Business as usual at the Old Firm

Luis Suarez has apologized, Kenny Dalglish has apologized. Both have exhibited sociopathic behaviour for the last two months which has brought much opprobrium on them and the club. But at least their apologies should be taken in good faith.

Here we are not 24 hours later with Richard Williams still milking it for all its worth.

If the early history of the European Championships can be seen as explicitly wrapped up in the politics of the time, then Spain's victory on home ground in 1964 European Nations Cup could be regarded as one of international football's ultimate flashes in the pan.
This was a victory that was simultaneously the last gasp of one of the greatest club sides that European football has ever seen and the beginning of a lull that would last for more than twenty years, a brief victory for the ultra-nationalism that blighted Spanish political life for the most of the four decades that followed the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939.

Big time changes are ahead for the CONCACAF Champions League. A change that will certainly help out a couple MLS sides this summer.

Starting this summer, the two-leg preliminary round – in which 16 teams would face off in a home-and-home series – has been eliminated. Instead, all 24 teams in the event will be drawn straight into the group stage.

Various MLS teams carry associations with particular regions for their foreign players. The Chicago Fire rode their ability to scout Eastern Europe (decent football, middling economics) to an extraordinary launch for their franchise. D.C. United uses non-major nations from South America (decent football, poor economics) to become MLS first dynasty.

The English Ramblers were an early challenger and loser to the entity known as "Fifa."

Editor's note: This is the 2nd piece for The Shin Guardian from Joshua Wells. Josh is broadly looking at the administrative side of soccer from legality through business practice here at TSG

Over the course of history, repressive governments tend to have common characteristics that define their operations and their impact on the world.

If you want to waste time and frustrate yourself, start a conversation/debate about soccer-football positions, what you call them, what that means, and what that implies about their roles.

This is probably why there is so little intelligent discussion about these things in the English-speaking world, if for no other reason than the fact that the very people who are purported to have invented the game long ago decided that tactics talk was somehow inherently cynical and have always seemingly been a half-step behind the rest of the world (and explains the rather off-putting nationalism that takes over the English sporting press any time a major international tournament rolls around).

What is the role of the American sports fan supposed to be for U.S. Soccer Men's National Team friendlies? In the perfect scenario, sports fans would come in droves to see the team play, nationalism would see an increase and TV ratings would prove to be invaluable.

Call for Proposals, Special Issue of GLQ: The Athletic Issue
Jennifer Locke, Black/White (2009) This issue aims to collate interdisciplinary queer scholarship on sports and physical culture. This work should engage major issues in contemporary criticism – e.g. discourse on nationalism, autonomy and escape; neoliberalism esp.

Last night Jeff Cunningham scored to move into a tie for the career MLS scoring record and move ahead of Brian McBride to become the Columbus Crew's all time leading goal scorer. The former is a record which will, in all likelihood, one day belong to Landon Donovan, but Cunningham would be a fine player to overtake Jaime Moreno and make the record his own.

Talk surfaced the other day about possible ongoing negitiations between the FAs of Singapore and Malaysia. At the heart is the idea they send their young teams to play in the others' league. So Young Lions in Malaysia, Super League or Premier League, while Harimau Muda play in the SLeague.
I did a piece in Jakarta Casual TV a couple of years ago about the benefits of the Young Lions playing in Malaysia.

During the league season, Liverpool's senior squad members traipsing off to their respective national sides is just a notch below a Joe Cole wind sprint on things I enjoy watching. There's the worry about injury, the predictably suffocating nationalism from Martin Samuel, and, more than anything, a few weeks without football for Liverpool.

Despite overtures to delicacy, Barcelona FC has become an unwieldy force, a football leviathan. Coinciding with the city's international debut in the '92 Olympics, the club began two decades of furious attack on Real Madrid's hegemony over Spanish football with championships in La Liga and the Champions League, with Super Copas and thrashings at the Bernabéu.