The apocalypse is near!

Liverpool won a trophy (albeit the Carling Cup) and the US beat Italy in Genoa! Holy crap. If this isn't a sign of the end of times I don't know what is!

We should have won but ...

Joe Hart proved that he is the England #1. The Reds dominated the match against City but Hart denied every attack except the one undone by his own teammate. The Reds had the advantage for most of the game with the exception of some insane back passes to Pepe Reina who was the 2nd star of the match for recovering from his defense's blunders. No gain on the table for The Reds sadly when everyone else drew with the exception of Chelsea and Spurs. Stuck in 6th with Arsenal.

US National Team

USMNT has been the moniker for soccer in America but that needs to change. USWNT is the true definition. The Women have won 2 World Cups and are in the Finals this year. The men, not so much. Reaching the quarter-finals in Korea in 2002 is their high water mark. Sadly they've got the choking dogs label for World Cups. The Gold Cup loss to Mexico this year did nothing to erase that. The US Women have shown nothing less than a never say die attitude and an intestinal fortitude the the men have only rarely shown. It's time for America to get fully behind the US women and realize the potential of this team and women's soccer in the US. When the USA won their 2 World Cups women's soccer was an afterthought in most of the world. Now there are a lot of really good women's national teams and if the USA can win this one it will be a truly great achievement. They aren't out there against a couple of good teams and a bunch of minnows. They are facing the best that the world can offer and they are winning.

Go USA!

And The Futbol Gods Said ...

.."Seriously?" That's what you're going to call? Seriously? Are you just making up rules as you go? Okay The US deserved to be a player down because of the handball on Lloyd and yes it was a penalty. Hope Solo stopped the shot so it all evens out. What? She was a millimeter off of her line? Redo? Are you kidding? Well that certainly deserves a makeup call. Overtime, US a player down and Brazil scores but the player who passed the ball to Marta for the score was offsides when the ball was passed to her. Surely you'll get that call right. No? Wow! This might actually be worse then the 3 second handball in the Equatorial Guinea - Australia match. The Gods are very displeased, especially since Brazil has the gall to wear 5 stars on their jersey when they haven't won anything ever! Just because the men's team has won 5 doesn't mean you get to wear the stars. Abby scores with a minute left to tie the game and it goes to PKs. The US wins 5 to 3 and the Brazilian keeper was at least a yard off of her line on every shot. At least the refs called it the first time. The Futbol Gods have spoken and you Brazil get to go home.

And while we're at it

Can we play major futbol events in stadiums that actually have grass fields? I watched the USA v Canada game from Detroit and the pitch was ridiculous! The ball was bouncing all over the place, the turf was coming up in gobs, and some of the grass was brown! Putting sod on top of artificial turf is just wrong. International matches featuring the best players from their countries deserve to be played on a good pitch. I'm sorry if the folks in New England, New York, and Dallas have turf fields, too bad. If you wanted to host big futbol matches you should have put in a grass field. Arizona managed. FIFA (as if it didn't have enough problems) needs to step in and mandate true grass fields for international play. There are plenty of good stadiums with grass fields in the US to cover even the biggest of competitions and we will travel to them. Screw the Dallas Palace, Jerry Jones could have put a grass field in there. If they can do it in Green Bay, WI and Phoenix, AZ they can do it anywhere. Nuff said.

The latest MLS rant

Sporting KC (really!) has a new stadium. They have the worst attendance in the league and have 1 title. DC United has great support (although the Cascadia teams are putting everyone else to shame) and 4 titles (plus 4 Supporter's Shields) and is still playing in decrepit RFK. Seriously? This is the flagship franchise for MLS even though they would like the LA Galaxy or NY Red Bull to be. Lets see between LA and NY they have 2 titles and 3 Supporter's Shields (all LA). The League needs to step in and help get a DC United stadium on track. I feel like DC United is the red headed step child of MLS. United has more trophies than anybody in MLS. It's not all about NYC and LA. Show us some love!

Off topic - the new math

The Big 12 has 10 teams, The Big 10 has 12 teams. WTF? This mathematically challenged arrangement should be an embarrassment to these schools of "higher education."