If you have paid any attention to football over the past 5 years you saw this coming. Barcelona being the most attacking side the last half decade against Chelsea, arguably the most negative footballing club to have climbed the ranks to become a "big club". You laughed at people predicting a blow-out and you contemplated what it will be like sitting through a choppy 90-minutes of scoreless football. Click to continue reading...

Inspired by the Seattle crowd in attendance tonight for the MLS season opener I just had to write an MLS preview and share some thoughts on the league.  My thoughts are this league still has a long way to go.  divbr //divdivWould you dare disagree?  They are opening the season on the same night the NCAA college basketball tournament starts. Click to continue reading...

Check out this picture of an angry Cesc Fabregas:divbr //divdivp style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"img src="webkit-fake-url://8FEBB169-AD6A-44EC-8167-E1F1217C7DD5/story.jpg" alt="story.jpg" //pp style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"br //pp style="margin: 0. Click to continue reading...

If you are from Spain it is flying at half-mast.
If you are from Italy the answer is no.
Tonight the English Premier League confirmed once again that it is the dominant league in the world.  Serie A and La Liga have a huge distance to make up.  
Do not let the Barcelona result at Camp Nou over French champion Lyon fool you. Click to continue reading...

I will argue that the Bayern Munich thumping of Sporting Lisbon in Lisbon is the most unbelievable result from the first leg of the Round of 16.  Five away goals from a Bayern Munich club that hasn't exactly overwhelmed in the Bundesliga this season.  In fact, they've been an overwhelming disappointment. Click to continue reading...

The problem with Major League Soccer could well be their lack of vision. They don't see a brilliant marketing opportunity when it is right in front of them. The Designated Player gimmick has been a failure. I mean, no one outside of the hardcore fan realizes that Guillermo Schelotto or Juan Pablo Angel qualify as DPs. Click to continue reading...

Of all the injury concerns today Manchester City have the two biggest: Robinho and Craig Bellamy. I find Bellamy to be a fascinating player. Every transfer window his name comes up as being able to fill some club's "need". Which in most cases tends to mean a proven goal scorer.
And while Bellamy has scored in the Premier League for every club he's played for I would hardly consider him a prolific scorer. Click to continue reading...

I hate to push down my terrific post on Beckham / AC Milan vs. MLS but I feel the need to point out when a Vein of Form prediction comes good: Chelsea won 1-0 against Portsmouth. A few days ago I wrote that Chelsea would win out in the league with 1-0 or 2-1 scorelines.
I call this Dink & Dunk Football. Click to continue reading...

Major League Soccer cannot win this fight with David Beckham. They have every right to demand fair compensation but at a certain point they need to accept an offer and let Beckham remain in Milan.
Beckham is not going to be pleased with having to return to LA Galaxy. Any move back to the United Stated effectively ends his chances of getting in the England squad. Click to continue reading...

I have to tell you by Sunday afternoon I was exhausted from all the football I watched beginning Saturday morning. As planned, I took in the second half of the Everton vs. West Brom match and was pleasantly surprised to see an entertaining half of football by an Everton side that by all accounts looks to have a stranglehold on a UEFA Cup spot. Click to continue reading...

Couple of things that I feel the need to point out: First, the Carling Cup is a more important trophy than the UEFA Cup. This only supports my post from yesterday that the UEFA Cup is a meaningless competition that would take years of white-boarding from the footballing world's finest think takes to reimagine in a meaningful way. Click to continue reading...

Watching the UEFA Cup matches this afternoon with a non-football fan it was asked of me why these matches matter. After all, the importance of the Tuesday and Wednesday Champions League matches far outweighed any significance today's matches carried. This is a common question my non-football fans ask. Click to continue reading...

I am glad that Rafa Benitez does not have an ear piece that links him to a direct feed to my soul during matches. Because that would mean during last night's epic triumph in Madrid, he would have heard my soul demanding that Yossi Benayoun be taken off at half-time.
The reason I wanted Benayoun taken off is that I could not endure another poorly weighted pass in the area that killed another Liverpool attack. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez usually wears a suit & tie during matches.  However, today he was patrolling the sidelines at St. James' Park in a track suit.  Was this a nod to his owners that told him to focus on coaching the players he has rather than focus on funds for the January transfer window? Click to continue reading...

Vein of Form has given MLS plenty of stick over the course of the season. But after reflecting for the past several days on the season that was, we still don't particularly care for it. The positives first - it is great for MLS that Houston Dynamo have won 2 straight MLS Cups. It would have been even greater had New England Revolution managed to win 3 straight rather than lose 3 straight. Click to continue reading...