Owwwwennnn!!!

(That subject line is read in your best Anne Ramsey voice, by the way.)

Lost in all the Big Phil drama is the more important news that Michael Owen will return to the Newcastle starting lineup against Birmingham this weekend. Owen returns at the perfect moment: in time to get match fit before the World Cup, but not too early so as to wear himself out or risk another injury.

Big Phil

The English press is all a-twitter today with the news that the FA have been in talks with current Portuguese coach Phil Scolari, aka "Big Phil" (I so wish his nickname was "Sizeable Phillip."), to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson as English coach after the World Cup. Rumor has it they've offered the job to Scolari, which has prompted both excitement and the expected patriotic backlash. Carrie Dunn has a useful primer on Big Phil that's worth checking out.

If all this is true, I'm sure Scolari will be an excellent English manager, but it's the way that all this has been done that has left a bad taste in my mouth. Isolating and then firing Sven before the tournament started (and for totally non-football reasons), coupled with the monumental silliness of the whole interview process makes this a textbook example of how not to run a national team program.

UPDATE: The Evening Standard says that Scolari's accepted the offer.

Tuesday Afternoon

is when we learn who Arena's 23 man squad for the World Cup is. Today, Marc Connolly gave us his assessment of the bubble players for the US. I think most of his guesses are spot on (although what's the difference between being "Bubble" and "Firmly on the Bubble?" Since a bubble is by definition a boundary area, being "firmly on the bubble" makes no sense to me.)

The boldest prediction Connolly makes is that Ben Olsen has made this team. I'm not entirely convinced of this; Steve Goff says 60/40, which seems about right to me. Certainly his utility puts him in a good position.

The biggest danger of naming an early roster is that someone might be named who's injured and expected to recover, but who's recovery goes less well than expected, putting Bruce Arena in a difficult position. John O'Brien is the obvious player in this position, but so is Carlos Bocanegra, who hasn't played for Fulham in a long while.

In defense of the FIFA World rankings.

If there's one thing that everyone in the world of soccer agrees on, it's that the FIFA World Rankings are about as reliable as the electrics on a 70s Fiat. Here's a sampling of the conventional wisdom.

Steven Goff: "FIFA rankings are complete nonsense."
Dan Loney: "All the Coca-Cola rankings prove is that American Samoa and Guam didn't win the World Cup recently."
Grant Wahl: "... any self-respecting soccer fan knows the screwy FIFA rankings make college football's BCS poll look like an Oliver Wendell Holmes ruling "
Jon DeNunzio: "All mention of the FIFA/Coca-Cola Rankings on this blog are banned."

I could go on, but I'm sick of Googling and anyway, you get the point.

Allow me to offer a slightly contrarian view of the world rankings. Yes, they're stupid if you use them as a basis for comparisons and predicting results. The 4th ranked (?!?!?) USA was handily dispatched by 19th ranked Germany (back then they were 5th and 22nd) as anybody would expect.

But I think the rankings are a fairly reliable indicator of form; that is to say, they give a pretty good indication of how many games teams have won and lost over the last cycle. And let's face it, in terms of form, Germany have thoroughly deserved their ranking; tanking in Euro 2004, and losing friendlies against inferior opponents. Only a semi-decent Confed Cup have kept them in the top 25. And while the Czech Republic's #2 ranking is often given as evidence for the silliness of the whole exercise, it does reflect that over the last few years, they've won a lot of games, with only Greece in Euro 2004 and Holland in recent qualifying, stopping them.

So as long as you take this with a substantial grain of salt, you can get something out of these rankings. For instance, the Swiss have a seemingly low ranking of 35, an indicator that they tied a lot of games to qualify.

Mind you, as Dan alludes to in the article I linked to above, the ranking system really favors the USA. First off, we play a lot of friendlies on home soil, much more so than other nations, and we tend to win them comfortably. Moreover, our so-called continental championship is remarkably lame, and is a competition we tend to do very well at (once again, it's at home).

Anyway as a system goes, it's light-years from perfect, or good even, but I don't think it's quite the useless distraction it's always made out to be.

If you're into that sort of thing...

FIFA will have a fantasy competition during the World Cup. Having a fantasy competition based on national teams seems a bit weird to me. There's a chance that your fantasy Major League baseball team might in fact be assembled one day, but there's absolutely no way that your fantasy World Cup team will. Whatever... enjoy.

Cup miscellany

Apologies for the lack of posts. I've had a very busy work week, and this weekend I attended a music festival, so I've had very little free time, and the free time I have had, I've spent... well, watching soccer.

Not too much World Cup news over the last few days; people are focused on the domestic European leagues winding down and the Champions League semis. Here's a round up:

• DaMarcus Beasley was charged with drunk driving last week. It's just the latest bad event in what's been a rough year for the Beas; he hasn't been able to hold a place in the PSV starting line-up and has sometimes been disappointing when he's gotten on the field. Let's hope these distractions don't spill over into his World Cup performances.
• The Dutch named a provisional 33 player squad for the Cup, with cuts to come later. One player in doubt might be the magnificently-named Rafael Van der Vaart, who faces an upcoming surgery.
• Costa Rica has named 28 players on their provisional squad. World Cup goal scorer Winston Parks was left off, while LA Galaxy reject Michael Umana was deemed worthy of inclusion. Good luck with that.
• Everyone wants a piece of Liechtenstein.
• Need a place to stay in Germany this summer? How about this dude's shed?
• An Ecuadorian shaman has exorcised all the evil spirits in Leipzig. No that's not quite true:

Tzamarenda Naychapi -- a priest who practices magic for healing, divination and controlling events -- let out a loud scream to chase away evil spirits in the centre of the pitch at Leipzig's Zentralstadion on Monday. (Emphasis mine)

As long as you're a midfielder, you're probably safe; however, goalkeepers should keep crucifixes at the ready. And if ever any player falls over in the attacking third and starts writhing around in pain after the tiniest contact from an opposing defender, you'll know that it's not cowardly opportunism designed to win a free kick; rather it's because the shaman couldn't be bothered to schlep his necromantic ass down to that end of the field.

Chicken soup for the soul

Undoubtedly over the next couple of months there'll be some articles analyzing what the various national teams are eating in their team camps. When these articles come, I can promise you that Kicker Conspiracy will be all over them. In the meantime, here is an appetizer, so to speak. Via Jon DeNunzio's Road to the World Cup blog in the Washington Post, Portugal are going to be servin' up tasty chicken soup to alleviate their players' homesickness.

The reason Luis Figo was turned into Tony Sanneh's plaything in 2002? Not enough soup.

Racism and the World Cup

In response to several recent incidents of racism in European stadia, FIFA has announced strict new regulations punishing teams whose fans are practicing such behavior. Yesterday, FIFA prez Sepp Blatter announced that these punishments, including a three point penalty for teams with racist fans, will apply at the World Cup.

I'm skeptical about this for two reasons. First off, although this is a legitimate problem, the fan dynamics of the World Cup (all matches in a neutral nation, limited ticket allocations, and the expense of those tickets) make it less likely that incidents of racism will occur. I can't recall any incidents of fan racism at the Wolrd Cup finals (although the qualification tournament is another matter.)

Secondly, as the Guardian points out, there are a number of flaws in this scheme. Three point penalties are fine during the group phase, but what about the knockout phase? And what's stopping some cunning fans from gaming the system and making racist noises and comments and members of their own team, hoping their opponents will be penalized?

Perhaps more importantly, why should a national team, playing in a neutral venue, be responsible for the behavior of the people in the crowd? A club is able to administer their own stadium and is thus able to take measures against racism. But how will a national federation in Germany be able to do that if they are playing a one off match in a foreign stadium?

Golden Balls

No, not a post about David Beckham, but rather the official World Cup ball, which actually looks quite spiffy. Apparently, each of the balls will be customized for each match with the date of the match and the names of the teams. So if you manage to catch a wayward Frank Lampard rocket in the stands, don't throw it back; it will probably be worth a mint on Ebay.

The celeb who unveiled the new ball was Franz Beckenbauer, who made a hilariously catty observation about the host nation's squad:

"Ideally, I would like to see Germany face Brazil in the Final but, in view of recent results, I think the chances of the German team reaching that stage are slim. However, I am confident that Jurgen Klinsmann and his backroom staff will ensure that the lads are in peak condition ahead of the tournament."

Shorter Kaiser: "We may not win scheiße, but I'm sure we'll be able to run around aimlessly." I don't know what "faint praise" is in German, but I suspect it's one very long word.

Keeper in a Keep

Kasey Keller lives in a castle!!! That is so unbelievably cool!

Charm Offensive, Part 2

A month or so back, I commented on the "charm offensive" the host nation was launching in advance of the World Cup. Today, the Beeb has a report on how the city of Berlin is doing their part:

By adopting "A time to make friends" as the tournament slogan, World Cup organisers want national stereotypes lingering since World War II to be smothered under a friendly embrace.

Note the undertonal menace of that last passive participle. I can't decide if this is some manifestation of a Lacanian textual unconscious or if they're just trying to be funny.

Also amusing this description of English fans, offered up by a German sports journalist:

"Sun protection seems to be an alien concept for a lot of them and they like to drink at 10 o'clock in the morning, but that's OK if they don't hit passers-by."

Trinidad cup squad

Dwight Yorke! Stern John! Russell Latapy! The white guy! And they're all going to the World Cup. Today Trinidad announced its provisional 24 man roster.

Why 24, when the roster maximum is 23? The heck if I know. Maybe Leo Beenhakker thinks the law of averages means at least one ACL injury over the next month.

I was thrilled when Trinidad qualified, but egad, they're going to have a tough time of it in Germany.

Not so Bad anymore

Imagine you're a Saudi footballer. You like what you do, but in Arabia there aren't really the wide range of recreational options there are for other footballers. Therefore, you're rather looking forward to your summer trip to Germany, where they famously take a more liberal view on these matters.

Imagine, then, your crestfallen despondency when you learn that the German town of Bad Neuheim, Saudi Arabia's base for the tournament, is planning a booze and porn elimination fest of epic proportions in order to prepare for your team's arrival. Maybe they could rename the town Frustratingly Good Neuheim.

US-Jamaica

Well that was all a bit crap wasn't it?

Arena's praise of the Jamaicans was well merited; they worked continually at disrupting the US flow, and overall they were very successful at doing so. In fact, the most dispiriting thing about the whole affair was our inability to find a rhythm at any point in the match. I couldn't hear the commentary (I was at a bar), but it seemed from the captions that Marcelo Balboa was going on about how the Americans had reassumed dominance in the midfield after a difficult opening period. Possessional dominance maybe, but the Jamaicans always controlled the tempo of the game; no one on the US side could slow the game down and work a creative build-up. The result was an frenetic, artless affair, full of sound and fury, but signifying (and producing) nothing.

Given these circumstances, it's really no surprise, therefore, that the player of the match should be Ben Olsen. Olsen did well because the Jamaican strategy suited his natural game: he was able to match them by running around, working hard, making some tackles and providing some energy. It was a nice performance, but what we really needed was a player to dictate the pace of the game and inject some creativity. And no one could do that on the US team tonight. The Jamaicans did a nice job keeping Noonan and the unlucky Ralston on a short leash.

The strikers were pretty forgettable, but then there was very little quality service. Sometimes Wolff or Johnson went out wide to receive passes, and I thought these moments were the most promising. Otherwise, Arena faces the same conundrum at forward that he's been facing for the last half a year. I suspect he's leaning towards moving Donovan up to partner McBride and bringing in an in-form midfielder--Dempsey or Convey-- to the starting XI.

Chris Albright looked good in the box--maybe some coach should try and convert him into a striker.... Actually, Albright did his roster chances a power of good simply by being a better Frankie Hejduk than Frankie Hejduk. Bearing in mind he's a wing back who can play in midfield or even up front, Albright may well make his way to that Cup roster after all.

Speaking of which, there was the strange decision to announce a provisional 35 man roster today, followed by the equally strange decision not to announce it after all. I haven't the foggiest what that was about, other than someone realized that provisional rosters are all a bit pointless.

Your morning reading

All the US-Jamaica preview you need is right here.

Meanwhile, on the front of the Washington Post sports section, Steve Goff has a very fine profile of Oguchi Onyewu. Do check it out.

Onyewu's rise in the US team has been truly meteoric. Fifteen months ago, he was a promising prospect whom Arena gave some garbage minutes against Panama, where he could get experience. Now he's not only a starter, he's one of the essential US players, along with Reyna, Donovan, Beasley and Keller.

Break up to make up

Spring is here and love is in the air! After losing out in a very public goalkeeper controversy, Oliver Kahn, says he will not acrimoniously retire after all. Not only will he accept being Germany's #2 keeper, he'll even cheer on his arch-nemesis Mad Jens:

"I'm not the sort of person who can't lose," Kahn said. "The whole team, including Jens Lehmann, will have my full support."

Okay, so it wasn't completely enthusiastic, but I doubt I would be either given the circumstances. Anyway, Klinsmann will be thrilled to have Kahn's ursine posterior warming the bench as Germany's backup keeper.

But lest you start thinking that the Kahn-Lehmann peace pact is the sign of a new age of peace, love and understanding, also in the news today was reports of a rift between Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney. Apparently, Rooney has racked up some 700,000 pounds of gambling debt, much of which is owed to Mickey's bookmaker company, whose customers consist largely of overpaid and undereducated sports stars. Everyone involved (or, more accurately, the agents of everyone involved) denies that any disagreement has taken place, but given Rooney's charming propensity for telling assistant refs to f*** off after every offside call, it's easy to imagine that he's a touch miffed.

So that's what for Rooney... about three months wages? Surely one good Nike commercial could knock that out.

Brazil: The Case Against

Whenever I'm asked who's going to win the World Cup, I try to stifle myself if the syllable "Bra" comes to my lips. It's not that I think Brazil are going to tank or anything, it's more that the answer is just so... cowardly. Picking Brazil to win the Cup is the easy way out, because they have a incredible history in the competition and such a great team on paper. What kind of wussy prediction is that?

But if you want an argument against Brazil winning that relies on, you know, actual substance, then check out Amy Lawrence's interesting discussion of the Brazilians in this article in the Observer. The concerns with the team, says Lawrence, are that...

A) They're old as the hills, particularly their outside backs
B) Their goalkeeper is awful
C) Their defenders are out of form and weren't really that good to begin with
D) Ronaldo is fat, fat, fat
E) Adriano's personal life is distractingly complex.

B is always the case, and I think D & E are overplayed in the media. It's A and C that are most convincing. If I were an opposing coach, I'd play Brazil in a Chelsea-style 4-5-1 and try to get my wingers in one-on-one situations against Cafu and Roberto Carlos. That'd stretch the central defense nicely, allowing my central midfielders to make attacking runs into the box. A solid performance from my D and I take a 3-1 victory... hell, I'm going to go home and try it out on Winning Eleven right now.

The German keeper for the cup will be...

Mad Jens. Apparently Steve Cherundulo's 70 yard fluke goal against Kahn was a factor in the decision!

Mahmoud's European Vacation

Even repressive and slightly unhinged extremist rulers like international soccer! Take for instance, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who apparently wants to visit the Iranian team in Germany during the World Cup. I can see him now at the June 11th opener against Mexico, bratwurst in hand, chanting obscenely about Jared Borgetti's mother. Good thing they weren't drawn against the US this time round. (They can't play each other until the championship match or third-place game, so it ain't happening.)

As the article hints, Mahmoud brings more baggage than the current contretemps over the Iranian nuclear program. Germany has a law punishing Holocaust denial with jail time, and Mahmoud's remarks on the subject put him well into David Irving territory and then some. So if he came, the German authorities would be put either in the awkward position of arresting him or in the awkward position of explaining why they aren't arresting him.

But the biggest loser if Mahmoud takes a summer vacation to Germany is the Iranian national team. An Ahmadinejad visit would be an incredibly distracting situation, one in which politics, rather than soccer, will take center stage. With an experienced squad, and playing in a country with which many of their players are familiar, Iran have a not terrible chance of getting out of Group D, a chance that could well be scuppered if a visit from their dear leader starts interfering with their preparation.

UPDATE: What's Farsi for "Psyche!"?

Subjectivity and Cuauhtemoc Blanco

The inherent subjectivity of blogging is both the strength and weakness of the medium. We can see this most prominently in political weblogs, which are more closely related to editorials than they are actual news stories. Personally, I'm attracted to that aspect of the blog world; since a well-supported and closely argued point of view--even if it's a perspective you disagree with--can often be more intellectually stimulating than the he-said, she said discourses of the "mainstream media" that pass for objectivity.

That being said, I also like juvenile snark. And so we come to the case of Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who was left off the provisional 26-man Mexico squad announced this week by Ricardo Lavolpe.

If I were writing about this story for ASN, I'd need to be objective about this. I'd undoubtedly focus on the effect the omission will have on Mexico's goalscoring chances (none at all.) Or I might speculate on the effect this will have on the unity of Mexico's squad (again, probably none at all, since he's barely been capped over the last few years.)

But I'm not. So let me instead say that say that I find Blanco's omission, and his subsequent puzzlement at it, very funny. And let me go in to say that I'll enjoy the World Cup just a teeny-weeny little bit more for him not being there. I won't have to see that stupid and basically useless bunny-hop move. I won't get to see his displays of pure class, such as when he almost punched Pablo Mastroeni while Mastroeni was lying on the ground.

(One bit of non-snarkage. If Mexico go down in flames at the World Cup, Blanco's omission will be the first piece of explanatory evidence used against him, just as Harkes's was against Steve Sampson in 98. And I'll bet you a doughnut that the first person to point it out will be Lavolpe bete-noire Hugo Sanchez.)

US squad for Jamaica...

is announced.

Last week I speculated that Arena might bring in his English-based keepers for this one, but on the LA-New England telecast, Arena said that he wouldn't bring in Hahnemann and Convey from "Championship" champions Reading. So I wondered who in fact would play keeper for the US team against Jamaica: how do you motivate a player who's definitely not going to the World Cup? The answer is that it will basically be Tony Meola's testimonial match, giving him an even 100 caps. Maybe he'll get beaten near post for old time's sake.

The rest of the squad is Arena's MLS contingent. The big omission here is Chris Klein. Soccer America speculates that Klein lost his roster chance against Germany a couple of weeks back. That's probably true, but it also represents Arena's last opportunity to look at a fit Steve Ralston, who plays basically the same position as Klein. For Ralston, Pat Noonan, Chris Albright and Brian Ching, this represents the last opportunity to impress Arena in a pre-Cup friendly--the Bruce announces his squad on May 2nd.

Oh and John O'Brien's back, having newly signed for Chivas USA. He'll have a total of one game with his new employers before taking the field against Jamaica. If he can stay fit and actually play full matches for the Goats, he'll be on that May 2nd roster. If not, look to that reported 10-man alternate list, and in particular one K. Zavagnin.