Sports Round-Up Of My Teamses

Rangers lost 5-3 to Atlanta Thursday night. Looked really sketchy until late when they scored a couple of garbage time goals. All 3 goals came via the powerplay in the 3rd period by Girardi, Shanahan & Gomez, respectively.

Rangers lost in a shootout to the Bruins on saturday after a 0-0 game. Does King Henrik get a shutout for a 1-0 shutout loss?? B/c the shootout goal is not an offical goal scored I believe that is a shutout... shutout with a "loss." Strange days indeed! Most peculiar, momma.

Next up for the Rangers, Sindey Crosby, the Prince of Wails, & his Pirates of Pittsburgh on Tuesday. With Bettman's princess on display bet on pro-Penguin refereeing! Waaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

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Arsenal shutout Bolton 2-0 on saturday. Goals came from Kolo Toure & substitute Tomas Rosicky. Didn't see the game only heard bits & pieces of the last 20 minutes or so but it sounded like Arsenal dominated after the hour mark.

Arsenal's next match is their home Champions' League match against Slavia Prague of the Czech Republic. With Arsenal being at home they'll no doubt be expected to bag all 3 pts.

Rangers Play Atlanta Tonight

All the ladies can find me at Mother's tonight watching college foozball & Rangers' hockey. On dat HD tv. Boy, dat's fancy stuff dat HD is. So clear. Like clarity.

Rangers have gotten off to a so-so start with their record being 2-3 after 5 games. Curiously it's been their offense that's struggled a bit early in the season with the defense & specifically King Henrik Lundqvist playing well only allowing more than 2 goals once, 3 in a loss to Ottawa in their last game.

Hopefully the 4 day break will give the Rangers plenty of jump in tongiht's game & time to have gained some more cohesiveness on offense. Let's Go Rangers!

NHL action! It's puckin' awesome!

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On football world soccer variety, the Unied States beat Switzerland yesterday 1-nil in a friendly. Michale Bradley, son of head coach Bob Bradley, scored the winner late in the game after some good work down the right side & keeping the initial clearance in by Maurice Edu.

Overall the United States played ok & the rain on the fast pitch didn't really allow either team to get into a groove for any extended portion of the game.

It was the 1st time the US has won on European soil since the fall of the Holy Roman Empire or something.

There was almost a brewhaha before halftime with Oguchi Onyewu & Marco Streller of Switzerland with a little push & a fall & a lot of hands out in the "what I do?" gestures.

Freddy Adu also came on as a late substitute for only his 2nd cap. Danny Szetela made his international debut as well.

-- U.S. Men’s National Team Game Report --
Match-up: USA vs. Switzerland
Date: October 17, 2007
Competition: International Friendly
Venue: St. Jakob Park – Basel, Switzerland
Kickoff: 2:30 p.m. ET
Attendance: 16,500
Weather: 64 degrees; rain

Scoring Summary: 1 2 F
USA 0 1 1
SUI 0 0 0

Scoring:
USA – Michael Bradley (Clint Dempsey) 86th minute

Lineups:
USA: 24-Marcus Hahnemann (18-Brad Guzan, 46); 6-Steve Cherundolo, 22-Oguchi Onyewu (2-Dan Califf, 46), 3-Carlos Bocanegra (Capt.), 7-Eddie Lewis (9-Danny Szetela, 84); 5-Benny Feilhaber, 13-Maurice Edu, 4-Michael Bradley,17-DaMarcus Beasley (11-Heath Pearce, 31); 20-Taylor Twellman (25-Freddy Adu, 77), 8-Clint Dempsey (29-Robbie Findley, 90)
Subs not used: 23-Jay DeMerit
Head Coach: Bob Bradley

SUI: 1-Pascal Zuberbühler; 2-Johan Djourou (25-Steve Von Bergen, 17), 3-Ludovic Magnin (Capt.), 5-Xavier Margairaz (22-Hakan Yakin, 46); 11-Marco Streller (31-Blaise Nkufo, 46), 13-Stephane Grichting, 14-David Degen, 16-Tranquillo Barnetta (17-Christoph Spycher, 75), 27-Gokhan Inler, 29-Stephan Lichtsteiner, 35-Fabio Celestini (33-Gelson Fernandes, 46)
Subs not used: 12-Diego Benaglio, 37-Germano Vailati
Head Coach: Jakob Kuhn

Stats Summary: USA SUI
Shots 9 8
Shots on goal 5 3
Saves 4 3
Corner Kicks 3 4
Fouls 25 16
Offside 3 0

Misconduct Summary:
SUI – Marco Streller (caution) 45th minute
USA – Oguchi Onyewu (caution) 45.
USA – Maurice Edu (caution) 53.

Officials:
Referee: Frank de Bleeckere (BEL)
1st Asst.: Peter Hermans (BEL)
2nd Asst.: Danny Huens (BEL)
Fourth Official: Nicole Petignat (SUI)

Sierra Mist Man of the Match: Carlos Bocanegra

Other Sports Quick Update

New York Rangers' new season starts on Thursday evening against the Florida Panthers. The Rangers have finalized their opening roster & I'm glad that both Marc Staal & Ryan Callahan made the 1st roster for the opening season!

No surprises in net as King Henrik & Valiquette make the team as netminders. Montoya probably would've made it except for the cap hit he'd entail for the Rangers if he made the roster.

Hopefully the Rangers can build on their late season success & go beyond their 2nd round exit to Buffalo last year.

It's almost GO time!

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Arsenal have already played 7 EPL matches & somewhat surprisingly have 6 wins & a draw to head the EPL heading into October.

Without Thierry Henry who was sold off to Barca in August too. A case of addition by subtraction perhaps? No doubting Thierry Henry was obviously one of the best strikers in the world during his time at Arsenal but the Gunners also had a propensity to rely too much on his goalscoring perhaps. So now with him not in the side maybe it's a case of the younger Gunners stepping up & assuming more of the leadership & goalscoring roles, especially Cesc Fabregas.

They've also made a great start in the Champions' League by beating other favorite in their group to advance, Sevilla, 3-0 & face Romanian side Steaua Bucharest tonight.

All goalz are belonging to Cesc Fabregas

Sundry Sport Tidbit Type Things

The Mets rested several players last night & got dropped 7-zip by the Reds. John Maine picked up the loss & drops to 14-9.

With the Braves & Phillies beating up on each other, the Mets lead is back to 5 games in the East & their magic number is 19. Fucking magic!

Arsenal has started brightly in their EPL campaign with 3 wins & a draw in their 1st 4 matches. The only points dropped so far was to Blackburn on Jens Lehmann's goalkeeping gaffe gifting Blackburn the tying goal.

The young Arsenal side so far are showing much more determination on the pitch in their initial games than they have in previous seasons especially against the like of physical sides such as Blackburn. They're also getting more goals from midfield which is definitely a good thing. Bodes well for them this season as they seek to better their 2 consecutive "disappointing" 4th place EPL finishes.

Just Ran Across This...

Mmmmmm, such a large copa to drink Jews' blood from!

Congratulations to Iraq!

As always it took sportsmen a couple weeks to do something that takes politicians, even soldiers, years to do- unite a country. Even if it is only for a short respite I can't imagine what this does to Iraqis' psyche in terms of hope. Haven't read about any deaths in the celebrations today from car bombbers so far & there will no doubt be some as there were following Iraq's semifinal win as death-loving murdering idiots target congregated revelers

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1499!

Some might scoff at the notion that, "oh, soccer/football (or sports in general) is only a game, however, that's usually said by panty-waisted academia types who never sweated, toiled & flat out busted their asses physically day in & day out to achieve an athletic goal which is nothing more than a metaphor for what you can do with the rest of your life given the same amount of effort! Not to mention in Saddam's Iraq where his eldest son ran the Iraqi Olympic & Sports Associations, losses or failures in tournaments were greeted with torture to qthletes their families.

Do sports look unimportant to these guys, Krugman?

Similarly, even for the fans, much as the Saints did last year for New Orleans citizens (& ex-citizens, for that matter!) to give hope in days that seem darkest, this will no doubt give some hope to Iraqis that "if the national team can do it, why can't we be successful?" B/c let's face it, Iraq was not an Asian continental footballing power by any means. In my sometimes arrogant but generally correct opinion, Iraq winning the Asian Cup would be like Norway or Scotland winning the European Championship, i.e. not out of the realm of possibility but pretty distant shot(s) to say the least.

Anyway, I'm sure politico types on both sides & including the Middle East will use this as political ammo to advance their causes, but police office Sabah Shaiyal in the linked office put it best:

"The players have made us proud, not the greedy politicians,"

Great picture after the final whistle as well:

Praise be King Bush for allowing Allah to grant us this greatness!

Emirates Cup This Weekend

Arsenal play their 1st Emirates Cup match today. The Emirates Cup for those that don't know is a pre-season tournament held over a weekend at Arsenal's home ground, Emirates Stadium. This year's participants include: Paris- St. Germain (Arsenal's opponents today), Inter-Milan (Arsenal's opponents tomorrow) & Valencia.

Emmanuel Adebayor, Tomas Rosicky & Theo Walcott will all miss this weekend's tournament with minor injuries picked up in Arsenal's training camp in Austria. According to Arsenal.com, the injuries are not serious & the players are being held out of the tournament as a precaution.

Too Late News!: Freddie Ljungberg was sold to West Ham United during the week, so that means there is no one left at Arsenal from the 2002 double winning side & that Arsene Wenger has for all intents & purposes has completely rebirthed the Arsenal side.

Krikey Poo Trois!

The US indeed lost to Austria 2-1 to put them out of the U-20 World Cup at the QF stage. Weeping, sadness, melancholy, tristeza... all that & a bag of morose, stale chips.

The US' goal form Josimar Altidore:


The Austrians' tying goal:


And finally, the Austrians' 2-1 winning goal in extra time:

Krikey Poo Deux!

Now Ussoccer.com's MatchTracker & site is down... WTF?! Stupid techmology.

Anyway, last I saw the US was down 2-1 to Austria in the 109 minute... so who fucking knows, they probably lost... I'll check in short while... fuckers.


Oh & Arsenal started their pre-season shcedule today beating fellow London club, Barnet, 2-0 on goals by Adebayor & youngster Nacer Barazite.

Krikey Poo!

Galavision didn't have the US U-20's QF match vs. Austria like I thought! Poopola! So I have to follow the match on USsoccer.com's MatchTracker. Exiting shit to watch text scroll! Woo little icons make it fancy! Yeeeeaaaaaaaaah.

Halftime US & Austria are all square- 1-1. Altidore put the US in front on a header off a cross from Adu & Austria tied it just before the half on a ricocheted shot from a Kraut Lite naturalised African. Strange days indeed! Most peculiar, Momma.

So in the pissy mood w/o being able to see the match, other stuff:

What's the Phillipines have to do with Palestine?

The truth about a t-shirt icon. What's that in the article? Che Guevara hated blacks & gays? Tell that to the dictator chic t-shirt wearers on college campii next time you see one of their ignorant asses with his likeness on a shirt that hasn't been washed in 2 weeks. Wow & the execution of minors? But it was for the people! Viva la revolucion! Viva la Cuba! Muerte a publica non gustan Castro lo!

Seriously, Castro & Guevara suck major balls. If Cuban health care & Cuba in general is so fcking great, why do Cubans risk shark infested waters year in & year out to defect to the US & why do Cuban athletes defect a lot of times when they play in the US? Any logical answers, Mr. Glover? Belafonte? Bueller?

And finally... Yasser Arafat dying of AIDS? And possibly a bisexual pedophile? Didn't know there was a PLO branch of NAMBLA! Bwaha! BTW, Abu Ammar is Yasser Arafat's real name so don't get confused when reading the article. He changed his name to Yasser Arafat when he was a student in Egypt so as to make his own mark out form under his uncle's (or was it his father?) shadow who was one of the Mufti's that ran an Arab Nazi SS corp & was a close ally to Hitler & is alledged to be one of the key proponents & suggestors in finalizing Hitler 's "Final Soultion of the Jewish Problem."

Day Late & A Dollar Short Sports Report: USA 2-1 Over Uruguay In The U-20 World Cup

They looked iffy doing it but the US U-20 soccer team advanced to the U-20 World Cup Quarterfinals on Tuesday night with a hard fought 2-1 win over poor sports, Uruguay.

The US was outplayed overall in my opinion & looked pretty shaky at the back at times & the Uruguayans were very clever with "drawing fouls," read as "leaving your foot low & then over exaggerating the body spasm with quick leg lift to make sure the ref saw the hideous, blatant bone-crunching tackle. Oh yes, don't forget to grab alleged broken body party with one hand grab your head with the other & writhe. Writhe, Uruguay! Ohhhhhh the pain! Fuckers.

And of course there was the obligatory harassing & yelling at the referee for every single call that went against the Uruguayans. South American teams are so piss poor at sportsmanship. There was also the stamping of Josimar Altidore's foot by a Uruguayan before a free kick that went unnoticed by the ref & 2 linesmen, the elbow thrown to Danny Szetela's head by a Uruguayan strike. Thankfully it only grazed him, but the intent was there & it was done after an action that did not merit a retaliation such as that- some trash talking & the normal jostling that goes on during a set piece in the box.

And for the Uruguayans' coup de grace there was the pushing & shoving altercation between the 2 teams after the final whistle done b/c well, frankly, the Uruguayans like many South American teams (& Mexico) can't ever lose a game, especially to the U.S. w/o feeling aggrieved or with their honor hurt, so in their poor sportsmanship they try to incite a brawl or antagonize the winning team. They're such fuckers. The Argentinian World Cup team of 1990 comes to mind when I see things like this. That team was the biggest bunch of whiny-assed sore losers ever. This Uruguayan youth team wasn't far off of from them.

Anyway, the U.S. didn't look particularly good in this match. I'm not impressed with Freddy Adu at all. He tends to stand around too much for my liking when he could make darting runs on give & gos. Frankly, I more impressed with Josimar Altidore's game.

US goals were an own goal by a Uruguayan future llama herder & Michael Bradley in extra time. The Uruguayan goal was scored by some maté sipping crybaby.

Highlights:


Clip of the altercation with different announcers. Listen to the announcer- "Uruguay are traditionally very, very poor losers..." See, I'm not just a bigot, my stereotyping is warranted:


Remind them one more time what the score was, Michael Bradley! 2-1, Uruguay! Eat a Dick!

Day Late & A Dollar Short Sports U-20 World Cup Update

The U.S. Junior National Team is currently competing for the U-20 World Cup, or the Junior World Cup, right now. It started while I was on vacation in Destin & I've been catching up with work & the world & what not the few days I've been back so no detailed match reports for you! Instead, poached clips from the ever wonderful YouTube:

1st group match- vs. South Korea, Draw, 1-1:

The US' opening goal:


Korea's tying goal:


The US' 2nd group match was a thrashing of Poland, 6-1:


The US' closed group play with a 2-1 upset of Brazil! Hurrah!:

Day Late & A Dollar Short Sports US Copa America Wrap

I was out of town on vacation, seemingly thankfully, so I only saw the 4-1 thrashing that Argendivina gave us. Apparently the younger US squad taken to Copa America in Venezcuba stunk the joint up.

USA vs. Argentina highlights:


USA vs. Paraguay highlights:


USA vs. Colombia highlights:

Dance 'Til You Drop At The RoboCup!

Boy those Japs & Germans will engineer anything! Little Robots playing soccer/football for the accolades of... um, washer nuts & bolts & a thoroughly rabid paper clip fan in Botswana, the unbent one.

As if the stereotype of soccer is boring needed any more help here comes the Japs & the Germans determined to lull everyone to sleep with the RoboCup 2007 final pitting the Darmstadt Dribblers of Germany vs. the CIT Brains & Hajime Team of Japan. The Japanese team must've had CIT for those brains as the Kraut robots defeated the Japanese robots, 2-1, in a sleeper of a match pitting two former WW II Axis Powers together. Word has it that Hitler complained that the German robots were black & that Deutschland should've sent the superior race of Aryan robots to thwart the Yellow Jap team.

Pundits will be calling the the RoboCup 2007 a weakened tournament as perennial robot soccer powerhouses Microsoft United, Apple FC, AC MIT & IBM Friday did not participate.

An opening goal by Deutschbot striker, Adolf Internetten, was ruled out for... I'm not sure what. I think he was ruled to not have been onsides after the virus update.

The German robot goalie, Klaus Cirkitboard, makes a fine pair of diving saves at the 1:13-1:22 mark against Japanese marksbot, Shinjo Rebootamura.

The saves seemed to really give an I/O boost to the Krautbots as no sooner did the applause settle on Cirkitboard's saves then German strikerbot, Adolf Internetten puts in a shot inside the far post to put the Dribblers up, 1-0.

I like the German midfieldbot, Jurgen Spredzsheet hits the post at around the 1:43 mark! That's the robotic me- hitting the post. Put 'em 6 inches apart or 6 miles apart & I'll hit a post. I don't feel so bad now that the cold calculating little robot man with his fancy 01010101010101 type brain can't calculateify a proper trajectory for his little robot shot!

The 2nd half started out with Brains & Hajime immediately tying the match up on Jap midfieldbot's Yoshi Nakamacro long range effort.

Internetten again hits the post immediately after Brains' equaliser with Keeperbot Koji Googlesaki once again counting a post as his friend.

Every one had their servos & transistors fried however as the winning goal was not shown on this video but was apparently scored by Dieter Laptopz & at the final whistle sent all the engineering geeks into raptures of 01010101010101 that lasted long into the night!

German national team manager, Manfred Ebayberg was ecstatic on his team's performance:

0101010001 001 01011110 0010101110101010 00001110 0100001 110 101 0011. 1000111100 001 11011 00100 010 0 001. 10101 01010 001 0 001 000001 00100100111 0 001 0001011 11101 010101011101 00101 001 001011010.

The Best Soccer Freestyler In The World?

Maaaaaaaaan, this cat does some wicked stuff!

The Skills Of Thierry Henry

1st... skills on the field... look at the magic feet! And the deft passing, a skill of his which is underrated, if you ask me!



And now... skills off the field... even here... notice the quick movement!

US Wins Gold Cup With 2-1 Victory Over Mexico

I had a nice little blog post written up & some fricking reset caused by the damn little sensitive enter function on my laptop's cursor pad made it go poof! F*ck!

So instead, here's crap about the match from FoxSports.com.

Benny Feilhaber is the new man. He scored an absolute beauty of a goal for the winner. A cracker from outside the box off a cleared corner. Fricking beautimous!

Un golaso indeed, Mi Amigo!

Lineups
Mexico: Oswaldo Sanchez; Jose Jonny Magallon, Carlos Salcido, Rafael Marquez, Ricardo Osorio; Alberto Medina (Cuauhtemoc Blanco, 78'), Pavel Pardo, Jaime Lozano (Adolfo Bautista, 81'), Jose Andres Guardado; Nery Castillo, Jared Borgetti (40' Omar Bravo)

United States: Tim Howard; Jonathan Spector (Frankie Simek, 72'), Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Jonathan Bornstein; Landon Donovan, Benny Feilhaber, Pablo Mastroeni (Ricardo Clark, 46'), DaMarcus Beasley; Clint Dempsey (Taylor Twellman, 69'), Brian Ching

Goals
44' MEX, Guardado (Castillo)
62' USA, Donovan (pen)
73' USA, Feilhaber

Cards
9' USA, Dempsey
18' MEX, Medina
60' MEX, Magallon
76' USA, Ching
85' USA, Beasley
86' USA, Simek

Thierry Henry Moves To Barcelona

Holy fucking crap balls... It was confirmed this morning by Arsenal.com & Skysports.com that the Thierry Henry is transferring to FC Barcelona as initially reported by BBC Sports last night. I don't know what to say other than I was wrong about this one. I would've thought Henry would've stayed at Arsenal after signing that 4 yr. contract last year. But what are you going to do? Apparently Arsenal felt comfortable with the 16 million pound offer they received from Barca & sold him. I would've hoped we would've gotten at least 20-25 million for him.

One can only wonder what Arsene Wenger has in store as far as bringing someone in now. Certainly this means that Arsenal's 1st pair strikeforce will be Robin Van Persie & Emmanuel Adebayor, unless Wenger is going to go with the en vogue 4-5-1 with Van Persie on the left & Walcott on the right with Adebayor in the center.

The other definite thing is that next season for Arsenal just got a whole fuckload more interesting.

Thierry Henry in his own words on the move.

Thierry you have left Arsenal, can you tell the supporters your reasons for going?

“I have said it so many times. Before Mr Dein left, for whatever reason, I went to the boss and said I don’t want to leave. There had been a lot of speculation about me and I assured him that I did not want to leave. But after Mr Dein left that unsettled the team and the boss. Especially as at the moment he has not committed himself to the club. He said he will see out his contract but you cannot be sure if he is going to go or stay [at the end of next season]. Hopefully he is going to stay but I need to be certain and reassured of that. Everybody knows I am 30. The boss being unsettled, Mr Dein going, it did unsettle me a bit. After that I had thoughts of leaving the club.

“It is a difficult day for me to come here at Emirates Stadium and talk about this. But I want to come here explain why to the fans. I want to be certain of where the club was going and reassured in a way. I wasn’t and I have chosen to go”

Seems fair enough to me. I'm certainly not going to bash him for leaving Arsenal, we all have to do what we feel is right & Henry feels that moving to Barca is the right move for him. I'm disappointed but I certainly won't begrudge the man his power of choice. I also don't think this signals a catastrophic fall for Arsenal or that it even makes us a mid-table club like some supporters feel Henry's departure does.

Anyway, here's to Thierry Henry's service & many wonderful goals he scored for Arsenal. Best to luck to you, Thierry. Merci pour la bon temps et coupes pour L'Arsenal.

US With Another 2-1 Win To Advance To CONCACAF Gold Cup Final

I missed the match because I thought it was coming on at 8 EST but in fact it came on at 7 CST so I didn't watch the end. Plus I also had a beer & wine drinking laundryfest but I DVRed it so I may watch tonight. Here's a report from FoxSports. Apparently the US squeezed by on a controversial tying goal waved off for Canada in injury time. 'Bout time the refs give us a call. Looks like my bicthing worked immediate voodoo dividends.

The Canadian coach, Dayne Bretzky, was fictionally quoted as saying,

"Aw gee, those hosers from the Sooth have no right to be gooing oontoo the final. They're just lucky we can't resort to broouhahas in sooccer. I'm soo mad I'll have to drink anoother case of Elsinore moore than I already would toonight to droown the pain."

So, the US goes on to face arch-nemesis, the Tricolore of Illegal Alienexico who was almost royally embarrased by losing to one of their former citizens turned immigrant housekeeper, Guadeloupe scoring a lone goal in the 70th minute . Hugo Sanchez on the game:

"Aye caramba y dios mio! My beans are so fried right now that I can't even digest my carne asada & guacamole taquitos. I would've thought that CONCACAF would've received the drug cartel bribes by now & would've already handed the Copa Oro trophy to Fruitworkerexico. I almost want to die or have Cuahtemoc Blanco teabag me & inject habanero into my eyes before I live with the dishonor of losing to some island named Guadeloupe who no one can even find on a map!

But we move on & it's hard ball time when we face the Gringos next match. We lose, we'll no longer export migrant farm workers, tacos, drugs, tuberculosis or leech the Gringo health care system & we will certainly no longer import Se Habla Espanolo!"

Thanks, Paco, we'll keep that in mind on sunday when we'll no doubt be absorbing all the usual Mexican elbows & knees tackles.

Lineups
Canada: Pat Onstad; Ante Jazic, Andrew Hainault, Julian De Guzman, Paul Stalteri; Ali Gerba (Issey Nakajima-Farran, 81'), Richard Hastings, Atiba Hutchinson, Dwayne De Rosario; Patrick Bernier, Martin Nash (Iain Hume, 64')

United States: Kasey Keller; Frankie Hejduk, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Jonathan Bornstein; Michael Bradley, Pablo Mastroeni (Ricardo Clark, 89'), Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley; Eddie Johnson (Benny Feilhaber, 80'), Clint Dempsey (Taylor Twellman, 88')

Goals
39' USA, Hejduk (Donovan)
45' USA, Donovan (PK)
76' CAN, Hume (Hutchinson)

Cards
20' USA, Bornstein
29' USA, Bocanegra
41' USA, Donovan
44' CAN, Onstad
60' USA, Hejduk
60' CAN, De Rosario
89' USA, Bradley

USA Gets By Panama, 2-1 In Gold Cup Quarterfinals

It's becoming a tired old thing to watch- very poor refereeing & especially calls that go against the US. Now, I'm not talking about questionable calls & a fan's bitching about his team not getting calls. I'm talking about blatant "What The Fuck are the 4 officials looking at? Are they watching the same game?," type of calls. This time the officials missed a ridiculously blatant on purpose handball by Panama captain, Felipe Baloy. He was already sitting on as yellow card & his ass should've been sent off for the offense, but nope, not against the US in soccer. I've just come to the conclusion that all the self-loathing Leftists that feel guilt about America's past & current administration & policies should watch soccer- because the world's soccer officials stick it to us constantly. Either that or CONCACAF regional officials are a fucking joke & completely amateur in quality. Either way, it's fucking pathetic most of the time.

Anywho, the US won, 2-1, should've scored possibly 1 or 2 more plus should've been facing 10 Panamaniacs instead of 11. The game was played this past Saturday, I've just drug ass all week & am only now getting around to posting.

Lineups
Panama: Jaime Pinedo; Carlos Rivera, Luis Moreno, Juan Perez, Blas Perez; Manuel Torres, Ricardo Phillips, Engin Mitre (Nicolas Munoz, 63'), Amilcar Henriquez (Alberto Blanco, 78'); Victor herrera (Luis Henriquez, 78'), Felipe Baloy

United States: Tim Howard; Frankie Hejduk, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Jonathan Bornstein; Michael bradley, Pablo Mastroeni, Landon Donovan (Ricard Clark, 89'), DaMarcus Beasley; Taylor Twellman (Steve Ralston, 71'), Clint Dempsey (Brian Ching, 84')

Goals
60' USA, Donovan (PK)
62' USA, Bocanegra (Beasley)
84' PAN, B. Perez

Cards
16' PAN, Torres
18' PAN, Balloy
22' PAN, B.Perez
28' USA, Hejduk
35' USA, Onyewu
49' PAN, J. Perez
76' PAN, Torres
87' USA, Beasley
89' PAN, Munoz
90' USA, Howard

Jeremie Aliadiere Leaves Arsenal

French forward, Jeremie Aliadiere transferred from Arsenal to Middlesbrough today according to SkySports.com. I can't really say it's any big loss especially with Niklas Bendtner coming back from on loan at Birmingham.

Aliadiere was an ok striker, obviously with lots of speed but his injury-proneness & lack of finishing in the times he did play for Arsenal don't have me missing him on his departure.

Best of luck to him though at Middlesbrough- except against Arsenal, obviously.