Footballs Are Round!

Giving President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is like naming some poor young soccer player "Then Next Pelé ".

Who has ever lived up to that?

Over the past year, I've become part-owner of a soccer club (Ebbsfleet United), and now, thanks to the US Government who so cannily snapped up that up-and-coming Insurance Giant, AIG, I am, at least partly, a sponsor of Manchester United.

And I don't even have an MBA.

Now if I can win Powerball this weekend, I can buy FC Dallas from the Hunts, and I'll be set. Or at the very least, I'll be able to afford enough gas to drive to Frisco for a game now and then.

Mike Burns, now an exec for the Revs, was a great National Team Defender and an MLS Regular for years. But a lot of people remember him, unfortunately, for letting a goal slip by him as he covered the post against, oh I dunno, one of those teams that thrashed us in the 1992 World Cup.

But, today, Mike showed that he still has some defensive skills left:

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - An American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles was diverted to Oklahoma City on Friday after a passenger stripped, put his clothes back on and then tried to open an emergency exit door before...

So, what is Scott Garlick doing in goal for Greece?

"I enjoyed watching this . . . not just because Italy lost . . ."

Andy Gray on ESPN

I hate when I'm settling in to watch a little Euro 2008, and I have an acid flashback . . .

Terry Vaughn called a flawless game in Frisco Saturday night. The only time you knew he was there was when he pulled out the Red Cards, neither of which he had any choice about. I'm not just saying that because Dallas won, either.

Really, I'm not. Ask any RSL fan who watched the game. It was good work.

Now that FC Dallas is in the market for a coach . . .

I wonder how Avram Grant feels about stifling summer heat and really bad traffic?

I was going to tell you about the night I knew I had to marry The Lovely Cid.

14 September, 2005. US Open Cup Semi-Finals, Pizza Hut Park, FC Dallas v Chicago Fire,

TLC is attending only her second soccer game ever, and is slowly getting used to standing with The Inferno, and all the noise, profanity, and mayhem involved therein. Well, at some point in the second half, something, oh, 'clicked' shall we say, and she, following a save by Zach Thornton that he really had no business making, screamed at the top of her lungs:

THORNTON YOU [expletive deleted]!!!...

Since I alluded to this in my last post, let me tell the brief story of how I created a monster.

When The Lovely Cid and I first started courting (yeah, I said courting; I'm old-school like that), she knew nothing about soccer, and really didn't care to know anything about the sport.

But, she soon realized that to spend much time with me on a Saturday involved watching a LOT of English soccer, and consequently she started to show some interest in watching the games. (I know, that seems unlikely to those of you who know me, but suspend your disbelief for a while, okay?)...