Bill Archer Blog

The morning after a team gets knocked out of the playoffs there's always a good deal of finger pointing, blame seeking and what-iffing.

As dutiful, diligent, longtime fans of the Beautiful Game, we all know perfectly well that blaming a loss on any one play or one call is simply unfair.

What about this or that pass or this or that shot or this or that run that someone did or didn't make? Soccer consists of 90 minutes of opportunities - taken and missed - and the fact that so many games are low-scoring or no-scoring affairs demonstrates just how tenuous the whole deal...

ESPN is running a college soccer feature this morning.

But before the nice folks in the various BigSoccer forums concerned with such topics get too terribly excited about NCAA womens' soccer finally getting the serious recognition it so richly deserves, they might want to take a look at the segment:


The player in question is one ELIZABETH LAMBERT who is apparently on a one-woman crusade to prove that thuggery is not an entirely male province.

I'm thinking there's a...

Normally, we try not to give rank stupidity a link, for obvious reasons.

In this case though, if I did not, people would claim I was making it up.

So here you go:

MY LINK OF THE YEAR.

I am forever indebted to BS loyalist "evangel" for passing along this article which, I admit, I read several times because I couldn't believe that it was not a parody.


Of course, there's also the realm of self parody, like when a certain blogger whom Aaron had SOME THINGS TO SAY ABOUT the other day breathlessly passes along the shocking, almost...

Over the next few days bloggers far and near are going to be offering up their opinions on the MLS Year End Awards nominations.

The main reason for this isn't that they honestly care that much. Almost no one really does.

But for a blogger - and I know whereof I speak - this provides one of the "automatic topics", like the traditional six part "Preseason Preview" or more recent "Playoff Preview", whose main value is to relieve the author of the nerve wracking chore of coming up with something to write about.

...

Well wasn't that ugly?

For those of you who TIVO'd the Real Salt Lake vs. Columbus Crew last night, a warning:

STOP! For the love of God, don't try and watch this match. Don't even risk trying to erase it. I recommend that you yank the box out of the wall, go out back and burn it.

After Seattle and Houston showed everyone how exciting and memorable a 0-0 soccer game can be last Thursday, the Crew and the Royals offered a demonstration of how depressingly awful one can be.

(Yes, Real scored two minutes from time. The goal at the end didn't improve...

So OK, let's get this one out of the way up front:




Does Onstad throw his shoulder at Montero? Obviously yes.

Does Montero drop to the ground like he just took a .50 cal round to the head? Obviously yes.

Does Onstand then do the "I'm checking to see if my face is bleeding" act like he's Chuck Wepner or something? Sure looks like it.

Does any of this mean Onstad is a rat and Montero is a weasel? No, not really.

This concludes another edition of: "Oh Quit Bitching, it's a Soccer Game, Not a Quilting Bee."
...

If you've been closely following the convoluted game of chicken currently being played by the new owners of USL and the renegade group of USL1 owners who call themselves the TOA (Ticked-off Owners Association), congratulations. You're certifiable.

For the rest of us, the threats, counter threats, rumors and gross exaggerations leaking (intentionally or not) over the transom from the (most likely cheap) rented hotel meeting rooms where everyone is going to huff and puff at each other is all we need to know for certain that sooner or later one side or the other will cave in, but until...

After the first games of the Confederations Cup in South Africa last summer, Sepp Blatter was reported to be hopping mad about the constant, pulsating drone of the now-familiar vuvuzela, that "traditional African instrument" (a historical tribal tradition which seems to date back to the very dawn of 2001).


A day or two later, however, perhaps realizing that some fights really aren't worth the trouble, he had decided that the large, obnoxious plastic horns were a "joyous celebration" of African culture and that...

Has there ever been a final weekend of league games in the history of the universe where every single match actually meant something?

I bet Don Garber lit himself a big old Red Auerbach style victory cigar last night. All the other commissioners over at the Commissioner's Club are getting set to throw him a roast. Mrs. Garber is giving him come hither looks even as we speak.

Major League Baseball ought to hang it's head in shame. The NBA ought to go out back and blow it's brains out in despair. The NHL? Well, nobody cares until March anyway.

Somehow, lowly...

Nice soccer team ya got there.


Be a shame if something happened to it. Like, God forbid, your playoff hopes go for an evening cruise on the Stugots with a couple of fat guys in see-through socks.

Or soaking wet young Senegalese guys



Toronto FC showed up at the Meadowlands last night pretty confident....