soccer
August 17, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The Al-Jazeera Sport Media Network, through something called beIN Sport USA network, has obtained the U.S. television rights to Spain’s La Liga — the top-tier Spanish soccer league that is home to Barcelona and Real Madrid, arguably the two best soccer clubs in the world. Italy’s Serie A, France’s Ligue 1, and England’s second-tier division have also moved to the Al-Jazeera outfit. According to Soccernet, beIn Sport USA is available
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August 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
In 2003, Wayne Rooney, age 17, was selected to play for the English national soccer team. Upon being so informed by his club, Everton, Rooney responded: “Did Tony Hibbert make it?” Rooney thought he had been named to England’s under-21 year old team and wanted to know whether his friend Hibbert, three and half years older than Rooney, would be joining him. I’m pretty sure that Hibbert did not make
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August 1, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I think it was George Will who once said that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for General Motors. This was obviously a while ago before General Motors came to resemble the Chicago Cubs more than the Yankees—after all, the Yankees still win a lot of games, while General Government Motors, not so much. Forget baseball, though. The Yankees/General Motors of the soccer world is Paul’s beloved Manchester United,
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July 30, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the criminal prosecution of John Terry, the English soccer star who was charged with calling an opposing player, Anton Ferdinand, a f______ black c___ during a dustup in a contentious match. Terry was acquitted because the Crown couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Terry racially abused Ferdinand. The English Football Association is now trying to decide whether to punish Terry (who already has been removed
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July 10, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Euro 2012 provided a high quality of play. Only two teams embarrassed themselves — Ireland and Holland. And the Dutch embarrassed themselves by falling far short of their normal standard, not by being objectively bad. Unfortunately, the European soccer bureaucrats, following Mae West’s view of “too much of good thing” rather than the traditional, correct view, have decided to expand the tournament from 16 to 24 teams. So, the overall
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July 4, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
England soccer legend Gary Lineker once quipped: “Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.” But lately, the Germans haven’t been winning when it counts. In fact, their national team hasn’t won a World or European Cup since 1996. That’s a streak of zero for eight. For many a proud soccer nation, that streak wouldn’t be a
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July 1, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Spain finally delivered the masterful performance we have been waiting for in a commanding 4-0 victory over a good Italian side. With the win, Spain can claim to be the best European national team in history. No team has ever won back to back Euros, none has ever won back to back to back big national tournaments, and few have ever put on a better display in a Final than
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July 1, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
I have been prevented from blogging by the Washington DC power outage. But I know that John is dying for update on Euro 2012. So here goes. There have been two matches since my last report. In the first, Italy upset Germany 2 to 1. It looked like a case of the Italians simply wanting it more. Germany attached with menace early, but the match turned when Cassano outfought two
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June 27, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
After two hours of goalless soccer, Spain defeated Portugal today 4-2 on penalty kicks to advance to the finals of Euro 2012. The match was quite disappointing. I never imagined that two teams this good could produce such a poor contest. Portugal deployed superstar Ronaldo in basically a free lance attacking position, apparently not asking him to do much defensively. But Spain gained little advantage from this decision because, fearful
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June 27, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The last quarterfinal of Euro 2012 – the 28th match of the tournament – finally produced the inevitable goalless draw. To no one’s surprise, England and Italy provided it. Justice was served in the penalty kick shoot-out when the Italians, who dominated almost the entire contest, prevailed 4-2. By making the quarterfinals, England did as well as could have been expected under the circumstances. But their inability to mount sustained
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June 20, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The third round of Group Stage matches at Euro 2012 featured cagier play and less scoring than we witnessed during the first two rounds. That’s understandable. Most teams had a good idea of the outcome they needed to advance to the quarterfinals. This knowledge often led to cautious soccer. Nonetheless, players continued largely to resist the urge to cheat by flopping, NBA-style, on contact, for example. And even with more
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June 16, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Today’s clash between Poland and the Czech Republic will probably determine which side advances to the next round — the final eight. Poland needs a win to make it. Poland will probably seek victory by attacking down the right flank where two of its three best players (fullback Piszczek and midfielder Blaszczykowski) reside. The latter has been one of the very best players in the tournament so far. Poland’s other
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June 15, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Open play, plenty of goals, minimal cheating, and good comebacks continue to characterize Euro 2012. Even the refereeing was decent in the second round of games. So far, this is as good a major tournament as I have seen in a long while. Here is a brief group-by-group analysis: Group A (“The Group of Life”) The Greece-Czech Republic match was probably the poorest of the tournament. The Russia-Poland match was
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June 10, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Soccernet’s list of the 40 best players at Euro 2012 includes 10 members of the Spanish squad. Unfortunately, seven of them are central midfielders. Normally a team plays with a maximum of three central midfielders, but in its successful Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010 campaigns, Spain often has used four and occasionally even five. Today, against Italy, Spain started six. Busquets (ranked #24) held down the defensive midfield role,
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June 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
By my count, five Everton players are on squads at Euro 2012. They are: John Heitinga – Holland Darren Gibson – Ireland Nikica Jelavic – Croatia Leighton Baines – England Phil Jagielka – England Heitinga will probably start at center back for Holland. Gibson and Jelavic both may start and, at a minimum, should see a fair amount of action. Baines, as good as he is, will probably be the
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June 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The word knucklehead has enjoyed a revival lately. Even President Obama has used it – to describe people who would take a bullet for him, but who made serious errors of judgment in Colombia. Usually, though, the term is used by sportswriters to refer to talented players whose immaturity undermines their play and, more importantly, that of their team. Such players – even one of them if he’s central enough
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June 6, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Euro 2012 begins this Friday. It is a 16-team tournament, held every four years, to crown a national soccer team as the champion of Europe. Spain is the defending champion, as well as the reigning World Cup champion (from 2010). If it wins Euro 2012, Spain will become the first team ever to win these two marquis competitions back-to-back-to-back. Spain is favored to do so. Why is it so difficult
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