Blog Entries

I'll admit that I don't have a clue who Bob Foose is other than the Executive Director of the Major League Soccer Players "Union".

Probably a lawyer, but we shouldn't stereotype: they're not ALL blood-sucking, bottom-feeding boils on the ass of humanity. Or so I'm told.

I'm guessing mid-40's, wife and kids. Maybe a dog too. Springer spaniel or possibly a setter of some kind. Low handicap on the golf course, likes sailing and cigars. (I'm projecting now).

We do know that he was around for the last CBA negotiations in 2004, so the players obviously like him,...

Another home loss for Rangers leads to yet another dismal failure for Scottish clubs in Europe. But is it a poor standard of players in Scotland or some deeper reason?

Let's take the cry that went up earlier, "it's not even the end of August and already most clubs have crashed out of Europe". Too true. Motherwell, Falkirk, Hearts and Aberdeen all went tumbling out of the Europa Cup before even the league had started (or certainly, in the very early days).

Really,...

Let's say the odds on the three possible outcomes of a game are X/1, Y/1, and Z/1, where the most likely outcome according to the people making the odds is whichever variable is lowest. It would be simple if the probabilities were simply 1/X, 1/Y, and 1/Z, but that is not the case because the odds are designed so that people betting will have a net loss of money and the sum of 1/X, 1/Y, and 1/Z will not equal 1. The sum of the probabilities of all possible outcomes must be 1. To make the sum equal 1, my formulas for the probabilities of the three outcomes are:

(1/X)/(1/X + 1/Y...

One of the issues Garb addressed at the Supporter's Summit was the desire to grow the supporter's culture in MLS, with the goal of increasing the size of supporter's groups 10% to 20% a year.

So how does the league help facilitate such growth? With a few exceptions, supporter's groups are organic by nature, consisting of individuals who aren't exactly anti-establishment but definitely not pro-status quo either. They live to push the boundaries, drink tasty beverages, light flares, drop f-bombs and have a good time in general, all of which contradicts the corporate vibe of the average...

Looks like the weirdest season ever is seguewaying* quite nicely into the weirdest offseason ever. I'm a bit behind on the Preki disaster in embryo form, but I will be awaiting the inevitable crash on my little tippy-toes.

That place being Toronto, of course, and the August was back in 2007. Which means that either Preki is blowing smoke up TFC's...

I haven't posted in a while and thought I would do so today to discuss those things that I am thankful for in US Soccer. Some of these are quite serious. Some of these . . . well, no so much.

Which are which you say? Well, that my friends is up for you to decide.

1. Michael Bradley : Without him, what would everyone on BigSoccer do for a living? He is the lightning rod that holds this place together. You either hate him and cry "nepotism!" from the treetops, or you point and laugh at those who do. Do a little research and you'll figure out which...

After a Tuesday that proved pretty positive for most of the prognosticators, it's on to Wednesday and UEFA Champions League action in Groups A-D.

Hopefully, Wednesday's matches produce a little more offense. There were two scoreless draws on Tuesday, and the eight matches featured a scant nine goals - with no team netting more than twice (Barcelona, Stuttgart, and Arsenal).

Group C is where most of the attention will be faced Wednesday, as Real Madrid and AC Milan both stand tied for first on 7 points, with Marseille lurking just a point behind, and even FC Zurich...

I'm sure much has been made of Real Salt Lake being such a "team" team that, for the first time ever, there are no players for the MLS champs on the MLS Best XI. But there's a more prosaic answer to that - the Best XI was wrong. Olave should have been in the back line ahead of Conde (or better still, De Rosario - does anyone in the league even play a 3-5-2? So the Best XI should have four defenders. QED).

Now that Jason Kreis is a genius all of a sudden, it's going to be very interesting to see whether the 2009 Royals are the 1996 DC United (a .500 team that got hot late and...

So we have another season under our belt.

This year we learned that you can lose 12 games in a regular season, kick a few penalty kicks in the playoffs and then be declared a “champion”.

The TV ratings were marginally better, but are still so laughably bad that bowling and women’s softball are more profitable ventures for ESPN. The officiating still sucks, and the schedule is still crowded and the rosters are still thin. Our players are overworked, many franchises are still struggling at the gate and the league’s in danger of losing their best domestic players in the...

Photos by Scott Bales/YCJ and Andy Mead/YCJ - A BigSoccer Exclusive



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