the other football

Americans Plotting Garden Route to Glory

I heard my first three American football supporters last night.  They were plotting their Garden Route along the coast of South Africa.  The USA play first in Johannesburg.  It's a funny thing about Americans.  You often tend to hear them before you see them.  They were not wearing colours.  They had no tattoos (that I could see).  They looked well fed.  And they were sober as judges.  But that was probably about to change as they were deliberating on an expedition to "Dubliners" on Long Street.  There was also talk of going to "Townships" next week, a hard-assed boozer on a par with the Grafton in Liverpool.  But seriously, much respect to the Americans for pitching up and cheering on their team.

I wonder how they were received by the local talent in Club Kaapstad much, much later on.  They were only up against irresponsible and homeless looking Argentines.  Surely they must have scored...or is that not how it works?

Organising Commitee Comes Correct

Move over, Heidi.  Johnny Clegg coming.

The FIFA Organising Committee came correct today.  The decision to base the procedure for the Final Draw of the 2010 World Cup on the October 2009 World Ranking is a good one.  The ranking system was raw, but now it is refined and provides a rather useful way to measure the relative successes and failures of the world's footballing nations.

South Africa will be joined by Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England as the seeded teams in Pot 1.

The other 24 teams will be divided into the 3 pots, each with 8 teams.

Pot 2 will consist of teams from Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic), North, Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico, USA) and Oceania (New Zealand)

Pot 3 will include teams from Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay)

Pot 4 will contain the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland)

South Africa will be automatically positioned in Group A; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H.

Geographical criteria will also accounted for, ensuring no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group).

Bring it on.

Babylon Fútbol Café

Save me a Spec at the Babylon Fútbol Café!

One...Two...Three...Algérie !!!

Player's Ball

Scene was so thick low rides seventy seven Sevilles
El Dawgs nuttin but them 'llacs
All the players all the hustlers i'm talking about
Black man heaven yah know what i'm saying? Peace

all the players came from far and wide
wearing afros and braids in every gangstar ride
now i'm here to tell yah there's a better day
when the player ball is happenin on christmas day

Props for Freddy

In celebrating Honduras' victory in the CONCACAF final for the Olympic qualifying tournament, one should not forget Freddy Adu, the top scorer in that round of games.  Will Johnson and Henry Thomas are special, but Freddy Adu is special too.  His signing for Benfica seems to have been the smart move. 

Ohhhh Canada

Congratulations to Canada for almost qualifying for the Olympic football tournament in Beijing.

Will Johnson's 3 goals were all well taken.  Expect Canada to be competitive in World Cup qualifying.  With Honduras hotter than the tarmac at Tulza airport, and Cuba and Haiti much improved, and Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica maintaining, the usual suspects will not it all their own way heading to South Africa. 

This time the eventual 4th placed Concacaf team will play whoever finishes 5th in the South American standings.  Mexico in Montevideo?  The USA in Santiago? 

Barack O'Bama's Archie Bunker Problem?

A March 5th piece by Heidi Przybyla of Bloomberg that suggested Barack Obama may have an Archie Bunker problem has been bouncing around my inbox and favourite blogs lately.  (Much respect to Phillip Martin and Melissa Harris Lacewell for the tip.) The article is laced with numbers from the Ohio exit polls and quotes from characters in so called white, ethnic, blue collar wards who claim to be put off by Obama's blackness and uppityness.

Przybyla reports, for example, that in Ohio's 10th district of Cuyahoga County, a suburban enclave on Cleveland's west side that includes a large population of Polish-Americans, Clinton trounced Obama 61 percent to 37 percent.  One wonders what Archie would have concluded about them "dumb Polaks" turning out in droves for the "regular American" candidate?  Perhaps he would have been pleased that Ohio’s ‘Palm Beach’ Polaks finally figured out how to vote. 

No doubt Archie would have also found some pleasure with the Ohio exit polls that showed the candidate with the regular American name beating “that Mick" O'Bama from Chicago, 62% to 35% among Ohio Catholics. And if old Archie were kicking around today he would have probably drawn parallels with the 1959 election and concluded that Ohio’s Papists had learned a valuable lesson in American civics!

Archie’s inspiration and long lost cousin from London, Alf Garnett, also didn't care for blacks or those "red-faced Micks" as embodied in the form of Liverpudlians or Irish folk, who often born the brunt of his bile.

I would like to wish all the viewers at home a Happy St. Patrick's Day, and take this opportunity to remind them Hillary Rodham Clinton had nowt to do with peace in the North of Ireland.

CAN YOU TRAP IT?

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has a question for the kids from Bed Stuy.

CAN YOU TRAP IT?

YES WE CAN!!!

Whitecaps

I cannot let a reference to Vancouver go without mentioning the great Vancouver Whitecaps of 1979.

Here’s the team photo.  Just look at those perms! 

The great Brucie Grobbelaar in goal.  And Alan Ball, Ray Lewington, Willie Johnston, Roger Kenyon, Trevor Whymark, Kevin Hector and Carl Valentine making a few Loonies too.

The Whitecaps would beat the famed two time defending champion, the New York Cosmos in the NASL Semi Final and the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the final at Giants Stadium.  This was post Pele and the most thrilling and entertaining of all playoff seasons in the North American Soccer League.  It was in retrospect the high watermark of professional Association Football in North America since the war.  (I know there have been lots of wars.)

Over 100,000 people crowded the streets of Vancouver to greet the ‘79 team on their return with the Championship.  I wonder how many folks from Vancouver will stump up to see Los Angeles Galaxy take on Vancouver in May?

"We Won it Five Times..."

I began this blog with an appreciation of Ahmed Ertegun.  In doing so, I noted the achievements of Lamar Hunt.  It is almost a year since the death of Lamar Hunt (pictured here in youthful egg chasing days.)

Like Sam Mark, Lamar Hunt was a pioneer of the business of football in the United States.  It is fitting that the first Lamar Hunt US Open Cup since his passing should be won by a team owned and organized by another great football fanatic, Robert Kraft.

The New England Revolution won their first 'Hunt Dewar' Cup by beating FC Dallas 3-2 earlier this week.  Congratulations also to manager Steve Nicol, another Liverpool great from Ayrshire.  (Perhaps they put they same stuff in the Aryshire water, as they as put in the Paysandú water.)

The highs and lows of the ALS, NASL, and MLS, and now the attention surrounding everything Beckham, have contrived to keep the 'Hunt Dewar' Cup in the background.

Beckham's knee injury and the MLS Playoffs are now paramount in US professional Association Football.  I understand why.  But it is a shame that the US Open Cup, the most inclusive and 'democratic' team sporting competition in the United States, is considered a sideshow.

The US$100,000 prize money may not generate excitement on Sports Radio, but the 'Hunt Dewar' Cup is a trophy one could take to bed.  I would not be surprised if Robert Kraft did so this week.

The silver trophy has been given to the winners of the tournament since 1914, when Scottish Whisky Distiller, Sir Thomas Dewar donated the trophy to help promote football in the United States.

Robert Kraft's New England Revolution have some way to go if they are emulate the great teams from Fall River and Bethlehem, each five time winners of the trophy, and Maccabi Los Angeles, which dominated 1970s and 1980s also winning the tournament a record five times.

The tournament has a rich history, and because the competition is open to all USSF affiliated teams, from amateur adult club sides all the way up to the top professional franchises, it generates an authentic underdogism that all other major US Sports cannot.  Just ask the owners of the four MLS franchises that lost to the Rochester Raging Rhinos when those upstart, upstaters won the Cup in 1999.

Amish Egg Chasers

One of the major 'egg chasing' codes has supporters in Amish country. Here are a few Amish Eagles fans, pre Rumspringa.  I wonder if they know the words to the "Fly Eagles Fly" touchdown song?  Good Lord.  Think of the damage they could do if they ended up in Woogies* during Rumspringa! 

They'd give a Liberian veteran I know serious competition!

I wonder which of these Stolzfus kids has an inner Beckenbauer?

* Woogies is a Philadelphia bar, generally packed with Phillies of a Sunday afternoon, on Greenwich Avenue in Noo York City.

Rumspringa

And who knows what the Amish could have acheived if they had spent their Rumspringa chasing footballs instead of birds?

The Stolzfus name could have been synonymous with 'soccer' instead of spreaders, sheds and scapple.

One wonders what latent teutonic tackling skills can be found in the farms and rolling hills of Lancaster County?

Can I Park Your Buggie?

Football was played on a Sunday when Bethlehem Steel were champions in America.  Even if the Amish could have taken time away from the fields, the scheduling would have prevented their taking part.   

Still, I would like to think there were a few Amish buggies parked outside the Bethlehem Steel Athletic Field back in the day. 

I am reminded of my old friend Brent who once told me his father had all sorts of elaborate parking techniques to ensure his presence at Anfield at 3 o'clock would go unnoticed by the more conservative members of his synagogue in Liverpool.

Newark Had Game

Here's a little Newark trivia for Siddhartha.

Uruguay's World Champion Olympic team, which no doubt would have included the greats of Nasazzi, Scarone and Castro, suffered their first defeat in three years when touring the United States in 1927.  Los Campeones were beaten by the Newark Skeeters. 

(I wonder if Andrade was permitted to play?) 

Ghosts of American Footballers

There may be a few folks still kicking around in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who would disagree with the claim that Fall River was the dominant football team in the 1910s and 1920s.  For every Peñarol there is a Nacional.

Here's Bethlehem Steel posing for with their 1918 Championship.

I passed close by Bethlehem, PA, on my way to the Amish country last weekend.  There are more than the usual number of goalposts dotted throughout the landscape, Ghosts of American Footballers everywhere.

Fall River

Fall River first made an impact in North American football in the late 1880s, when Fall River Rovers won American Cup in 1888 and 1889.

The consolidation of regional leagues saw the American Soccer League established with the support of powerful backers, such as Bethlehem Steel.

The most astute of the owners was Sam Mark.  Mark was the man behind the Fall River Marksmen.  Mark didn't miss a trick, including building the Fall Stadium barely across the state line in Rhode Island to avoid the complications of Massachusetts' notorious blue laws. 

The Fall River Marksmen were to become by far the most successful team in US football history, winning championships three consecutive in the mid-20s and again in 1930 and 1931.  The Marksmen also won US Open Cup in 1924 and 1930.  Fall River regularly attracted crowds of close 30,000 during Fall River's double winning seasons of 1924 and 1930.

The Fall River Marksmen were the Real Madrid of their time.  Mark would offer higher salaries than any European team, and often secured the signatures of England and Scottish star players.   Mark was signing players from Motherwell (most notably fullback Tommy Martin and winger Tec White) fifty years before Bill Shankly had the notion! 

* Much Respect to Dave Litterer for his fine research on football in Fall River.

Gracias...Chicago Style

The USA won the CONCACAF Gold Cup this afternoon.  The victory came care of a Feilhaber Golazzo.

Mayor Daley has offered the referee of today's final a Triple Decker of his choice in Lincoln Park.  The neighbourhood which is primarily made up of young professionals, recent college graduates, and young familes will soon be home to blind referees.  Senor Carlos Batres of Guatemala...C'mon on Down!!! 

"We Are Black and We Are Beautiful"

If African Americans take ownership of the beautiful game, the United States will have a beautiful team.

Stokely Carmichael said it first.

Victor B. MacFarlane, the owner of the largest minority owned real estate management firm in the country, has just diversified into football.  MacFarlane and his partner, Brian K. Davis and Christian Laettner, former stars of the Duke University basketball program, just purchased D.C United.  This makes Davis and MacFarlane the first African Americans to own a Major League Soccer team.  Respect!  “Soccer is the No. 1 sport for people of color all around the world, but not here in the U.S. — yet,” MacFarlane said Monday at a news conference in Washington. “We want to be part of the change that is now on the horizon. We would love to help make soccer the sport that African-Americans and other children of color first look to for recreation and entertainment.”

According to press reports, the first order of business will be to secure financing to build a 27,000-seat stadium at Poplar Point in Anacostia in time for the 2009 season. City officials have publicly backed the project. 

When are the tryouts in Marvin Gaye, Meridian Hill and Malcolm X Parks?