Not much to say about this transfer except good work United. There was really no reason for a big club not to sign Mike Owen and kudos to Ferguson for seeing the potential. Hopefully he can stay fit.
For all their ability, money, and success footballers have to be some of the dumbest athletes in the world, especially the ones headed to Real Madrid. Kaka escapes the quickly sinking Rossoneri and follows his father and the Lord to another rickety vessel, Ronaldo driven by vanity leaves the success drenched Manchester United to fulfill a life long dream of his(and his whispering-in-the-ear mother) to one day wear the Whites of Real Madrid, Benzema reflects on a decidedly mediocre season with Lyon and eases his pain with a move to the Bernabeu, concluding that it will be much easier to score goals in Spain than it is in England, and finally Little Frank Ribery, fearing that his career will come to nothing if he stays in the provincial Bundesliga, stumbles out of a German beer garden arm and arm with Florentino Perez and declares his interest to join Los Merengues (where he will sink to the inescapable depths of the millionaires bench only to turn up a few years later at Boulonge-Sur-Mer FC). All these athletes are franchise players who have turned their back on having clubs built around them to become cogs in the wheel of what is basically a football marketing franchise more concerned with selling jerseys than winning trophies. These players are already Galacticos, and time at Real Madrid will only diminish their stratospheric stature.
According to ESPN's Soccernet, there is no professional soccer being played anywhere in the world today. This is a profound and rare occurrence when you consider the number of multi-tiered professional leagues strewn across the globe, except for the fact that its wrong. Today is actually the first day of football's most coveted club tournament, The Champions League. The Champions of liliputian mediterranean island Malta, Hibernians, will do battle at home against Montenegrin League champions, Mogren in the first match of a home and away fixture. Both sides have a lot to prove and this match will kick start the pursuit of European Champions Barcelona. While the Goliaths of Europe vacation and slumber the David's are sharpening their swords and hatching cunning upset strategies. Watch out Barcelona.
As for Soccernet, maybe they chose not to include this match in their daily lineup out of scorn for their former lover, The UEFA Champions League, who recently parted company with ESPN in favour of the younger, football oriented Fox Soccer Channel.
At long last Javier El Conejito Saviola has been released from the needy, talent-hording clutches of Real Madrid. After two years of wasting away on the bench under a handful of coaches he is headed to Benfica. Hopefully this will be an opportunity for him to settle down, regain form and earn a spot on the Argentine bench for the 2010 Cup. Since being shipped out of Barcelona after three successful double digit scoring seasons, where he introduced the Catalans to a darting, pacey style of play later mastered by Lionel Messi, Saviola has foundered. Unsuccessful spells at Sevilla and Monaco somehow landed him at Real Madrid where he never once seemed like priority and subsequently fell out of favour with the Argentinian National team and its been downhill ever since. He is a great example of why really good (not great) players should never move to clubs like Real Madrid. While winning trophies is important in a players career getting regular playing time is more important. Two years spent fighting for a position when you are in the your mid-twenties is never worth it, even if it is at one of the biggest clubs in the world(especially when they dont win any trophies). A tough lesson learned by the diminutive Argentine but there is still time for El Conejito (the rabbit) to dazzle before the slowly creeping tortoise that is his career catches up to him.
Jacko prancing around Craven Cottage in 1999 before a Second Division (now Championship) fixture between Fulham and Wigan.
Yesterday was a massively important day for American soccer. We beat Spain 2-0. It was huge. It was so huge that it completely over-shadowed the infinitely cool Steve Nash Lower East Side Manhattan Pick-up Soccer Match involving NBA stars and European football phenoms that supports his charity Football For Good. You can read about it here, but it doesn't exactly translate. For a charity event it is poorly promoted but maybe that is their intention?
If you think Chelsea's new musculature'd home jersey is ugly you will most likely feel the same way about their new away kit. It looks a shirt worn by a kid with a hyper safety conscious mom. You know, the type of mom who affixes reflective strips to all her child's shirts, jackets and pants. Disturbingly, it also looks like something PM Dawn or one of his back-up dancers might wear (stop pretending you don't know who PM Dawn is...set adrift on memory bliss...). I blame Adidas.
