Here’s your weekly “soccer goalie fail,” courtesy of goalkeeper Sammy Bossut of Zulte Waregrem of the Liga Belga, the top soccer league in Belgium.
Sammy attempts to clear the ball when he inexplicably hangs onto it, before losing control of it, allowing the ball to roll behind him—right into the waiting feet of Lokeren’s Benjamin De Ceulaer, who scores the second goal of the game.
I wouldn’t say Bossut ‘inexplicably’ held onto the ball. He did so because the Lokeren player crossed in front of him just as he was about to throw it. That’s why he was looking around in confusion after the play.
Can someone better versed in the rules of soccer/futbol explain whether or not this should have been a foul. I don’t think you’re supposed to interfere with the keeper when he has the ball.
I can’t deny that I have a soft spot for anything soccer related. I tend to write a rather large proportion of my articles about the sport, and I’ve been lucky lately because there has actually been relevant news. However, since the beginning of this whole Landon Donovan and David Beckham “controversy” I can’t help but roll my eyes at the whole thing. So hopefully I’ll be able to make this my last article about David Beckham, I think Norman Chad over at Sports Illustrated would agree:
The way I see it, you’ve just pulled off one of the greatest scams in U.S. history. You signed a massive five-year contract, you took a lot of money from a lot of people and, in the end, you were pretty much a marketing mirage.
Essentially, you’re Bernie Madoff with a bicycle kick.
In 2007, you had no goals and two assists and the Galaxy finished with the league’s third-worst record, 9-14-7. In 2008, you had five goals and 10 assists and the Galaxy tied for the league’s worst record, 8-13-9.
Not exactly impressive, plus given the English media’s coverage of this, it’s become some sort of international incident. Anyway, David Beckham, I can’t really blame you for your behavior around here. You were certainly charming, but I don’t see anybody caring about American soccer anymore than I used to. I’d say you failed in that, but I don’t think that’s what all this was about. In any case, happy trails. Enjoy your time in Milan, I know it’s quite posh around there.
Update: Oh, he’s still here for a little bit longer. My bad.
Most people in America, and especially Los Angeles (thanks to bus advertisements everywhere), know that David Beckham plays for the LA Galaxy. The only problem is that he kinda doesn’t. With all his English national team World Cup qualifiers and his loan to AC Milan, his MLS season is about as long as a cocktail weenie.
After the tragic death of Michael Jackson last week, David Beckham’s future in American soccer has been called into question. How could these two seemingly unrelated things be related? Well, SPORTSbyBROOKS has all the answers. Due to spatial constraints, let me give you a quick summation: AEG is a corporation operating concert venues/events worldwide, including all those canceled comeback concerts in England with Michael Jackson. Davd Beckham has been a flop since arriving in America, his potential for igniting interest in soccer in America has fizzled. He is now a financial drain on his team.
And, of course, the owners of the Los Angeles Galaxy that could really use the cash on this year’s balance sheet to offset losses in other parts of the business… AEG.
On top of it all, the best thing that could happen to the popularity of U.S. soccer is happening today in South Africa as the U.S. men’s national team takes on Brazil for the chance to hoist their first international soccer cup in modern history. AEG didn’t need to invest in David Beckham to raise soccer’s profile in America; they needed to invest in U.S. Soccer. (Or better insurance.)
Hell yeah. Despite our loss to Brazil in the final today. I can’t agree more with Brooks’ sentiment that we should look to America for American soccer. While we don’t have nearly the farm system of the global soccer powerhouses like Spain and Brazil, the infrastructure is certainly there, as well as the ability. Remember when American ice hockey was laughable when compared to the USSR? Neither do I, being born in ’82 and all. But I saw the movie. Well hey, where did that go?
Having been a fan of American soccer since the ’96 (update: my bad, 94) World Cup here, I’ve never been able to talk much about it with other people. This past week, once I told them what had happened with Spain, I’ve never felt as much interest and enthusiasm for an upcoming soccer match as this morning. Keep it up America (and the LA Galaxy’s real hero, Landon Donovan) and good luck next month when we play our southern rivals, Mexico.
And as long as we’re on the subject of Michael Jackson and USA soccer, you gotta check out this memorial jersey.
While watching the biggest game in U.S. soccer history during a Lions Club party at Far Bar (they never let me down because they always let me in) I couldn’t help but wonder what the strange background noise was throughout the broadcast. At first I thought the nice grandma next to me had fainted into her Wasabi Fries, but thanks to Martin Rogers at Yahoo! Sports I now know (psst…you can hear for yourself in Rogers’ article), and dread its upcoming World Cup preponderance:
If you’re still not familiar with the term, the vuvuzela is the instrument that provides that horrendous droning, foghorn-like sound that has assaulted eardrums as a constant accompaniment to coverage of the World Cup warmup event. And you haven’t heard the last of it.
The vuvuzela is seen as an integral part of the soccer-watching experience in South Africa and FIFA has already given the green light to its use in next year’s World Cup finals. That could mean a month’s worth of mind-numbing horn blowing as the musical backdrop to the greatest tournament in soccer.
Something clearly needs to be done — but without offending the South African people or interfering with their proud traditions.
Agreed. Goodness gracious, is this the sound I’m going to have to listen to for the 20-some games I’ll watch next summer? I know it’s a different culture over there and we always need to be respectful of the traditions of others, but oh man, it’s like playing a match in a bee hive. I hope the droves of new viewers in America of the next World Cup aren’t turned away from the sport when they hear it for 3 hours.
How many of you know that the World Cup qualifiers are in full swing? I admit some kind of hazy knowledge of their existence, but it seems taken for granted that the U.S. team will make it into the Finals without any trouble. For those of you with at least a passing interest in next year’s World Cup in South Africa, I present a nice little article about our team written by Jonah Freedman over at Sports Illustrated:
Well, that was a relief. The U.S. national team emerged from its toughest week yet of 2010 World Cup qualifying, bruised but standing tall. After getting abused and flattened in Costa Rica 3-1 last Wednesday, the Americans responded by rallying on Honduras 2-1 Saturday at Soldier Field, its first comeback win in World Cup qualifying in 24 years. The end result is that the U.S. stands in second place in the Hexagonal final round of CONCACAF qualifying with a 3-1-1 record and 10 points.
OK, if you’re still with me let’s remember that the Major League Soccer season has started, so if you get tired of baseball after hockey and basketball finish up, find your local team and take a gander.
OK, hands up everybody who knows the relegation system of Barclay’s Premier League. Nobody? No worries I gotcha covered. As the Associated Press reports (and I got this from Sports Illustrated btw):
Newcastle and Middlesbrough were relegated from the Premier League on Sunday, while Hull and Sunderland stayed up.
Newcastle lost 1-0 at Aston Villa and Middlesbrough was beaten 2-1 at West Ham to finish in the last three teams on the final day of the league season.
Hull lost 1-0 to newly crowned champion Manchester United and Sunderland went down 3-2 at home to third-place Chelsea.
Last-place West Bromwich Albion was already certain to go down and drew 0-0 at Blackburn.
If this will insult your intelligence as a “football” fan, then feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Let me quickly go through the idea of relegation: The 3 bottom-placed teams at the end of each season of the Premier League are busted down to what amounts to kind of a minor league system. The 3 top teams from that league take the place of the losers from the Premier League. Thus, the bottom of the roster in the Premier League changes quite a bit from season to season.
So let me propose an idea here. Relegation is something that basically doesn’t exist here stateside. But I think there’s an argument to be made that it could be advantageous to install something like that in some of the more inflated sports leagues we have. Read the rest of this entry »
