First off, thanks to Shatz for asking me to fill in for a minute around these parts, and thanks to Twitter (Follow me @the_amt!) for bringing fans and bloggers together. Cue the cheesy wink.

Since Shatz asked me to guest-blog last week, I've been trying to think of a topic to cover, but most of them just caused me mental and/or emotional pain.

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I admit it. I was wrong. When Fox Soccer Channel announced in the Spring that they had acquired the US TV rights to the UEFA Champions League for the next three seasons, I recommended to the EPL Talk readers that Fox should hire the world feed that featured the UEFA commentary team instead of putting Fox's crew behind the mic.

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Fox Soccer Channel really know its soccer. I love the cable network, and I love the broadcasting duo of Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan, who worked Saturday's 3-0 Real Salt Lake victory over the Colorado Rapids.

And although they don't work every Rapids game, the offered keen insight into the team and its playoff fortunes throughout Saturday night's telecast from Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah.

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I thought it may...or may not...be of interest to watch a Major League Soccer game on television with me one of six I watched on TV last Saturday. Call this a non-live live blog.

AsI watch this afternoon's match between the Chicago Fire and New England Revolution, I'll share my thoughts with you from beginning of the pre-game show through the end of the post-game coverage.

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What more can be said about Arthur Fonzarelli's Liverpool (and Fernando Torres) on the weekend? A combination of relentless attacking football and a team clearly out of sorts at the back ("Kettle, you're black") left Liverpool three points back from the top with a Sunday trip to Stamford Bridge looming large in league.

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Max Bretos: Muckraker
From Max's Twitter:
Quote: Don't want to sound like a jerk, but if Jerry Lewis has not found a cure for MD by now, time to move on to new cause or, inspect the books. Is Max really questioning Jerry Lewis' work with MDA? Click to continue reading...

A couple months ago when the news broke that ESPN lost the UEFA Champions League rights to Fox, most of the responses I read here and elsewhere were negative and somewhere along the lines of, "there's no HD and Max Bretos sucks."This was surprising. I figured the less Tommy Symth in your life -- the better. Click to continue reading...

Today marked the debut of the UEFA Champions League, the world's premier club event on the FOX networks.

FOX's pre game coverage was outstanding with Max Bretos, Bobby McMahon and Warren Barton enhancing the previous coverage we were accustomed to from ESPN in the United States.

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So today is the day.
The day UEFA Champions League coverage begins on Fox Soccer Channel. It starts with a live match at 2:30 p.m. (eastern) featuring Sheriff Tiraspol vs. Olympiakos (kickoff is 2:45) and then a tape-delayed airing of Celtic vs. Arsenal. I don't know how the rights breakdown in such a way that the Celtic-Arsenal game is on tape delay here in the States on FSC, but that's the deal. Click to continue reading...

Last evening I caught a bit of the RSL and Houston Dynamo game and I was reminded of the incessant verbiage of Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan who have the attention spans of fruit flies. Their attention to the match waxes and wanes as they offer their diatribe on what the match should look like which bears little resemblance to how the match is actually playing out.

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Fox has revealed the TV schedule for its playoff round of Champions League matches it'll be on showing live on its Fox Soccer Channel network as well as its sister networks such as FSN and Fox Sports en Espanol.

The schedule is listed below. But in other important and related news, Fox Soccer Channel has pushed back the timeline of its HD coverage from this fall to February 2010, for the round of 16.

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A 5-0 rout offers very little scope for rationalization. Was it an errant offside call? A rogue referee who called the fouls for Mexico? Missed opportunities? Max Bretos and Chris Sullivan might have spun harder than a 45 rpm turntable but even they failed miserably in putting a finer point to it all.

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All that has come before this moment is meaningless.
Well, not totally meaningless. Freddy Adu still played himself off the World Cup squad, that still happened.
I was all concerned about trying to chart who has helped themselves potentially grab a 2010 roster spot, and who hurt their chances. Click to continue reading...

Fox Soccer Channel will be televising friendlies this summer featuring Spanish powerhouses Real Madrid and Barcelona.

The action gets underway on Saturday, Aug. 1 at 10:30 p.m. ET when Fox Soccer Channel broadcasts Barcelona against LA Galaxy live from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan will be commentating.

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FIFA rejects calls to ban the wind instrument.

"It's been compared to a deafening swarm of wasps. Or a herd of flatulent elephants."

How about we will never have to suffer through Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan's whingeing drivel?

For all those naysayers who think SA is going to be a crime haven, the vuvuzela will be the perfect crime stopper.

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Hearing Max Bretos and Christopher Sullivan's drivel on FSC was enough to make Beckham's re-entry less painful. I could not decide between the two for a long time till I heard Sullivan's summation of Beckham's performance after he struggled to put two passes together in 70 minutes as "simple, smart, and intelligent.

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Michael Buffer: It's time for the Great Debate, soccer edition. First up, which cup means more this summer? Gold Cup or Open Cup?
LET'S GET READY TO... never mind, these guys are paying me enough for the gimmick...
The Gold Cup
The winner gets a big shiny trophy, but what else. Click to continue reading...

The Barclays Premier League Review Show will be returning to the Fox Sports Regional Networks for the 2009-2010 season after a break of several years, according to an inside source.

Many followers of English football on U.S. television may remember the early incarnations of the Review Show, which was shown on Fox regional affiliates throughout the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s.

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As I discussed yesterday I love the Gold Cup. Perhaps the tournament needs to be moved back to February or made once every four years but I do support the event wholeheartedly.

The United States is in CONCACAF and I have made an effort to understand the rest of CONCACAF as well as I understand the USMNT.

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I won't say how many years I'd been provided or what substance I had been nepotistically coaxed into downing, but I can say that I sat intently through the whole happenstance, hoping it to reveal itself to be unfathomably true, too many damn parallels to refute. And yeah, Dorothy putting her hand to the Tin Man's chest whilst a heartbeat closes out Dark Side is a skosh bizarre, but I can point to another time years later where the apophenia was waaay more NO FUCKIN' WAY, DUDE and didn't involve going through the same album's motions thrice. Click to continue reading...

We now know the three Caribbean entrants into the 2010 CONCACAF Champions League:

1. San Juan Jabloteh (Trinidad and Tobago)
2. W Connection (Trinidad and Tobago)
3. Puerto Rico Islanders (Puerto Rico)

Thanks to this article from Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday we also know that Jabloteh's players have some of the best names in the region:

"Cyrano Glen and Elton John netted first half items for Jabloteh, while an own goal by Karlon Murray helped Tempete's cause.

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How about the moves of Brad Davis on the wing in the early part of the highlights? Wow!

Wow, Chivas USA pulling away from the pack a bit. Zach Thornton is killin it so far this year!

I love the line by Max Bretos the commentator, "the comb over header by Cooper".

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Anyone watching Chicago Fire vs KC Wizards this past weekend saw Cuauhtémoc Blanco pull out the old Cuauteminha. Or, as Max Bretos calls it: "The Bunny Hop". You can see the World Cup '98 version on 101GG. It's not my favourite trick in the world because Blanco loses all acceleration when he does it, but [. Click to continue reading...

By SEAN RUBIO

Good afternoon folks. If you are looking for some good soccer reading, here are some stories to satisfy your craving:

• FOX Vice President says Champions League will not be in HD until February 2010 [NY Times]
• The sins of the NASL and how we're still paying for them [The Offside]
• "The UEFA Champions' League is stupid and useless and needs to be spayed.

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By SEAN RUBIO

Good afternoon folks. If you are looking for some good soccer reading, here are some stories to satisfy your craving:

• FOX Vice President says Champions League will not be in HD until February 2010 [NY Times]
• The sins of the NASL and how we're still paying for them [The Offside]
• "The UEFA Champions' League is stupid and useless and needs to be spayed.

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Fox recently beat out ESPN for the rights to broadcast next year's Champions League fixtures. Footsmoke has been getting a lot of mail about the implications of this potentially lucrative swoop. I answer some of the responses below.

USAWC2030 writes: What was ESPN thinking?

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Dick's Sporting Good Park, home to the Colorado Rapids can seat about 19,000 fans. Their matches are averaging a shade below 12,000.

Max Bretos just brought up an important point.

Two years ago, Rapids owner Stan Kroenke used his share holding position to build an alliance with Arsenal which would be used to exchange commercial and marketing information.

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What would you do if you were in charge of Fox Soccer Channel's TV coverage? The dilemma is that you're trying to establish your own brand and to build an audience with your own personnel, but soccer fans as you'll probably agree are difficult people to please. We always want perfection. A perfect example [. Click to continue reading...

Isnt it just Red Bulls luck that the day Leo Messi is given the green light to rejoin his club team, it would be on the day that he is 1000000 miles from New York City? Of course . . .

Regardless, here we are, mere hours from the showdown.

In the meanwhile, I got a chance to meet and speak to the players of Barcelona, along with Fernando Fiore of Republica Deportiva fame, Chris Sullivan and Max Bretos (funny guys) and Barce President Laporta.

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Hi all: an anonymous poster suggested you guys up in New York have an opportunity to meet Barcelona up close and personal while benefiting a fantastic global cause. Of course Barca is known for their altruism (forgoing millions in kit sponsorships to advertise UNICEF, etc.) and they've picked New York as the kick off of their next global gesture. Click to continue reading...

By JAMES CLARKAlex, Ben and I left the house at 7:15 a.m. on Saturday, July 19th and spent the day at Fort Dix in 97-degree heat as the lads were playing in the Central Jersey Invitational Cup as part of the South Jersey Barons summer select U-11 soccer team. Click to continue reading...

In case you missed the Battle in the Big Apple (at the stadium in New Jersey} or simply want to relive the highlights.
"Ambidexterity, people!" I sometimes roll my eyes at Max Bretos when he's announcing, but of all the English-language announcers, I think his enthusiasm for the game is unparalleled. Click to continue reading...

This is a subject near and dear to my heart due to my history of being in the broadcast world over the last few years. I've been working on coming up with some sort of guide for people for when it comes to who they will probably be listening to on a broadcast of a [...] Click to continue reading...

U-G-L-Y, You ain't got no alibi! You ugly!Good God, that was not pleasing on the eyes, now was it? The US eases to a 2-0 victory on the back of a scrappy corner kick goal (Eddie Robinson for target man!) and a Donovan penalty (please, please, please stop with the kissing already!) In the process, Donovan becomes the USA's all-time leading scorer, despite looking only half-interested for most of Click to continue reading...