Friday, February 29, 2008

A few must win matches...

Though they are down a goal, I think Sevilla has a very good chance against Fenerbahçe SK next Wednesday. This story and the quotes from Poulsen do a good job of stating the obvious, "this will be another thriller." Though they were handed a loss in Turkey, they do have the two away goals, which can help a lot.

With their placement in La Liga, all of their remaining Liga matches will be just as important and almost as exciting as this next Champions League match against the Turkish side. Fifth place with only nine matches remaining, the Andalucians have little room for mistakes. I think a strong run of wins would make for a fitting tribute to fallen teammate Antonio Puerta.

Let's Go Sevilla!!

And speaking of a need for an end of season run, Fulham is in need of a really good run. As i've mentioned in the past, Fulham being relegated will look very bad for US soccer with their American heavy roster. Not that Americans are the only important players on the pitch, because they aren't, but surely the "court of public opinion" will have some more things to say (or at least think about) regarding US soccer should they fail to remain in the Premier League.

Death of a Team?

I really didn't want to write about this...but it seems I might as well.

One of the teams i'm on, an Over 30s men's league team, which has been around for about 10 years, may be dieing. The team has always been in the middle of the pack or lower since i've been with them (about 6 or 7 years). The way we are playing this season and the number of players that "had to drop out" may put us at the very bottom this season.

A few players, and our usual "manager," quit this past year due to lack of participation by other players and lack of winning. This never stopped me, as I grew up on several losing teams and learned to appreciate the game and just be happy if i felt like I put in my best possible match (not that I always do, but I try). This has cut down our core and the additional players have not stepped in as the rest of us hoped they would.

Granted, our team is probably one of the, if not THE, oldest team by average age. But to add to this "problem" we have several players that are coaches for local high school teams. This "winter season" is always the hardest to get and keep players for every match. In the past we've been lucky to get some of the coaches out to one or two of the 10 match season. Between the age thing and the lack of participation you can see why we are immediately at a disadvantage.

This brings me to our last match which happened Wednesday night. We were scheduled to play the other "bottom dweller" team, but a scheduling problem and a local accident which kept many teams from having a full roster switched things up on us. (There was an accident on one of the main roads which affected all other smaller roads. My drive to the fields usually takes about 20 minutes, it took me almost an hour and I got there about 5 minutes before the scheduled game time.) We ended up being matched with one of the better teams...who had a full team of six (did I mention this is a super-six league?) and we were forced to play with only five (the minimum you can play with and not forfeit the match).

I won't tell post the score here, mostly because I don't know what it was, I don't think anyone but the ref knew the score at the end of the match. The team we played probably scored ever two to three minutes or so. Obviously, it wasn't good. We did get in a couple goals. I had two chances myself but screwed up one of them and had a bit of bad luck on the other.

The first half it was kinda funny and we were mostly able to laugh about how horrible this was, originally thinking we were in for a good close match with one of the other bottom dwellers and ending up getting battered by one of the top teams. But, by the second half, we knew there was little we could do but hunker down and try to prevent scoring at will. We almost were able to do this, they definitely did not score as much in the second half (at least it didn't feel like it). And we were actually able to put in a couple goals mid-way through the half, so not being shut-out was also nice. But, by the time we got to this point we had lost our sense of humor and basically just wanted the match to be over.

At the end of the match, I spoke with our regular goalie about the team and its future (he's playing the field these days, AND SCORING, while he mends a sore/bruised hip). He agreed that this season (and this type of match) could signal the end of our team). This almost happened at the beginning of this season, when the day before registration ended our usual manager decided to tell us he was stepping down. We scrambled and scraped together another team (luckily combining with another small crew who were looking to start a completely new team). Around that time I questioned the feasibility of such a quickly gathered group, even asked around to see if any other teams were looking for players. Eventually I knew I would stick it out with our "usuals" or at least a handful of them and see how we would do.

Evidently, not so well. I think i'll be browsing again soon. Which is not fun on so many levels. Wish me luck.

Guessing this means our "international" adventure is no longer viable either. :(

Monday, February 25, 2008

Sevilla releases Kerzhakov...and other stuff.

"Alexander Kerzhakov's move from Sevilla to Dynamo Moscow has finally been confirmed by both sides, putting to rest weeks of speculation..."

And as a follow-up to the Fulham match I commented on earlier, looks like McBride understands the importance of the rest of their season just like the rest of us...

A pretty good soccer weekend...

We'll start with the Sevilla FC match against Zaragoza. Sadly I only got to watch the first half hour as I had to go to my own season finale'. But, from the hightlights and all the stories i've read Sevilla pretty much put on a clinic in their 5-0 win to Zaragoza. I'd still like to see the full match, even though I did get to see Fabiano add to his goal tally (leads la liga with 19 in all this season). This win moves them into 5th place in La Liga, just ahead of Espanyol by goal differential (both have 39 points but Sevilla has a +18 to Espanyol's +3 goal differential). Though I believe Sevilla are out of the running at this point, it was nice to see Barcelona gain on Real Madrid this weekend as the Madrid side lost, at home, to Getafe, who have only won half as many matches as Real Madrid. Go Barca! Sevilla's next match will be with Deportivo La Coruña on Saturday and then next Wednesday they play a Champion's League match in their second round with Fenerbahce. Go Sevilla!!

On to my match...Liam's United went into our final match of the Crazy 8s season undefeated (only one tie in the full season). So we were optimistically cautious going into this final match. As with last week's last minute win, the match was against a side with several pick-ups (if a team does not have enough players those that are not a regular team member for another side OR those that want to play in more than one match a day can "pick-up" and play for another side, teams are given a fair amount of players so they have enough to play a match). This can be bad as frequently it's the better players that want to play multiple games in a day (us "old" folks are lucky to finish a full single match). Plus we were missing our star scoring machine, Josh. This match ended up being pretty even and at the half we held the lead with the only score of the match (1-0). But as the second half started they began working their own scoring drives. In the end, the final was 2-2 and Liam's United remained undefeated. Not sure I can remember the last time I was on a team that went undefeated. Good times.

Next up is FC St Pauli...against Greuther Fürth, who are currently third in the 2nd Bundesliga (St. Pauli is currently 11th). With several players out either injured or due to yellow cards, St Pauli had many opportunities to score and capitalized on very few of them. Eventually they also tied their match at 1-1. I suppose a single point is better than none, but to start gaining some ground they really need to win some more matches. St. Pauli have tied their last four matches against FC Köln, Carl Zeiss Jena, TuS Koblenz and now against Greuther Fürth. This has left them in the middle of the pack in 11th place out of the 18 teams. Let's go St. Pauli!!! [Edit: Glad to hear the MillernTaler idea was squashed before it really got going.]

Addendum: Love this shot of Eto celebrating his (first?) hat-trick with his Barcelona teammates.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

If you can't beat an 80s pop act, who can ya beat?

Just watching the Fulham match, currently at the halftime break. I really hope they can win this match, at this point every single match is important to them getting out of the relegation group. It doesn't look good for the team with the most US national starters to be in the relegation group. Let's Go Fulham!

Silly, I know, but I find it funny that FSC has the teams listed as FULHAM 0 - 0 W HAM. The letters are just close enough that it looks like Fulham is playing Wham.

Still no score at the half, we shall see how the second half goes.

UPDATE: A controversial goal gives West Ham United the win (1-0). While i'm not a huge EPL fan, I hate to see this because with the number of US players (more than most other teams I believe), this can only add to the european (or maybe even the world's) opinion of the quality of players coming from the U.S. Until the world cup, i'll continue to look at the ELO Rankings.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

No EPL for USA.

For a minute there it looked as though the US (along with a few other non-European countries) might get an EPL (39th) match to visit them, spreading the good word, so to speak. But, alas, it is not meant to be, at least not for the 2010-2011 season.

The original plan was that the "39th" match would be added on to the regular-season schedule, and the twenty teams would be involved in 10 overseas matches at five sites, two per location. This initially sounded like a very fair deal, especially to someone that had recently looked into traveling to see a match or two in Europe and finding the expense to be much too much. My thoughts, "they're gonna come over here!?! Sure, i'm game!"

Turns out adding a single match to the already full schedule of 38 matches (each team 2 matches X the other 19 teams) throws things truly off balance. This couldn't work even though the adding of a match gets around the idea of the "locals" missing out on a home match. How would the new matches be chosen? What if the top two teams are only seperated by a point but the number two team plays the last place team and the number one team plays number three. Doesn't seem fair does it. Who decides which teams play which and when would they play?

To really balance things out they would probably need to actually balance the schedule by having the teams play each other three times instead of only twice. This would create a schedule of 57 matches and the season would last more than a full calendar year...well, I suppose they could shedule more than one match a week but with all the Champions League FA Cup matches... it's rather impossible.

I think another option would have to be a democratic one. Since the adding of a match is supposed to prevent any teams from missing a home match, maybe the teams/fans could volunteer to give away a home match for this endeavor. Obviously not all the teams are going to be up for this. There would need to be some sort of an incentive (discounts to an away match or maybe free tickets to another home match). I realize this idea is totally out in "left field" (forgive me for using that phrase), but with the extra money made on the overseas match it seems something could be dangled like a carrot. And if only a handful of teams go for this option, then one of their home matches could be played over seas, thus giving at least a few overseas markets a match at a stadium "near" their home.

So, any teams up for this, or any fans ready to volunteer their team? ...I didn't think so.

Should this 39th match (or some version of an overseas EPL match) somehow end up happening anyway, expect a bit more of this...

I was initially very much for this plan, and i'm not even a big EPL fan. But, I don't see how they could make this work without truly screwing up the regular season or without screwing over a team, or several, and its fans. Gotta say no go if you ask me. Not that you did, but i'm just sayin...

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A new blog for a seperate subject...

My original blog was set up to post about music. It quickly pulled in some politics and some soccer. The politics sometimes works, but I found that no one reading my music and politics posts were interested in my futbol rhetoric. So...thus begins, Futbol in the Shadows. I'll be discussing futbol/soccer in general but my favorites include the US National Teams, the Republic of Ireland's National Teams, FC Sevilla and FC St. Pauli. I'm also a fan of Fulham in the EPL but that's mostly because they've picked up so many US National players for their roster.

Anyway, on with the show...

The first post will be about this evening's Champions League match that Sevilla will be playing in Turkey. The Fenerbahce coach is already spreading some harsh words to the press about how they plan on taking control of their destiny with this match. Should be an interesting match...just wish I could watch it instead of keeping track of it online via matchcast. At least Sevilla is a lot closer to full strength with several players returning.

Let's Go Sevilla!!!

[Edit: So, I was able to "watch" the gamecast off and on while at work. It sounded like a nasty match (Fenerbahce had 4 yellow cards) and I guess their coach was correct...at least for this match. Fenerbahce ended up beating Sevilla 3-2 with a goal in the final three minutes of the match. We shall see how the next ten years works out for him. I certainly hope Sevilla has better control over the second match which will be at home.]

...(Not a fun first post.)...