Interesting intersection of soccer and politics - Iran names an Iranian-American as their national soccer coach. Â There's also an interview of Afshin Ghotbi conducted before he was named as Iran's coach at the NYTimes Goal blog. Â Ghotbi has previously coached in both Iran and the United and was an assisant for the US World Cup team in 1998 (which was so bad, maybe Ghotbi was an Iranian mole! Click to continue reading...

The quality (or lack thereof) of MLS referees is always a hot topic and frequently leads to amusing column or blog titles (like this one). But after watching the Chelsea/Arsenal game today I'm reminded that referees suck everywhere, not just in MLS.
After calling Chelsea forward Solomon Kalou wrongly offsides twice in the first half, the same linesman allows Robin Van Persie's first goal to stand after he was clearly a couple yards offsides on the goal. Click to continue reading...

As noted earlier, the Revs lost.  This wasn't very surprising given the injury situation. The other matchups were Columbus vs. Kansas City, Chivas USA vs Real Salt Lake, and New York Red Bulls vs. Houston Dynamo.
Columbus was favored against KC and won easily, no surprise there. Chivas USA had the higher seed against Salt Lake but Salt Lake had been on a roll at the end of the season and so I wasn't surprised to see them beat a Chivas USA side that had a couple injury problems of its own. Click to continue reading...

The New England Revolution lost 3-0 to the Chicago Fire and were knocked out of the playoffs.
The game started out with the Fire getting a lot of shots, including one that Parkhurst cleared off the line. Then New England started getting in to it, getting some of their own attacking players going. Click to continue reading...

...on the soccer field! To benefit charity!  Check out this article from RFE/RL:

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- An unusual charity soccer game was recently played in the northeastern Bosnian city of Tuzla.
The match pitted a team of Catholic priests against a squad of Muslim imams and was played under the slogan "For Children's Smiles.

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A reader* wrote in with the suggestion that I post something about the U.S. government's takeover of AIG, since AIG sponsors Manchester United. I originally didn't want to because I don't really understand the whole AIG/giant economic meltdown. But Kevin Drum doesn't understand soccer and still posted on it, so I suppose I will write something. Click to continue reading...

The New England Revolution beat Chivas USA 4-0 in a nationally televised game on Thursday night, although it was a pretty close game until the last ten minutes. Jeff Larentowicz, aka Big Red, scored the 2nd goal of the game that killed Chivas' hope with 10 minutes left. The highlights are below the fold, with Big Red's tremendous goal starting at 2:40. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea won in style, and Manchester United couldn't beat Newcastle at home. Looks to be a fine season! Video beneath the cut.

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The Revs won the 2008 Superliga last night, beating Houston in the eighth round of penalty kicks after overtime ended 2-2. See the video here. It was a fantastic, wide-open and attacking game played by two teams who clearly respected each other - all this action despite the fact that the teams had agreed to split the prize money evenly between them no matter who won due to a dispute between MLS management and the players union. Click to continue reading...

The Italian police unfortunately stopped Italian football club Lazio from gaining the owners they deserve. Current Lazio club president Giorgio Chinaglia has been the run from Italian cops in the U.S. since 2006 for some financial shenanigans. Now the Casalesi clan in the Camorra (an organized crime group, basically Naples' version of Sicily's Cosa Nostra) tried to buy Lazio with laundered money. Click to continue reading...

I have been busy lately so I haven't posted much on soccer, but I can't resist noting this game. I love it when Italy loses. Click to continue reading...

Nobody likes it coming down to penalty kicks.
Chelsea lost in the Champions League final to Manchester United. They also lost the Premier League on the last day of the season last week, also to Man Utd. The EPL loss was their own fault - they didn't even win their last game of the season to put pressure on Man Utd. Click to continue reading...

Nike always does great soccer commercials. Here is the latest one, apparently directed by Guy Ritchie. The TV version is a bit shorter because they cut out three short snippets - spitting out teeth, 'special autograph', and puking after training.

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Chelsea beat Liverpool in overtime today to advance into the Champions League final. The aggregate score was 4-3. This game had it all - end to end attacking, controversial referee decisions (Essien's disallowed goal, Hypia's non-penalty), dubious coaching decisions (Liverpool subbed off goal-scorer Torres instead of general waste-of-space Dirk Kuyt), pre-game trash talk (Benitez claimed he had a 4 year video record of Drogba's dives), fantastic goals, and emotion. Click to continue reading...

Two quick soccer notes: Joey Franchino and Gary Flood's "incident" at Fenway Stadium, my account of the Revs game at New York.
First up - last week, Revolution midfielders Gary Flood and Joey Franchino got tossed from Fenway Park last week for public drunkenness. Usually Franchino gets ejected from games when he is a player, not a spectator. Click to continue reading...