Team USA and Landon Donovan clean up at the ESPY’s
Will Ferrell channels his inner vuvuzela.
Jul 162010
Jul 152010
Soccer America with the Winners and the Losers of the 2010 World Cup.
Barcelona takes out $200 million loan to pay players? Looks like the World’s superclub isn’t quite so super.
MLS teams and their Designated Players, from Steve Davis at Sports Illustrated.
Lego Soccer has returned. After the hilarious take of USA vs England in the group stage of the Cup, the legos return to give their take on the final match. Not many goals were scored, but there were certainly a lot of brutal challenges. Lego made sure to include some of the best.
The Nigel de Jong kung fu kick on Xabi Alonso is fantastic! Enjoy.
Jul 142010
It’s time to focus our attention elsewhere in the soccer world. No more World Cup, but there is still plenty to talk about. Let’s get into it.
Catch up with what’s been happening in Major League Soccer, courtesy of ESPN.
Can the USA ever become a world powerhouse? Martin Rogers and Dan Wetzel discuss.
Looks like Bradley may be going to Fulham after all…or at least get an offer. Two stories out of England. The Sun and The Independent.
In the biggest news that’s not really news, Thierry Henry, former Barcelona and Arsenal star and French international, has joined Major League Soccer team New York Red Bulls.
It has been rumored for over 2 years that Henry would find his way stateside and play for New York, and reports dating back for months have said the deal was already done, but now it has been official. Team sources announced this morning that Henry did indeed sign a contract with Major League Soccer and the New York Red Bulls.
No big posts today – so I thought I would share with you all some swanky little World Cup closing videos courtesy of ABC and the BBC.
Enjoy.
Jul 132010
Well, the World Cup is over, so World Cup news changes to soccer news. Of course, all the stories today have something to do with the World Cup! We can’t escape it!
Sports Illustrated’s team of soccer writers have been hard at work this Cup and two of them offer their post World Cup assessment. The first comes from Ben Reiter with Fifty post-World Cup observations. Then Georgina Turner provides the Highlights and Lowlights of World Cup 2010.
World Cup viewership in America is up. Way Up.
And Lastly, Jamie Trecker at Fox Sports offers his take on whether the USA’s 2010 performance will impact the bid to host in 2018 or 2022.
Apart from the top 4 teams, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Uruguay – which have clearly demonstrated spots 1-4 based on the final and third place match – it is hard to put the World Cup teams in any sort of ranking from 1-32.
Any list would contain the biases of the person who writes it. So I have tried to put together a list that is objective as possible. Here is what I have done.
I kept the FIFA scoring format of the group stage intact through the entire tournament. (3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for a loss). After the group stage, there are no more ties so teams either get a full 3 points or 0 points. Tie breakers that existed int he group stage still exist: Goal Differential followed by Total Goals Scored, however I have added an additional tie breaker that supersedes those two: Total games played, so that a team that advances to the quarterfinals is put ahead of a team with the same number of points but failed to make it to past the round of 16.
Click on the chart to see a larger version.
Jul 122010
Well, it’s one day after the World Cup Final. So it’s one more day of World Cup News
Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated gives 3 thoughts on the World Cup Final.
Martin Rogers at Yahoo lists his World Cup Winners and Losers.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of World Soccer’s governing body.
And one more final note: Congratulations to Spain, champions of the 2010 FIFA World Cup!
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