March 2013
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Le Toux!
As I sat watching the first half of the match between Philly and KC, I wondered if my spectator luck had changed. For the last month I’ve felt like I’ve cursed the teams that I’ve chosen to root for. Very rarely does a team I want to win actually accomplish the task. Philadelphia came out of the gate strong and pressed KC who didn’t appear to be prepared for this match. Le Toux scored an early...
Opening Day
It’s halftime in the Stoke, West Ham match as I write this and even though the match is being broadcast live I have the strange feeling I’ve seen this game before, except the last time it was in Fulham and it was Berbatov who scored just at the stroke of 45. What does it matter if Stoke wins? I still get the experience of watching football, even if the quality is lacking. And what concerns me...
February 2013
6 posts
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Wide Canvas
Yesterday it was like Christmas. Both new issues of Howler and XI arrived yesterday. Literary magazines that I read every single word. Howler is a work of art. Big, expansive. A wide canvas. Pictures, drawings. Good writing. XI is compact like the Paris Review. It’s the Paris Review of football.
I suffered from a soccer hangover yesterday. Instead if the Champions League, or MLS...
Stoked for Shea
Last March (or was it the end of February?) I spent the afternoon in a pub in Boston watching the US play Italy in a friendly. This is the way I remember it: Shea comes on in the second half and gets out wide on the left side and tries for a moment of magic. With his toe he flips the ball over the head of the defender and darts inside toward the goal. That’s when Franz (who bleeds Arsenal...
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Fighting for your right to party →
Uli Hesse writes about the efforts of German fans to organize and make their desires known to officials and owners of football associations, clubs, and television broadcasters who increasing view fans merely as customers and not the true lifeblood of real soccer clubs.
January 2013
49 posts
“These fans are, literally, the lifeblood of the team. Management, players,...”
– from “Soccer int he Crossroads of America” by Tom Dunmore, posted on Indy Pro Soccer, 18 January 2013
“Nonetheless, the FIFA inquiry makes Qatar more vulnerable to criticism of its...”
– “FIFA reviews Qatar’s World Cup bid” by James M. Dorsey on The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer
Celebrity
When I started gathering notes for what I thought would become a small book (longish essay) on the Cosmos, I realized quickly that the historical narrative of the Cosmos and of the NASL was really the story of Pelé. The accounts of the Cosmos in Gavin Newsham’s and Clive Toye’s books (and even Shep Messing’s autobiography) are really books about how Pelé came to America and changed the game. ...
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“When we sit down and put together the entire league schedule, one of the top...”
– MLS executive vice president Dan Courtemanche quoted in “Will Major League Soccer ever have major league television ratings?” by By Seth Vertelney for Goal.com.
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Diving
After returning home from my team’s futsal victory over Rush Academy, I settled in with a beer to watch Liverpool, Norwich City. Luis Suárez was in the news again this week for admitting (what everyone already knew) that he dove in the box in a match against Stoke City last October.
Liverpool Manager, Brendan Rodgers had this reaction:
I think it is wrong… Certainly from our...
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Delays and Obsessions
Since I have no cable or satellite TV, I rely on the Internet to stream soccer onto my high definition widescreen monitor. Now with high speed Internet, the images are crisp, detailed, vital. Even though on-demand, streaming content is how we will all experience “TV” in the future, the old fashioned model of channels and viewing packages is still the mode that the big...
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Footy Geography
The cable guy had our high speed Internet up and running in time for the opening match of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations between host South Africa and Cape Verde in their Barcelona-esque jerseys emblazoned with stars on the shoulders like 11 Catalan generals. The Cape Verde players even had Spanish-sounding names like Mendes. Really Portuguese names, since that’s the official language of...
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Rough Riders
The USL PDL schedule for 2013 was released yesterday. The Long Island Rough Riders play in the Atlantic Division of the PDL. The season starts in May, so there’s plenty of time get season tickets.
Last year, I started following the Rough Riders and was impressed with the level of play, both the men’s and women’s teams. Most of the players are college kids keeping their form...
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Down Stream
This morning I’m waiting for the cable company to come and install high speed internet. I’ve been getting by for nearly 10 years with DSL with a max download rate of 1Mbps which (believe it or not) is good enough to watch streaming soccer in pristine clarity… half the time. When the bit rate drops the image gets a little fuzzy, but it’s no worse than the pre-HD days. ...
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“Look, Long Island is a hot bed for soccer. There are soccer leagues, tens of...”
– Seamus O’Brien, quoted in “New York Cosmos explain reasoning behind ambitious stadium project” by Alex Labidou for Goal.com, 17 January 2013
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Cosmos Stadium Made Us More Attractive to MLS →
In Brian Lewis’s column in the NY Post, Cosmos Chairman, Seamus O’Brien is quoted as saying:
I assume it makes us a more compliant MLS owner, doesn’t it?… I’m not going to comment on MLS, on MLS’ plans and reasons why MLS is going to push ahead in Flushing. But I know our agenda is to be as competitive as you can on and off the field, and you need to have your own facility to...
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More on the Cosmos Belmont Stadium Proposal →
Grant Wahl adds some details in his SI.com article about the proposed stadium. Wahl quotes Seamus O’Brien, Cosmos Chairman, as saying, “From the ownership. We’ve got the resources to fund this stuff. That’s the first bridge we had to cross. That wasn’t an issue. We’ve called a fantastic team of architects, engineers and master planners in a short period of...
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Fan Reactions to Cosmos Belmont Stadium Proposal
It’s been a little more than a month since we’ve heard anything from the Cosmos owners (other than that coach Gio Savarese will be attending the 2013 NASL Combine to be held 1-3 February in Fort Lauderdale), but today the news leaked (?) out that the new owners have submitted a proposal to develop a privately funded $400 million stadium in Elmont near the Belmont racetrack.
This plan...
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Cosmos Submit Stadium Plan for Belmont →
The web site Cosmos Country broke the story that the Cosmos have submitted a plan for a $400 million stadium in Belmont, only 15 miles from the Flushing / Queens location of the proposed MLS stadium and possible future home of NY2 (the code name for the MLS’s “second” NY franchise). The story was confirmed on Big Apple Soccer.
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The Hemingway Experiment →
Will Parchman takes us to an away match. Worth reading.
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“In the twentieth century, closed US leagues of independent and unfettered clubs...”
– Ted Westervelt in “Doing the Same Things Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results” on SoccerReform.us
Filed away for future reference. The polemic is followed by a timeline which includes a number of tidbits about the Cosmos.
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“Pele’s the sort of player who makes you laugh uncontrollably, because no...”
– Brian Phillips in “Celebrity Entropy” on Grantland, listed on A Football Report’s “The Best Football Writing in 2012.”
I’ve watched two of the matches Pelé played with the Cosmos and while he displayed flashes of brilliance, he was far from what he was in his...
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“… recently, I began to question whether the EPL, the MLS, or the NASL...”
– “Soccer Culture” on Diary
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“Where English clubs boast century long blue collar histories, the US must...”
– “Saving the Soul of Soccer” on Parlor City Football.
This is a good point and the article identifies a problem that has been bugging me lately: namely, that we’re (in the US) making similar mistakes to the ones made back in the 70s and 80s, mistakes exemplified by the Cosmos. The...
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“[Luis Suárez] has seen his club lose to Antonio Valencia’s theatrical...”
– Akrash Sharma in “Luis Suarez is the villain Liverpool needed” on Goal.com.
I’m working my way through A Football Report’s “The Best of Football Writing in 2012” and this title stuck out given the controversy over Suárez’s handball in the FA Cup tie against...
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MAD Open Cup Berths
The Long Island Rough Riders won’t be playing in the US Open Cup this year. The Mid-Atlantic Division (MAD) of the Eastern Conference of the USL PDL has two berths this year. One goes to the Ocean City Nor’easters who get in by virtue of having the best record in the Eastern Conference (13-3-0). Thus, the MAD’s second place side, Reading United AC (11-2-3), will enter as the...
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Against Modern Football →
This is a new web magazine whose purpose is “to put focus on the massive business who scars our beloved game. We consider our work as a serious media which will mainly feature interviews with ultras and football fans around Europe.”
Is there an American equivalent? Is the MLS an embodiment of “modern football” or something different? Will the NASL become the a playground...
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“[Huw] Jenkins [Swansea City chairman] ascribes the loss-making financial...”
– David Conn, “The ‘different route’ that lifted Swansea from doldrums to delirium” in The Guardian, Tuesday 8 January 2013
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“The club’s actions over the past year have led me to realise we are chasing very...”
– Glen Wilson in “Out of Love - On finding it hard to follow your club” posted at Popular Stand on 12 July 2012.
This is one of the articles listed on A Football Reports’ list of “The Best of Football Writing in 2012.” I’ve selected this one paragraph as a teaser,...
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Sportsmanship
After Luis Suárez handled a ball into the net over the weekend in an FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Mansfield Town (the handled ball and resulting goal turned out to be the difference in Liverpool’s 2-1 victory), I’ve been reading about the aftermath of the handball and the arguments by both sides about what went wrong. And everyone seems to agree that something did go wrong. Balls...
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“A quick Twitter straw poll – “Would you be happy for your team to change...”
– “Does every kit have its price?” by John Ashdown, posted Wednesday, 9 May 2012.
The article is about how the Championship side Cardiff City agreed to change its colors and crest in exchange for an infusion of cash. The side ended up with the Welsh red dragon which is much better than a...
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Jen Chang leaves Liverpool after PR own goal with... →
I know this is an old story, but the word on the street is that Jen Chang has a new job with the Cosmos. A move which doesn’t exactly help my crusade as a self-appointed apologist for the retreaded club. However, one of the commenters on a fan forum suggested that there might be some entertainment value in following the soap opera of the new Cosmos. Not too dissimilar from being a bemused...
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The Haters
In my diligent search to connect with other Cosmos fans, I’ve lurked (even posted a few times) on various fan message boards. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but there are folks out there who really don’t like the Cosmos and express their extreme dislike in seemingly aggressive ways and using the language of violence.
Twenty years ago when I first experimented with...
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Liverpool's Brendan Rodgers stands by Luis Suárez... →
While following Liverpool, I’ve been keeping an eye on Suárez’s hands. He’s put them to (good?) use over this last weekend in an FA Cup match against Mansfield Town. I was curious how Brendan Rodgers would handle the fallout and on the whole I think he said what he had to: blaming the referees for not catching the handle ball. Players and coaches are paid to win football...
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Obsessions
Just before the New Year, I started compiling my New York Cosmos timeline. The exercise began as an aid to piecing together the Cosmos’ history from 1970 to the present, and (in part) to see if there was any continuity in “the club” from 1985 (when the club was declared DOA) to 2010 (when honorary president Pelé announced the club’s return under new ownership).
I expanded...
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“Following soccer is like being in love with someone who’s (a) gorgeous,...”
– Brian Phillips on soccer and boredom for Grantland.
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“… I’m increasingly of the mind that our no votes should be more proactive....”
– Lanterne Rouge aka Rob Langham of The Two Unfortunates
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The Final Whistle: Total Footblog Has Hung Up Its... →
For anyone who has ever written about a subject they love for an online audience, you’ll appreciate what Christopher Dobens has to say and what he has accomplished in the last two years. After two and half years and 408 articles, Mr Dobens is calling it quits. Farewell! His voice will be missed.
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Mets interested in bringing Major League Soccer to... →
MLS officials say the idea is a ‘nonstarter’; still in talks with city to build $300 million stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
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“… just because Sela Sport owns the Cosmos doesn’t mean they own the...”
– Cesar Diaz on Latino Sports 