The DVD is the A&E-produced History of the MLS Cup, which was released just before last year's championship game.

I was sent two review copies (that I haven't looked at) so will give one sealed, never-viewed 91-minute history of the cup (great for re-gifting this holiday season!) to the first person who correctly predicts the score of Sunday's game in the comments section of this blog post.

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A few weeks back it made the news that Shawn Francis, purveyor of "The Offside Rules" would be making the jump to MLS to act in an editorial role for their new digital media initiative. Earlier this week, the first public fruits of that hire were unveiled with the new MLS Insider blog.
I have to admit that I never found The Offside Rules all that interesting. Click to continue reading...

Big Story
There is an excellent debate going on at the pages of A More Splendid Life about the future of soccer journalism (or really, the future of journalism in general), with his post yesterday on the impending doom for us all as the "so-called "newspaper model" seems as yet irreplaceable when it comes to affording a living wage for journalists".

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From the ESPN press release:

ESPN2's live coverage of the 2009 MLS Western Conference Finals Friday, Nov. 13, a 2 - 0 extra time victory by the Los Angeles Galaxy over the Houston Dynamo, was seen in an average of 538,000 television homes (700,000 people 2+), based on a 0.5 rating, making it the most-watched MLS telecast ever on the network.

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A nice piece from Whittall today on the digital media transition, with an intelligent critique of the Clay Shirky article I linked to a while ago:

And this where Shirkly's article bugs me: while he's right in seeing present circumstances for what they are, he ends the article the way many of these articles tend to, with the realization that the medium for journalists has to be replaced and "who knows what will replace it, only time and innovation will tell!

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The Wikimedia Foundation has kicked off their annual fundraising campaign:

Lots of people love Wikipedia, but surprisingly few know it's run by a non-profit, the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation has just one purpose: to support the free and open sharing of knowledge. We don't sell information and we don't accept advertising.

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Plenty of other soccer on TV in addition to tonight's Galaxy-Dynamo game, while local colleges enter post-season play this weekend.

TV best bets
11 o'clock tonight Fox Soccer Channel New Zealand-Bahrain (World Cup qualifier with former Galaxy man Simon Elliot on the NZ squad).

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Before the Arsenal-Tottenham game:
Tabloid hack 1: Oi... you heard about this?
Tabloid hack 2: What's that?
1: Robbie Keane. The fool. He's only gone and said that Spurs are better than Arsenal and will definitely take their top four spot this season, hasn't he? Click to continue reading...

In a routine chat with MUTV this week, Manchester United backup goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak said the following:

"To be honest, I must say this and Edwin doesn't like this too much for sure, but he doesn't help me too much.

"I have told him a few times already to give me some more advice because he's got more experience and got many more games under his belt.

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Two days until the Galaxy-Chivas USA Western Conference semifinal from Carson's Home Depot Center (4:30 p.m. ESPN2) and the Galaxy blog reports tickets are going fast and the club is considering opening up the grass berm.

Don't have yours yet? Click here.

Suggested reading/listening/viewing:
*Reporter Phil Collin has more on the game here.

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One of the more quiet acquisitions that MLSE made this summer was a controlling stake in the football specialty channel GolTV. The purchase may be the first step towards making a TFC TV channel but of course that means MLSE will need to create a full line-up of programming. As with any network, not all of the shows can be big hits - such as. Click to continue reading...

Sorry for the short notice.

Here's the brief press release I got from the Galaxy just minutes ago:

Galaxy head coach and general manager Bruce Arena and midfielder David Beckham will go "Inside the Locker Room" with the Petros and Money Show on Fox Sports Radio on Wednesday evening.

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Soccer on TV this weekend kicks off with a broadcast of the USC-UCLA women's game at 7 o'clock tonight on Fox Soccer Channel (and delayed at 8:30 p.m. on Prime) in a meeting of two top 20-ranked teams.

Here are some other highlights of the weekend's televised games (for a complete list click the link at top right) followed by the local college action you can see live.

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As an ardent Tottenham fan and journalistic pretender, a piece on The Telegraph's website today wrangled with me for numerous reasons.
As part of the 'Daily Bung' segment, writer Mike Norrish (on evidence of this, a Spurs-hating, subjective fool) has spewed out the most ridiculous and contradictory piece on why Tottenham will probably lose the North London Derby on Saturday. Click to continue reading...

It's the final weekend of the MLS regular season in what we are (constantly) reminded is the tightest playoff race in league history, while local colleges are also getting closer to making tournament plans. And, of course, the especially avid fan can see the Galaxy play San Jose at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Home Depot Center (9 p.

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The second in our Thursday series looking at classic football programmes, that perfect accompaniment for a trip down memory lane. Today, England's West Bromwich Albion take on a mysterious "China Eleven" in a 1970s international friendly.

West Bromwich Albion vs.

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Imagine if AC Milan scores tonight a goal? More than one goal? If theyWin? Famous Italian Football commenter Tiziano Crudeli may reactlike this:Now this is passion! By the way, check the dude next to Crudeli. Click to continue reading...

The MLS regular season is about to end but the TFC Media League is still going strong. Since the news doesn't end when the season does, the Graham Legatt Trophy won't be decided until the end of 2009. The Fan 590 was a hot mover this round, despite Bob McCown's best efforts, but it's still The Toronto Star and The Toronto Sun battling it out on the top of the table. Click to continue reading...

Now that it's confirmed the United States will be participating in next year's World Cup, the American sports media will be ramping up their coverage of soccer here in the States. It's the way of...

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A full slate of MLS games returns for the penultimate weekend of play after the WCQ break with the Galaxy on the road against the Dynamo (noon Sunday TeleFutura) and Chivas USA at home Saturday against the San Jose Earthquakes (7:30 p.m. KAZA, delayed 11:15 p.m. Prime), a team that returns to L.A.

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What can I say about this when I first saw this in the morning?
To my surprise, even one of my maternal aunts can recalled some of the names of these legends when she revealed that during her courtship days with my uncle - going to the catch the team in action was a common thing in their "pak-tor" days! Click to continue reading...

Dirty, dirty Leeds. Dirty fucking Leeds. After reading David Peace's novel The Damned Utd these words cycled through my head for days. They work as an obsessive refrain in Peace's account of Brian Clough's infamous 44 days as the manager of (dirty, dirty) Leeds.

I knew nothing about Clough, Leeds, and this bizarre story before reading Peace's novel.

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The general mindset of most local clubs officials and players is to keep "things within four walls" and it's not very often we see war-of-words trading across feuding parties to ensure the mood of solidarity in the local football fraternity (because of the "Code of Conduct" I guess).
Personally, nothing wrong with that as nobody would want to see a WWE-styled reality show since the main product is the game itself. Click to continue reading...

It's about time, the millions who have had to plug through the unwieldy navigation (let's see how many hundreds of links we can pile into one homepage!) and mediocre writing of Major League Soccer's website will say, but the news is still good for American soccer fans: MLS is bringing its website production in-house, planning to revamp it entirely for a slated re-launch in March 2010.

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As I sit here watching the first game of the "weekend' - U.S.-Korea at the U-20 World Cup on ESPN2, BTW and reshown on Galavision at 4 p.m. - I was struck by the paucity of quality games on the tube this weekend (Liverpool-Chelsea at 8 a.m. Sunday on Fox Soccer Channel excepted).

Fox Soccer Channel is showing San Jose-New York on Saturday, for instance, on a weekend fraught with playoff implications.

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Today's version of The Sweeper at Pitch Invasion on my critique of what the death of print media means for MLS:

Still, I'll maintain my original piece identifies a two-pronged problem not solved by amateur or even semi-pro or team-run online coverage. Firstly, we still do not have a replacement for the loss of an independent reporter embedded with the team and travelling around with them — this can't be done by bloggers unless a much stronger income model is developed and a team-funded replacement is obviously problematic.

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You all know the Spanish media, don't you? If you don't, I'm really glad for you, you aren't missing a thing. If the British gutter press loves hiding stuff in order to keep their targets (those previously paid ones, yeah) clear and their readers cheated, the Iberian one does the very same thing, but with [. Click to continue reading...

Last week, I discussed the decline in beat reporting on American sports, which is hitting the less popular sports leagues such as Major League Soccer particularly hard. My particular example came from the city I know best, Chicago, where we've seen the major daily here cut its beat reporter for the Fire this year and replace him with an enthusiastic but inexperienced blogger, whose work rarely makes the print edition.

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Why do our bodies age?� Perhaps surprisingly, scientists are not entirely sure.� Certainly there would be many advantages both to the individual and to the species if the human lifespan could accumulate experiences in one long, linear progression towards perfection.� Sadly, the window for the body's chance at perfection is fleeting.

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In men's soccer Thursday, Loyola Marymount beat Riverside 1-0 in a non-conference game at Sullivan Field, freshman Chris Bernardi scoring the winner with just 3:41 left in the second half. The No. 20-ranked LIons move to 5-2 on the season ahead of Sunday's 7 p.m. home game and final non-conference match of the year against Cal State Bakersfield (3-3-1).

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Most parents will tell you that if you coddle a child for too long then they will end up spoiled. Now it's unsure how long "childhood" lasts for your average MLS club but three years seems to be at least "young adult". Why then, is Toronto FC being treated so gingerly by most observers - both on the inside and the outside of the club? Click to continue reading...

The collapse of the newspaper industry comes at a terrible time for a growing league like MLS. Numerous MLS teams don't even have beat reporters dedicated to them in the first place. Or if they do, they're the first to go.

Take the case of the struggling Chicago Tribune, who decided a few months ago to drop their beat coverage of the Chicago Fire by moving reporter Luis Arroyave from covering the Fire to covering showbusiness (a fitting move for the former FHM writer).

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One of the strengths of Footbo has been the ability of users to grade a game and the performances within. Recently they made changes to the widget that allows for this user interaction and it is a definite improvement.

I would encourage you all to check it out. Rather than getting a grade from Goal.

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How busy will this weekend be for soccer on TV?

Colorado and San Jose get things under way at 8 p.m. on ESPN2 in a rare Friday evening game.

Oh, and last night the UCLA men beat their Cal State Fullerton counterparts, 2-1. Game story.

For an exhaustive listing of every available game click the live soccer TV link to the right.

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I'm sick of this crappy little network and having to deal with their bullshit.

They suck. Plain and simple! They promised us 3 games a week and they are already backing off to 2 games a week at best. They promised a contest that never materialized. They pick up Europa and won't even show German teams.

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