The Footy Blog

The weather in Italy is really starting to irritate us around here. ROMA v INTER has been postponed to Sunday morning now, so we’ve still got it for you but here’s how our Serie A schedule looks this weekend.

Luis Engrique’s Roma play host to Inter Milan on Sunday morning. You can see it on theScore at 11am EST, following JUVENTUS v SIENA Live at 9am EST.

James Sharman takes a closer look at Sunday’s big tilt in the capital.

Can’t get to a TV Sunday morning? Watch the matches right here on theScore.com!

Don’t miss THE FOOTY SHOW at 2pm EST on Saturday as James & KJ recap the day’s action with all the day’s highlights from the Premier League and elsewhere. Then at 2:45pm EST see the replay of Inter’s wild 4-4 draw with Palermo from midweek.

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How it works: every Friday, I will look at several weekend matches and and assign points to various items you’ll have to find surrounding the match and then post up in form of links in the comments section (please provide links where you can and names for commentators).
Commenter with the most points wins! The prize? Nothing, because no one ever seems to want to play, or complains when I don’t mention the winner on Monday.
Let’s “kick off.”

Arsenal v. Blackburn Rovers

Chris Samba scores two own-goals, concedes moronic penalty; Arsenal fans flock to Twitter to show solidarity with Arsene Wenger (10 points).

If Goodwillie plays, I try (and fail) not to titter each and every time the announcer says his name (0.01 points)

Wenger shows solidarity with his protesters by putting a bin bag over Arshavin’s head (1000 points).

QPR v. Wolves

Cisse scores again (1000 points).

Joey Barton says Terry is guilty in post-match interview (50 points).

Manchester City v. Fulham

If Manchester City wins, match report with the words “title challenge back on track” or something to that effect (1 point).

Bobby Zamora shows up on Fulham bench, forgets his transfer deal, runs out of stadium (50 points).

Barcelona v. Real Sociedad

Barcelona draws 0-0, Marca calls for Mourinho to be sacked (5 points).

Getafe v. Real Madrid

Real Madrid wins 7-0, Marca calls for Mourinho to be sacked (5 points).

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Premier League playthrough, Super Bowl edition. There’s enough football-related habberdashery here (including some rather uncomfortable Carrie Bradshaw puns) to allow this video on the Footy Blog. Enjoy!

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This good:

Toronto FC announced Friday that the club has released four players from its preseason roster − Midfielders Arthur Ivo and Michael Mazzullo along with defenders Nickardo Blake and Mykell Bates. The four players were all selected in the 2012 MLS Supplemental Draft last month.

Which is to say it was very bad indeed. That leaves midfielder Michael Green as the only SD survivor. That’s how it works!

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The Football Association, so OG that no one need attach “England” in front of it to make it clear exactly which one they’re talking about, is everyone’s favourite whipping boy. First, they have no visible spokesperson like the Premier League’s villainous Richard Scudamore, who has a face and therefore is at least subject to humanization now and again. Second, they’re a government bureaucracy, often the subject of distaste from journalists on both the right and the left, the former when it involves spending, the latter when it involves privilege. Third, they do things like hire England managers only to see them all inevitably disgraced, either on the pitch or off it. And even if Fabio Capello ended his England managerial stint with the European Championship trophy in hand, no one in their right mind would take the time to backslap the FA for hiring the Italian in the first place.

And fifth: they’re responsible for running football, which means handing out punishments to clubs, which means earning the hatred of fans by way of fancy-dan conspiracy theories. You’d think so-called objective journalists would take the time to Fisk such theories to death, but often the same newspapers quick to rubbish anti-Liverpool, pro-London accusations print similar theories regarding the supposed hypocrisy of the FA.
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Via 101greatgoals. He scored two hattricks! But why the need to make the viewer nauseous? Is this some sort of wry insight into Dempsey’s megalomania? Just point and shoot people.

Dolly zoom def here. Pretty awesome example from one of the best films ever made here.

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Ali Gagarin, 1974

A common stat you may have heard in the past few days: the last time Sudan won the African Cup was 42 years ago, 1970.

A story from the intervening years: In 1987 there was nothing like the African Champions’ League. It was known then as the Champions Cup, and in an age where radio was king, television was a baby and internet had not even been conceived across much of Africa, that club tournament was the pride of African football.

It meant a lot, unlike today when the average African has no idea what’s going on in the continent’s club knockout tournament.

The second leg of that year’s second Champions Cup semi-final was hugely anticipated. Canon Yaounde, the club from Cameroon, had experienced a great season, but they had a big job ahead of them. Al Hilal (from Sudan) led 1-0 from the first leg. The Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo was packed—all 38,000 seats, including terraces, were filled.
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The Lead

That’s right. And the Canadian Soccer Association agrees apparently, as they’re planning to play all third round home matches of Canada’s CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers in the city, in addition to the June 3rd friendly against America Senior. From the CBC:

Canadian men’s team head coach Stephen Hart was on hand at the event and said the decision to play in Toronto was heavily influenced by travel, training grounds proximity and grass field conditions at BMO.

“We felt when we looked at everything, the travel, crossing of time zones, we tended to look at the travel issues and then how comfortable we were with the facility,” said Hart.

The same voices will make the same complaints about how Toronto fails to support the national team as fervently as other parts of the country, in addition to arguing the national team shouldn’t belong to any one Canadian city. Except in the rest of the world, national teams do tend to play WCQs in a single capital or heavily-populated urban centre. There are notable exceptions to this rule, as in the very regionally-partisan Spain, and in the United States.

But Canada is geographically enormous, and travel costs for CMNT supporters are prohibitively high. There is also resentment over the fact BMO Field doubles as the home of a regional club—Toronto FC. Yes, federal funding for BMO was secured partly through its designation as Canada’s national soccer stadium, but it’s really the home of TFC. England’s Wembley stadium, while located in London, is a stand alone venue for the three lions.

The better comparison perhaps would be Russia’s Luzhniki Stadium, which houses Spartak Moscow and is the permanent home of the Russian national team. There are some caveats; Spartak shares the stadium with First Division club Torpedo Moscow. It was also the former home of CSKA Moscow as well. But generally it does double duty for club and country in a geographically enormous country.

But there is another issue at play here in Canada; the rest of the country dislikes Toronto. A lot. Few will admit it, but associating Toronto with anything “national” leaves a bad taste in the mouths of a great number of Canadians, even within Ontario. It’s hard, for example, to think there would be anywhere near the level of animosity to the CSA if they decided to host all three WCQs in geographically central Winnipeg.

Despite its “hell on earth” rep, roughly 16% of the country lives in the GTA. Yet the CSA has to play nice with the rest of the country on this…it’s getting a little tired.
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Couple of silly videos for you. First, Jay Rodriguez is a bell end (from KCKCKRCKRCKS).
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No, I’m not referring to the idiotic diversionary news story involving a meteorologist badger that originated in the mid 19th century, but the single greatest American comedy of the last half of the 20th century (that’s right).

In case you haven’t seen it (spoilers ahead blah blah blah), Groundhog Day is a 1993 film starring Bill Murray as weatherman Phil Connors, stuck in Punxatawney, Pennsylvania covering the Groundhog Day festivities. Snowed in, he stays another night in his quaint-but-annoying bed ‘n breakfast and wakes up to find it’s Groundhog Day. Again. Exactly as it happened the day before. And no matter what he does—drive off a cliff, jump off a building, electrocute himself—he always wakes up in bed on the morning of February 2nd, over and over. It’s only after he learns to spend his time improving himself—doing good works, reading classical literature, learning to play the piano, falling in love with Andie MacDowell—that he’s finally wake up to a snowy Feb. 3rd.

While the film was initially released to critical acclaim and good box office, it didn’t cause much of a stir. Over the years however, like It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmas the film slowly crept back into the popular imagination. In the intervening 19 years, critics and movie-lovers watched the film again (in some cases, over and over again) and realized its staying power and quality. Some believe it’s one of the finest film scripts ever written. Today, people regularly cite the film as Murray’s best, and “Groundhog Day” has entered the popular lexicon to mean “something repeating over and over again, always the same.”
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