Don Garber is in this picture.

Here are their seats for the night.

Nice seats.

Note the actual Red Bull.

Hat tip to commenter Ryan for pointing out this article.

Update 8:28 am PDT:  According to SI.com a telephone news conference call is scheduled for later today with MLS President Don Garber, Union head Bob Foose, and mediator George Cohen.  This likely indicates a deal has been reached.

Update 10:45 am PDT: Union chief Bob Foose outlines the three main gains for the Union: 1) Guaranteed contracts for most of the players; 2) Increased freedom of movement for players out of contract at end of season; 3) Increased compensation.  The greater player movement comes from a new “re-entry” draft for players out of contract at the end of the season.  Neither side is willing to go into the details about how the re-entry draft will work at this time.

Update 10:53 am PDT: Only Seattle and Toronto ran at a profit last season. 

Update 10:58 am PDT: Landon Donovan says he learned a lot during this process and thinks that the relationship with the league will be better for players going forward. 

Back to Boot Camp

Where have you been? We’ve missed you so much!

Yes, the great Server Meltdown of 2010 is over, and everything now seems to be back in order. You might notice that we don’t exactly do this for money, as evidenced by our lack of ads, and our lack of eye-catching graphic design. Well, if you like us and want to help us get some better web hosting, maybe you could purchase one of them t-shirts we are flogging over there to the right? I know, I know. Begging is so very uncool. But hey, just saying, you get what you pay for!

Speaking of which… there is some brilliant armchair analysis, fixtures, and your comments after the hop.

Right, so on to the football. Probably today’s most intriguing match is Stoke at home versus Spurs. Stoke have been very solid at the Brittania Stadium this season, where they have conceded all of 9 goals. Spurs, on the other hand, will be trying to hold on to fourth place, and they’ll have to do it without Jermain Defoe, who is out with the dreaded six-week hamstring injury. Today also marks Ryan Shawcross’s return from suspension after that incident against Arsenal. The less said about that the better, but trust me, it will be an ad naseum talking point. Unfortunately, this match is on Fox Soccer Plus, which I believe is currently available to all of 3 people in Guam. Oh well.

Elsewhere, Aston Villa hosts Wolves in the early EPL match, as Arsenal hosts Wet Spam. Both winnable home games for two teams hoping to remain in contention for fourth place and the EPL title race respectively. Hull makes their Phil Brown-less debut against Pompey today, which is certainly as good a game as any for Sloth Dowie to take the reins. In Serie A, Roma and Inter each have fixtures after their high and low of midweek European action. It’ll be interesting to see how the teams respond, especially given Inter’s poor run in the Italian league of late. And then in the Championship, Newcastle are away to Bristol City, who like Hull will be looking to the proverbial new manager effect. Newcastle, however, have a real chance to solidify their lead in the Fizzy Pop league and look to be a good bet for an eventual return to the EPL.

Oh and tonight marks the grand opening of the Red Bulls Arena, where yours truly and Ned will be there to watch Robinho Juan Pablo Angel a bunch of players we have never heard of at a beautiful new soccer-specific stadium, which will soon be sitting unused due to the MLS strike.

Without further ado, today’s selected fixtures….

EPL
—–
8:30 Aston Villa vs Wolverhampton Wanderers (ESPN2)
11:00 Stoke City vs Tottenham Hotspur (Fox Soccer Plus)
11:00 Everton vs Bolton (FSC)
11:00 Portsmouth vs Hull City
11:00 Sunderland vs Birmingham
11:00 Wigan vs Burnley
1:30 Arsenal vs West Ham (FSC)

Rest of the World
—–
10:30 Eintracht Frankfurt vs Bayern München (ESPN360.com, ESPN Deportes)
11:00 Middlesbrough vs Reading
11:00 Swindon vs Norwich City (Ned’s House)
11:00 Wycombe vs Exeter City (Spectator’s House)
11:00 Aberdeen vs Dundee United (u75’s House)
1:00 Deportivo La Coruña vs Real Valladolid (ESPN360.com, ESPN Deportes)
1:00 Fiorentina vs Genoa (ESPN360.com, Fox Soccer Plus)
1:20 Bristol City vs Newcastle United
1:30 Borussia Dortmund vs Bayer Leverkusen (Gol)
2:45 PSV vs Twente (ESPN360.com)
3:00 Real Madrid vs Sporting Gijón (ESPN360.com, ESPN Deportes)
3:45 Palermo vs Inter Milan (FSC)
3:45 AS Roma vs Udinese (ESPN360.com)
4:00 Palmeiras vs Ponte Preta (Gol)
5:00 Espanyol vs Sevilla (ESPN360.com, ESPN Deportes
6:30 New York Red Bulls vs Santos FC (FSC)

Truly sorry for our host failure

Welcome back to FIFA, Iraq. Adios, Brunei [Guardian]
If there was one thing that might make us less gay for Timmay, it would be an admission that he misses light beer. Oops [The Offside Rules]
Scottish club still hasn’t gotten over losing the league 120 years ago [Times Online]
Sammy Eto’o loses his car [Dirty Tackle]
Aaron Ramsey afraid of breaking his ear, will not return Shawcross’ calls [PIES]

Finally:
Some windbag started writing for another site. Good luck, Georger [Avoiding the Drop]

(let’s just hope it doesn’t go down again)

It did. But it’s back for now.  We have a bootroom scheduled for tomorrow morning contingent on no more server issues.

The Eredivisie is entering its final stretch and we are in between the two weekends Dutch football fans have been looking forward to since the winter break. Before last night, it was:

Twente has lost some of its initial flair but have so far managed to keep grinding out wins, mostly inspired by the absurd goal scoring ability of Costa Rican Bryan Ruiz. Ajax had been in fine form, not having dropped a point and having scored 16 in their 6 games since the winter break (without conceding any). PSV had been struggling, conceding a late equalizer at home a few weeks back to Sparta and flat out losing against NAC last week. They had dropped 5 points in their last 4 games.

Last weekend’s Ajax- PSV, which all of you of course saw, was naturally billed as the first of two games that would decide the title race. It was to be Ajax’ chance to claw their way back into the title race – or at the very least the race for second place and a Champions League qualification spot. Conversely, it would be PSV’s chance to get rid of Ajax once and for all. That didn’t happen.

PSV have long been both admired and loathed for its thrifty, effective brand of football. But last night they were wasteful, and it was Ajax who hit relentlessly on the counter break. Leaving the ball to PSV in the early stages of the game, Ajax scored first from a dead ball situation. Then, Urby Emanuelson, lately on the fringes of the squad and reportedly for sale this summer, cut inside from the left and absolutely hammered one past Isaksson into the far corner. The second half saw PSV pressing some more and Ajax easily capitalizing on the break to the tune of two more goals.

The 4-1 drubbing puts Ajax within a point of second place PSV. Still leading the table, however, is McClaren’s FC Twente, now five points ahead of PSV and six ahead of Ajax.

And this is where it gets good;

Saturday, 19:45 local time, PSV hosts Twente.

So PSV has been unimpressive lately and might have to do without captain Affelay, who will most likely get suspended for his actions against Ajax. Twente on the other hand, even though they are leading by five points, have been far from convincing. They squeeked past relegation bound RKC 0-1, got lucky against a very poor Vitesse and have generally been less exciting than in the first half of the season.

Interestingly, PSV now fields two of the midfielders from the successful Twente side of two years ago, which was coached by now-PSV manager Fred Rutten. A home win for his side and PSV will be within one game of Twente. Ajax visits last place RKC and shouldn’t have too much trouble in spite of a few key suspensions.

Ajax would be clear favorites when looking at current form and the remaining schedule – both PSV and Twente still have to play renascent AZ. They need PSV to do their part on Saturday. If they don’t, Twente could very well have enough of a cushion to survive their tough home stretch. It would mean the second season in a row one of the Dutch traditional Top Three wouldn’t win the league. The last time that happened? The 1957/58 and 1958/59 seasons.

Shhhhh--It's a secret!

Shefield United manager Kevin Blackwell has been charged by the FA, along with his assistant Sam Ellis, for a rather unusual football misdemeanor:

FA regulation E25: Improper conduct in relation to language and/or behaviour towards Doping Control Officials.

The incident occured after the game at Plymouth Argyle on December 5th, so we have two questions:

A: Why did the FA wait so long?
B: What happened?

Its hardly a surprise if Kevin Blackwell dislikes the FA’s doping officers; his goalkeeper, Paddy Kenny, was banned for 9 months after testing positive for the stimulant ephedrine when it transpired that Kenny had just consumed the wrong kind of cold remedy (d’oh).

At the time, Blackwell considered the ruling harsh:

We know Paddy’s not a drugs cheat and they’ve accepted that. We think nine months for a mistake out of a medicine chest seems harsh. This case shows that before a player takes anything out of his medicine cabinet, he has to check it intently.  If you’ve got a bad chest and you take something to relieve pain it isn’t going to make you quicker, faster, taller.”

While Blackwell and Ellis have until the 18th of this month to appeal against the charge, the incident on December the 5th remains a complete mystery; As does the FA’s delay in bringing the charge for something that happened 3 months ago. There seems to be no information on what happened at Argyle and the Sheffield United press office played dumb when I called, claiming only to know as much as what the FA website actually stated. Surely that’s not the case…?

The FA will soon be sick of Blackwell as the ‘doping officer’ charge isn’t the only one hanging over his head; the FA have also charged him with improper conduct in relation to post-match comments made after United’s game against Nottingham Forest on February the 16th.

After the match, Blackwell criticized the referee, Nigel Miller, for sending striker Darius Henderson off for use of an elbow. He has until the 19th of March to appeal.

MTV reports that Alicia Keys and Black Eyed Peas will perform at the World Cup opening in South Africa. Shakira and her hips of wonder and John Legend also will perform. There also will be a couple of African artists, but the list is heavily American (Shakira is from Colombia so I wonder how she qualified to be there.)

Imma be honest. There is no chance the World Cup theme song will be good now.

I love Alicia Keys. She’s a good artist, and she seems genuinely happy about going:

“I’m very excited about going to Africa, and the fact that the World Cup is in Africa is unbelievable for me! To be a part of that is incredible.”

That said, I’m really tired of “New York State of Mind.” Her version and Jay-Z’s version. I just hope she plays something new at this thing. For those of you (Ned) with little or no musical knowledge, here’s a taste (lyrics are NSFW so I just posted a link):

New York State of Mind

Black Eyed Peas, on the other hand, are everything that’s wrong with pop music. Fake, gross, stunted, lowest common denominator. Ick. And yet they are the top act in the country the past 18 months. Sigh. They will get the World Cup theme, I’m sure. And it’ll be as shitty as that “Let’s Get it Started” song that was overplayed during the NBA playoffs a few years back. And I say all of this realizing that their Fergie is sometimes really hot. A taste (I posted the clean version):

It’s almost enough to make you pine for “World in Motion” to come back, isn’t it?

Drink whiskey and play like me!

Looks like we’re going to have to come up with a drinking game for matches including South Korea…

Pernod Ricard Korea announced that there will be a special whiskey named for Manchester United midfielder Ji-Sung Park.

Every time he makes an industrious run, do a shot! Every time he forces the opposition into a turnover, drink! Every time he sends a dangerous ball toward Rooney, drink twice!

This works with the general plan for my World Cup viewing anyway: watch drunk. Bottoms up!

Some decent action abounds after yesterday’s goalfest. Rafa and co will surely be shredded to pieces by the fast-attacking, aggressive play of Benfica (the thought of Glen Johnson trying to defend against Angel Di Maria gives me nightmares), while Hodgson’s side is rewarded for their epic comeback against Juventus with a match-up against German champs fallen on hard times, VfL Wolfsburg.

Elsewhere, Spain plays Spain, and something about Hamburg.

EUROPA LEAGUE QUARTER-FINAL DRAW
Fulham v. VfL Wolfsburg
Liverpool v. Benfica
Valencia v. Atletico Madrid
Hamburg SV v. Standard Liege