The Las Angeles Preview

I will be in Las Vegas this weekend, and thus I will miss the game. But I can post a brief preview and hopefully spread knowledge and wisdom among our many followers. Minions, read on.

If you want to understand LA this year, you need to understand two things. First, they play solid defense. This is the result of solid coaching by Bruce Arena. I have it on a good source that after some initial struggles by his D last year, Bruce brought the guys into his office for some old fashioned coaching. Once they were all in the room, he challenged them all to pry from his chubby hands the delicious, dripping, meat ball sub. Predictably, Arena prevailed. But his players learned a valuable lesson - protect your goal the way Bruce Arena protects meatball subs. The result is that LA has only given up two (2) goals in six (6) games. LA defenders have actually bitten more opposing forwards in the run of play (four (4) of them, to date). If they have to bite anybody, I hope it's Brad Evans.

The second defining characteristic of LA this year is Edson Buddle. The much-traveled forward is in the middle of a crazy scoring streak right now. He's scored nine (9) goals already this year. I consider Edson Buddle to be the soccer equivalent of Kirstie Alley. Years ago, Kirstie Alley was HOT. I mean she was poster-material. Just look at that picture. I would sell a number of my vital organs for one night with that version of Kirstie Alley. Consider that picture to be Edson Buddle's current form - jaw dropping. But we all know Kirstie Alley for a different reason now. Because she's the only person alive who ever successfully took a meatball sub out of Bruce Arena's hands. That's right, look it up on Wikipedia. And this second picture is from the Oprah appearance where she explained the incident. Anyway, back to my point. Kirstie Alley once looked amazing, and that's how Edson Buddle looks now. But we all know that sooner or later, Kirstie Alley is going to gain 150 pounds and look like Jabba the Hutt's niece. Edson Buddle is not this good. He will regress to the mean. He will stop scoring ridiculous goals and start missing wide open chances, like he's always done. Hopefully, the Sounder defense reminds him what it's like to play a game and not score.

Vote for one of our own!

Rodney Greiling, who stands directly in front of Funk at Sounders games, is nominated for the Golden Scarf for May 22nd. Please follow the link and vote for him. It would add "Great Honor and Prestige" to our Section, 120. Do it. I did it. It felt good.

http://www.soundersfc.com/Matchday/Golden-Scarf/May-22.aspx

Kufo's Twente are Dutch Champions!!!!

It came down to the final game of the season in Holland. Two teams were in the running. Ajax, winners of 29 Dutch titles and 4 European Championships, and Twente Enschede, who had never won a title in club history. At the end of the day, both teams won their respective games, and Twente won out by one point.



Why should you care? One of Twente's most valuable players is joining the Sounders in July. After he represents Switzerland in the World Cup, Blaise Kufo will provide Seattle with a goal scoring ability we have never seen before. He scored over 100 goals for Twente, a team that never threatened for a title until his arrival.

Congrats to Kufo for finishing his career in Holland with a trophy, let's hope he brings one to Seattle next.

Sorry for my absence

So work has taken control of my life, and the little spare time I've had for soccer has been dominated by the EPL title race. Chelsea play Liverpool on Sunday and Wigan the following week. If they win out the are the Champions, otherwise it's another title for Man-chowder United.

The Sounders are playing exactly how I predicted at the begining of the season. Our lack of goals keeps teams in games, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, sometimes we draw. We all just need to cross our collective fingers and hope we're in a good position by July. The season doesn't truely begin until Kufo gets here.

So what will happen tomorrow against the Crew? I have no freakin idea, but of course I'll be in the stands yelling my head off.

May 1st - Columbus Crew

I haven't seen Columbus play this year, and I can't stand to think anymore about the way Seattle plays. So I'm going to focus today's post about Columbus on things that are only partially related to soccer.

First, if anybody is curious why Columbus has won the Supporter's Shield for the last two years (best record during the regular season), they only need to look to one man - Steven Lenhart. He is their not so secret weapon. What does he bring to the table? He's a superhero. That's what. In fact, he's the Greatest American Hero. Call this my version of hard-hitting investigative journalism. Look at these pictures. Can you honestly say that it's not the same person? I think this is just a bad job of trying to hide your identity. He could at least get a mask or something to cover his eyes, like Robin does. This is just ridiculous. It would have been too obvious had he signed with a team like Toronto that wore red. And if that team also wore capes? The tactical approach to a guy like this is simple - force him to land in small spaces. The Greatest American Hero always struggled to land. Don't give him wide open spaces to land in, and he'll spend the entire game crashing. Columbus will not score. Problem solved.

Another guy on this team is apparently trying to hide his identity, Frankie Hejduk. I can't think of a reason for Jeff Spicoli to try and conceal his true identity, but I think he's done a better job than the GAH. Take a look at these pictures. My guess is that Spicoli had a little bit of work done. Enough to make you doubt that it's him, but still enough of his original face for his mother to recognize him. If I had to guess, I would suggest that Spicoli got in trouble selling drugs. I guess playing soccer is a good way to hide yourself in this country, since outside of a few members of the media, nobody will know who the hell he is. If the rumors are correct, Spicoli first tried hiding in the NBA. He thought that playing in a league where everybody sold and used drugs would keep him anonymous. Unfortunately, and somehow defying explanation, the NBA still has fans. And some of them knew who he was. Hence the switch to soccer.

It didn't take long to figure out who Eddie Gaven really is. Beaky Buzzard. He did a poor job of trying to disguise himself. Unlike our previous two players, I have a good idea of why Beaky Buzzard is in hiding. Turns out that Beaky was running an underage escort service out of France. The operation never had any problems because it's customers were powerful men: Vladimir Putin, Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi, and Tony Danza. Those were just the ones everybody knew about. Several others were rumored to be involved: Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Mr. Rogers, even Bob Ross. But Beaky saw the leak in the hull before the ship started sinking. He started his second career many years ago, and sold off his interest in the escort service. Unfortunately, Beaky has lost a lot of weight.  Apparently, there is a lot of stress involved with hiding your identity. 

There is a simple lesson from all this about how we should feel about the Columbus Crew. I believe Jeff Spicoli said it best, when he said, "Those guys are fags!" 

What the Hell is going on?

I can't handle this anymore. Maybe I expect too much from the Sounders, but I can't handle taking 1 point from a possible 6 when playing on the road against two crappy teams. Bad penalties, bad turnovers, bad finishing, bad passing.... I can't handle it anymore.  I need a two day break from posting anything about soccer, or else I'm going to just rip players for no reason.

I will say that given the weather in yesterday's game, I'm happy that I decided not to travel to Toronto as an away game. Vindicates my concerns about going to the north pole during winter.

FC Dallas Preview

"Holy dog shit. Texas? Only steers and queers come from Texas, Private Cowboy. And you don't look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down. Do you suck dicks?"
  Gunnery Sergeant Hartman - Full Metal Jacket


So, tonight SSFC takes on FC Dallas. A team that sucked until Jeff Cunningham caught fire in the second half of the season after Kenny Cooper got sold. If Cunningham scores, Dallas is okay. When he doesn't score, they lose. If this were a good blog, I would have statistics to back that up. But that requires time and energy. And this isn't a good blog. Suffice to say that if SSFC can keep Cunningham from running wild, they should be in position to win the game.


Let's be fair about one thing. FC Dallas has a big steer on it's logo. Which means that the players can only really be one thing. Golf ball through a garden hose, something along those lines.


There really isn't anything about Dallas that scares me. I think Hurtado and others should be able to deliver a shut-out. This game hinges on our ability to create and finish chances. From watching the Sounders FC game preview, I know that Arlo White thinks that Dallas pushes lots of guys into the attack. If that's true, we should be able to generate a number of counter-attack opportunities. Against RSL, we put one away. Tonight, I want to see two counter-attack goals.


My prediction is that tonight's key players are Zakuani and Ljungberg. I think both will score goals. I also think that SSFC may have more possession of the ball than they did against RSL. 


I'm picking with my heart and not my brain here, but the final score will be 3-1. SSFC will give up a goal late in the 2nd half because they aren't concentrating.

Sounders 3rd Jerseys Released

Tactically this makes sense. Edgar Davids is the only player I know of who is permitted to wear sunglasses on the field. The Opposition will be blinded, while all our players have to do is kick it at the brightness. Expect our passing percentage to increase at least 20%.

Yes they are obnoxious, but they're ours. Just like Barfalona fans defend their hideous PINK jerseys, we should do the same. Chelsea's third jersey has black and blue horizontal stripes, Wigan's is neon yellow with black. Shocking 3rd jerseys are a soccer tradition.

Final thought, 20 years from now you will be considered cool and old school if you have one of these.

You'll Fit Right In

CHUCKIE: Casey's bouncin' at a bar up at Harvard. We should go there sometime.
WILL: What are we gonna do up there?
CHUCKIE: I don't know, we'll f**k up some smaht kids. You'd prob'ly fit right in.

And so begins the career of one Michael Fucito.

Maybe for the first time in his life, Michael Fucito gets to take all those equations on the walls of the bars at Harvard and channel them into a glorious moment. No longer can the kids from Southie try to mess with him. Even Will Hunting can’t match the big balls on Michael Fucito.

After 90 minutes of rock solid defense, especially from the back four, the Sounders faced the ultimate disappointment. The ultimate tease. The ultimate side hug. A potential 0-0 tie.

Steve Zakuani failed to do much of anything. Apparently actually running simply tires him out, so he stops after about 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile underwear model Freddie Ljunberg decided to play like garbage as he repeatedly trapped like a Trapper Keeper without Velcro. Which means there wasn’t much trapping my friends.

The best chance of the match inevitably was called back by a horrific referee (despite the accuracy of this particular call) for cheating (offsides). I find that if you don’t cheat, you tend to not get called for it. Just a thought.

Oh you know what? I don’t miss Nate Jaqua. Just wanted you to know that I don’t miss giant players who can’t head the ball and have no ability at their feet in spite of our inability to score last game. He can live on an island with Josh Wolff for the rest of his life for all I care.

Which leads me to Josh Wolff.

I don’t really have a reason to hate him per se. Yet I somehow do actually despise him. It could be the fact that when he was a hot young striker, this Spanish announcer would say, “Josh WWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLFFFFFFFF” in hilarious fashion. Somehow that stuck with me and then Josh Wolff didn’t live up to my early expectations. So I learned to hate him. I tried to mock him with a National Team jersey as in he would never see it again, but I just couldn’t be heard over the Sounder faithful. It was just too difficult. Hey, I am just like Steve Zakuani. Awesome.

And all this occurred during the Sounder 0-0 staring contest through 90 minutes.

Until….

Henry Lipkin: Now, no more shenanigans, no more tomfoolery, no more ballyhoo.

Michael Fucito! WTF.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/content/fucito-scores-stoppage-time-winner-seattle

Kansas City Wizards Preview

"I was trying to smile but it was the smile of desolution. Inside, I felt only the pity and the terror and the waste of it all. Everyone I had ever loved, and who ever loved me - all gone... all gone down..."
                Sam Neill as Merlin in "Merlin" - an Epic 2-Part Made for TV Movie from 1998

This Saturday's game brings Kansas City to Seattle to face our beloved Sounders. Last year, this game was a laugher. Seattle was poised to win by 2 or 3 goals. Let's face it. Any team that depends on Josh Wolff (the second F is silent) to score its goals is doomed to fail. Then Kasey Keller got a red card, and Seattle played 65 minutes with 10 men, and ended up losing on a great shot by Davy Arnoud. Talk about bummers.


We play KC the same time this year as last year, on Matchday 4, and we get them at home again. But this time around, KC rolls into Seattle having won their first 2 games, scoring 5 goals, and conceding none. KC is arguably on a hot streak. Both those victories came at home, and 4 of those goals came against DC United, who couldn't score on Aurora right now. So what should we expect from KC?

Honestly? Who the hell knows. It looks like KC has several new faces, and apparently is playing a more attacking brand of soccer. But teams that come to Qwest tend to pack it in and look for counter-attacking opportunities. Maybe KC's new Bollywood sensation Sunil Chhetri will play significant minutes and show why everybody on the sub-continent is excited about his MLS regular season debut.


Ultimately, I hope these Wizards feel a lot like The Wizard, Merlin, when the game is over. I want them to feel like everybody they've ever known and loved is gone. I want Sounders to take the game by the scrote from the start and put in a few goals in the first half. That way, the second half can be a party in the stands. I predict a 2-0 Sounder victory, with both goals coming in the 1st half. And let's be honest, you're never going to see me predict a Sounder loss on here.

In other news. B Els is having a baby shower on Saturday evening after the game. As of this moment, 41 people have RSVP'd. 41 people! If he took his baby shower to an FC Dallas game, it would instantly double attendance! If he went to a Chivas home game, they would thank him for the patronage with a pinata and a few chili peppers to induce labor! But I digress. Let's all take a moment to congratulate B Els for his impending fatherhood, and make sure he knows that no matter what happens, he can always bring his infant child to the tailgate if he can't find a babysitter. We love you B!