For all you soccer Mom and Dads ~~~

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83523837

I've been away!

I'm back!

WC2014 Qualifications have started. Will Australia get there this time? How far will they go? Which country do you favour to win?

POR 1 : 2 ARG in Geneva
http://www-akhmadfaozi.blogspot.com/2011/02/argentina-vs-portugal-live-stream-free.html

ITA 1 : 1 BRD in Dortmund
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/match/57302/germany-vs-italy/report

Jordan just beat Saudi and the streets of Amman are going nuts. Great footage I got.

HERMSO IS A HUGE SOCCER FAN.

pm me if you are also.

Beijing Olympic soccer day 8
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=0812_sd_fbw_to_l0263&channelcode=sportfb

The FA cup is known for the opportunity it provides lower league (even non-leage) teams to play with the big boys.

Last night Havant & Waterlooville -- a team 5 divisions below the premier league -- met Liverpool, 6 time winners of the FA cup. H&W are 123 places below Liverpool. And not only did they score first, but that kept L'pool to a 2-2 draw at the half. The Liverpool dressing room must have been pretty ugly. I expect Rafa lost his voice. Ultimately fitness won out, Liverpool fielded some of their first string in the second half and H&W lost 5-2 to be knocked out of the Cup.

But for 45 minutes they were the better team on the pitch.

crackin' game.

Friendly my ass, though...

final score, Sydney FC 5 - 3 LA Galaxy

There was an act of pure lunacy when one of the LA Galaxy players (can't remember the name) intentionally trod on Sydney FC's Biddle's arm while he was on the ground. The resulting mêlée looked suspiciously like a hockey game

edit: Harmse was the idiot...

kickoff for Sydney FC v. LA Galaxy (with Becks)...

80,000 in the stands. And in reality, if it were the same two teams without Beckham, it would probably draw 8,000, max...

Watching (now) MANU play some of the nicest football I've seen them play in a very long time.

Flowing one-touch play, very few long balls in, playing space like bloody geniuses... (up 3-1 at half time against Aston Villa)

ohh..that too...I'm watching the chelsea v. midd game though...

I did see a bit of the Russian game on the news yesterday.

Given your sig, I'd of thought you'd be more excited about the result of the Merseyside derby...

Chelsea GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Lets wake this board up??

MLS All-Stars down FC Celtic
Angel, Toja score goals for MLS stars in the first half
By John Meyer
Denver Post Staff Writer
Commerce City -

Wearing a three-piece black suit and an open-collared white shirt, Beckham gave a five- minute interview to ESPN2 during halftime and then participated in an awards ceremony on the field with DC United's Under-17 team, which beat Kansas City's U-17 team in a tournament final earlier in the day.

On ESPN2, Beckham said he might not be able to make his debut with the Los Angeles Galaxy against Chelsea of the English Premier League on Saturday

"At the moment, it doesn't look good that I'm going to play," Beckham said. "The swelling is still there. I'm here for five years, I'm not here just for the game on Saturday."

Beckham said he was deeply disappointed not to be match fit.

"I want to get back playing as soon as possible," Beckham said.

The MLS is hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with Beckham, but several bolts of the real thing delayed the start of the game about 10 minutes. After the storm moved out of the area, the game began tentatively, both teams probing for openings.

Houston Dynamo midfielder Ricardo Clark made a nifty run through the right side of the Celtic defense in the seventh minute and fired a point-blank shot that was saved by Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc, who would soon become a very busy man.

In the 22nd minute Kansas City forward Eddie Johnson beat the Celtic defense and crossed a beautiful ball to Juan Toja of FC Dallas. Toja shot from the edge of the 6-yard box but Boruc made an instinct save with his right hand.

Boruc saved Celtic again in the 30th minute, stopping Johnson's tentative penalty kick.

But as the half progressed, the MLS stars began to control the ball and the tempo of play, and they took a 1-0 lead in the 36th minute when New York's Juan Pablo Angel split two defenders, took a beautiful through ball from Houston's Dwayne De Rosario and found the net.

The MLS struck again three minutes later when Toja pounced on Celtic's shoddy clearance for a 2-0 lead.

Staff writer John Meyer can be reached at 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Mark your calendars, America. David Beckham will be officially introduced as the newest member of the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 13 at the team's stadium in Carson.

...update:

ManU will win the Champions League (against Liverpool) <-- oh well...
ManU will win the FA Cup (eat it Mourinho)
ManU will win the Premiership (see above). <-- done and dusted

Sydney FC will get to the finals of the Asian Champions league, and lose to the Red Dragons (not possible -- Red Dragons in same group...but Sydney will still get to the Finals).

Australia will win the Asian Cup (equivalent to the European Cup)

err.

Wrong on one count... (they were filleted like brook trout)

ManU will win the Champions League (against Liverpool) <-- oh well...
ManU will win the FA Cup (eat it Mourinho)
ManU will win the Premiership (see above).

Sydney FC will get to the finals of the Asian Champions league, and lose to the Red Dragons.

Australia will win the Asian Cup (equivalent to the European Cup)

Dead board, eh, what?

ManU will win the Champions League (against Liverpool)
ManU will win the FA Cup (eat it Mourinho)
ManU will win the Premiership (see above).

Sydney FC will get to the finals of the Asian Champions league, and lose to the Red Dragons.

Australia will win the Asian Cup (equivalent to the European Cup)

...or so I think.

http://www.ncaasports.com/soccer/mens/brackets/viewable/straight64_dyn/2006/DI

It would be nice to see Freddy live up to all they hype. I think he has had a hard row to hoe. He hasn’t been happy with his playing time in the MLS and I doubt he has been happy with his place on the national team. I am just hoping he does well.

I'd love to see him at Man U.

(and topping the list of riskiest jobs in sports is goalkeeper for Chelsea)

What I am hearing is that he will be gone by next summer. I guess that is due to his current contract. Sounds like he wants to play in England but who knows what the offers will be.

Rumors abound that Chelsea, Man U and Real Madrid are going to the mat over who gets to sign Freddy Adu at the end of the season. Any word from the US side?

It is still not that big. Seems to be in a bit of a lull right now. Small stadiums are being built to hold 20,000 or so. Crowds are still low. TV rights support it.

How big is soccer in the US now?

Here in Australia the A-League, for the most part, looks to be growing (New Zealand is not pulling their weight -- their last home game drew an embarrassingly low 1700 spectators (and they played like crap), but crowds of 15,000 to 20,000 per game seems to be settling in as the norm these days...

Met this guy a few times.
http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20061006&content_id=74917&vkey=news_mls&fext...

Agreed.

Thug Ben Thatcher.

Tonight, Zidane refused to specify. He did say, under pressure from the interviewer, that Materazzi had used swear words and had mentioned Zidane’s mother and sister.

“I tried not to listen to him but he repeated them several times,” Zidane said. “Sometimes words are harder than blows. When he said it for the third time, I reacted.”

Zidane argued that while he accepted that what he had done was wrong, Materazzi was to blame.

“The reaction must be punished but if there had been no provocation there would have been no reaction,” Zidane said. “Do you think that two minutes from the end of a World Cup final, two minutes from the end of my career, I wanted to do that?”

Zidane went on to apologize, several times, to “all children and everyone who saw the act.”

Zidane had said before the World Cup that he would retire after it ended.

Asked if he now felt he had some unfinished business and would reconsider, Zidane said his decision was “definitive.”

He said that the key moment for the French team in Germany was its victory over Togo in its last game in the group stage. Zidane missed that game. He was suspended after receiving two yellow cards in the first two games, both draws. France won, 2-0.

“We had not won a game in 2002,” he said of France’s disastrous defense of its title in the World Cup played in South Korea and Japan.

He did say that he would play again — but only for fun.

“I may play some amateur games with my mates in my neighborhood” in Marseille, he said.

“Merci à football,” he said as he drew a line under his playing career.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/sports/soccer/12cnd-soccer.html?hp&ex=1152763200&en=393c89...

I will stand corrected. FIFA does not decide the Golden Ball...

"The winner of the award is not decided by FIFA, but by an international commission of journalists," Blatter said in Wednesday's La Repubblica. "That said, FIFA's executive committee has the right, and the duty, to intervene when faced with behavior contrary to the ethic of the sport."

...and Zidane may lose it for his butt-headed head butt.

...FIFA president Sepp Blatter says Zinedine Zidane could be stripped of his Golden Ball award for the best player at the World Cup due to violent conduct.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/12/D8IQJLV82.html

a fish-ha!:)(eom)

...and Italy my second favorite over the decades.

Purely petulant of me, but when Australia got knocked out by a last second (literally) penalty kick, drawn by Grosso with what is arguably (just try me) a dive, Italy came off my good books.

While obvioussly not viciuos to hurt, it was the world cup, with the end in the balance, in a World Cup that was red carding with rapidity, in otherwords, calling everything tight, no looseness.
He should have gotten a yellow card, but in view of the situation and how the referees were ruling, Zidane should have just kept on walking away and counting "1,2,3 ,4 do not lose your temper 5,6,7 or i could get red-carded and blow the World Cup 8,9,10--start to play and play to win"
Has Zidane given a statement yet.
If i was Zidane, i would be hitting my head in retrospect and sayind "Stupid, stupid"
He will be left forever wondering how the match would have ended if he just kept walking rather than turning back and making an utterly useless gesture of anger over what ever it was that set him off-- and something the other guy said very likely In Hope Zidane would lose his cool and do something .
The question of did it actually hit the key trigger point(The Solar Plexus) of involuntary physical reaction, i would have to see if the other guy was showing the true actions of a solar plexus hit, which would be to see him trying to breath--th only thing that could of caused such a reaction with that hit would be a hit of point just BELOW the breast bone.
We all know the point, one can identify it just by touching with one's own finger.
And it does cause transitory loss of breath and to fall, but that from that brief bit of his fall i can't tell if it was a bravura performance or Zidane's head did hit the that soft. soft spot just BELOW the breastplate.
But, to be honest, i wanted Italy to win,anyway:)
Brazil my favorite team and Italy my second favorite over the decades.

Sarcasm aside, whether you are Roy Keane intentionally breaking a players leg (clearly worse than what Zidane did) or the head-to-chest incident, there's no excuse for it.

Oh wow, your right. Much worse than intentionally maiming someone ending their soccer days. You might want to go back and re read the post. I agreed with you. Then I made another comment about soccer. Perhaps that is a mistake on this thread.

Me? Hit in the breast bone? Heck no. Never been hit in my life. I have an immune deficiency and live inside a glass cage. I would not know the first thing about getting hit.

Oh I see. Just didn't understand the word use. There is actually a club here that teaches its kids how to play all those games, and how to tackle cleats up and two footed etc.
I think it was clear from the crowds reaction that C. Ronaldo's acting job was not being appreciated. But I don't remember a single card for diving. I heard FIFA was focusing in on shirt pulling, maybe they ought to be more focused on play acting. Still those are often hard calls to make, so much depends on the angle. Post game suspensions for violations might be a good idea.

What's wrong with the picture? He was no where near the ball, not actively involved in the play at the time and intentionally turned and struck the guy.

And have you ever been hit in the breastbone? Hurts like hell.

diving, falling to ground holding your ankle when you were lightly bumped in the hip. Letting out a yell when you're stuck no harder than a slap that any reasonable person could shrug off. All in the name of trying to get a foul against the other team.

Shameful behaviour. My 11 year old son knows that if he ever starts that kind of crap I'll pull him from the team and sign him up for ballet.

True, but as obvious as Zizou was, a head but to the breast bone was not an attempt to maim. Attempts to seriously maim Other players happens often and never gets called at all and generally is ignored even when an obvious video of the event exists. Whats wrong with this picture?

'simulations' ?? What does that mean?

By doing this, as well as not dealing with 'simulations' as harse offenses, FIFA is perpetuating the negative aspect of the games and encouraging the kids that watch to be cheats and cry-babies, because it is condoned at the highest levels.

What a shame.

France captain Zinedine Zidane has won the Golden Ball award for the most valuable player in the World Cup 2006 in Germany.

Oh, man...

...and while Blatter tells the refs to shape up, possibly he should insist, INSIST that any case of intentional diving (simulation, they call it) be dealt with harshly.

Cristiano Ronaldo (as an example, and pretty much every player on the Italian team) is a player with a trunk load full of skills, and a horrible habit of wailing like a two-year old and hitting the fround like a ton of bricks anytime he's feeling like it.

Watch a rugby game, and the pounding that goes on there, then watch the pitiful histronics some players go through in football for the sake of a penalty/free kick.

I've warned my son (who is so far not showing any prediliction for diving/wailing) that if he ever decides to start the acting I'm pulling him from the team and enrolling him in synchronised swimming, or ballet, or some other girly, sissified sport.

What the hell?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world-cup-2006/goal-drought-gets-blatter-thinking/2006/07/07/115224048699...

Goal drought gets Blatter thinking
July 8, 2006

FIFA president Sepp Blatter is worried that this year's World Cup might end up the lowest-scoring ever - and he wants to figure out ways to "make football more attractive again".

The 2006 World Cup has had 2.27 goals scored per match so far - a shade above the record low of 2.21 from 1990. This year's average would dip below that if no goals are scored in Saturday's Germany-Portugal third-place game and the France-Italy final.

"The football isn't that bad, but there aren't enough goals - and when there are too few goals, the public isn't very enthusiastic," Blatter said.

Blatter wants to implement changes that will help attackers break through increasingly sophisticated defences, but ruled out one proposal of reducing teams to 10 men. "If it's an open game, there is enough room for 11 players," he said, "but with 11 defenders there is not enough space."

AP

Blatter needs to leave well enough alone.

The style of soccer changes with time. This year there was an increase of fast pace attacking football. Most of the teams practicing that were still 'young' (not much World Cup experience yet) but as they mature in their respective conferences they will bring more of it to the world game and this boring-assed defensive game will soon disappear with the soon to retire defensive players.

Blatter needs to spend his time sorting out the pathetic quality of refereeing. I won't stop watching if the games are defensive, but I certainly will if the state of officiating doesn't improve for South Africa in 2010. I see better tean-aged referees at my sons under-11 games.

There were good refs this year, but the bad ones were really bad. So bad that the focus was on them, which it never should be.

Graham Poll was an astonishing mess. I've watched him officiate EPL games, and he's the go-to guy for contentious matches. He completely stuffed this one up (Australia- Croatia). The russian ref whose name I can't remember that sent 4 players off and issued a total of something like 18 yellow cards should have been nailed in a box and shipped home.

So, Mr. Blatter, leave the game alone. Fix the refs. They're embarrassing you.

Markets Face Down Days After World Cup Ousters:

#msg-11927690

im pissed dam germans beat argentina

What an ignominious way to exit the world cup.

Replays show that Lucas Neill had nothing to do with Grosso's drop in the penalty box. About the only thing that DID have something to do with his drop was gravity.

But I'm not going to complain about the ref. Overall, a tremendously better job than Graham Poll, or the Russian ref whose control was absent for much of the Portugal/Holland game.

Australians have much to be proud of, and now that Australia is in the Asian group, with some real skill to play against, the team should just get stronger. The ball play, crisp passing and dominance of the game against Italy belied the pre tournament sentiment that the Australians would be a thuggish team. Chipperfield (driving a bus to make ends meet just a few years ago), Bresciano, Aloisi, Sterjowski and the rest of the relative unknowns (to the rest of the world) of the Socceroos played beautiful football.

(Trivia -- in the lead up to the 2001 World Cup, Australia beat the Solomon Islands 31-0, with 13 goals to Archie Thompson. Clearly NOT the challenge a growing team needs)