R.I.P. Paolo Rossi

One of the greatest soccer players in Italian history has passed away. Paolo Rossi was the hero of Italy’s 1982 World Cup win, scoring six goals during the tournament, including a hat trick in Italy’s stunning 3-2 victory over a great Brazil team. It’s another loss for a soccer world following the recent passing of Diego Maradona. R.I.P.

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Slovakia – England World Cup Qualifiers Match Report

It was slow-going, but England clinched a win at the death against Slovakia’s ten men in Trnava.
Any England fan hoping for a bright new dawn with Allardyce at the helm could end up disappointed on Sunday night’s evidence.

England were drab, but were also the only team pushing for a win, as Slovakia had shown up to defend. The game became especially one-sided after Martin Škrtel saw red for a needless foul on Harry Kane.

But there was no way through, until Adam Lallana finally made England’s advantage count in the 95th-minute: He brought the ball under control and stabbed a left-foot finish beneath Kozáčik after Rose’s cross had been deflected into his path.

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Jon Hamm Directs “Clint Dempsey: On The Move” For Degree Men

Degree-Clint-Dempsey-Jon-Hamm

Since Clint Dempsey and the U.S. Men’s National Soccer team were knocked out early in the World Cup four years ago in South Africa, he’s been on a mission to DO:MORE so he could ultimately IMPROVE and lead the team farther during this summer’s matches in Brazil.

To help tell his personal IMPROVE story, Degree Men enlisted the help of ‘Mad Men’ star and soccer fan, Jon Hamm, to direct the short film, “On The Move.”

Here’s a behind the scenes look featuring Hamm and Dempsey:

We spoke with Clint recently and asked the US Soccer captain 10 questions, here are a few choice cuts:

1. Talk about your partnership with Degree: DO MORE and how one lucky soccer fan can win a trip to Brazil in June to support you and the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team.

Degree is working with soccer and promoting the game. And also they’ve got the new deodorant now out with Degree Motion Sense technology where the more you move the more protection you get. The cool thing about it the campaign is, if you go to degreesoccer.com, a fan can win a trip to Brazil to join us at the World Cup this summer, so that will be exciting.

2. Is scoring a goal the hardest thing to do in sports?

At times, it feels like that, but other times, it feels like luck is on your side. It is a great feeling. For me growing up, whether I scored a touchdown or hit a home run, or scored a goal, scoring a goal is the greatest feeling to me. It gave me such a rush you want to keep doing it over and over again. That’s the reason I love the game. I love that it’s continuous, there aren’t that many stoppages, and scoring a goal is why I fell in love with it.

3. What does it feel like to be the captain of the American team?

One, it puts more pressure on me to try to will the team on. At the same time, there are a lot of players on the team that have played in World Cups, and will be ready for that challenge. We have a lot of leaders on this team; not just myself. Michael Bradley, Tim Howard and plenty of others that have that experience and really helped the team out in tough times. We’re a team that’s in good hands and we’re looking forward to the challenge, and I’m excited about that opportunity.

Read the full interview with Clint here.

10 questions with US Soccer captain Clint Dempsey

Clint-Dempsey-Degree

Clint Dempsey is the captain of the US Men’s National soccer team, which is only fitting, because he is one of the most decorated soccer players in US history.

The $4 million dollars English club team Fulham offered Major League Soccer (MLS) for his services in 2006 was the highest amount ever offered for an MLS player. Dempsey went on to score the most goals in the Premier League in franchise history, including becoming the first American player to score a hat-trick in the English Premier League.

In 2012, he was transferred to Tottenham Hotspur for $6 million dollars and made the highest salaried US soccer player of all-time. Dempsey has scored the fastest goal in World Cup qualifying history (53 seconds) and is one of only two American players (along with Brian McBride) to score goals in multiple World Cup tournaments.

We spoke to Clint about working with the Degree DO: MORE campaign, the World Cup and his career.

1. Talk about your partnership with Degree: DO MORE and how one lucky soccer fan can win a trip to Brazil in June to support you and the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team.

Degree is working with soccer and promoting the game. And also they’ve got the new deodorant now out with Degree Motion Sense technology where the more you move the more protection you get. The cool thing about it the campaign is, if you go to degreesoccer.com, a fan can win a trip to Brazil to join us at the World Cup this summer, so that will be exciting.

Read the full interview here.

Daniel Tosh’s rant about soccer

On his show, Tosh.0, comedian Daniel Tosh laid down a nice rant about soccer.

Nothing can help me care about soccer. Oh, ‘it’s the most popular sport in the world.’ Probably because it’s cheap to play. It costs a ball. Once every four years, America pretends to care about it. And yes, I call it ‘soccer.’ Don’t correct me because I don’t care what they call it in other lands — I speak America.

Sorry world, we already have football and it’s way better. It’s supposed to be played by 300 pound men eight seconds at a time, not five-foot, six-inch fairies lightly jogging for three hours, or however long your game is…buy a scoreboard!

It’s hard for me to get into a sport that I mastered at the age of seven. Excuse me for not being able to get revved up for this corner kick that never works. Hooray! The game ends without a single goal. I want to kill myself when an NBA team doesn’t break a hundred. That’s because you don’t get a free taco.

Maybe there would be more scoring if they weren’t flopping all of the time. And hooligans, instead of killing players that screwed up, murder the ones that fall down crying because their toe got stepped on.

The only good thing about soccer is the movie “Ladybugs.” That’s a classic. Don’t try to re-do it, Hollywood. I love women’s soccer. It’s a beautiful game, and America is actually good at it. Probably because we’re the only country that allows women to wear shorts.

It’s nice to have an activity that terrorist countries can excel at. Enjoy your 15 minutes, Algeria. Then go back to being number one at car bombs. But just know that the only reason you’re beating us is because our best athletes are busy playing real sports. You think LeBron James might make an okay goalie? Oh, and good move, giving us Beckham ten years past his prime. That really panned out.

Funny, funny, funny. But I still say soccer is more entertaining than baseball.

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