Sporting Madness

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 ...

Jason Davis of Match Fit USA and Zach Woosley of Ginge Talks The Footy were nice enough to have me on the Match Fit USA Podcast yesterday to discuss the Vancouver Whitecaps and the B.C. Place roof situation . Here's the link to the newly-uploaded podcast. Check it out!

The latest news on the B.C. Place front, which Duane covered here , is rather depressing. As most know, the $365 million plan to replace the existing solid roof with a retractable one and renovate the interior of B.C. Place was an important part of the Whitecaps' successful bid to join Major League Soccer. However, Global BC (a local television channel)'s sources have told them that "the roof replacement may no longer be a key government priority and it may be forced to pull its funding in the current economic climate," meaning "the project could face some serious delays or be cancelled altogether". As the Globe and Mail story linked above shows, nothing's been officially decided yet, though. It's understandable that the provincial government is looking for ways to cut costs. After all, they're facing a deficit that could reach as high as $4 billion this year , despite pre-election predictions in February that it would only be $495 million. Th...

Today's announcement [ Jose Romero , The Seattle Times ] of Portland as the 18th MLS franchise could mean great things for the league, especially considering how Vancouver was named as the 17th franchise [ Marc Weber , The Province ] on Wednesday. Of course, there are many great reasons behind this pairing, but one of the most interesting is the history between the cities. Way back when Duane first called the race for Vancouver and Portland on March 3 , his MLS source stated that the decision was made due to "stadium plan, political support and geographical factors". The stadium plans and political support are obviously crucial, but much ink has been spilled about them already, so it's those geographical factors that deserve further examination. Vancouver, Portland and Seattle have had a natural soccer rivalry since the days of the old NASL, and that rivalry has carried on through the USL; all three cities had USL teams from 2001-2008, rekindling the old flame. Mor...

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...

Welcome to today's edition of Premier League Punditry! The EPL got back into full swing this week, so there's lots to talk about. Manchester United pulled off a 2-1 win over a very impressive Blackburn Rovers side Saturday to go eight points clear at the top of the league, and Liverpool could only close the gap by one point today with a draw against Manchester City . The classic line from that story is "United will have relished this performance by their neighbours, which could have given the crown to the Old Trafford club." I bet a lot of City fans are happy about that one;). Andrei Arshavin made his Arsenal debut Saturday, but couldn't help his team past Sunderland, and they only came away with one point from a 0-0 draw . Meanwhile, Chelsea recorded their first win under Guus Hiddink with a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa. For plenty of other EPL news and commentary, as well as perhaps some stuff on MLS expansion and my 24th Minute piece on Vancouver's bi...

I just finished a long exploration of Vancouver's MLS chances (specifically regarding the B.C. Place plans) over at The 24th Minute : might be worth a look for any of you interested in the Whitecaps or MLS expansion. Feel free to leave comments for me there or here, or shoot me an e-mail at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail dot com. We can also discuss it tomorrow on Premier League Punditry (starting at 1:30 p.m. as always) if there's interest.

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 ...

Ben Knight has dug up a really interesting press release from the Montreal Impact on Montreal dropping its MLS bid, which I covered over at Out of Left Field a couple of days ago. Here's the release: "RECTIFICATION REGARDING MONTREAL'S BID FOR MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER Following MLS Commissioner Don Garber's statements regarding Montreal's bid, the Montreal partnership group would like to bring one important rectification: Montreal did not withdrew its bid from Major League Soccer but was informed that the league did not retain its bid. Out of respect for the Grey Cup festivities, the partnership group will not make any additional statements over the weekend. However, the President of the Montreal Impact [and] Saputo Stadium, Mr. Joey Saputo, who is spearheading Montreal's MLS bid, will meet the media: Monday, November 24, 2008, 10:30 am, Saputo Stadium, 4750 Sherbrooke Street, Montreal." That's fascinating. According to this release, it wasn't tha...

A quick note that I'll be live-blogging today's Vanier Cup game between Laval and Western over at The CIS Blog ; I'll also have a preview of the game up there shortly once I get to the stadium. For those interested in the other kind of football (European, not American), check out my post on Montreal pulling out of the MLS expansion race and what this could mean for Vancouver, which is up at Out of Left Field .