Chelsea and Man U Top Face Each Other in Champions League Final

An all English final as Chelsea beats Liverpool to advance to the finals against Manchester United on May 21 in Moscow. The two teams are also on top the Premier League, and feature the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, and Michael Ballack. Needless to say, it should be a good game.

Interesting MLS Rumor

Thierry Henry to Seattle in 2009?

They Knew About Our Health Care and Still Defected?

Cuba's such a great place to live, that every Cuban wants to defect, or float across the ocean clinging to rafts made of cereal boxes and duct tape; just so they can tell us how fucking great their place is. Viral marketing...or something.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Five members of the Cuban Under-23 national soccer team left their hotel Tuesday night and and then Wednesday night two more players left the team, raising the possibility they all may be trying to defect.

Too bad for the team. They started Olympic Qualifying with a strong showing against the US playing them to a draw. Full article here.

Duke vs UNC Wasn't the Only Game Last Night

A great game, and a fair result last night as the US ties Mexico 2-2 in an international friendly soccer match that was played on quasi-home turf for the US at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Jozi Altidore had what could be considered a breakout game early in his international career. It's great to see a teenager from MLS develop so quickly into a star player.

I'm also looking forward to this friendly schedule:

Before the game, Sunil Gulati, president of U.S. Soccer, said the U.S. would play at Poland on March 26 and at Spain on June 4. The federation also is finalizing details for a June 8 game against "a top-five opponent" somewhere in the northeast. Currently, the top five ranked teams in the world are, in order, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Germany.

Ben's Friday Links

Pakistan is disintegrating in the aftermath of the assassination of Bhutto. The Washington Post

Kenyans go to the polls. Financial Times

Paul Krugman displays his grasp of simple economics on why trade with developing world hurts the U.S. economy, but in a free-market sort of way. The New York Times

Ethiopia and Eritrea are close to fighting another war, again. UN News

The MLS SuperDraft in Baltimore is quickly approaching, here is a look at the top defensive prospects. Soccernet

Soccer is so hot right now...

The MLS has solidified its presence as the number four sport in America. I am making this statement because NASCAR is not a sport and no one watches the NHL.

The Boston Globe ran story story on the state of the MLS citing that TV ratings are up by 25% and attendance passed the 2 million persons mark.

MLS Cup

Going on right now. Houston vs New England, re-match of last year's Cup. Tough to watch this game, being played in DC, without United. Should have been their year.

It's also difficult to watch any game with Eric Wynalda as the color guy for ESPN.

Weekend International Links

In attempt to broaden the appeal of To The People I have decided to post a story from the erudite USA Today. It looks as if President Musharraf will retain power in Pakistan pending final election results and a Supreme Court ruling.

China becomes the land of opportunity for Chadian citizens to dream about. The Washington Post

German Chancellor Merkel endorses 2010 World Cup preparations in South Africa. The Mail & Guardian

The Orange Bloc, lead by minx Yulia Tymoshenko, has gained control of the Ukrainian Parliament. The BBC

Mexican authorities seized 10 Tons of cocaine in Tampico. The LA Times

Stupid Coaching Move Proves to be...Stupid

Brazil knocks the US out of the World Cup, 4-0. Great decision by the US head coach, Greg Ryan to pull out the starting keeper who hadn't allowed the a goal in like 200 some-odd minutes in favor of 36 year old Brianna Scurry. I couldn't believe it when I heard the move yesterday on Sports Center. This was really, really, really stupid. I'm trying to think of how I compare this to another sport to give non-soccer fans an idea just how dumb it is to replace a goalkeeper mid-way through a tournament, when she is performing well no less, and I'm having difficulty thinking of a comparison situation. I guess it would be like changing quarterbacks before the Super Bowl, but I would actually say that doesn't even approach the level of stupidity that this takes.

They most likely would have lost anyways (I haven't seen the game yet) , but I guarantee that a change in keepers didn't help the situation.

Football Thoughts of the Day

Flags on cars...Necessary? I don't think so. And if you choose to put a team flag on your car, limit it to one. You look silly with one, fucking retarded with two. The people with three or more should be forcibly sodomized by a horse. I've always preached moderation folks.

ESPN replaced Micheal Irvin with Emmitt Smith for their in-studio crew. Replace one master wordsmith with another I suppose. Neither one of them has much luck getting a sentence out, but at least I could look forward to Irvin being blitzed out of his skull most Sundays at 12. Seriously, the guy was high as shit every Sunday at 12. Respect.

I have no idea who was the center official for the quarter-final Women's World Cup game this morning, Norway v China, but holy shit, she is one scary looking woman. Like a giant rat in a yellow jersey. I'm all about this Norwegian goalkeeper though. And yes, this is the same hard-hitting analysis that I offer for the Men's World Cup. Or as I like to call it, "The Real World Cup."

MLS Blogging

If you can, turn on the LA-NY game. Beckham--2 assists 9 min in, and an unreal enthusiasm at Giants Stadium. We also have a DC-Columbus game. Makes an afternoon drinking day that much better.

UPDATE: It's 45-4 in the Beckham game (if it was possiable for me to be ashamed, I'd be ashamed to say I'm taping the DC game) and I'm sitting here watching this great game in an electric setting thinking how great it would be if mass people in the States were into the game of soccer. Time to get drunk.

Beckham Watch

That didn't take too long. Beckham just put away his first goal, unsupringly unsuprisingly on a free kick, putting LA up by one over DC in the Supaliga Semifinal. Really good game if anyone gets the spanish station it's on.

Ehh, What Are Ya' Gonnadu?

Former child star Freddy Adu to Portugal:

LISBON (AFP) - Freddy Adu, the most recognisable name in the Major League Soccer, was on Monday poised to sign a five year deal with Portuguese side Benfica.

The Ghana-born Adu, 18, was twice named an MLS All-Star - in 2004 and 2006 - helped DC United capture the 2004 MLS Cup during his rookie season.

According to press reports here Benfica have already paid out 1.5 million euros to recruit the United states international.

Must have been a prepared copy from 2006. Most recognisable name in MLS? What about this guy named Beckham?

Pele insists David Beckham is more of a 'pop star' than a footballer and has urged the Los Angeles Galaxy superstar to focus totally on his sport if he is to succeed in the United States.

The former England captain wants to raise the profile of the game in the US after signing a five-year contract with the Galaxy, though his on-field impact has so far been limited by an ankle injury suffered on national team duty last month.

Beckham hasn't played since the 12-odd minutes against Chelsea. I'm gonna say that drugs are to blame for the headline. A more hopeful, domestic article on Adu here.

Selfish Monday Morning Sports Post

Here's what I'm reading this morning:

D.C. United looks sluggish in their first MLS game, losing to the Rapids. Note: It was below 30 deg and the guys have looked otherwise prepared throughout pre-season competition.

United President and CEO will be doing a live chat at the Post, starting at 11:00am.

Fascinating article, again in the Post, chronicling the off-season moves of United, and their Latin American recruiting efforts. The whole article is worth a read if you're an American soccer fan, but since I'm guessing I'll get no more than two clicks through this link, I want to provide the money snippets here.
On the upbeat attitude of the recently acquired Brazilian, Fred:

"He understands the American culture, he's intrigued by it -- all he wants to talk about is the Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's." Kasper said, laughing. "But his goal was to get a player here."

On the Europeans:

"Generally we feel the European market is grossly overvalued for what the players deliver," club president Kevin Payne said. "We have found that Brazilians and Argentines have a great ethic. They are not mercenaries. It appears a number of European players have come here for the payday. They tend to come with the idea that the league is not very good."

He's exactly right about focusing on Latin America. The talent a MLS team can grab from Europe will either be -- a) Mediocre men for the back or b) Old and mediocre men for up front. And you will be paying a premium in both cases. As for the MLS blowing attitude. I'm past getting peeved when confronted with it. Most cases, the critic hasn't even watched a league game, he just feels justified in making the increasingly non-trendy statement that American soccer is bad. It can be ugly at times, but it is far from shitty soccer.

Ever wonder what happened to the "Jewish Jordan"? He was all the rage in the Baltimore-D.C. area a few years back. No, still don't care? Yeah, me neither. But the Sun did and decided to send one of their "foreign reporters" (I thought they had canned them all?) to Israel to do a piece on Tamir Goodman and his fall from basketball glory.

Update: This post has some edits to it; due to the fact that I fail to be competent enough to use the blogger spell check. Should I be embarrassed that I can't spell "Israel" and "throughout" without the aide of spell check? Perhaps. Then again I also thought I had pleased a large lady the other night, when in fact it turns out she was merely sleeping....and snoring loudly. So whatever, I'll try to master the art of spell check.