The EPL starts August 16th!!!!!
Just in time for the return of Coach Lasso:
Best line:
"I think I literally have a better understanding of who killed Kennedy then I do what is off-sides."
The end of this story is that great feeling that sports can give you
http://grantland.com/features/deandre-yedlin-world-cup-2014-newfound-fame-transfer-to-european-club-mls-soccer/#fn-2
don't just jump to the end, though - you need to read the whole thing
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 13, 2014, 07:52:34 AM
The end of this story is that great feeling that sports can give you
http://grantland.com/features/deandre-yedlin-world-cup-2014-newfound-fame-transfer-to-european-club-mls-soccer/#fn-2
don't just jump to the end, though - you need to read the whole thing
Great article, especially the cautioning against getting to excited by a player to soon.
Looks like Yedlin is going to Tottenham
QuoteTottenham Hotspur have reached an agreement for the transfer of United States international DeAndre Yedlin from the Seattle Sounders, the Premier League club announced on Wednesday.
Yedlin, 21, signed a 4-year deal but will remain with the Sounders on loan at least through the end of the Major League Soccer season in December. Tottenham said he would join the London club ahead of the 2015-16 season.
Spurs will pay MLS a $4 million transfer fee, according to ESPN's Taylor Twellman, 75 percent of which will go to the Sounders because of Yedlin's status of a homegrown player.
http://www.espnfc.us/story/1984357/tottenham-announce-transfer-of-seattle-sounders-deandre-yedlin
So who else will be parked in front of the TV tomorrow morning for this. (At least in the US)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1187.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fz397%2FSoccerDJ04%2F10435005_950158274454_6619204034077_zps8da1e27d.jpg&hash=a59e20650f4d2f3360cb86f16df7c4fc051d6a91)
I will be for a little while, but Bayonet Jr has a tournament tomorrow afternoon and we have a Great Dane Rescue event in the morning. So that limits how much watching I get to do this weekend
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 15, 2014, 11:36:14 AM
I will be for a little while, but Bayonet Jr has a tournament tomorrow afternoon and we have a Great Dane Rescue event in the morning. So that limits how much watching I get to do this weekend
Bummer. Good luck to Jr at the tourney.
It begins!
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And ManU is already losing! w00t!
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 16, 2014, 07:32:21 AM
And ManU is already losing! w00t!
And they lost!! What a great start to the season!!!!
A sloppy win for Arsenal but we will take it!
How did the tournament go Brant??
I had my teams 1st preseason practice last night. Lots of rust to knock off and conditioning to do but I'm exited to be coaching another season! I have a freshman who is very talented and plays for an elite club team in the state. While I am exited to she came out I found out last night it is going to be a fight between me and her club coach on practices. They don't have any games during our season but he doesn't even want her even playing for a highschool team and just to train with his older team. That is going to be an interesting one to figure out.
1-0-1
It wasn't a true tournament, just a day full of "friendlies"
The real tournament is this weekend. 4 games, all round-robin. All winnable and with their actual coach back.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 19, 2014, 06:48:33 AM
1-0-1
It wasn't a true tournament, just a day full of "friendlies"
The real tournament is this weekend. 4 games, all round-robin. All winnable and with their actual coach back.
Sounds good. I always loved playing in tournaments when I was playing for my club team during middle and high school. Now that I am coaching they are a bit stressful but still fun for the team :)
you know what a triangle has that ManU doesn't?
3 points
:)
Quote from: bayonetbrant on August 30, 2014, 08:37:53 AM
you know what a triangle has that ManU doesn't?
3 points
:)
... snicker ...
interesting article here about the best US players from each state
http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/the91stminute/2014/09/the-best-soccer-players-ever-from-every-state-in-america/
Considering how far out Columbus was from even making the playoffs back in June, the fact that they are mathematically alive for the 3-seed and avoiding the play-in game in the last weekend is pretty freakin' incredible.
Go Crew!
MLS playoffs are all set, with Columbus going from 7th place in the summer, to the 3-seed and a bye into the semis thanks to the perfect storm of results on the last matchday
EAST Conference Semifinals
DC vs NY/KC winner
NE Revs vs Crew
WEST Conference Semifinals
SEA vs DAL/VAN winner
LA vs RSL
Let's go CREW!
soccer humor found on the web...
"Two Andy Gorams, there's only two Andy Gorams" - Kilmarnock fans to the Rangers keeper after he had been diagnosed with mild schizophrenia
"I've told the players we need to win so that I can have the cash to buy some new ones." - Chris Turner, Peterborough manager, before League Cup Quarter Final, 1992
"I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." - George Best
"If we played like that every week we wouldn't be so inconsistent." - Bryan Robson, Man Utd, 1990
"That's great, tell him he's Pele and get him back on." - John Lambie, Partick Thistle manager, when told a concussed striker did not know who he was.
"I was saying the other day, how often the most vulnerable area for goalies is between their legs." - Andy Gray, Sky Sports Commentator
Richard Keys: "Well Roy, do you think that you'll have to finish above Manchester United to win the league?" Roy Evans: "You have to finish above everyone to win the league"
"It's now 1-1, an exact reversal of the score on Saturday." - Radio 5 Live
"Football today, it's like a game of chess. It's all about money." - Newcastle United Fan, Radio 5 Live
"I'm not a believer in luck but I do believe you need it." - Alan Ball
"Merseyside derbies usually last 90 minutes and I'm sure today's won't be any different." - Trevor Brooking
"Dumbarton player Steve McCahill has limped off with a badly cut forehead" - Tom Ferrie
"And I honestly believe we can go all the way to Wembley unless somebody knocks us out." - Dave Bassett, Manager
"And Arsenal now have plenty of time to dictate the last few seconds." - Peter Jones
"What makes this game so delightful is that when both teams get the ball they are attacking their opponents goal." - Jimmy Hill
"Newcastle, of course, unbeaten in their last five wins." - Brian Moore
"Strangely, in slow motion replay, the ball seemed to hang in the air for even longer." - David Ackfield
"What I said to them at half time would be unprintable on the radio." - Gerry Francis
"If there weren't such a thing as football, we'd all be frustrated footballers." - Mick Lyons
"He's one of those footballers whose brains are in his head." - Derek Johnstone, BBC TV Scotland, 1994
"I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel." - Stuart Pearce, 1992
Jimmy Hill: "Don't sit on the fence Terry, what chance do you think Germany has got of getting through?" Terry Venables: "I think it's fifty-fifty"
"There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch" - Ron Atkinson lauds Gordon Strachan, 39
"If I walked on water, my accusers would say it is because I can't swim." - Berti Vogts, Germany coach
"You don't have to have been a horse to be a jockey." - Arrigo Sacchi, Italy coach, defending a meagre playing record
"The only way we will be going to Europe is if the club splash out and take us all to Eurodisney." - Dean Holdsworth, Wimbledon
"If the players want to make it hard for me, I am happy to make it twice as hard for them." - Wendy Toms, the first female referee to officiate in a professional game.
"I think having Wasps around here as well gives us that little buzz around the place." - Ray Wilkins on the QPR-Wasps groundshare
It took a lot of bottle for Tony to own up." - Ian Wright on the Arsenal captain's confession to alcoholism
excellent MLS graphic
click to enlarge
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Great map. I noticed there is a big hole in SEC land. Any idea why that is.
No big soccer population centers. They're adding Atlanta and Orlando with a second New York team soon. But SEC country is about college football first, college football second, college football recruiting third, accusing each other of cheating at recruiting fourth, followed by Spring football high school football, and football probation, in order of importance. The south is primarily a void of pro sports, unless you're cynical and count college football as a pro sport.
Atlanta should not have an issue with supporting a soccer team. I would the same with the Carolina's
Quote from: OJsDad on October 29, 2014, 04:51:21 PM
Atlanta should not have an issue with supporting a soccer team. I would the same with the Carolina's
One Atlanta 'cheerleader' said elsewhere
"I can guarantee you that the ATL franchise will outperform Orlando and Miami."the reply was
QuoteWell, yeah, and if I paint a stripe on the sidewalk, even *I* can jump over it. If that's the bar you want to set, you're aiming pretty low.
Atlanta is a lousy choice for an MLS team. Miami is probably worse. But if Artie and Becks want to throw their money away, MLS won't stop them.
I'd love to have an MLS team in Raleigh (I live here) but would keep my loyalty to The Crew first. I know that an MLS team in Raleigh is a stretch, mainly b/c of ownership issues - we have no deep-pocketed locals to rival Artie here that would do it, and no outside businessman has stepped up. Why? See the last paragraph, below.
But what will inevitably happen - because we've seen it already with the NFL, NBA, and NHL - is that the ATL team will get marketed as the "Southeast" team and then everyone will wonder why no one in Raleigh or Charlotte or Chattanooga or Charleston gives a crap. Just like no one in Raleigh cares about the Bobcats and no one in Charlotte cares about the Hurricanes and no one in Charleston cares about the Panthers.
If Atlanta wasn't a failed sports town, you could find owners that actually wanted to get in there because it's good business, not because they want the prestige of introducing themselves at cocktail parties as "Mr Bigego Bossman, owner of the Atlanta Failures" The fact that no one wants to buy the Hawks tells you something about the local market. The fact that no one wanted to buy the Flames and keep them there, or the Thrashers 30 years later, and keep them there tells you something about the local market.
Owners that are in business to succeed, and not stroke their own egos, are avoiding Atlanta. There's a reason why.
This was also posted elsewhere about Atlanta
QuoteI get that you want a deep-pocketed owner, but there's no history of soccer success there at all. The Silverbacks sucked for years until this past spring, and the Beat, Magic, Express, and Lightning/Quicksilver/whatever have all failed. Yeah, the Chiefs won the NASL in the late '60s, with all of 4k people/game there.
The league is desperate for a "southeast" team figuring that fans from Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston, Jacksonville, etc will all adopt them as a regional team, but quite frankly no one outside Atlanta gives a rip what happens in Atlanta.
Go get a team in a market that's going to give a crap instead of letting Artie Blank overpay for a franchise that will be a model of failure within 5 years.
So there are several tiers to the English football league system, and below that are what they call the "non-league" sides. Think of them as low-single-A teams compared to US baseball. What's hilarious is that there's a hashtag on Twitter for tweets of the wackdonculous stuff that happens at that level - #onlyinnonleague
https://twitter.com/hashtag/onlyinnonleague?src=hash
some the stuff that people tweet at that level is awesome :)
http://instagram.com/p/wmNhInqPLf/
My son's team is in white. He's on the other end of the field, in goal.
cross-posted from football thread
Quote from: OJsDad on January 06, 2015, 09:45:27 PM
Brant can probably talk to this better than I can, but if I remember correctly, it's based on you record at the end of the season. When I lived in England back in the 80's, it was common from some teams to move up and down from one division to the other every year, because they're a top four team in the lower division, but a bottom four team in the upper division.
Bottom 3 go down each season.
Top 2 come up, and #s 3-6 have a 2-round playoff to determine the 3d team coming up.
In the EPL, the top division is 20 teams. You play everyone home-and-home, for a total of 38 games. The team on top on the last day wins the league; there is no "playoff" afterwards. There are other concurrent knockout tournaments that go on over top of the league season, such as the FA cup.
The next division down in England - called "the Championship" - is 24 teams, as are League One and League Two (the two divisions below that). Same thing w/ promotion and relegation there. So you can earn your way up from the equivalent of single-A to the major leagues by playing well enough to win your way up.
If you want to talk more about this, let's shift over to the soccer thread, and I'll cross post this there.
Hey Brits! (And Scots, etc)
Sky Sports signed a deal to show MLS games in the UK.
http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2015/02/25/mls-have-games-televised-sky-sports-uk-first-time
will anyone over there care?
So I managed to get the Sirius XM Football Show sidetracked this morning :)
They were asking what recommendation would you make for a change in the game. I said that during league play, I'd give zero points for a nil-nil draw instead of getting a point. You can get a draw and get a point, but only if you get at least 1 goal in there. 1-1 draw? 1 point. 5-5 draw? 1 point. 0-0 draw? Squat.
Charlie Stilitano started going ape-shit over it. It was awesome.
USA 2 - Germany 0 ! Wow.
I was downtown with my wife last night, we got surrounded by USA fans at a mexican resto we were at - 'twas fun!
HOLY SHIT!
Carly Lloyd, at 18 minute mark - 4 shots on goal, 3 goals. Oh, and a bullet header just wide that would've easily beat the keeper for 4.
So the the World Cup will now be called the Soccer World Series?
Well done 'Murica O0
(https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/10404449_10153439928572930_6142779123281931158_n.jpg?oh=5835195b6a3edfad1cd5bb7e67d2795c&oe=560FAA89)
Heck, half of Japans goals were scored by an American.
The goal from mid field was the best one all day.
'Girl Harbour' was the headline overhere
What I was most impressed with was the fact that the female teams seemed to enjoy the same antics as the bloke teams...cheating in other words. Diving, pulling, playing dead, innocent shouting to the ref...that kind of thing.
In fact the exact things that turned me off from football when I was old enough to understand it was actually just cheating.
how come the own goal scorer gets sympathy, facebook pages devoted to how horrible it must be and Stuart Pierce still gets the piss taken 30 years after his penalty miss?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3168276/Sepp-Blatter-money-thrown-FIFA-press-conference-comedian-gatecrashed-event-embarrass-president.html
going to open the new 2015-2016 thread now in preparation for the upcoming European seasons...
And so Scotland bow out of yet another major tournament. Scotland haven't qualified for a major tournament since 1998!!
Their next chance is the 2018 World Cup. Fail to do that, and it'll have been 20 years since they qualified.
I had to go off and check who was through...so congratulations to England and Northern Ireland for qualifying (and Wales and Ireland are guaranteed a play off place) O0
you still have the rugby, and the World Caber Tossing contest >:D
Quote from: undercovergeek on October 09, 2015, 01:37:45 AM
you still have the rugby, and the World Caber Tossing contest >:D
And curling...we're good at curling (well...were!)
to be fair i think scotland played awesome, every game was a good effort from the guys, except maybe against georgia - as the guy on the radio said this morning, scottish football seems to come up with great new ways to torture itself and this has been exceptional
the last goal from Poland was heartbreaking
Indeed. Agreed on all points. As a Scotland supporter I've grown to understand we can't take anything for granted. Often, we fight like beasts against top teams and then drop the ball against a team "generally perceived" as worse than us.
This is the best spell of Scottish football I've seen in quite a few years. Unfortunately, I am currently seeing the same thing with the rugby team - and they (both) are still coming up sub-par. It's not good enough to be "nearly" there.
The only real positive I can take away with me (from a football and rugby point of view) is we're heading in the right direction. Hopefully, it can continue and not slip back.
The Irish stunning Germany yesterday was pretty cool though.
saw this on Facebook and had to chuckle.
QuoteDear Scotland,
We were wondering if you wouldn't mind feeding our dogs and putting the bins out for us, whilst we are having an absolute ball in France next summer.
Thanks,
Rest of the UK.
lmao... :2funny: