The Soccer Thread (IV)

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=678867&sec=englandopinion&root=englandopinion&cc=5901

Football's boardroom rogues gallery

George Reynolds - Darlington
A former safe cracker, Reynolds purchased Darlington for £800,000 in 1999 and sold the club a dream of reaching the Premier League. He funded the development of a 27,500-seater stadium (named after himself and complete with marble floors and escalators) despite the club's much more modest attendance figures and the club were placed into administration in 2003, owing more than £400,000 to the Inland Revenue. After subsequently starting a business selling S&M equipment, Reynolds was then jailed for tax evasion in 2005. The stadium still stands though, a white elephant demonstrating grandiose and fantastical plans that never came to fruition.

 

They'll be playing in that 27,500-seat stadium in the Conference next year.

I actually saw Chester play last night. They were ... not good.

 

I was at the FC Timisoara v. Ajax game last week in Amsterdam. What a boring, scoreless draw.

 

Ugh. That sucks.

I'm 18-for-18 in seeing at least one goal so far. Thought that was going to end last night, but there were goals in the 79th and 81st minutes.

 

Bummer.

I watched Inter-Barcelona from a hotel room in Milan. Couldn't get tickets - and didn't want to give a few hundred euros to guys on bikes shouting "Tickets! Tickets!"

 

I don't mind scoreless soccer if the action is exciting, but there were hardly any solid scoring chances, and Ajax didn't string 3 passes more than 2 or 3 times the entire game. Timisoara almost scored in the first 10 minutes, and would've if the Ajax keeper didn't backpeddle into his cage to push a ball out from scooting just under the crossbar.

Other than that, hardly anything from either team.

Oh well. But I will say that the pregame singing (one of the songs was operatic) and chanting was so wonderful and made me feel very good (as silly as that sounds). It's something you just will never, ever see from American football fans.

 

I've got to give my Leeds United boys credit for hanging in there against Liverpool in the League Cup. Lost 1-0 and had a goal disallowed.

 

What's that? The January spending spree might have to wait until the summer? Color me shocked.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/Al-Fahim-rules-out-January.5675247.jp

Derby County should be feeling nervous about their little slice of Premier League history.

 

Woo hoo Rowdies! I just had my best week ever thanks to Milner's goal and Tevez's two assists.

Also, downloaded the EA 10 demo yesterday thanks to someone on here alerting me about it -- mm?

Anyway, the play is pretty fluid. I like it. I wish I had the manual to learn any new moves. Pretty fun so far.

 

As an FYI, the U-20 World Cup started today! All of the games will be on one ESPN channel or another. The USA kicks off at 10am on Sunday on ESPN Classic with a game against Germany. That should be fun.

 

Per the front of USSoccer: U.S. Under-20 Men
vs. Germany Under-20 Men

Mubarak Stadium; Suez, Egypt

Sep. 26, 2009 @ 10 a.m. ET

ESPN Classic, ESPN360.com, Galavision

I think that's Saturday, right?

 

The 26th is definitely Saturday! Damn. I can't believe I missed that. Oh well. No biggie. I'll be at the bar anyway for a Rangers game that also kicks off at 10am. I guess I'll just need to position myself between two screens!