David Beckham: Don’t pick on the foreigners

November 26th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

David Beckham has always seemed like a pretty reasonable guy. Of everyone surrounding his incursion into Major League Soccer, Beckham’s expectations of his performance were probably the most accurate, and hey, who doesn’t love Snoop Dogg?

After a premature England departure from Euro 2008 — and by “premature,” I mean “just lost to Croatia and won’t even make Euro 2008″ — Beckham is proving that assessment correct. How? He’s refusing to place the blame for England’s poor national play on the shoulders’ of its professional league’s many foreign players:

“There’s many excuses out there that people can come up with but I don’t think you can blame it on foreign players,” Beckham told BBC London.

“For me, the foreign players have brought something special to the Premiership and our country. Hopefully I’ll still be playing, and playing well enough, to be in the England squad in 2010.

“If you look back at 1974 and 1978 when we didn’t qualify for World Cups back then there was probably 90% of English players in the English league. Now there’s probably a lot more foreign players but I don’t think you can turn round and look at it like that.”

You’d think that stance, what with its intelligent use of examples and reasoned logic, would be the default opinion among European soccer’s leaders, but that’s not exactly true. After all, even FIFA president Sepp Blatter is talking about putting a cap on foreign players in England. I’m not sure how that would make England’s players better; so a bunch of mediocre players would be playing against each other week? We have that already. It’s called the MLS, and it’s every bit as high quality as the proposed Premiership. Which is to say, not very high quality at all.

{HT: The Offside}

Weekend Fun: Wiiiiiiild Card

August 11th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

OK, folks. These wild card battles (especially in the NL) are shaping up quite nicely. We have some sexy, key matchups this weekend starting with the Tigers coming into Chicago to take on the White Sox. I�ll be at Saturday�s game. (Stop sucking it up Buehrle!) The Red Sox look to recover from their five-game skid tonight at home against the Orioles and the Twins are home against Toronto.

Over in the NL, The Wild Card leading Reds will take on the Phillies (who are currently 3 games back of Cincinnati in the WC standings) in Philadelphia. The Padres (0.5 game back of the Reds) and Astros (2.5 games back of the Reds) do battle tonight in Houston.

(Side note: The Reds are 3 games over .500 and are leading the NL Wild Card race. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are 3 games over .500 and are nine game back in the AL Wild Card chase. Just a point of reference, really.)

If you haven�t read this article on Alex Rodriguez or this one on Maurice Clarett, I would suggest you do so immediately.

You can also use this weekend to ponder what a Beckham-less England squad will look like.

E is heading back to Iowa today and I�ll be damned if I�m going to give that state anymore publicity than he�s cranked out over the past few weeks. (See here and here.)

Stay classy, and see you Monday.

(Oh, and the fine young man in that picture? Why it’s IU’s first basketball recruit for 2007, Brandon McGee. Eric Gordon, are you listening?)

Weekend Fun: Blowin’ shit up for freedom

June 30th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

It’s that time of year again, folks, a time we’ve yet to experience with our own little Web site, but that time nonetheless.

People purchase the beer and meat and fireworks and have themselves a little party, all in the name of God-fearing, country-loving, bin Laden-bombing freedom. Google, of course, will do their part for their country by creating a little variant of their symbol with some sort of firework/flag sort of thing. Exciting.

With all this U.S. love going around, it might be a little tough to get into the most foreign of games (soccer), but we’ll be all over it. R and I will actually be rooting on our one-time colonial oppressors this weekend as they take on Portugal. That’s not all though - Brazil will take on France Saturday as well. All these colonial powers, fighting over their last hope for modern supremacy - a World Cup title. Suckers.

Sunday? Um…Sunday. Let’s see. Sunday might be a good day to be away from the tellie, as Wimbledon and the Tour de France and seem to be the only things around. Where are all the American sports? It’s our birthday, damnit! I can listen to Toby Keith only so long before I need some television! Actually, baseball’s around, but I hate my baseball team and can’t watch them. So that’s that.

With that, we leave you. Big Fourth of July weekends planned for these Postmen, including this one’s beleaguered travels from Indiana to Kentucky to Indiana to Illinois to Iowa. That’s plains-hopping, as I like to call it.

Enjoy your long weekends. We’ll be back Wednesday.

Update, because I just couldn’t resist: Remember what I said about Google? It’s up! It’s not a holiday without Google’s little logo variations. Now it’s official. Happy 4th, everyone.

Case of the Mondays : Without that movie, what would they say?

June 26th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Bend it like Beckham! Beckham bends in lone goal for England! Bend! Bend! Bend!

Yep, this phraseology was all over the place yesterday on the Web and on TV. Despite puking all over the pitch, Beckham bent (we just had to) in a free kick just inside the left post which lead to a 1-0 win for England over Ecuador.

In other World Cup news, the referee of the Portugal-Netherlands game went a bit loco, issuing 16 yellow cards and four reds during the match. Hey, yet another sports match in which people will blame their squad�s loss on poor officiating instead of not getting the job done. Portugal won the match 1-0.

The White Sox nine-game winning streak finally came to a close last night, as they lost in 13 innings to the Astros 10-9. (Note to self: Don�t leave the Cell in the top of the eight when the Sox are down seven runs. You will miss Iguchi�s three-run homer and grand slam that tied up the game to send it into extras. Whoops.)

If you�re looking for an update on the lingering story that is Jay Mariotti and Ozzie Guillen, get at it here. (Jay made himself the story again!)

And for the record, I am in fact sitting in my underwear as I blog. Take that, traditional and professional media.

Case of the Mondays: Seinfeld Style

June 12th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

(Monk’s Restaurant - Jerry, George)

Jerry: So what�s the deal with Americans calling soccer, soccer? I mean, it�s a game in which only your feet are used, why don�t we call it football like the rest of the world?

George: Yeah. Have you been watching any of this World Cup? It�s madness. I saw England beat Paraguay 1-0 on Saturday. And how about the Ivory Coast stopping their civil war because they qualified for their first World Cup? My mother and father can�t find any reason to end their 30-year civil war, but the Ivory Coast make the World Cup and boom � civil war on hold.

(Enter Elaine)

Elaine: What�s up Georgie Porgie? Jerry?

Jerry and George: Hello, hello.

Elaine: So George, thanks a lot for those Yankees tickets yesterday. But a 6-5 loss and getting sweep by the A�s for the first time at home since �94? What kind of a mood was Steinbrenner in this morning?

George: I don�t know.

Jerry: You�re sleeping under your desk again, aren�t you?

George: Yeah, it�s a Monday Wednesday thing. Tuesdays and Thursdays I act really annoyed at my desk, so it�s looks like I�m in the middle of some hard work.

Elaine: And Fridays?

George: Well Fridays I have a new plan. Get this. I roam the halls all day with a stack of papers in my hands, so it looks like I�m either dropping something off to someone or I�m heading back to my office with the stack. Brilliant, huh?

Jerry: Yeah, sounds like a seamless plan, George.

World Cup 2006

May 30th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

(Here is a World Cup preview, just a little tickler for the month of madness we will be covering and covering well. Check it out. Oh, and if you’re one of those “soccer sucks, go back to England, we play football and baseball and basketball here, freedom isn’t free” idiots, then just skip over it. Thanks.)

It’s May 30. Three out of four years, that is an inconsequential date. This year, though, is the World Cup, an international showcase for the most popular game on Planet Earth. That means May 30 is Day One of the final Ten-Day Countdown before the insanity ensues.

Every four years, the WC brings hope to many and fury to more, as 32 countries reconcile their expecations of their national teams with the blatant reality that they probably don’t have a chance in hell to take home one of the ugliest trophies in all of sports. But I’m betting you knew all that, even if you don’t like soccer.

Perhaps of more importance to you, then, is where you can find some of the best information on the Cup. No problem:

• Start here. The WC has its own site, as it well should, but the site is less a PR gimmick and more a fantastic place to begin your reveling in soccer glory, from recent photo galleries to classic WC video, all on the homepage.
• For news updates, check out the obvious choice, ESPN SoccerNet. That’s the main page, but here is ESPN’s World Cup page and its Team USA page.
• For ridiculous British soccer mania, and a lot of fun, check out Football365.com. The use of the vernacular English and the rumor-based nature of the news is a great antidote, and it provides an extensive window into British football and the country’s national obsession with it. More on that here, as well.

These are just the tip of the Soccer, or Football, as we prefer to call it (and yes, we like American Football a lot too) iceberg. Delve further with Deadspin, who is doing a tremendous day-by-day group prediction preview and Mike Cardillo, who seems to know quite a bit about the beautiful game.

Oh, and if you have the itch to play a little (virtual) soccer, as we always do, play the new game for XBOX 360. It’s insane.