Players and Fans are the two key ingredients that make football the beautiful game.
The skill and the atmosphere, the suspense and the uncertainties, sometimes even a randomness of
poetic and physical forms.
Football will always be this but there are some parts of the game that now exist in a parallel
universe to the game/play outlined above.
Sometimes EPL matches are worth watching for the randomness that occurs in the stands, such as
in yesterday's match between Sunderland and Queen Park Rangers in which, if you watched closely,
you would see a Sunderland fan celebrating Nicklas Bendtner's goal by standing and hugging/jumping
with his dog.
On Sunday night Toby and I took in Sutton United v Notts County in the FA Cup second round
proper (a trip to Doncaster was on offer to the winners).
No giant killing here. County eventually sauntered to a routine victory, but there were alarms
along the way, notably when Sutton were awarded then missed a penalty on the verge of half-time
(shooooot!
Six of our boys yes, Bob was in the house participated in EA Sports' official FIFA 12 Pro Player
Tournament on Wednesday at Cobham. Cue the inevitable trash talk and the birth of Romelu "I love
the silence" Lukaku.
That's right. Our young Belgian enforcer emerged from the wreckage triumphant, topping fellow
18-year-old Josh McEachran by a 4-1 scoreline in the final.
No words. Hit the jump for a cinematic look at my immediate reaction to coming across this truly
bizarre photo of Frank Lampard and some kid. Thanks a lot, Tumblr.
Kid N Play
First, let me say welcome to those visiting this here blog only because a certain cranial-heavy
pop fad was tagged in the post.
Justin Bieber is in Britain for something or other. Girls everywhere are crying. Meanwhile, the
singer turned rapper took some time out from making said girls sob incessantly by hauling his
4-year-old girlfriend, Selena Gomez, to Stamford Bridge for a private tour.
And the world wept.
Ashley & Cheryl?
Add this one to the list of things you never expected to see. Ever.
After you're done admiring a certain pregnant woman's thickness, fast forward to 2:16 and check
for a rather familiar blue top amongst the crowd on the porch. Carefree, bitches.
Sidenote aka shameless promotion: Shout out to J.
You can't make stuff like this up. England's Brave John Terry was today, amid training and
fighting this bizarre racist abuse claim, to serve as grand opener at Reptile Kingdom near Cobham.
Wait, what?
Terry, of course, did not show up, much to the dismay of many, including the young one
below.
The whirligig that is international week has left me struggling for time as we approach the mundane
predictability of the SPL.
So this week's SPL preview has been drawn entirely at random.
Not by me.
I've shipped in a glamorous assistant, a glamorous assistant who is the number one draw every
Wednesday night at a "gentleman's club" cabaret in Newcastle.
Reckon Andre broke this out after he secured Meireles at the eleventh hour, leaving Daniel Levy
with a great big pile of misery in the form of Luka Modric. Kick it.
EA Sports, proud (for better or worse) creators of the gargantuanly successful FIFA gaming
series, have been making friends with everybody lately. Running round making club-specific deals
instead of focusing on improving the product how wonderful. But I digress. This new-found
friendliness from EA continues today, with Chelsea announcing an official partnership with the
conglomerate for the 2011-12 season.
There's not really anymore to say, really. Someone get Keano on the horn.
Via
A Drogba joined a Malouda today at Dijon, just not the ones we're familiar with.
Not these two
Dijon, who will compete in France's top flight for the first time in the club's history this
season, announced the signing of Freddy Drogba on Wednesday. Freddy is, of course, the younger
brother of The Mighty One.
So many of us blogger types have been obsessing over transfers for months now. It's only natural
really. Concrete news is at a minimum for the most part, and rumors are very much a welcome
diversion from the regular old norm.
Some, including us here at the Chelsea Offside, have even gone as far as to ask readers who
would be their dream signings this summer.
Ashley Cole is set to enter the restaurant biz in London with hip-hop artist Jay-Z. Prepare to
add "restaurant mogul" to his resume.
Look, it already has its own website and everything.
"London is one of the most vibrant and exciting cities in the world and the perfect location for
our new venue," Jay-Z said in an official statement.
We trawl through a lot of football videos here at OTP, but when you spot one entitled Emile Heskey
vs Neymar it tends to stand out from the crowd. And so we are featuring it purely on the grounds of
randomness. Is it a post-modern statement on the hype surround young footballers in the YouTube
[...]
Branislav Ivanovic's young son takes the opportunity post-match yesterday to break away from the
pack and show off some dribbling skills. And then, he shoots he scores! Only five more goals to
catch up to his dad for the season!
Quick, run, before the tabloids come
Run from the night or we end up in The Sun
-Jay-Z, American Boy remix
"ASHLEY COLE is in talks with JAY-Z to learn how to tackle the music business."
You can't make this stuff up. Cashley, according to your rapper's favorite tabloid, who else but
The Sun, is in talks with S.
Last week I took a look at correlations between first half and second half rates of various
statistics for MLS players to help explore the question of whether the rates were primarily driven
by player skill or other factors. The upshot was that shot rate is pretty well correlated, but both
accuracy (shots on goal / shots) and conversion (goals / shots on goal) were all over the place,
indicating that factors other than player skill (which we'll call 'randomness') dominate those
rates.
I hope that clip of Cesc in the new Spanish film Torrente 4 has you prepared for the
randomness that will be today's blog post.
What better place to start than on Arsenal goalkeepers? Jens Lehmann made his triumphant Arsenal
return with the Reserves team who played Wigan today.
Too good. Who knew Bob had such a sense of humor? Video after the jump.
A Ron Swanson approved prank.
Love it.
The Mirror got jokes.
Ashley Cole shot my mum last week. The drama has since been immortalized in digital form, first
by Taiwanese television and now by some crafty fucks with degrees in software engineering.
No disrespect, of course. This is good, real good.
The trolls have also agreed to a similar contract. It really is quite flattering, you know?
And kind of sad.
Well done, sirs.
You beat us. Twice. You deserved all six points. Congratulations. Now, how about moving on to
bigger and better things? Yeah, like focusing on the mighty Wigan.
Fernando, we know you're out there. And we want you to know we care.
Carra.
It's been a traumatic 10 or so days for you.
You moved to a new city, one so full of promise yet one so new, so unfamiliar. You initially
longed for the comfort of home, and the company of many of your Scouse friends.
The enigma that is Salomon Kalou was on full show Tuesday at the Stadium of Light. A superb
shift as foil to Didier Drogba overshadowed by a second-half miss so glorious that it managed to
bemuse the hell out of all of us. Bemusing us, it's what King Salomon does best.
Oh dear.
Looks like the club is already recovering some of that British record transfer fee.
Movin' units
Marketability. The Mirror today has a story regarding the retail madness that has been
Fernando Torres shirt sales. Since the Spanish striker joined Chelsea from Liverpool on Monday
night, the club have reportedly sold a billion No.
After a summer World Cup that saw the United States kick, claw, scratch, sidefoot and ultimately
submit, focus for US Soccer migrated ever so briefly from it's players to the front office so to
speak.
The populace...
With a new four-year preparatory cycle virtually beginning instantaneously, the denouement of an
on-field campaign wrecked by Asamoah Gyan saw Sunil Gulati and US Soccer navigate, or meander if
you prefer, through three events that didn't necessarily have the desired outcomes: the rehiring,
or hiring, of a men's national team coach, drastic CONCACAF qualifying changes and a massive and
aspirational attempt to bring the World Cup back to US soil.
Another introduction, you ask? But of course. We're ramping this thing up to 11. Eleven.
Crank it the **** up
Suitor No. 2. The second suitor, if you will (apologies for the plethora of film references
today), is familiar to those who frequent The Offside.
Ladies, gentlemen, those not of this realm,
I'd like to take this time to make an introduction, a most triumphant one. No, unfortunately
he's not from San Dimas. He does, however, hail from California the City of Angels, in fact.
Jack. Devin.
This fine man has been following The CO on the hush for a while.
Never underestimate the randomness of any draft. Sure enough, Vancouver stunned the room right away
Thursday with its choice to begin the process, taking project striker Omar Salgado rather than one
of the two players everyone had projected to go at Nos. 1 and 2.
From there, a draft chalk full of quality defenders saw just one of them taken among the first
five names called.
"Wear it in health." -- Marlo Stanfield to Omar Little during the poker game robbery on "The Wire."
Little different approach to this here blog-o-roonie for a Monday morning.The English/Barclay's
Premier League was off for the weekend to make way for the FA Cup. Nothing against tradition -- I
love any competition that dates back to the days of Old Hoss Radbourn as much as the next guy --
but the
It's January. Let the spending commence.
Loves the smell of commerce in the morning
I came across this last week and found it a nice peruse, what with the scramble for
reinforcements upon us. Now, I'm not trying to make some grandiose statement by swiping this
information from transferleague.
