classic, if its first go-around is to be believed, is fast becoming the gold standard for international baseball competition. This is the competition where the stars and professionals come out to play. Of course its timing in March instead of the midst of a pennant push in August might have something to do with it, but that seems only to heighten its irrelevance. If baseball did have full functioning national teams, the Olympics would be like the fourth-stringers.

MEN'S SOCCER
For one sport, sending in the reserves is already a fact of life. Men's soccer is arguably the most popular sport on the planet. Olympic soccer tournaments draw large crowds (even in the United States), but hardly anyone seems to care. The reason being that soccer is already bigger than the Olympics. To keep the Olympic soccer tournament from upstaging the rest of the Olympics, teams that qualify for the Olympics are restricted to bringing their national Under-23 team, plus three overage players. While this brought some stars to the Olympics this year like Ronaldinho (Brazil), Leo Messi (Argentina) and Brian McBride (USA), the tournament is mostly contested by college kids or young professionals who are still trying to get minutes with their full national team.

However, a recent decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport has thrown a wrench even in this provision. Ordinarily, club teams are required by FIFA to release players called up for international duty. However, the CAS recently ruled that this rule does not apply to the Olympics, because it is not a FIFA-run tournament. Teams are now not only reluctant to send their stars to the Olympics in August (which happens to be when lucrative Champions Leagu qualifiers begin), but they have the Court to back them up. What this means is in any future Olympic football tournaments, there will likely not be any stars of note who are not on their country's U-23 team.

U-23 teams aside, the biggest goal for any national footballer is to win a World Cup. The World Cup, likewise every four years is arguably the largest single-sport event in the world. Qualifying begins almost immediately after the prior Cup cycle ends and consumes the attention of entire nations. That's where the glory is. Just off the top of my head I can name every World Cup winner going back to 1962, but I'm note sure I could tell you who won the 2004 Olympic Football tournament.

Almost every professional footballer has dreamt of winning the World Cup. I would imagine very few dream about winning a U-23 Olympic Gold Medal. It's very similar to why Rugby is not an Olympic sport. Despite the IRB Rugby World Cup being the 3rd-largest sporting event in the world after the World Cup and Olympics, winning the Rugby World Cup is the pinnacle of international competition in that sport. Anything the Olympics could offer would be second-best.

Side Note: Women's Soccer
I've recommended men's soccer for elimination but not women's soccer, despite the existence of a Women's World Cup which would in theory parallel the FIFA World Cup as the biggest tournament in the sport. However, due to the relative lack of popularity in the WWC, the Olympics still represent a major international tournament.

It's similar to the way that the Olympic Men's Basketball tournament is still a major tournament, but the FIBA Championships are at best second-tier. Likewise, I agree with some soccer writers in that the Women's World Cup should be moved to every two years instead of every four, in odd-numbered years to avoid conflicts for media attention with the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and the EURO. With a WWC last year in China, and a Women's Olympic football tournament this year, the next time a major Women's international competition will take place is in 2011 with the next Women's World Cup. While scarcity makes for a more exciting product, for a sport struggling to find an audience, that is too long out of the public eye, and there are not enough women's footballing nations to support a four-year tournament cycle (Pretty much every country from Morocco to Pakistan doesn't have a Women's team).

TENNIS
Tennis is the last sport and it goes along with what I've already said about players dreaming about winning one competition and not an Olympic medal. However, here there is one key difference. The reason for this is becaue tennis (aside from doubles) is inherently an individual sport. Unlike Soccer, Rugby, and to an extent baseball, there are no national teams. With players from all over the world, that means that EVERY match is an international match. The top events are and probably always will be the US, French, and Australian Opens and Wimbledon.

In that sense Tennis is much like Golf (outside of events like the Ryder Cup). Golf is not an Olympic sport, nor should it be, but it is very similar to top-level Tennis because it has international competition, individual nature of the sport, and four major tournaments (US and British Opens, Masters, PGA Championship). On many US broadcasts of golf, when the leaderboards are shown, what do you see next to the players and their scores? Often a national flag; Woods is American, Harrington is Irish, Garcia is Spanish, Els is South African, etc.

So while I may give the Olympics crap for being a collection of largely unknown or unfollowed sports (Equestrian, Team Handball, Synchronized Diving, etc.) the only thing worse than a collection of obscure sports are the mainstream ones where neither the players nor the fans appreciate the competition on the level of what the Olympics are supposed to be in an age of professionalism, and that is the greatest international stage for a given sport.

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That'll Make for a Tense Second Leg in Barbados

Team USA opened World Cup Qualifying with an emphatic 8-0 throttling of Barbados Sunday. The ball found the back of the Bajan Pride's net in the 1st, 12th, 20th, 59th, 63rd, 82nd, 86th, and 89th minute. The thrashing set a new USA record for margin of victory in a World Cup Qualifier, bettering an 8-1 scoreline against Cayman Islands in 1993. Dempsey's first goal, scored at 0:52 set a new USA record for fastest score from the start of a game.

If USA scores the first goal in Sunday's return leg in Barbados, the hosts will need to score 10 goals to advance to the regional semifinals.

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"I'll kill myself if Portugal doesn't win..."

As Homer says. EURO 2008 gets underway June 7 with co-hosts Austria and Switzerland providing the stadiums, the chocolate, and the lederhosen. The EURO is like the World Cup, but as its name implies, just for Europe. While seemingly offering little that the World Cup doesn't offer, it can often be the more thrilling of the two competitions, and heroes and goats are made just as easily. (David Beckham at EURO 2004 comes to mind.)

While at the World Cup, European teams make up roughly half the competition, the EURO gives them their own party, and kicks the Saudi Arabias and the Trinidad and Tobagos out. No 8-0 drubbings here. The competition is elite, and the field is arguably deeper than the World Cup. Quite possibly every one of the 16 teams still alive has the talent to win it, but like any tournament there's gotta be favorites, dark horses, and also-rans.

The tournament may not get underway until June 7, but with my my new job starting next week (which unlike my old job, I may actually have to do work), I gotta get my obligatory EURO 2008 Preview taken care of NOW. With that, here comes as best of a EURO Preview as I can provide as to determine who will be dancing with the Von Trapps in Vienna for the Final.

Group A: Portugal, Turkey, Czech Republic, Switzerland
Portugal has to be considered one of the favorites for the competition. EURO runners-up in 2004 and World Cup semifinalists in 2006, the Portuguese boast one of the most athletic and technically skilled sides in Europe. Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo is already arguably one of the best players in the world, but leading Portugal to their first EURO win and Manchester United to the Champions League title in the same month would likely cement his place in Soccer's all-time pantheon alongside players like Pele, Beckenbauer, Zidane, and Diego Maradona. Portugal lost the fewest games in their group in qualifying (only a 2-1 loss at Poland). With a relatively easy group, and some of Europe's biggest stars, Portugal has to be considered among the favorites not just to advance out of group, but to win the tournament outright.

Turkey is the wild card of this group. I'm picking them to take second in the group perhaps largely as overcompensation for my 2006 World Cup picks, where I perhaps irrationally favored the Czechs, who did not even make it out of the group stage.

The Czechs certainly have a great keeper in Chelsea FC's Petr Cech, but beyond that and Portsmouth's Milan Baros, the Czechs don't exactly have the kind of lineup that strikes fear. Baros and Nuremburg's Jan Koller appear to be their only offensive options.


Switzerland could get a host nation bump to get a result against the dangerous Turks or the star-laden Portuguese, but ultimately, I don't think they have the talent to get out of the group.

Group B: Germany, Croatia, Poland, Austria
Germany is clearly the favorite here. A 3rd-place finish at the 2006 World Cup, and runners-up at the 2002 World Cup, the Germans boast a roster featuring Chelsea's Michael Ballack and 2006 World Cup leading scorer Miroslav Klose. Arsenal's Jens Lehmann takes over the goalkeeper reins from longtime German keeper Olivier Kahn, but will need to be on his best form if he wants to lead die Mannschaft to their fourth EURO trophy.

Croatia appears the favorite to advance along with Germany. A young team, only 7 players on the 23-man roster are over the age of 30. Croatia racked up some impressive victories in qualifying, including a win over England at Wembley on the last day of qualifying to send the Croats through and the English to an unplanned summer off.

Poland SHOULD HAVE BEEN the other team to go through. They certainly have the talent, but I do not have a lot of confidence in them. Make no mistake. Lightbulb jokes aside, the Poles are a very capable team, and may very well be able to knock off Croatia for the second spot out of the group (or maybe even give Germany a scare!). However, inexperience and a run of poor form at the worst possible time may doom them. Poland is making their first-ever appearance at the EURO, and the run up to the tournament does not really inspire fear in anyone. The Poles were victim to a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of the United States in front of a sold out crowd in Krakow. This same US team just got outclassed 2-0 by an England side that didn't even qualify for the EURO. Other recent contests included a 1-1 draw with tiny Macedonia and a 1-0 win over even tinier Albania. I've listed Poland to finish third, but would not be surprised to see them finish last.

Austria, like co-hosts Switzerland, may benefit from a host nation bump to get a result, but I'd actually put the Swiss as more likely to advance to the quarterfinals given their past history in major competitions. The Swiss were Final-16 contenders at the last World Cup. On the other side, Austria is making their first appearance in the EURO, and has not escaped from the group stage at the World Cup since 1982.

Group C: Netherlands, France, Italy, Romania
Every tournament has a group of death, and for EURO 2008, this is it. Group C includes the two 2006 World Cup finalists in France and Italy, alongside the Netherlands, a team led by Real Madrid's Ruud Van Nistelroy and Manchester United's Edwin Van der Sar that is as capable of winning this tournament as any.

France is a side in transition. After Zidane's retirement after the 2006 World Cup, France must rely on a new generation of stars. Barcelona's Thierry Henry is already the new face of the team, with experience to boot. Henry has played in two World Cup Finals with France (1998 and 2006), led France to a World Cup title (1998) and a EURO championship (2000), and he's still only 30 years old. Winning another EURO title and playing in another World Cup Final may not be a stretch. Franck Ribery of Bayern Munich will likewise be needed to contribute. The key players for Les Bleus I think may well be Nicholas Anelka (Chelsea) and Florent Malouda to provide the kind of depth needed to win these tournaments.

The World Champion Azzuri may very well be the odd team out for the quarterfinals, despite boasting a wealth of world class players whose names roll off the tongue like linguine. The only problem facing this Italian side is that Fabio Cannavaro, Buffon, Ambrosini, Del Piero, and Materazzi, is that they are old and only getting older. While younger stars like Daniele de Rossi might impress, 14 out of the 23 players on the roster are over the age of 30 (Compared to 7 for France). Italy may benefit from a "win now" mentality, but at this stage of the game, every team has that. Italy and France met twice in qualifying, with both matches ending in draws.

Romania put together a decent qualifying campaign I think the French and Dutch are the class of this group. Romania could steal points and determine who moves on, but they themselves will probably not be advancing given the depth of talent in this group.

Group D: Spain, Greece, Russia, Sweden
Spain are back once again, and once again will advance out of group, but once again will not be lifting trophies at the end of the tournament. It's a familiar story as old as time. La Furia has not won the EURO since 1964. Spain is certainly a talented side featuring the likes of Real Madrid's goalkeeper Iker Casillas and Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas. Spain has also notched some victories over high profile opponents in France and Italy so far this year in their run-up preparations. An imminent meeting with the United States in Santander, Spain will tell a lot about how far this team has come, and how ready they are for the EURO.

Greece are the defending Champions, having won EURO 2004 in Portugal, but color me not impressed. Greece ran away with what was a really weak qualifying group (Turkey, Bosnia, Hungary, Norway, Moldova, and Malta) I'm picking them to advance practically solely on their success in the last tournament, and their relative success in qualifying compared to Russia.

Spain and Sweden met twice in qualifying, with both sides claiming shutout victories at home. Sweden made it to the last 16 of the 2006 World Cup, and I feel like I have to label them as my dark horse in this group.

Russia is in this tournament finals more because England couldn't take care of business than for anything the Ruskies did. Against the three other teams in Russia's group that I gave at least a shot to reach the finals (England, Croatia, and Israel), Russia managed to run up an awe-inspiring 1-2-3 record.


Favorites to win the tournament outright
Portugal, France, Germany, Netherlands


Dark Horses
Spain, Croatia, Italy, Greece


Have the talent to get out of group, but a title run would be a stretch
Russia, Czech Republic, Sweden


Will do damage before it's done
Turkey, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Romania

I'll have another preview once the bracket is set for the knockout stages in two weeks. So until then, sit back, drink a Stiegl or chomp on a Toblerone and enjoy this year's EURO. Then laugh at how astonishingly off my predictions were, just like my World Cup picks two years ago.

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Yes, watching soccer can actually kill you... and not just from boredom!

Hey, here's a soccer post that's not really about soccer at all.

For those of you who don't regularly read the New England Journal of Medicine, you are missing out on some of the most comprehensive review articles on current trends in medicine! More importantly, you probably didn't catch this little piece.

Recent research during the 2006 World Cup suggests that men may have two to three times the risk of having a myocardial infarction ("heart attack" for you ignorant lay folk), arrhythmia ("abnormal heart rhythm"), or cardiac emergency ("a really bad heart problem that needs pretty quick attention") on the days that their favorite soccer team plays. Moreover, most of those heart problems actually seemed to occur during the game.

The take-home lesson? I don't know. I'm not a doctor yet. I'm just a media commentator (this blog qualifies as media, right?) with some medical background... kinda like a young Sanjay Gupta.

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I guess in Italy you get what you pay for

Italian giants Juventus are fed up with all the bad officiating in Italy's top flight.

Two years ago, Juventus was stripped of their titles, fined, and demoted to the lower divisions for their role in the Calciopoli scandal, where they were found guilty of repeatedly pressuring and bribing match officials.

Karma's a bitch, huh?

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International $occer

The English Premier League has announced that they will look into the possibility of one-upping the NFL and having each team play one game on foreign soil each season. I'm sure we'll hear the same refrains of "for the good of the game" "expanding our international exposure" or "bringing the game to the world's fans."

I don't buy it for a second.

EPL officials have brought up the NFL playing games at Wembley as an incentive for the change; a way to expand internationally when the market is tapped-out domestically. Just as the NFL cannot get any bigger in the US than it already is (Hence the "Toronto Bills"), the EPL cannot get any bigger than it is in England. It is also the most widely-followed league in the world. It is also a completely different situation from the NFL.

COMPETITION

The NFL schedule is a 16-game slate; six division games, four games against an intraconference division, another four against a division from the opposite conference, and two games chosen for a variety of reasons, which is a catchphrase for TV (This is partly why the Colts and Patriots have played each other every season the past five years.) Each season, any given team will not play 18 of the teams in the NFL.

The EPL schedule is a 38-game double round-robin. Every team plays each of the other 19 teams once at home, and once on the road. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins the title. In case of a tie, goal difference is the first tiebreaker. Under the "International EPL" plan, there would be a 39th game, with pairings decided by a blind draw, so that no team loses a home game.

The blind draw is presumably to give it a color of parity. Though it seems odd that the EPL seems so eager to protect the comeptitve integrity of the competition by not scrapping any home games, yet tosses away the "Every team twice" rule that has been part of English football for over a century so easily. In the end though, there WILL be winners and losers. One team will get to play Wigan Athletic three times, and one team will have to play Manchester United three times. This could very easily lead to unjust results. While it would seem exceedingly rare that a team would lose the title on goal difference, other harmful results could come about just as easily.

The top four teams at the end of the season qualify for the next season's Champions League, a finish that is worth tens of millions of dollars to teams. Even more valuable is what happens at the bottom of the table. While if the Miami Dolphins lose a bit of competitive advantage by giving up a home game, and finish in last, the only punishment is a couple of Leno jokes and the difficult decision of what to do with that #1 draft pick. In England there is no draft. The teams that finish at the bottom are relegated to their AAA. This can mean Darwinistic ruin very quickly. Leeds United was in the semifinals of the Champions League as recently as 2001, but following two relegations, they are now plying their trade in England's AA level, on a budget relative to their former EPL rivals as the Toledo Mud Hens would have to the Boston Red Sox. If another club finished in 18th and dropped, just because they couldn't make up a goal difference in a made-for-TV game against Arsenal while their 17th-place (and surviving) team got a patsy for their international game, there would be outrage.

SPREADING THE GAME

Who are we kidding? I can't blame the NFL for attempting to take the game international. Its following is only in a handful of countries, and has its largest popualrity in North America. Soccer is the most popular team sport in the world. FIFA has more member countries than the United Nations. Any idea that this is "spreading the popularity of the game" is a naked lie. This is nothing more than a cash grab, plain and simple. In addition, it will be a cash grab for the clubs who don't need it. While there might be packed stadiums in New York and Sydney to see Liverpool, Arsenal, or Chelsea, will there be the same kind of revenue injection for a neutral site game between Bolton Wanderers and Sunderland? (Bonus points if any YCS staff member has heard of EITHER of those teams). The rich will get richer, and the gap between the Big Four and the rest of the EPL will widen. The EPL does not have revenue-sharing in the sense that we would recognize it.

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT
And what would any of this money be used for? To buy more players? Are there any players left? The EPL is the most lucrative league on the planet. More international stars ply their trade in England than anywhere else. League leader Arsenal does not start a single English player. The International appeal of the EPL is one reason why FIFA's president is suggesting a rule prohibiting teams from starting more than 5 international players (The so-called "6+5" Rule).

In addition, the playing of EPL games in foreign countries does nothing to help promote those countries' domestic leagues. How does an EPL game in New York help the development of MLS? Red Bull New York draws sellout crowds for exhibitions against foreign superclubs, but draws 15,000 for league games. However, even that game presumably brings in a few people who have not followed RBNY before, and if they get a good result, maybe picks up some fans. How does a game in Tokyo help the J-League, or a game in Sydney help the A-League; two successful, but relatively fledgling leagues in the same position as MLS, with the skilled players but without the tradition and big names of the English top-flight?

I may be wrong, but I'm having a really hard time seeing how this move is good for anyone besides the owners of the Big Four.

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