Sporting Madness

Tonight should be an interesting one. The newly-signed Julian De Guzman makes his debut for Toronto FC against David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy. It will be a match of two of the league's better teams; Toronto's currently fourth in the Eastern Conference with 34 points from a 9-9-7 record while L.A.'s second in the Western Conference with a 9-5-11 record and 38 points. The game kicks off at 10:30 p.m. Eastern (7:30 p.m. Pacific) and can be seen in Canada on Rogers Sportsnet (not sure of the U.S. TV coverage). Join me here then for the live blog! (If you're looking for the CFL live blog of the Lions - Argos game, it's one post above). L.A. Galaxy - Toronto FC

Sean Gordon of The Globe and Mail reported this afternoon that David Beckham may be looking into joining forces with Joey Saputo in the Montreal Impact's bid for MLS. The story's apparently based off this report from Jack Bell of The New York Times over at the paper's Goal blog. Here's the money quote from Bell's piece: "According to a person with knowledge of Beckham’s planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concern about jeopardizing a potential deal, Beckham, 34, and his management team at 19 Entertainment (led by Simon Fuller) and Creative Artists Agency (led by Jeff Frasco) are interested in being partners with Joey Saputo, the owner of the Montreal Impact. The Impact plays in the United Soccer Leagues First Division, one tier down from M.L.S." Obviously, Montreal's push for MLS is no secret, and it's been gaining plenty of force lately. The financing struggles of George Gillett , owner of Liverpool, soon-to-be-former ...

After embarrassing 3-0 and 2-0 losses to the Houston Dynamo and Vancouver Whitecaps in the past week, Toronto F.C. will be looking to rebound at home today against the L.A. Galaxy. They should have a good shot at it; they're still third in the Eastern Conference with 16 points, while the Galaxy are fifth in the Western Conference with 12 points and are missing their biggest stars ( David Beckham and Landon Donovan ) thanks to international duty. One advantage of Canada's failure to make it this far in World Cup qualifying is that TFC should have a reasonably intact lineup, as many of their international players are Canadians. They will be missing two regulars, Amado Guevara and Marvell Wynne , but those players are less essential to the TFC lineup than their missing counterparts from the Galaxy. Moreover, L.A. haven't won an away game in 12 months, a favourable omen for the Reds. Join me in the live blog below to find out if that streak will continue! Toronto FC - L.A. Ga...

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 ...

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 .