Bill Archer Blog

We first encountered this sad saga a year and a half ago when veteran BigSoccer maven Matrim55 POSTED THIS PIECE about the rape prosecution of former UCSB midfielder and 2007 Kansas City draftee Eric Frimpong, a native of Ghana.

The alleged victim, known only as Jane Doe, was a freshman at UC Santa Barbara in 2006 when the Gauchos won the NCAA Championship due in large part to Frimpong's contributions.

Doe is (or was at the time) a girl with serious alcohol issues and a known...

Seattle FC striker Nate Jaqua's attorney, David Angeli, issued a statement late Friday afternoon in which he called allegations against his client "baseless" and said Jaqua was "shocked" to hear of them.

(I'm just hoping, for everyone's sake, that it's A DIFFERENT DAVID ANGELI but who knows?)

(What a relief: THIS IS THE GUY. I'm certainly no expert, but that looks like one hell of a strong pedigree.)

The statement continued: "The complaint -- which has not even been served on Nate -- is baseless. It alleges events that purportedly took place two years ago....

I've been working overtime trying to come up with another piece on "T-Shirt Steve" Cohen to post today since watching some of you - most likely the same ones who dial in to his show just for the chance to call him "mate" - come unglued has been more fun than the law should allow but alas, I've come up dry.

I do promise to keep trying, but in the meantime I'm going to have to just do some Friday file dumping and hope Cohen gets caught in bed with a farm animal or something.

And the way things are going, it's only a matter of time.


The always entertaining...

I hope all of you are sitting down because, well, here's something that will come as a shock:

It appears that Steven Cohen may have been the moving force behind the online "Supporter's Petition" as well as the website set up to collect donations for his show.

I'll give you a minute to recover from the shock.


Thanks to an alert correspondent, I've been watching a site called GINGE TALKS THE FOOTY, a gentleman named Zach Woolsley who is an Everton supporter - not a Liverpudlian...

Yesterday, everybody and their cousin from every corner of the soccersphere linked to the exerpt from Grant Wahl's new book.

On the off chance that you missed it, HERE'S DAN'S TAKE, complete with exerpts that more or less prove what we all more or less were saying, ie. that a) Beckham's people were calling the shots in LA and b) Beckham wasn't exactly busting his hump out there.

Perhaps coinicidentally, USSF's Overhead-in-Chief, Sunil Gulati, was quoted yesterday advising Stupid Spice that he ISN'T LIKELY TO BE WELCOMED BACK TO MLS WITH WILD ENTHUSIASM, about which I...

There is no joy in Mudville...


As I sat there watching Sunil Gulati and Jack Warner shaking hands with some bunch of guys before heading off to the VVIP room Gala Reception Dinner Dance, the only image I had in my mind was Clint Dempsey, holding the Bronze Ball trophy like it was infected with the Black Plague and trying manfully - and ultimately unsuccessfully - to hold back the tears.

Like the man says, it's not the fact that they lost but rather how they did it.
...

I have to make a confession: I didn't watch the US - Spain match.

By "watch" I mean "sit someplace screaming at a TV set while the game is actually being played".

I set the DVR so that I could watch it later, but then of course ESPN deemed it an "Instant Classic" and so it was just starting again when I got home. As a result, and even though I already knew the final score, I sat through the whole thing, something which I readily admit I don't normally do. If I already know the ending I'll usually skip a few chapters.

...

Boy did I WASTE A GREAT HEADLINE the other day.

"The Miracle of Bloemfontein" would have been such pure joy just to stand back and admire.

What's more, that would have been plenty. The whole post. Done and done. Maybe dig up a photo of Jozy yanking off his shirt (Um, son? Yeah, um, look; don't do that again, OK?) and call it a day.

I would have had so much extra time I could have done Loney's whole piece too:

"Holy effin' shit! Did you see that? I mean, holy effin shit!"

At the first USSF coaching class I ever took they showed some...

Most of us who follow sports have a sort of mental photo album, kind of like a file folder of images which for one reason or another ended up indelibly etched in our minds.


Sometimes the image is just what you'd expect: a snapshot of joy from a signal victory of some kind, or a favorite player on a favorite team scoring a crucial goal.

But for me at least, some of the most poignant ones are from the aftermath of some really painful loss or other. Maybe it's just because I've given over decades of...

OK, admit it.

After New Zealand Referee Michael Hester blatantly, inexplicably, inexcusably missed an obvious handball that prevented the US from scoring the last, desperately needed goal against the Pharaohs, you had flashbacks to the Germany game when a less obvious - but nonetheless clear - non call kept the US out of the World Cup semifinals.

With The Boys From Brazil absolutely destroying Italy in Pretoria - the Azzuri looked...