I assume you’re talking about that American game? You know, the one where only one or two players’ feet ever come in contact with the ball?
As someone who is a fan of proper (British-invented) football, doesn’t the American game seem like a real misnomer to you?
Maybe, maybe not. It has been agreed and is intended to go live in two years. There are also rules about suing FIFA and UEFA (ie it’s members can’t) - so who knows?
[owlstretchingtime** you may want to pick up this t-shirt or maybe this one.
Interesting that the professional leagues in the U.S. not a real big deal is made out of homegrown versus international players and definitely no one really cares if the local team features local players.
BTW, can I get in that virtual beer bet, too. I like Spurs, actually, but I think that there is no reason to believe Bolton cannot finish above them.
I’ll simply refer to ShibbOleth’s post about why I prefer the EPL to other leagues.
Yes it is. The 1982 World Cup was the first to be broadcast on network TV in the US and I was absolutely enthralled with Dino Zoff.
It’s a shame he quit as national team coach. If he had stayed on, the Azzurri might not use the “get a goal and defend for 87 minutes” approach. He was actually a pretty attack-minded coach.
We Yanks like our English brothers ;). I think that’s a good deal of it, actually. They seem more like us than the Spanish, Italian, German, or French leagues. Also the EPL is far more attack minded. Spain has some exciting football as well, but not to the same degree. Serie A, as mentioned, gets really bad with diving and too much defensive focus, the Bundesliga is very dull (at least to me). I haven’t seen enough of Ligue 1 in France to comment on that.
And, of course, only the EPL has Alan Shearer… though he’s gone soon :(.
Blame the Brits ;). There was association football (where the term ‘soccer’ comes from) and rugby football. The American variety evolved from rugby football, and we droped the ‘rugby’ part.
No, “proper football” means what you said; the other is American football (at least in discussions that don’t exclusively include Americans, then it’s soccer and football). I do like American football as well, I guess I’m a bit over enthusiastic on sport. But given the two, I’d watch a good EPL game over an NFL playoff game in most cases. Okay, in reality I’ll flop the channels back and forth.
Gangster Octopus, there is occasionally talk of MLS allotting geographies to the teams. Problem right now is that the MLS is too small (12 teams next season?) for this to make much sense. I’d like to see MLS form a partnership with the lower leagues and use a farm system similar to baseball. I also think it would eventually be interesting for them to adopt promotion and relegation. That would probably get Buffalo or Rochester a “top level” team at some point and send another side down. But they can’t do that for some while, maybe if they ever get north of 20-25 clubs.
In the near term I like what MLS has done with Chivas and would like to see something like that in Miami, maybe in conjunction with a Brazillian or Argentine club. They also need to get into Atlanta at some point down the road.
Why not - I can buy all posters a virtual beer. I have unlimited virtual money.
Re Bolton - it’s not beyond the realms of possibilty but I think not.
Here’s spurs last games: with my rash predictions beside them
H Sat 26 Feb Fulham PREM. 15:00 Win
March 2005
A Sat 05 Mar Southampton PREM. 15:00 Win
A Wed 16 Mar Charlton Athletic PREM. 20:00 Win
H Sat 19 Mar Manchester City PREM. 15:00
April 2005 Win
A Sat 02 Apr Birmingham City PREM. 15:00 Draw
H Sat 09 Apr Newcastle United PREM. 15:00 Draw
A Sat 16 Apr Liverpool PREM. 15:00 Lose
H Wed 20 Apr West Bromwich Albion PREM. 19:45 Win
A Sat 23 Apr Arsenal PREM. 15:00 lose (bastards!)
H Sat 30 Apr Aston Villa PREM. 15:00 Win
May 2005
A Sat 07 May Middlesbrough PREM. 15:00 Draw
H Sat 14 May Blackburn Rovers Win
24 points.
Now do the same with BWFC…
Yeah, but they need some better team names: “Real Salt Lake”? WTF! ‘Real’ is a prefix for Spanish teams that were royally chartered. How does that make any sense for a Salt Lake team?
Oh, and I agree on the Atlanta team :D.
I know we’re both speaking English but I can’t understand what this means at all.
They may occasionally talk about it, but no one is really clamoring for it and I wouldn’t advocate it. The way players get better is by playing against the best. Back in the early and middle part of the previous century England fancied themselves best in the world and rarely played international football. But then they met up with Hungary and Russia and other nations and soon realized that they were needing to compete against the rest of the world if they were going to keep up. I don’t see it as a big deal that Arsenal didn’t have any English players, then again I am not English, so I can’t really say. But I would think that you want the best players to make the best league, regardless of nationality.
I didn’t even notice you were in Decatur… I went to Towers HS for a couple of years.
Owl: The MLS is currently run as a sort of cooperative to keep from hitting some of the same pitfalls of the defunct NASL. NASL started out okay, but quickly spent themselves out of existence. They made the mistake of spending heavily on former (mostly) European stars.
I don’t know the whole MLS history, since I was either out of their markets or out of the country, but they had a few more teams, once upon a time they had one in Tampa, where I live now, but that one got “contracted” for some reason (local football folks think the league has it out for us, we had very good attendance in the old NASL days). Right now there are MLS Clubs in Boston, NY, DC, Ohio, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Jose (near San Francisco), Chicago, Denver and Dallas. So most of the largest US population centers plus a couple of smaller ones. The league has expanded by two, one in Salt Lake City and a second club in Los Angeles: Chivas. Chivas is a very popular club in the Mexican league, and the thought is to draw LA area Mexicans to MLS by having an affiliate club here. Chivas gets a bigger chance to market to LA, and I assume there will be other associations. SLC club is a bit of a mystery to me, I would have thought Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, etc., would be better places to put a new club.
In baseball there is a “farm system” for developing players. These are smaller, lower level clubs that play in smaller towns. There is no promotion or relegation, other than for the players. So a player who has promise might work his way up from “Single A” through “Triple A” before they get to the Major Leagues. Likewise a MLB player might get “sent down” to Pawtucket to work on his game if he’s having some problems. This also gives fans a bit of a tie to follow player’s careers and development. This is similar, in some respects, the English development system.
In MLS currently they have a mixed bag. Some of their players are drafted directly from high school (about 17-18 years old). Some are taken from college. So if a player is not spectacular (by our standards 
) at 17 then he’s going to go to college, 9 out of 10 times, before moving up to the pros. The university track is how American football works. Which is in itself a bit of an anomaly, since many really good American football players are dreadful students. But back to real football. So the onus is on the American University system to develop many of our future soccer players. This, to me, is a big problem with our development system. US Soccer Federation recognizes this so has created a “Soccer Academy” to tab and develop our best young players. But it’s impossible to find or scout them all (we have about 20-30 million soccer players in youth and adult leagues here, expect about 25-40% of that number as young male players ages 5-19 years old), so a lot of young talent falls through the cracks. I’d like to see where some of the lower league clubs start to train and develop there local, younger players. As far as I know this doesn’t happen to any wide extent.
(And now I have to go do something for work, so that’s about it for now…)
Ok, guess I just misinterpreted you. And it really is good to see some Americans who love the beautiful game.
Would you guys think the idea of a derby weekend would be a good idea? I mean what if one weekends league games were made up primarily of derby contests? In the same week you could have: ManU/ManC, Liverpool/Everton, Arsenal/Spurs, Portsmouth/Southampton, Villa/Brum, Newcastle/Middlesborough, Chelsea/Fulham, Crystal Palace/Charlton, Blackburn/Bolton (?), and Norwich/WBA sine they have to play someone. Think of the insanity!
Man, Everton are going to have to pull a stellar performance out of the bag tomorrow if they want to see off Man U. Everyone is injured! Ferguson has a bad back, Beattie is suspended along with Cahill, Osman and McFadden are doubtful.
And we haven’t beaten Man U for ten years, in any competition. And the dude with the face of a horse is making a return from injury for this game.
In light of the foregoing, I am calling a clear Everton win. 
Consider:
Last time we beat the Mancs was in the 95 FA cup final. Its been down hill since then, but under David Moyes the blues are emerging from a decade of doom and gloom and what better way to mark this rennaissance (and add to Man U’s chinese water torture decline) then by dumping them out of the cup.
Rooney’s presence on the pitch will rile the usually contemplative and cerebral Goodison crowd into a frenzy of Man U hatred that will stir the blood and stiffen the sinews of each and every one of Everton’s eleven.
Everton’s pitch currently resembles a ploughed field. When Ronaldo tries a stepover he’ll risk breaking an ankle.
Its the champions league next week, and the annual Man U “Oh so nearly” performance will be all that Alex F is thinking about.
2-1 to Everton.
Sorry, I just moved down here 2.5 years back to go to Emory Law, so I’m not sure where that HS is. I’m originally from (New) Jersey… the shore. So I’m a Metrostars fan ;).
Btw, the act that led Beattie to get suspended was the DUMBEST thing I’ve ever seen on a pitch! Like how was that an intelligent idea, James? He should know far far better!
Myler, it’ll be interesting if Rooney plays. Pity Beattie won’t be playing as well, as I’d love to hear the Blues fans attempting to sing “There’s only one James Beattie” when Shrek nets one!
We used to have them - Boxing day and New Years day. Once upon a time teams and fans travelled to away games on the trains - the infamous “football specials”. These didn’t run on these bank holidays so the fixture compilers would pit teams against their local rivals.
This doesn’t happen any more for two reasons: Firstly these dates tend to sell out in any case, so the clubs are effectively “wasting” another future sell-out and secondly, the police can’t provide the necessary man power to deal with the crowds. (If you are of a criminal bent, the day spurs play arsenal at home is a good day to carry out your crime, every policeman in london, hertfordshire and essex is in the Seven Sisters area)
I never thought I’d be relieved to get a draw aginst a team at the bottom of Division two (I’ll never call it “The Championship”). I was suprised to see Chelsea go out too.