Landon Donovan is figuring things out, or so we hope

March 26th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

Given his awful 2006 World Cup - and the fact that I now look on my traditional, commemorative jersey purchase with disdain - I have been down on Landon Donovan. Like, done with him. I mean, he disappeared on the world’s largest stage, right at the moment the U.S. was supposed to be announcing its arrival once and for all. Great players play great in … well, you know the cliche, and Donovan didn’t measure up. (Let’s not forget that DeMarcus Beasley, 1b to Donovan’s 1a, had an awful Cup too.)

Still, his performance yesterday was pretty masterful. Against an Ecuador squad playing a large number of their World Cup starters, Donovan scored all three goals in the 3-1 friendly win. As With Leather writes today, Donovan is indeed less of a pussy, if only marginally so.

And take a look at that last goal - what a cracker. You know what? I think I’ll wear that jersey tonight.

Your World Cup Final Picture Book

July 10th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

While scouring the AP for a World Cup picture to package with the post below this one, I found a ton of fan reaction shots (like the one of these French fans above) and some other pretty phenomenal pictures. So I thought, hey, why not share them? Peep some pictures after the jump, including one of Zidane walking by the World Cup Trophy as he left the stadium shortly after his fratty-Tau Tau Tau headbutt. It’s worth a look.

Also, with so much talk going on about Zidane, I feel I need to give some props to my favorite player in the land of futbol, Thierry Henry. The dude not only made the World Cup Final with France, but played in the Champions League Final with Arsenal back in May. Although, he lost both matches and didn’t score in either. But hey, how many championship soccer matches in Europe have you been a part of? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

CONTINUE READING THIS POST –>

Case of the Mondays (Wednesdays): Kobayashi eats a lot of hog dogs, wins again

July 5th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Did we all have a nice long weekend of freedom loving, American flag waving, Roman candle lighting, wholesome Stars and Stripes fun? Good. Let’s get to it.

The jury may still be out on whether or not sporting folk consider competitive eating an actual ‘sport,’ but there ain’t no denying Takeru Kobayashi’s flat out domination of the annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest at Coney Island. The Japan native wolfed down 53 ¾ hot dogs for his sixth straight win at the event, breaking his own record of 53 ½ dogs he set two years ago. American Joey Chestnut jumped out to an early lead but eventual lost it to Kobayashi, further proving Americans no longer dominate or win any sort of international competition.

Italy took down Germany 2-0 to reach the finals of the World Cup yesterday, netting two goals in the final couple minutes of the second overtime. Congratulations to Italy, who won a game without flopping or being the benefactor of a controversial call by the ref. I’m rooting for a France-Italy final on Saturday.

The MLB All-Star rosters were announced over the weekend. And of course, like every year, the squads weren’t based on actual statistics or stellar play in the first half, but rather on fan’s ineptitude at chad-punching and mouse clicking. But hey, this time it counts!

OK, good enough for me. I’ll be hitting you up with some more updates throughout the day.

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.

Mr. Joga Bonito has a name. Oh, and he’s insane.

June 28th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

So you know that Joga Bonito guy, narrator for all those Nike soccer commericals? Yeah, total nutjob. We’ll get into that in a second. First, some background information.

His name is Eric Cantona and apparently he was quite the footballer in the mid-90’s for Manchester United – garnering four premiership titles with the club in five years and being dubbed their ‘player of the century’ in 2001.

But, that’s all rather boring. After dipping into his Wikipedia entry, we found out this dude is basically the Eli Cash (for his quotes) and Richie Tennenbaum (for his antics on the field) of professional soccer.

Some fun facts:

Before playing in England, Cantona played professional football in France, where he was born. During his tenure at numerous clubs he was suspended for:

A) Ripping off and throwing out his jersey after he was substituted for.
B) Insulting the national team coach on TV.
C) Getting into a fight with a teammate.
D) Throwing a ball at a ref after he didn’t like a call.

After the whole ref thing, he apparently was ‘fed up’ and retired from soccer in 1991 - at the age of 25. He was later persuaded to come back and start new in England with Manchester United.

In a January 1995 away match against Crystal Palace, Cantona received a red card and was sent off for a tackle placed on a Palace defender. He then proceeded to get all loco on a supposed rowdy Palace fan, Matthew Simmons, administering a kung-fu style kick to his chest. Cantona was suspended until the following October. (Peep the video of that here.)

At a press conference shortly after the incident, Cantona said only the following quote, then got up and left without wielding any more questions from reporters:

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

You getting the idea yet? If not, here are a few more quotes from Cantona:

I didn’t study; I live. You can’t study these things - life teaches them to you. You don’t find them in a book……I’ve read a lot of Socrates on page three of the Sun.

Sometimes in life one experiences an emotion which is so strong that it is difficult to think, or to reason. Sometimes you get submerged by emotion. I think it’s very important to express it - which doesn’t necessarily mean hitting someone. I am very mistrustful of people who are constantly overintellectualising things. It kills passion. You have to allow yourself to lose control from time to time.

Despite all his antics, Contana played a major part in leading just about every squad he played for to a league title and is highly regarded as a skilled player by colleagues and analysts. We think that’s important to note.

But yeah, totally insane. Or is he so totally insane that he’s totally awesome? (We think so.)

(Oh, and thanks commenter Phillips, for the tip on this whole thing.)

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.

Weekend Fun: So, what else is there to do?

June 23rd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

As I noted earlier today, this is one of the first ‘Weekend Fun’ posts we’ve ever had to make without mentioning the NBA playoffs. Fortunately, the NBA draft is nearly here, so you can spend some time this weekend thinking about that, if you’re so inclined. (We’d like to personally thank Isiah Thomas for the Bulls’ beneificial draft picks this year. Thanks, Ike.)

Also, the lack of basketball will certainly be accompanied by an increased interest in day-to-day baseball stuff - and not just Ozzie Guillen vs. Jay Mariotti nonsense (though Rick Morrissey writes a column worth reading today on the subject). Like, actual baseball. I might even start working through the Cubs media guide I was recently given. Exciting stuff, I know.

But, in the short term, the NBA’s lingering absence will no doubt be most effectively filled by the World Cup, which, despite a boring afternoon of action today, continues to entertain and surprise and destroy the spirits of men. Group of 16 action starts tomorrow afternoon with Germany v. Sweden at 11 and Argentina v. Mexico at 3. Sunday, the team I’m likely to root on now, England, will face Ecuador in the early match, and those pesky Polskis will take on their neighbors, the Netherlands.

R departs for Bloomington as we speak, signaling impending drunkenness. Enjoy your weekend as well, peeps. See you Monday.

A bit more collected look at our soul-crushing loss

June 22nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

Now that I’ve screamed myself silly for a few hours, let’s take a more analytical look at the U.S.’ 2006 World Cup appearance than the knee-jerk stuff I did directly down the page.

While I stand by the stuff I wrote about Ghana there, commenter Kevin is absolutely correct. I couldn’t possibly blame the loss entirely on Ghana - who, despite my achings, played the same strategy that I would’ve played going down the stretch in the second half. (Well, besides the constant diving and faking. I hate that stuff.)

No, Ghana is not entirely to blame here. The U.S. laid an egg in an admittedly tough group. Playing one game of spirited soccer will not get you into the Round of 16 in a group like this. Much of the same ills that plagued the U.S. in their stinker against the Czechs were evident here today as well - no energy, inability to string together productive touches, role confusion. The onus for the first two are on the players. The last, and perhaps most important, is on Bruce Arena.

Landon Donovan, for all his poor play, wasn’t put in a position to succeed this Cup, never getting the full-on forward or full-on midfielder nod that he should have. Instead, Arena played him as withdrawn forward in a 4-5-1 set. Same goes for DeMarcus Beasley. For all of his attitude problems, Beasley didn’t seem to understand why he was on the right side against the Czechs or in the middle against Ghana.Beasley came up with a huge assist for the U.S. Donovan controlled the pace of the game very effectively against Italy. Other than that, those two U.S. stars were no-shows, and the U.S. - hailed and praised and hyped and lauded - went home thanks to tiny Ghana.

Ghana has WMDs, President Bush. Please bomb their country now

June 22nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

I should take a little more time before we do any sort of analysis here, because I am losing my mind, I think, but man. This is a shitty day.

Eric Wynalda seems as angry as I am right now. He should be. This was a terrible World Cup.

And I never thought I would say this, but I…hate…Ghana…so…much. I hate them. They got lucky that Claudio Reyna is slow and old and incompetent with the ball at the back, and they got a terrible call in the box. That was that. Up 2-1, they can do what all inferior teams do when winning - sink back in and send no one forward. Game over. (Also, taking every opportunity to lay down on the ground in the second half helps too. With only 30 seconds recorded for extra time each fall, you probably killed 5-7 minutes there. Nice work, guys.)

So, congrats Ghana, whatever, great story, blah blah blah. I will hate you forever. Hopefully Ronaldinho scores 800 goals on you in the Round of 16.

We’ve got a fever and the only prescription is a list of the best and worst World Cup nicknames

June 19th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Excusing the overused catch phrase used to entitle this post, we decided after hearing names like the ‘Socceroos,’ ‘Three Lions’ and the ‘Black Antelopes,’ it was time to find a list of these nicknames and sort through the rift and the raff to find the greatest of them and the ones not even Brad and Angelina would name their baby.

So, as they say, without further adieu:

Best Names:

Brazil: Canary Selection

This nickname exemplifies why the Brazilians are cooler than anyone else in the world. Although, that was already apparent when they have a dude named Fred scoring goals.

Croatia: the Fiery Ones

The only other thing we’ve ever heard described as ‘fiery’ is the indie rock band the Fiery Furnaces. So naturally, this nickname works for us.

Portugal : The Selection of the Shields

Do not mess with the ‘Selection of the Shields.’ Not now. Not ever.

Spain: The Red Fury

Kind of similar to Croatia’s nickname, except a less interesting adjective and more exciting noun. We think the ‘Fiery Fury’ would be the best name.

Switzerland: the Oath Comrades

We’ve always been big fans of the word ‘comrades.’ But coupling it with ‘oath?’ Pure genius.

Togo: Sparrow Hawks

We don’t know what exactly goes on in Togo, but from the looks of their nickname they’re apparently into weird cross-breading of birds.

And of course, as mentioned in the precursor to this post, we’re big fans of Australia’s, England’s and Angola’s nicknames.

Worst Nicknames:

Argentina : White-Sky Blues

We are the White-Sky Blues. We strike fear into the hearts of men.

Germany : Die Nationalmannschaft (National Team)

This is the only entry in which wrote the nickname out in its mother tongue. That’s because it ends in ‘MANNSCHAFT.’ LOL! Bonus points for zero creativity. National team? Come on Germany.

Ivory Coast: Elephants

At first we thought this was a terrible nickname, but then we remembered those videos of elephants kicking soccer balls really far. We changed our minds.

Iran : Team Melli (National Team)

Like the Germans, uber-creative these Iranians are.

And the worst nickname? Why, the U. S. of A. of course. We don’t even have a nickname. Although we’re sometimes referred to as the ‘Yanks’ or ‘Amerks.’ God Bless America!