Sporting Madness

Yesterday may well be remembered as a momentous day in Vancouver soccer history. The news that Miami was dropping out of the MLS expansion race [ Duane Rollins , The 24th Minute ] was huge, as many had seen their bid as almost a sure thing given the involvement of FC Barcelona. This also reduced the pool of remaining cities to four (Vancouver, Portland, Ottawa and St. Louis), giving Vancouver a 50 per cent chance mathematically. Shortly thereafter, the news got even better: Duane related that a highly-placed MLS source had confirmed Vancouver and Portland as the two teams to be added, while Ives Galarcep anointed Vancouver as the front-runner . That seems to be the consensus around the intertubes at the moment, with Vancouver Province soccer reporter Marc Weber telling me on Twitter that he’d bet his house on Vancouver earning an expansion slot (he also put up a post about it today), Ben Knight declaring the Whitecaps all-but-in today, Ben Van Weelden proclaiming the Whiteca...

A quick note that we will be live with today's edition of Premier League Punditry in just under an hour. Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog will be here as usual, but Amrit is lying on a beach in Mexico, so Ben Knight , one of Canada's pre-eminent soccer writers (currently of Onward! Soccer , formerly of The Globe and Mail and Sportsnet.ca ) will be filling in for him. There's only a bit of Premier League action to talk about, but there's plenty of other stuff going on in the world of European soccer between the FA Cup, Guus Hiddink 's takeover at Chelsea, rumours of Avram Grant to Portsmouth , Real Madrid possibly preparing for another run at Cristiano Ronaldo , Jose Mourinho vowing to return Douglas MacArthur -style and David Beckham supposedly coming back to MLS ( or is he ?). [All stories above from ESPN Soccernet ] The plan is to cover some MLS and Canadian soccer topics as well, including the Ottawa stadium debate , Toronto ...

Now would be a great time to extend good wishes to soccer writer extraordinaire Ben Knight , who has just launched his own site after the Globe decided to move in a different direction [ Duane Rollins , Out of Left Field ] with their On Soccer blog. Ben is a terrific writer and a great guy, and I'm sure he'll find a lot of success with this. What I value most about his work is his ability to see the shades of grey I referenced earlier . Even on the topics he's most passionate about, such as the bungling of the CSA and some of the mistakes made by Toronto FC, he has avoided the pitfalls of absolutism and put forth balanced, reasoned and rational arguments to improve matters, rather than just the constant vitriol and criticism without solutions found in other quarters. He can balance being a journalist and being a fan, which is a difficult line to walk, but he does it very well in my mind and appeals to a broad range of people as a result. All soccer fans should definitely...

Don't have enough time to go into detail, but this is certainly interesting. The AP reports (via the Globe ) that AC Milan is trying to sign David Beckham on loan for the winter months when MLS isn't in season. Makes sense for Becks from both a soccer perspective (keep in shape) and a marketing one. Works for Milan too: Beckham is still a great player if used properly. Ben Knight has some great analysis on the marketing point here .

It was tremendous to hear that the Vancouver Whitecaps claimed the United Soccer League Division I championship [ Marc Weber , The Vancouver Province ] Sunday with a 2-1 win over the Puerto Rico Islanders [ Jim Morris , The Canadian Press via The Globe and Mail ]*. It's the Whitecaps' second championship in three years (their last one came in 2006), and their first championship clinched at home since they won the 1991 Canadian Soccer League title. That's some great news for Vancouver soccer fans. Yes, the Lions are still doing well and the Canucks are off to a 2-0 start, but for at least a little while, the Caps claimed top spot in the Vancouver spotlight. *Morris has some great tidbits in the notes at the bottom of his story, including that this is the first time the USL men's final has ever been between two teams from outside the U.S. and that the Vancouver-Puerto Rico trip is the second-longest in any world soccer league (bested only by Vladivostok and Kaliningrad...

Photo: Wingback Philipp Lahm seals the Germans' place in the finals with a stoppage-time goal. [Photo from The Daily Telegraph ] Breaking down Day XVII of the European Championships... Germany 3, Turkey 2 What a game that was. Unlike their snooze-fest against the Croatians, the Turks went for the throat right from the start and created chances by the bushel. The Germans, meanwhile, seemed to be caught flat-footed, and could only defend for the first little while as Turkey racked up 10 shots to their two in the first 20 minutes: amazing, considering the short bench Turkey was left with due to suspensions and injuries. The offensive pressure soon paid off for the Turks, as Ugur Boral drilled a rebound off the crossbar through the legs of Jens Lehmann in the 22nd minute. However, Germany quickly equalized four minutes later against the run of play on a great combination from Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger, and it was 1-1 going into the half. In the second half, watching beg...

To make a Major League Soccer franchise, you will need: - One (1) large metropolitan area with a long soccer tradition - One (1) billionaire owner committed to building a soccer-specific stadium at his own expense - At least three (3) natural rivals either in the league , entering the league , or pushing for an expansion slot . - 48, 172 fans who come out for a mere exhibition game against an MLS side (granted, one with a noted superstar ) - One (1) prominent and highly recognizable Canadian soccer player , national coach, Hall of Fame member, club coach, star executive, team president, spokesperson , TV commentator and newspaper columnist to helm the franchise bid. - One (1) soccer-specific waterfront stadium (NOTE: Highly desirable, but can be replaced temporarily by the following concoction: one (1) aging stadium that's shown it can handle high-level soccer matches , one (1) provincial premier willing to step into the breach left by local authorities and spend money on spor...

Some of the finest things about soccer are the inventive anthems each team's fans come up with. They can reference a past triumph, immortalize a particular player, or mock rival players, teams, fans and even the referees. They're also one of the prime reasons why soccer is so much more interesting and interactive than other sports: most North American pro sporting experiences involve blasting canned music (occasionally all right), doing "The Wave" (see Drunk Jays Fans for a great takedown of that one), running stupid animations on the scoreboards (Ben Knight had a nice rebuke of those), or trying to pump people up via the stupid NoiseMeter (no outside destruction of this is needed). Songs have always been a hallmark of the European soccer experience, but they've caught on in North America as well: the Whitecaps have long used "White is the Colour" (a takeoff on the popular Chelsea song " Blue is the Colour "), and TFC supporters have come up ...

Against the odds, the Canadian men's U-23 soccer team pulled off an amazing 5-0 win over group-leading Guatemala Sunday to keep their dreams of qualifying for this summer's Beijing Olympics alive. Although they were last in the group heading into the match, with only one point from two games, the win proved to be just enough to advance to the next stage. It came at the expense of perennial power Mexico, though, who scored five goals of their own in a win over Haiti that drew them level with the Canadians on points: the one goal the Mexicans gave up proved their undoing though, as Canada squeaked through with a +4 goal differential to Mexico's +3. It's impressive that the Canadians were able to produce so much offense. Usually, soccer teams from this country score a goal or two and then tenaciously defend, perhaps cautioned off from going for the jugular by fear of dispelling the "polite Canadians" stereotype. In international competitions like this tournamen...

I'm still in a bit of shock after watching Manchester United knocked out of the FA Cup by Portsmouth yesterday. United dominated the match, and looked sure to score at many points, including when a Michael Carrick effort was cleared off the line, but they could just never put the ball in the net. A perhaps overconfident halftime substitution saw Tomas Kuszczak take over in the goal for Edwin Van der Sar, but manager Sir Alex Ferguson can't really be blamed: at that point, it seemed inevitable one of United's efforts would slide home, and given the crucial fixtures upcoming in United's quest for league and European glory, it made sense to try and get Van der Sar some rest. Kuszczak had played pretty well thus far this campaign in the limited action he saw as well, so it didn't seem like an unreasonable decision at the time. Unfortunately for United, Kuszczak made a critical error, taking Milan Baros down on a breakaway (one of Portsmouth's only legitimate scorin...

Ben Knight has a great post on his globesports.com blog today about the creation of a Canadian Soccer Federation as perhaps the first step in the drastic overhaul or replacement of the troubled Canadian Soccer Association. I've written pretty extensively on the problems affecting the CSA before, so there's no real point in rehashing that. As Knight points out, probably the major issue at the root of these troublesome symptoms is the unnecessarily factionalized nature of the decision-makers, particularly on a board where provincial representatives looking out for their own organizations' interests make decisions affecting Canada at a national level. It's as ludicrous as those "Team Canada" missions where the premiers conduct international talks: you can't have provincial officials making decisions that affect an entire country, as they will always be looking after their own constituencies before the good of the entire populace. Knight also points out t...

Ben Knight, the Globe and Mail 's esteemed soccer writer, had a great post up today about the Canadian Soccer Association refusing to reveal the terms of their settlement with Fred Nykamp (the chief operating officer they lured from Canada Basketball, kept in limbo for several months, and eventually fired before he could start work). If this were any other government-funded organization, people would be up in arms by now: they've been without a full-time president since Colin Linford's resignation, there's no technical director or COO in sight, they somehow managed to lose substantial money on a U-20 World Cup tournament that shattered attendance records, and now they've wasted an undisclosed amount of money on a settlement that wouldn't have been necessary if they hadn't been so inept in the first place. It's not disputed that Nykamp deserved a substantial settlement for his shoddy treatment at the hands of the CSA: the taxpayers and average soccer pla...

There's lots of discussion going on in Canuck Nation at the moment regarding Hockey Night in Canada panelist Al Strachan's suggestion last night that Mats Sundin may be headed to Vancouver. It's certainly an intriguing notion: the Canucks' major weakness is a lack of deep, consistent scoring, which Sundin would certainly provide. However, given that he's likely to only be a rent-a-player and wind up back in Toronto next season, the question is if he's worth the steep price the Leafs will certainly demand. My thinking is he is, but only if two conditions are met: first, that Vancouver's playing well enough that his addition would be enough to push them over the top into the realm of serious Cup contenders, and second, that the Canucks don't have to mortgage their entire future to grab him. The first condition seems to be a bit of an iffy proposition at the moment, as the Canucks haven't played consistently lately. After falling behind to Detroit, one...

Last weekend in the NFL was a case in point as to why we still bother to actually play out the games, even in this day and age of intensive statistics, research and computer analysis on sporting events. Against the odds and the collected wisdom of the pundits and prognosticators, two underdogs (the San Diego Chargers and New York Giants) knocked off heavily-favoured teams (the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys). The classic "any given Sunday" line became true again, which is a great thing for both the league and sport in general. Hopefully, this will continue: it will certainly make next week's games interesting if the Chargers and Giants can at least give the Patriots and Packers a run for their money. All sense, odds, and logical thought again favours the home teams, but as this past week showed, the league can't simply be turned over to the statisticians and computers. It should be a great round of games. Links of the day: - Stephen Brunt has a great piece in...

Currently watching the Canada-U.S. showdown at the World Juniors. Good game so far: the first period was a little defensive, but as a Canucks fan, I can hardly complain about that! Canada broke through in the second with a nice goal, and both teams seem to have decided to turn up the offensive pressure as a result. Kyle Turris is having a solid game, and just recorded Canada's second goal on the power play (after the U.S. was called for too many men on the ice) What I find weird about this match is how many, including the Globe's Tim Wharnsby , have labeled the Canadians as underdogs. Sure, they lost once in the group stage this year to a very good Swedish team (who knocked off Russia earlier today to advance to the finals), and came in through a quarterfinal win over Finland, but they've still won the last three world championships, and killed the Russians in the Super Series earlier this year: that deserves a little respect in my books at least. In contrast, the U.S. has...