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Arsene willing to cede the US to Chelsea [Guardian]
Now, THIS is a passive offside [The Offside]
A is for Aberdeen. The Scottish Football Christmas Alphabet [Inside Left]
A look at Edu and Beasley in Scotland. Things are looking slightly better for them [Soccernet]
Funny pic of the day, German version [Kickette]
Wizards reportedly set to break ground on new stadium so they can move out of the baseball park. As always, I’ll believe it when I see it (still think they should move to St. Louis) [Match Fit USA]
Finally:
Stu Holden dressed up as an elf on local TV [The Offside Rules]
You watch more SPL than anyone around here, let me ask, how do you think McGeady would fair in England? I ask because apparently Dalglish has been scouting him for us, which of course means he will sign with Stoke or Sunderland, but I’m curious.
Just saw this. Soccernet put out a ten best players of the decade list. Not sure why they did ten instead of an XI, or why they didn’t try to put more than one defender on their, but you can’t really argue with anyone on that list.
Because I’m an idiot and they’re doing the actual teams of the decade later in the week.
How many consecutive posts can I get? It’s tied to my alcohol intake to be sure, but I feel at least another two in the pipe.
1:21AM – Georger passes out
Because Ned never comes in these threads, I feel safe in saying the following:
1) Most years, Celtic and Rangers are bottom-half EPL material, with Celtic being the more consistent (both would be relegation fodder this year).
Since McGeady is the best player on the better of the two teams,
2) After an adjustment, McGeady is a valid EPL candidate. I don’t know that he will be a star, but he will be solid. Besides, he’s 23 with 24 Irish caps. There are plenty of Irish internationals, and Irish players who don’t get called up, in the EPL who fare quite well.
In spite of Ned continually opining that the SPL is a third world league, there’s no reason to believe a regular midfielder for a probably-should-have-been-in-the-World-Cup team would not also be a regular in the English top flight (New Zealand team excepted).
What was everyone’s opinion on the ESPNMag article on DeMarcus and Edu? I thought it was well-written and revealing, but also revealing of a lack of knowledge of the world of football (but why would I expect anything less from ESPN?).
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/4754688/ce/us/road-international-success-players-maurice-edu-damarcus-beasley-europe-good-team-usa?cc=3888&ver=global
Just read it now, I thought it was decent, didn’t tell me much stuff that I didn’t already know though.
Nathaniel–
Luke Cyphers had really never covered soccer until 2006 when he took the soccer beat for ESPN Mag since Jeff Bradley is Sweatpants’ brother. Although Cyphers is good, you can tell he’s not a soccer guy like Wahl, Carlisle, Davis, or McIntyre. In fact, you can really tell who writes the posts on the USMNT blog over at Soccernet — McIntyre’s writing seems to show solid knowledge while Cyphers, although a good writer and learning the game, can be naive at times. I can’t find it (didn’t do a thorough search) but Cyphers admitted he didn’t care for soccer until he started covering it for the Magazine.
I thought it was well-written, and since most subscribers to ESPN:The Mag aren’t really footy fans, provided the right amount of background.
We take for granted what we know about the academy and reserves structure of football everywhere but in MLS, and so yeah, a lot of that stuff is filler to us. But to the average American sports fan, developmental squads that aren’t just affiliated teams in lower leagues and other cities is a totally foreign (pun intended) concept.