Dear Mr. Fantasy...

With three months to go to the Cup, we're at that wonderful heady stage where every true fan knows their country will win it all. If, like me, you are sailing in that fantastic ship of World Cup optimism, oblivious to the Iceberg of Reality for which you are setting an inexorable course, you'll want to try out the way fun BBC World Cup predictor. Just enter in your predicted scores in the first round and watch your Bizarro-world knockout stage take shape!

Tuesday friendles

A couple of early matches today involving World Cup contenders. Japan needed a last minute Nakata goal to scrape a 2-2 draw with Bosnia, in a performance that hardly bodes well for that match against Croatia.

Trinidad and Tobago play Iceland later today at Loftus Road, which will basically be a home crowd for the Soca Warriors.

UPDATE: And T&T wins it!! 2-0 off two goals from Dwight Yorke, who seems to be going through something of a (West) Indian summer. The match reports are saying the Icelanders didn't give two herrings about this match and that it showed in their performance, but it's still a win over a European team in Europe.

I honestly don't think T&T will do much in Group B--it's true they've improved a lot over the past year, but I still don't think they're good enough. Nonetheless, this is the kind of result that will give them belief.

Kaiserslautern: A Los Angeles of our very own

Michael Lewis's preview of US-Poland makes the point that the crowd in Kaiserslautern for tomorrow's match should be more pro-American than any match actually played in America. With 50,000-strong Rammstein Air Force base nearby (which is where the team is staying), and with the stadium a comfortable distance from the Polish border, the majority of the crowd will probably be loud, patriotic American soldiers and their families. Awesome.

My strong suspicion is that this won't translate even slightly to the match against Italy in June. The allottment for each country is pretty small, so the stadium will be dominated by neutrals. And in 2006, with Dubya as our president, I'm hardly confident that the neutrals will be with us. The South Koreans hated us and we hadn't even invaded Iraq at that point.

Middle English

In this Guardian interview, Steven Gerrard makes a good point about the pillorying of his England midfield partnership with Frank Lampard: that the two of them have barely played together since Euro 2004. And in that tournament, a terrible backpass from Gerrard against France notwithstanding, they played pretty well together in an England team that was a bad refereeing decision away from eliminating the host nation in the quarters.

UPDATE: All that is moot for the time being, as Lampard withdraws from the Uruk-hai match with a tight hamstring. Carrick will take his place, allowing Gerrard to push further forward in the center.

Cote d'Ivoire pullout possibility

I'm guessing this is a politically motivated act designed to drain rebel morale, but still it would be terrible if this actually happened.

Hey, they laughed at Aime Jacquet too!

Zidane thinks that an older than dirt France squad will win the World Cup. Some fun quotes from his L'Equipe interview....

"We are not going to play a World Cup just for the pleasure of taking part. I don't know if we'll win it but we can make it, I'd stake my life on it," he added.

Staking one's life on a potentiality isn't much of a risk. I'd stake my life that it's possible Trinidad could win the cup, but I wouldn't stake a dime on them actually doing so.

"I'm 33, I'll be 34 in Germany. When one has won the World Cup and lost it four years later, winning it back is an magnificent and imperious obligation."

What the hell? I really hope that "an magnificent and imperious obligation" is the result of a close encounter with a Babelfish translator.

"You know, I did not come back to play the clown," said the Real Madrid star.

Shame. Zidane would have definitely been the sad clown.

Kaaahhhhnnnn!

Everybody loves a goalkeeper controversy! And Germany's is a tough one: a choice between 36 year old Bayern Munich keeper Oliver Kahn, and 36 year old Arsenal keeper Jens Lehmann. Adding to the piquancy is the fact that they hate each other's guts.

Jurgen Klinsmann has been preferring a rotation policy in the Germany goal over the last year or so, alternating between picking the two. But as Eteocles and Polynices could tell you, these power-sharing agreements never work out, and sure enough, it's just made Oliver and Jens both miserable. And of course Klinsmann will have to make a decision before the Cup. Conveniently, Kahn is injured for the Italy friendly on Wednesday, but that just puts off that decision for another day.

It's hard for a neutral to know who to root for. Four years ago I'd have said Kahn, who not only looks like the love child of Neil Young and Peter Noone, but also has some amusing homonymic namesakes. But Lehmann has been mightily entertaining in the Arsenal matches I've seen this year, leaping out of goal to play emergency sweeper, and generally being a bit bonkers. So may the funniest man win.

P.S. Germany has already controversially purged itself of one drama queen: defender Christian Woerns sounded off about his exclusion from the Italy squad and now Klinsmann says he's off the Cup squad. A Steve Sampson/John Harkes shark-jumping moment? It's fair to say that if Germany lose against Italy this Wednesday there'll be an increasing sense of panic about Deutschland's chances.

England squad for Uruguay

After making sure no one got crocked in the Saturday matches, Sven-Goran Eriksson announced a 23 man squad to face Uruguay midweek. I agree with the writer's assessment that this is a pretty unsurprising roster, bearing in mind injuries to the likes of Owen and Ashley Cole.

As always, the big question will be sorting out the midfield: both who to play on the left and whether or not you can get away with having Gerrard and Lampard in the same midfield with no holding player behind them. With regard to the latter question, I've always felt that you can, provided you are a good enough manager to let Gerrard know what his role will be (after all, he started off at Liverpool as being much more of a holding player, until people realized how dangerous he was in attack.) I suspect the temptation to have both of them in there from the start will keep Michael Carrick out of the starting XI.

Something interesting about the article: apparently the choices of Uruguay and later Jamaica as friendly opponents is motivated by a desire to simulate World Cup group opponents Paraguay and Trinidad. I've always found the logic of this kind of approach to be spurious. Sure, there are similarities in styles based on geographical region, but they are insignificant compared to the strategic preferences of a coach and the abilities of the players he has available to him. (They are also becoming levelled because of the globalization of the game.) Really, what do we learn about Paraguay by playing Uruguay?

The US played Mini-Mes of their 1998 World Cup group by scheduling friendlies against Austria, Macedonia and Kuwait, and look how well that turned out.

Dunivant out of Poland squad

... with a hip injury. (One assumes that US soccer is referring to the region of the body, and not suggesting that being injured is the cool thing to do.) No one will replace him on the roster, which makes sense with potential left backs Lewis, Spector, and Bocanegra already on the roster.

Pictures of match-play men

There's a very confusing story out there about a dispute between FIFA and media outlets. Basically, FIFA is trying to impose strict limits on the number of photographs the media can take of players in World Cup games, and where those pictures may be printed; FIFA wants to forbid the media from posting any pictures on the internet.

The World Association of Newspapers sez...

"Your restrictions on our journalistic coverage of the 2006 World Cup not only deprive our readers and clients of access to important information on a public event, but constitute both an interference in editorial freedom and independence and a clear breach of the right to information as protected by numerous international conventions."

They might as well have added, "Duh!" First off, how on earth can FIFA forbid publication of photographs of a public event. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, WTF??? Why would they even want to do such a thing? I mean, really, who cares if Reuters publish a picture of Wayne Rooney along with their story about the England-Sweden match up on a website. It'll hardly make people not want to watch the game.

The only thing I can think of is that Sepp Blatter wants everyone to go to the official FIFA Yahoo web site for their news, but that seems petty even for FIFA. I'll look around for some sort of official explanation.

Noonan out of US squad

He picked up a hamstring injury in the Revolution's Champions Cup draw against Alajuelense, and it looks like he's out for 3-4 weeks. Very bad luck.

UPDATE: Chris Klein is the replacement.

US squad for Poland

is announced here. For those too lazy to follow the link, the 20 man team is...

Goalkeepers (2) – Tim Howard (Manchester United), Kasey Keller (Borussia Moenchengladbach)

Defenders (7) –Gregg Berhalter (Energie Cottbus), Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham FC), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Todd Dunivant (Los Angeles Galaxy), Eddie Lewis (Leeds United), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Jonathan Spector (Charlton Athletic)

Midfielders (6) –DaMarcus Beasley (PSV Eindhoven), Bobby Convey (Reading FC), Clint Dempsey (New England Revolution), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids), Kerry Zavagnin (Kansas City Wizards)

Forwards (5) – Eddie Johnson (Kansas City Wizards), Brian McBride (Fulham FC), Pat Noonan (New England Revolution), Taylor Twellman (New England Revolution), Josh Wolff (Kansas City Wizards)

As expected, this squad draws heavily on the European-based players. A few thoughts:

• Four (count 'em!) potential left backs in this squad. If only soccer were played in quarters, Arena could try them all. My guess is that Lewis will get a good look in that position on Wednesday, with someone else seeing action in the second half.
• No Pope and Conrad. I wouldn't read anything into that; with Berhalter, Bocanegra and Oneywu playing in Europe, there's no point in bringing the other two.
• No Cory Gibbs, who's only just started playing after a long term injury. My feeling is that with the competition at his position it will be difficult for him to make this team. However Jonathan Spector is there. Either Spector or Conrad for a final roster spot? (And do you really need five central defenders in your squad? My feeling is probably yes.)
• Mastroeni is healthy enough to go on this trip. A good sign, but I don't know if he'll be immediately thrown back into it against Poland or not.
• Five forwards. I suspect Arena will only take four to Germany and that it will be between Noonan and Wolff for the final spot. It would be nice to see Noonan play a little as a striker in this match.
• Howard is the backup goalie and not Marcus Hahnemann. Interesting.
• It occurs to me that you could throw Reyna, Pope and a third goalie on this roster and call this a World Cup squad. Although that's close to being correct, there are still some selection issues to resolve: Noonan/Wolff (with Hejduk maybe taking the place of the one not selected), Zavagnin/O'Brien, and Conrad/Spector are the three obvious selection choices. I think there's a more complex question at left back: can you bring both Lewis and Dunivant or do you pick one and use that space to bring on a fifth striker? Clearly that's one of the big issues Arena needs to resolve.

On outside backs

The New York Times's soccer coverage is frustratingly intermittent but today they have a nice feature on Heath Pearce, the player in the US squad mix whom most American fans know nothing about.

Pearce makes a very good point about the importance of outside backs: in competing 4-4-2 systems, they tend to see a lot of the ball, since there really isn't an opposing player whose natural role is to mark them. They have the time to look at the field and make a measured decision on who to pass to. One of the reasons David Regis had a lock on the outside back role in the first part of the Arena era is that for all his faults as a defender, he had great vision and was a good distributor. If you look at any England game in which David Beckham plays on the right, you'll notice that the most important player on the field becomes Gary Neville; the opposing defence pays so much attention to stopping Beckham from crossing that the Neviller gets the ball with time and space.

Frankie Hejduk has done yeoman's work as an outside right back, but in this regard Steve Cherundolo is a significant upgrade. On the left side, it's between Dunivant, Pearce and Lewis. Bocanegra is a good choice there only if you really aren't planning on actually attacking. Really, I think the best choice would be a healthy John O'Brien, but since that's not an adjective that is often appended to O'Brien's name I don't see it ever happening.

P.S. I grew up in England but never understood this: why do they call outside defenders "fullbacks" and central defenders "center halves". I know, tradition, yadda yadda yadda, but in today's game the nomenclatural logic makes no sense: the fullbacks are, after all, never fully back (since they're expected to push forward).

But he's our corrupt bureaucrat...

For anyone who's been following North American soccer over the last decade or so, Jack Warner's corruption is old news, but at least he used to be more subtle about it. Trinidad's qualification has clearly gone to his head.

UPDATE: Pile on.

Priorities

While the host nation may be fine with you visiting a house of ill-repute during your stay in Germany this summer, they just wish you wouldn't smoke so much while you did so.

March's matches

For European countries, the lst stage of World Cup preparations begins March 1st. Unlike the US, Mexico, Japan, etc., the European countries have been in the middle of league play and March 1st is the first international friendly date. It will be their first opportunity to gather together in their national teams this year, and our first opportunity to gauge the form of some of the favorites for the Cup.

Or not. Because as with any other sport, scrimmages are almost entirely useless as indicators of how well a team is playing. So even though the particpants will be taking proceedings with more seriousness than they would your average meaningless friendly, you should take results along with a whole punch bowl's worth of salt.

That being said, there are some tasty matchups on the menu. Tastiest of all for me is Germany vs. Italy: two traditional powers each with something to prove. Some other intriguing matches between qualifiers include Spain vs Cote D'Ivoire, Croatia vs. Argentina, Mexico vs. Ghana, and of course US vs. Poland. The latter two will be on free TV here in the States, as will the England Uruguay match. Squad announcements are starting to trickle out and will I'm sure be continuing this week..

All jokes aside...

... it looks like one of the major off-the-pitch stories about the 2006 World Cup will be prostitution. Germany has legalized prostitution and there have been a few articles about how upcoming tournament is expected to be something of a perfect storm for brothel proprietors. (I'm a little surprised that the EU doesn't have a standardized law about the legality of the profession, since they have all sorts of regulations about matters pertaining to employment and such.)

P.S. Nothing but a hilarious accident surely, but the MSNBC page I linked to above has a photo of Ronaldinho, a guy who knows a thing or two about sex workers....

It's that unhappy time...

... when players begin to pick up injuries that will certainly eliminate them from World Cup contention. Last weekend, Alan Smith incurred a horrific leg injury that will certainly eliminate him from World Cup consideration. It's hard to know if Smith was really in Sven-Goran Eriksson's thinking for the squad--Smith's had an up and down year as a converted defensive midfielder--but his versatility as a player would have made him an attractive prospect.

Someone who's much more of a lynchpin in his country's plans is frequent joke-butt Francesco Totti, who suffered a broken fibula in Roma's match with Empoli last weekend. Totti's case is one of those difficult "he'll be ready just in time for the World Cup" situations. If you're Marcelo Lippi, do you take him or not? Lippi would be pilloried if Totti was fit and left out of the squad, but playing back into form is a difficult thing to do during the Cup itself. (And especially when the player likely to be marking you in the first game is not exactly known for being a shrinking violet.)

Speaking as a clearly biased supporter of one of Italy's group E opponents, the best case scenario is that Totti recover in time for the Cup and is included in the starting eleven, but is generally out of shape and useless. Same goes for Jan Koller for that matter.

US-Guatemala postgame

Match report here.

Earlier, I predicted that this match could be something of a letdown for the US team, but fortunately it didn't turn out that way. It did start off as a fairly even contest, with the Chapines defending well and being quick in the tackle in midfield, something the US hasn't really faced in their previous couple of matches. But Ben Olsen's golazo seemed to stun Guatemala, and from then on the result was never really in doubt.

It's hard to know what Olsen's chances of making this squad really are. I'm not sure that he's an international-class center midfielder, but he is energetic, smart, and perhaps most importantly, versatile. He's well behind Reyna, O'Brien, Mastroeni, Zavagnin, Dempsey and Armas on the depth chart, but since a good two-thirds of those players tend to spend more time in the treatment room than on the field, Olsen could well find himself in contention. I suspect that he'll be in the travelling squad to Poland because of our lack of fit center midfielders, so we'll see how he performs over in Kaiserslautern.

Of the strikers, Eddie Johnson looked the most dangerous, although maybe not man of the match dangerous. Brian Ching had a nicely taken goal, but he also seemed to disappear occasionally. I wasn't half as enamored of Chris Rolfe as Soccer America apparently was , but I think that in a year or two more he'll be great. Josh Wolff was typically enigmatic. On one hand he doesn't seem to score much, but on the other it always seems like he might be about to, which sometimes is just what you need.

Other people with good days: Pope, Conrad, Zavagnin and Klein. Much more so than the other three, Klein needed one desperately. His performance had a few errors, but he was influential throughout, and had a very well taken goal.

Overall a very nice performance, about the best we could have helped for considering the circumstances. I can't help but notice that we are 2-0-0 with a goal difference of +9 in games where Dave O'Brien is the commentator. I can't decide whether or not this is an adequate compensation for his unbearable use of the term "Team USA."

"Scram kids... it's Halo time!"

This profile of likely US backup goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann reveals him as both a nice guy and an obsessive-compulsive video game addict. Maybe I should have been a goalkeeper.

US-Guatemala preview

An odd one this. In preparation for the Champions Cup, Arena has released from camp the players from the LA Galaxy and the New England Revolution. Problem is, that's half our starting lineup from the last two games, and the really good half at that. So we're essentially employing a B-minus, C+ team against the Chapines.

And maybe that's for the best. Guatemala was a big disappointment in the final round of World Cup qualifying, but they're bringing an experienced squad (including star Carlos Ruiz, Galaxy hero/reject Pando Ramirez and ex-MLS journeyman Martin Machon). After the performances against Norway and Japan, this match seems destined to be a letdown.

The most interesting aspect of the US team to watch will be the strikers. Eddie Johnson, Josh Wolff and Brian Ching's performances for the US have not really been stellar over the last few months, and all three will want to make a statement to Arena that they belong on this team. I suspect you'll see Wolff and Johnson start the game and Ching, who I imagine is fifth on the US depth chart at forward, to get some second half time.

Hmm, the technical director of Guatemala is one Marlon Ivan Leon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Marlon Ivan Leon who tried to cripple the entire US squad during a qualifier at RFK 8 years ago? Maybe Marcelo Balboa can whack him during the halftime break.

Mexico-Korea...

... ended up 1-0 to the visitors, thanks to a freaky mistake by Oswaldo Sanchez, in which, after having made a save, he rolled the ball too far forward on the ground in preparation to kick it, whereupon a Korean attacker opportunistically got there first and kicked it into the net. Wouldn't it have been fantastic if he had done that in the World Cup with everyone watching?

A good performance by Korea in front of what was essentially a Mexican home crowd (Los Angeles, the most unneutral neutral site in soccer).

The quiet man

Every so often, someone in the US player pool gets his own little descriptive narrative that commentators can use in times of need. For instance, Chris Armas is "a terrier in midfield", Chris Klein is "a worker," David Regis was a "classy" defender and so on. You know what I mean.

So one of the emergent cliches is the "quiet" or "unnoticed" Pat Noonan. I think that what makes Noonan the George Harrison of the New England Revolution and now the US national team is that he doesn't fall into one of the classifications that we tend to use to describe strikers. He's fast but not a speedster, good in the air but not quite a target man, skilled but not quite a Cristiano Ronaldo-style trick machine.

Noonan had a very good couple of games, and Arena singled him out for praise in his recent conference call:

Pat Noonan, I think, is a terrific player. I really like him, he has a great personality. He’s good for our team on the field and off. He’s a real winner and a great competitor, as are all the Revolution players.... Pat, I think, had his best game ever for the national team against Japan. He played well on both sides of the ball. He was involved in one play that set up a goal. He was involved in a bunch of other plays that created goal-scoring opportunities, and, as I said, played well on both sides of the ball. He was a lot more comfortable on the ball and had a very good game against the right-sided Japanese players. He had a super game.

In terms of making the Germany squad, however, Noonan has a bit of a problem. He's been used as a temporary left midfielder, a position in which he's behind Beasley, Convey and Lewis in the depth chart. (O'Brien maybe too.) His best chance of making the squad is at striker, a position that he hasn't really yet played on the national team. For the moment, I think Noonan is on the outside looking in, but injuries and/or an exceptional start of the season for the Revs might change things.

US Japan thoughts

Ack... I've had a hellaciously busy last few days and unable to post about the fine US victory over Japan until now.

What surprised me about the game was how very similar it was to the Norway game in terms of the both the dynamic of the match and the performance of the US players. After taking five minutes to settle, the Americans once again dominated the match. For sixty minutes, an experienced Japan side simply could not play themselves out of their own half. And just as in the Norway game, it was Twellman, Dempsey, Noonan, Donovan and Zavagnin who were bossing the field. The Dempsey goal was simply sublime--magnificently worked by he, Twellman and Wolff. Zico looked shellshocked at the end of the first half.

The outside backs once again got a lot of time and space to do what they want. Given that, you'd have laid money on Chris Klein having a field day, but his touch was erratic: a few good crosses, but several misplayed ones. Dunivant had more success on the left, and did his chances of making this squad even more good.

Pope and Conrad both had good outings. In two matches, Pope has made himself the odds on favorite to start alongside Oneywu.

The substitutions--and particularly Dempsey's--clearly disrupted the US rhythm. I was actually out of the room for the first Japanese goal, but at least judging by the replay, it's hard not to agree with Marcelo Balboa that Klein was too easily out-muscled by his marker. The second goal was a great strike, but Chris Rolfe should have probably cleared it; he got beat on the inside post Mike Burns-style.

And while we're complaining, can we practice the corner kicks this week Landon? I lost count of how many of them didn't beat the first man, a criminal waste considering we had a good three inch height advantage over the Japanese.

Overall though, a very fine outing by the US against a team that really came to play. It'll be interesting to see who from this squad will be selected for the squad for the Poland match on March 1st

Korea-LA

South Korea's World Cup preparations continue apace with a 3-0 victory over the out-of-season, out-of shape LA Galaxy. That'll teach all those snippy Galaxy fans who used to scurrilously mock Hong Myung-Bo.

P.S. That was irony. Hong really did phone it in during his Galaxy days.

Incensed fans

Is your Thursday afternoon dragging? Liven it up with this fun gallery of African Cup fans from the BBC! Here are my favorites:



Togo is already a cool country name. But it becomes that much cooler when it's emblazoned on your naked turquoise-painted body. Note how the final "o" circles his navel: a nice touch.












Dude's got a burning jar of incense on his head! How awesome is that?

US Japan preview

Frank Dell'Apa makes a good point about the similarities between the US and Japanese national teams: they both have young improving domestic leagues who contribute to a certain percentage of their World Cup squad. Consequently, Japan are at a similar stage of preparation to our own; they're trying to see who from the J-league will excel on the national team and join the established European-based stars for the World Cup.

As a result, the Japanese squad that faces the US on Friday night (11PM ET on ESPN 2) is entirely from the J-league. It seems like a pretty good group; some established figures, such as Ono and Miyamoto and plenty of young hopefuls. It will probably be the stiffest challenge the US has faced so far in this winter.

Here are the twenty squad members, Arena's taking with him to the match in San Francisco. I'm guessing Arena doesn't tinker too much with the starting group that dismantled Norway ten days ago. Many of that group, such as Twellman, Dempsey, Conrad, Dunivant and Zavagnin, are currently towards the right side of the squad cutoff, and Arena will want to see how they perform against a motivated team who's going to be at the World Cup.

A couple of changes I think you will see. The first is at right back; Hejduk is injured, so chances are that Chris Klein will be used in that position. I really think that, in terms of making the squad, Klein is on the outside looking in at the moment, so this could be his opportunity to make a case for himself. He'll particularly will want to get into the attack, and provide good dangerous crosses. (You could also put Conrad there, but I think Arena will want to preserve the Pope-Conrad central defense pairing. Or you go three in the back, but given the general shortage of wing players, I don't think this will happen.)

The second change, I'm guessing, will be at forward. Eddie Johnson is fit once again, and I really think that Arena will want to have him alongside Twellman. This is a potentially explosive front line if they can develop an understanding, and this match will be an excellent opportunity to test that possibility. I'd like to see Chris Rolfe get some time as a sub, too.

Incidentally, they've sold about 28,000 tickets for this one already. Nice. I'm guessing that's partially down to Japanese expatriate fans and partially down to disgruntled Earthquakes fans who are sensing that this is the only live soccer they'll see in 2006.

Turkey and Swiss with a pickle on the side

So as you may know, the playoff match between Switzerland and Turkey ended in a righteous brawl that involved... well... pretty much everybody in the stadium. As a quick glance at this photograph indicates, sandwich metaphors are not entirely inappropriate.

Today FIFA handed down the punishments and boy do they ever suck for the Turks. They've been ordered to play their next six games behind close doors and on neutral ground. This is a big deal for Turkey because their home crowds are legendarily intimidating and have played a big part in their recent success over the last ten years. Those 60,000 screaming partisans will now be replaced by a handful of disinterested janitorial staff. And there won't be those "Welcome to Hell" signs at Istanbul airport in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. Perhaps they could get some locals at whatever country the Turks play in to greet the opposing team with signs that say "Welcome to Heck".

Needless to say, it severely hampers their Euro 2008 qualification chances. If you're a Greek fan, you probably haven't stopped laughing yet.

For the Swiss, who have more immediate World Cup concerns, things aren't so bad. They lose Benjamin Huggel with a six match suspension, but he was primarily a substitute in their qualifying campaign.

Cup o' Nations final...

will be between Egypt and Cote D'Ivoire, who'll play in Friday's final. The battle between the two London-based stars--Mido and Didier Drogba--will be the dominant narrative going into this one.

UPDATE: Or maybe not. Mido suspended from Egyptian team after a really funny argument ("No, it is you who are the donkey....") with the coach on the touchline after he was substituted. Punchline: the substitute scored the winning goal.

Shameful

It's in the British tabloids, so who knows if it's true or not, but if so, it's disgusting that Congo DR's football federation withheld the news of his son's death from Lomana Tresor LuaLua until the team was eliminated.

It's not online, sadly...

...but in last week's New Yorker, there was a great article on Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Manchester United that did a nice job of illustrating the fascinating class dynamics of English football culture, as well as the economic realities of the Premier League. Check it out, if you get a chance.

African Cup of Nations Update

It's semifinal time over at the African Cup, and the lineup consists of hosts Egypt taking on Senegal, and Nigeria against Cote D'Ivoire in the other match.

(Editorial note: I've decided on saying "Cote D'Ivoire" rather than the Anglicized "Ivory Coast," partially because it's what they are officially designated at the FIFA website, and partially because it sounds cooler.)

Of these four, only the Ivorians, who prevailed in a monumental 12-11 penalty shootout against Cameroon (in which Samuel Eto'o, of all people, missed the critical penalty), are going to the World Cup. I doubt early elimination is going to hurt unduly the chances of Tunisia, Togo, Angola and Ghana at the World Cup, but I do think the Ivorians gain a great psychological benefit if they overcome Nigeria tomorrow. An appearance in the finals, and a tournament performance in which they beat both of the giants of African soccer, will give them incredible confidence as they prepare for that tricky Argentina-Holland group.

In the other match, I would expect the hosts to brush aside Senegal, who only won one match in the group stages, and to come back to win against underdogs Guinea in the quarters.

Don't you wish...

that you could cancel meetings with your critics? I sure do.

The Kaiser speaketh...

Visiting England as part of an "organizing committee welcome tour" (huh?), Franz Beckenbauer said that it is "impossible" for Germany to be knocked out of the first round of the cup.

Seems like that's just asking for the Fates to smite them down this summer. (That group isn't that easy.)

In another pronouncemeent, the Kaiser says that Gus Hiddink should be the next England coach. I'm sure the FA will be mightily relieved to hear that, because you know the one person the English always consult before hiring a new manager is Franz Beckenbauer....

Adu, Freddy

This article on the effect of l'affaire Adu on DC United's Cup performance last year also contains the little detail that he will be released to his club team before the US's next friendly against Japan.

For the record, I was something of a dissenter on Adu's Cup chances prior to the January camp. Freddy potentially brings something to the US side that isn't in huge supply: an explosive off the bench option in midfield who can dribble at tired defenders and gain a free kick or two. Arena probably wanted to gauge his progress in this camp with that role in mind, but it quickly became obvious that he wasn't going to make the team; Arena made some pretty unequivocal comments to that effect a couple of weeks back. Until 2010, then....