de gea was what when? i thought he's pretty great at man u-- not the best ever but a good keeper.

lol @ abramovich.

--

anyway, regarding MATH in football. when i used to follow teh MLS they had these useless stats that meant nothing, because they have no context.

like "possession time". i mean that's good and great if you're playing a possession game-- then measure possession. but if you're not, it's meaningless. the other day i forget who dortmund was playing-- they were ahead like 3-0 and they didn't even have 40% possession. who gives a shit about possession-- the only stat that counted was the actual score.

the issue is that for a game so fluid and with so little scoring (compared to somehting like basketball, teh sample is extremely small) it's hard to find a mathematical model that describes what's going on. i mean, i can observe, intuitively, that tony kroos is GREAT at scoring from outside the area, but how do you account for that? measure average distance to goal, per goal? measure the speed of his shots? if he for some reason scores with a header from a corner, does that "ruin" his average? that's the kind of thing that's hard to figure out. but eventually someone (likely lots of people) will figure something out-- there's some kind of measuring going on and it's been going on forever. i remember when i was a kid i saw this old german documentary about football and they discussed how a properly kicked penalty couldn't be stopped because the average speed was 60kph and the speed of the keeper blah blah blah-- still penalty kicks get stopped (mostly by guessing).

in baseball, because things happen in very fixed positions and situations, it's easy for the statistics to describe a whole game. it's been done for i don't know how long, a century maybe? i'm not an expert but there's that notion around that a lover of baseball can read the whole game just from looking at the stats.

some years ago i read an article in wired about basketball-- i think it was about the dallas mavericks. the article talked about how people used stats to evaluate the game but there were somethings that weren't accounted for. like how there was this player who was kinda average when you looked at his personal stats but when he played for some reason everyone else's stats went up. because he enabled other players to do better. so the mathematical models are always changing. and even with mathematical models though, there is an element of randomness and let's call it "human inspiration" that cannot be accounted for-- so with the right math you could, in theory, optimize a team, but of course you couldn't guarantee it would win.

Stat of the century - QPR is the northernmost club Harry Redknapp has ever managed haha

you can't account for heart, hustle, "want-to" or cheating in stats.

I dont often "lol" but lol!

De Gea's probably gonna get better but he's really shaky. Fergie regular plays Lindergaard instead of him. But yeah, definitely a prospect.

The possession thing became a factor I suppose because of Barcelona, who keep the ball forever. But as Chelsea proved against them last year, it only counts if it leads to a goal.

abramovich probably threatens them with execution if they don't perform. as a result, they don't perform (just a guess).

BTW, have you had a chance to watch THE TWO ESCOBARS yet? dammit, man, you must, you must.... an indispensable film.

thats a very interesting read

West Ham 3 - 1 Chelsea

Holy fucking Christ yes!!!!! This has officially made my weekend. And all without Andy Carroll. Beautiful. Happy days.


I haven't but I'm totally into seeing it. I've put it on my Lovefilm list but they send me stuff in random order. My list is short though so I should get it soon.

just waking up here to catch the bayern-dortmund game in like an hour.

CONGRATS ON YOUR VICTORY OVER THE OLIGARCH'S PLAYTHING.

i'll try watchin it later.

Chelsea and Arsenal lose on the same day, both booing their managers, Spurs meanwhile crush Fulham and keep a clean sheet against a team thats been scoring for fun. Would Arsenal fans like AVB now?

dammit, bayern-dortmund ended 1-1. probably a fair result but bayern had better chances. tough and hotly contested all 93 minutes of play. great fucking game, couldn't keep my eyes off the screen. HEYNCKES WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT GOMEZ EARLIER YOU TWAT.

I just watched the highlights of that. As you say, pretty fair, but Goetze's equaliser was something special. I'm really starting to like Dortmund, I think.

When Becks came to LA it was sort of like *yawn*

the dude has been quite the good luck charm after his tumultuous introduction, after today that is three MLS Championships out of four appearances, and suddenly people in America have been paying attention to MLS (largely because of the USA National Team but still)...




Interesting. I don't know anything about MLS other than that Galaxy here in LA seems to have been kicking asses for years running. Good for them, but it combined with being the anchor of the national team is killing Landon Donovan. At least like Jordan he is having the opportunity here to go out on top.

Yes, but it isn't necessarily as exciting as other varieties of American football

That just looks like an episode of American Gladiators. And in women's soccer you have Hope Solo. Come on America. It's like you have a (re)fridge(rator) full of filet mignon and you're running to the supermarket for microwavable cheeseburgers. Send her to us (more specifically me) if you don't want her. Whatever you do, keep Hope alive. Yes you can.

dortmund is a great fucking team and they did a good job of containing bayern who dominated the najority of the game i think but couldn't score (i blame mandzukic). the first half of the match was played on dortmund ground, but it was absolute trench warfare.

badstuber had an unfortunate fall and fucked his knee and was replaced by boateng who was returning after an injury. what a great fucking deep bench bayern has.

2nd half they took turns on the attack, and yes gotze was brilliant but i think mandzukic ended up bungling bayern's attack-- also notice it was his header that enable the dortmund goal. the poor guy had a cursed day, wish he had been replaced sooner, he was going to, but then the goal came, heynckes held back to see, then dortmund's goal came, then he took too long to decide finally to put gomez in, and with gomez the bayern attack got better but there just wasn't enough time.

anyway worth a watch in replay if you can catch it. commentators are complaining the first half was "slow" but i saw it differently-it was extremely intense and contested so that nobody could do anything, but that wasn't boring, you just had to now where to look for the action. anyway i enjoyed it lots.

i also realized i like bayern more than dortmund. yes dortmund has great players like reus and gotze and lewandowski but i also dislike its dirty-playing defenders like pizcek and subotic, whereas in bayern everyone is great, even that new mule-faced spaniard that cost (why the fuck so much) 40 million euros.

anyway, i loved the game, made my weekend.


you might be a little late for that :(

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_1...abuse-reports/

she says it's rumors and slander but we'll see

Even more reason why the lovely Hope should come to me, instead.

As for the Bayern/Dortmund game. I'll try and find a full replay but the highlights I saw were extended (1 hour) so I got a decent picture of what happened. I'm definitely with you, the first half was a great chess match that Bayern definitely edged but it looked like Dortmund actually benefited from Kroos scoring, as it forced their hand while at the same time appearing to unsettle Bayern who looked unsure how to play the rest of the game out. I totally agree with you that Bayern needed to make a change earlier to really get another goal. I didn't pick up on the dirty Dortmund defenders (I support a Sam Allardyce team, remember, so I just call it 'firm') but I thought they were excellent. Very together in all positions as the game went on and as you say, the draw was probably fair, even though Bayern were clearly the better team. (Chelsea played West Ham off the park in the first half but West Ham deserved the win because they simply kept going and hoped that Chelsea would crack - which they did, and took their chances when they came. Very similar to what I saw with Dortmund's comeback). Too many commentators embarrass themselves by insisting that the only good games are 100 miles an hour pinball affairs but I love those nervy, edgy kinds of 'who's gonna blink first' and who will have the nerve to hold it together, kinds of games. If anything, I actually thought the first half was more exciting than the second.

pizscek's way of coping with ribery was highly annoying and over the course of the match deserving of a yellow card in my opinion, but the ref was not the carding kind.

check this at the start of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPFJScUcYXE

more on that "brendan rodgers" youtube channel (is it the real rodgers, i wonder) (no he isn't, the last name is spelled wrong--but hilarious)

Honestly, I'm purely neutral in all this but that's nothing more than a foul for me, and maybe a talking to. I'd even go so far as to say that's just a 'proper' defender doing his job against someone who wants it all his own way. Although he probably deserved a yellow eventually. It's hard to defend in terms of the spirit of the game but I do like those defenders who push everything to the limit and sometimes over it - unless they're doing it against the team I support, obviously, and even then I just wish we'd sign them. It's that thing of not liking a cunt until they're 'your' cunt. But I wouldn't even put Piczsek in that category. Like I say, I honestly don't see much wrong in the way he plays, even if he did it against West Ham.

ha ha ha, fair enough. ribery is certainly no crybaby, and that's something extra i love about the bundesliga btw-- very little theatrics in general.

the thing with pizsczek (hard to spell his fucking name) is that he was playing against my favorite player and not letting him play haa haaa haaaa-- if he had been doing that to cronaldo i'd have giggled with amusement. subotic great too but a dick and that only bothers me when he plays bayern haa ha ahaa.

shit, what can i say, i'm fucking biased. but yeah. i like both teams. i just like bayern a little bit more.

btw bayern's defense is no less filthy at times, particularly badstuber who left with an unfortunate broken knee-- he's a fucking yellow card magnet.

Dude I LOVE soccer, especially international, but typically American I've never watched a single US Women's team match ;)

To be sure, I've also never seen a Lingerie Football game either, but if I had to chose between twat shots on replay coverage versus women's soccer, I think my selection speaks for itself.

So Mourinho confirms he's leaving Real at the end of the season, meaning every top Prem team manager (with the possible exception of Fergie) is gonna feel a lot less secure in their job.

My Houston Dynamo lost to the beckham Galaxy. damnit. That is two years in a row! fuxxx

oh shit, and heynckes is retiring at the end of the year!






sorry to hear man, i mean this in your context, because i was making fun of another dude from houston for this (he was being a dick on an unrelated subject and i took advantage)

ps- you didn't lose to "LA" you lost to the great BRUCE ARENA formerly of DC UNITED hellz yeah.

Like him or not, Mourinho's a winner and would likely improve any side he goes to, and would be able to attract the very best players. He's always said he wants to come back to the Prem but he says a lot of things so a move to Bayern, while unlikely, can't be ruled out. I've heard they want Guardiola but so does every team and I'm convinced he's either going to Man City or will bide his time until Fergie retires so he can replace him at Man U. The other question of course will be who takes over at Real. I know their board want someone less volatile but no obvious candidate springs to mind. Benitez, maybe? And of course, that leaves a vacancy at Chelsea but what top calibre manager would be stupid enough to go there right now?

Interesting times.

It's not popular here, either, but maybe Women's soccer has the best chance of building any solid audience in the US, even if at the moment it's smaller than its male equivalent. Your women's national team is one of the best in the world, if not the best, whereas it's hard to see how the men's game will ever realistically compete with the best of Europe and South America and increasingly Africa, either on a league or national level. Obviously, woman's team sports will always struggle for a big fanbase wherever it is but there's a credibility to women's soccer in the US that the MLS just doesn't have, either at home or abroad. It's maybe just a case of accepting that reality and acknowledging that there's more to be gained long term from your media making stars out of Hope Solo, et al, than it is out of the likes of Donovan and Dempsey who, as good as they are, will never be seen on a par with say a Michael Jordan or a Dan Marino in terms of their iconic status. Nor will any women footballers but relative to the status of women in other US team sports, they can at least compete.

ps- will reply later re: mourinho's drama (that i don't know anything about)

LA Galaxy is like the LA Lakers of MLS, they got ALL the championships yo, including several repeats ;)




Meh.. Americans following the US Women's team are just bandwagon audience. Further, I think Americans intuitively understand that the Women's US Team dominates international play because women's international play is not as competitive as it could be, whereas the US Men's Team struggles because international men's play is fiercely competitive. Further, if Landon HAD gotten a World Cup like the Women's Team he WOULD be the Michael Jordan of American soccer hands down! The MLS is a relatively infant league for soccer, it is growing exponentially in the past ten years, give it another decade. Look how shitty the NBA was around the time of the ABA-NBA merger and now? NBA is one the crown jewels of American CULTURE let alone sports internationally. MLS will have its day soon enough, but to be sure, I don't really follow any MLS teams either at the moment.. I don't follow Euro leagues either for that matter, just international play.

i haven't watched the MLS in over a decade so i wouldn't know. but i have good memories of watching games at RFK when etcheverry was boss of the midfield and bruce arena ran the team.

then i went to grad school and my life turned to shit-- and so did united's hold on the title-- hA!

so demoño i was googling mourinho and my ADD got on the way. so what the fuck is the problem with him? he frowns?

btw how are the mancini rumOUrs these days? he staying or no? they play dortmund tomorrow!!!!!!!!

oh sweet sweet week in football. am i ever happy to have a flexible schedule.

Real's owners have been unhappy with Mourinho for ages, for the way he's apparently tarnished their club's reputation with his feuding with other managers and his negative football. And now he's fallen out with Ramos and Ozil. But in terms of success he's brilliant. He's like a charismatic mafia don, whole give you what you want but you probably won't like how he gets it.

Mancini's largely benefited from the media leaping on to the Benitez/DiMatteo thing, just as they'll now start going into speculation overdrive about where Mourinho's going next. I'd be surprised if Mancini's still there next season, though. Apart from everything else, even if he retains the Prem title, he's never been good in the CL with any of his clubs and that's the holy grail for all the top owners now. Add to that he's managing players who seem far better at their job than he is at his and I just think the owners are biding their time with him until the right man becomes available. Fortunately for him, there aren't many managers who manage as well as Silva or Aguerro can play. Bad luck for him though that two of them who can (Mourinho and Guardiola) are now on the market at once.

It's the eyes

dortmund/man city!!!! oh siiiiiii..............


gonna be insane

i know man city is not gonna qualify but they could still make the europa league...

also:

balotelli vs weidenfeller!!

---

or will you be watching real madrid/ajax??

Houston Dynamo and LA Galaxy have either won or been a part of championship MLS games like 6 out of the last 8 years! National media does not give a fuck about anything Houston. it is brutal.

OUr football team is best in nation, and gets no media coverage at all. Our futbol team has gone to championship 2 years in a row, and won two MLS cups in the last 6-7 years, and no national coverage. It is horrible.

when the Rockets won their first championship in 1994, Sports Illustrated did not print a special championship Rockets edition, which they do for every other champ, and did not put hakeem THE DREAM on the cover even though he won Def Player of the Year, League MVP,a nd finals MVP that year.
when the rockets held the giant pep rally afterwards, some fuck from SI came to congratulate team, and the entire crowd boo'ed so fucking loud and long that the fucker could not even speak, and was embarrassed and had to hand the mike back to Rudy T.

holy fuck the dortmund crowd looks fucking insane

gotze and lewandowski aren't playing. fuck fuck fuck. still, gonna be NUTS.

dynamo won back to back as well BTW

on spanish TV which carries all Dynamo games, the announcers have to say our star's name funny. His name is Brian Ching, and they say "Brian CHEENG!" because it is too close to CHINGA. Brian CHINGA!!!!!!

I ONLY watch soccer in Spanish, American commentators are boring in comparison. Those boring ESPN dudes were ruining the US World Cup matches with their cynicism and boring attitude, the dudes in espanol are pumped. They pump up every thing, every touch, every pass, every defensive play, every kick (especially on goal)... When I watched the first half of ONE match in English I was so depressed I wanted to turn it off, the comments were all in a "Meh" attitude, but then I watched the second half in Spanish, not only were those dudes animated and excited to watch USA play, but we won that match in spite of the American commentators bitter cynicism ;)


I don't know anything about Houston Dynamo aside from they are apparently Galaxy's rival since DC has went into decline (as !@#$%! mentioned). What I do know is Houston Texans have received a disproportionate amount of media attention and favor last season and this season at least it appears they deserve the fanfare. In regards to the way the sports community robbed Hakim the Dream and the Rockets of their glory in the mid-1990s is even more embarrassing than the way the NBA treated Lebron James after he went to Miami or the attitude of the Boston Celtics fans in general. Houston Rockets were phenomenal in the decade that Lakers were in decline in between Showtime and ShaKobe.

Two teams made me happy in the 1990s, the Seattle Sonics and the Houston Rockets for being that westcoast team to try to stick it to Jordan. I'd say the Jazz too, but fuck them, Utah is LA's biggest rival of the 1980s and 1990s, the way Karl Malone and John Stockton clowned LA in 1997 and 1998 STILL hurts, and it was fun to watch the Bulls bully them in retaliation. LA fans only rooted for Michael Jordan because the Bulls clowned our rivals the Suns and Jazz and to a lesser extent Sonics. The Hakim the Dream Championship run was something special in sports, and the asterisk of a temporary retired Jordan isn't fair, Rockets earned that on their own! That is why Lebron James hit up the Dream to develop his game and didn't hit up Magic or Jordan or Kareem, think about that for a second ; )

as far as national sports emdia go, I read ESPN.com, SI.com, and watch shows like Inside the NFL on showtime, and all the network shows.

Not a single one is doing special pieces on the texans. when they show highlights it is cursory. fuck em. when the texans win the SB this year in NoLa the world will notice.

BTW, I love watching premier League futbol on the ESPN app for my xbox 360. awesome shit.

I don't have cable (on purpose or I'd watch to many games) but I read ESPN.com daily and I get SI in print, and I have already read several great pieces and write-ups and comments praising the Texans. They have easily maintained dominance on the Rankings each week, and they never have those asterisks and "Meh" comments like my Atlanta Falcons get for matching Texans' record. Last year, Texans were a darling Cinderella story in their stacked powerhouse Conference. Are they America's team yet? No. Are they shit on by America like Cleveland or scoffed like Atlanta or laughed at like the Jets? Not exactly ;)

Here is something that REALLY tripped me out. It is not a surprise that Houston is second this season in rushing TDs, and sixth in yardage, but here IS a surprise. Who leads in rushing TDs? Its not who you'd expect, its those damned Patriots. Not only are they throwing the ball in incredible ways, apparently they run it well enough to score a million fucking points. I hate Patriots, I loathe all Boston sports. Bastards..

Again I dare say it, RG3 is this years Lin Tebow, and I am impressed! He will surely join Michael Vick's exclusive club of QBs who have passed 20,000 yards and ran for 5,000. No other QBs are even close, and RG3 with 714yds just this season alone is creeping towards 1000! He very well may even make the top ten rushing yards this season, even above several great RUNNING BACKS! hot damn!!

OH SHIT. MAN CITY IS BONED.

i thought originally this was going to be a more exciting game but in fact i snoozed briefly during the half-time, until about 30 minutes in to the game when things got slightly better and my sleepiness dispelled.

i could see dortmund missing gotze and lewandowski up front, the subs weren't the same of course, but i NEVER expected that putting in kuba for reus was going to open up the attack. he's definitely a bigger man so maybe that had to do with his ability to face who on that side---lescott?

and seriously, it was most bizarre to see hummels repeatedly on the attack-- he's a central defender for fucks sakes. "total football"! lovely the way dortmund came together as a unit even with inferior individual talent. once again, raw money loses to a good team. mmm-mmm-mmmm!!!