soccer
May 19, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
In early March, I wrote a post called “Tears for Piers” about the meltdown of Piers Morgan on Fox Soccer Channel as he watched Arsenal, the soccer team he supports, lose to Tottenham Hotspur, the club’s North London rival. In a tirade the sophistication of which failed to meet the standards of a 3:00 a.m. sports call-in show, Morgan castigated Arsenal’s long-time, hugely-successful manager, Arsene Wenger. He concluded by advising
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May 12, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
England’s FA Cup — the oldest soccer competition in the world and open to something like 700 teams — gains its romance from victories by “minnows” over footballing powerhouses. This occurs a time or two almost every year in the early rounds. But in these days of vast financial disparities between clubs, it almost never happens in the Cup final. Indeed, from 1996 until this year, only Portsmouth had broken
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May 11, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, Sir Alex Ferguson surprised the soccer world by resigning as the head man at Manchester United. During his remarkable 26 years at Man U, he led the club to 13 English championships and two European ones. At age 71 Ferguson was known to be close to retirement. But few expected he would retire this year. Almost immediately, Man U ended speculation over his replacement by naming David Moyes,
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May 4, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Everton and Liverpool last met in late October, when the teams produced an eventful 2-2 draw at Goodison Park That result left Everton in fifth place, 8 places ahead of their cross-park rivals. Looking ahead, I wrote that “there’s a good chance [the two teams] will be close together in the Table when the Derby is played at Liverpool in early May.” Sure enough, with the Derby set for Sunday,
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April 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I’ve written before about Luis Suarez, Liverpool’s star forward. He is, in my opinion, the best player in the English Premier League this year, and arguably one of the best 11 players in the world. He is also, in my opinion (and by consensus, I believe) the biggest cheat in the EPL. It’s an unusual combination. Fowards of Suarez’s quality may “dive” to draw fouls (see Cristiano Ronaldo). They may
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March 28, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The World Cup qualifying campaign of the U.S. soccer team gained a big boost this week from a 1-0 victory at home over Costa Rica and a 0-0 draw against Mexico. Although we are still early in the campaign, qualification seems likely. The U.S. need only finish third in a six team group to advance, and a fourth place finish would enable us to qualify if we can then beat
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March 19, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
On Saturday, Everton defeated Manchester City, the defending English Premier League champions, 2-0. They accomplished this playing the last half hour with only 10 men. The score stood at a nail-baiting 1-0 until the final moment when Nikica Jelavic, who hadn’t scored for Everton in forever, produced the clinching goal. The video below takes you into the lower Gwladys Street stand, where Everton’s most rabid supporters reside, as Jelavic’s goal
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March 5, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I was checking out a series of tweets, compiled by Nathaniel Botwinick at the Corner, called “Leftists Worldwide Defend and Mourn Hugo Chavez.” Among those paying to tribute to the Venezuelan thug were usual suspects like Ken Livingstone and George Galloway. Then, I saw this tweet from one “Joseph Barton” (@Joey7Barton): “Sad to hear of President Chavez’s passing… #RIP.” Who is Joey Barton? He’s a soccer thug. By this, I
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March 3, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
What’s more fun than watching Tottenham Hotspur defeat Arsenal in the North London Derby, causing Arsenal to drop to within two points of Everton in the battle for fifth place in the EPL? Lot’s of things, actually, and one of them is watching this happen in front of Arsenal fan Piers Morgan, the insufferable CNN talk show host. I’ve seen Morgan on Fox pre-game shows before. On those occasions, he
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February 7, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The U.S. kicked off the final phase of its World Cup qualification campaign by losing 2-1 in Honduras. The defeat isn’t a huge deal. The normal path to qualification consists of winning 4 of the 5 matches to be played in the U.S. and as few as 1 match played away from home. Honduras didn’t figure to be that one away victory, although a draw didn’t seem too much to
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December 25, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
With the English Premier League season just about half way completed, why not name an EPL all-star team? Petr Cech Chelsea Rafael Manchester United Leighton Baines Everton Jan Vertonghen Tottenham Hotspur Ryan Shawcross Stoke City Yaya Toure Manchester City Santi Cazorla Arsenal Juan Mata Chelsea “Michu” Swansea City Luis Suarez Liverpool Robin van Persie Manchester United Only two English players in the lot. I was unhappy to name Shawcross because
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December 9, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Today’s EPL schedule served up three mouth-watering matches: First place Manchester United against second place Manchester City (last season’s champions, with Man U as runner-up); fourth place Tottenham against sixth place Everton; and tenth place West Ham against twelfth place (but clearly better than that) Liverpool. Each match turned out to be a gem. Manchester City dominated the early play against their old enemy, but its attacks kept breaking down,
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November 15, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one of soccer’s true super stars, and probably its most underrated (though not by me, I had him in my Euro 2012 all-star team even though his team, Sweden, didn’t make it out of the group stage). Ibrahimovic has scored prolifically, and often “for fun,” at the club level (including for the top clubs in Italy, Spain, and France). And, despite playing internationally for so-so Sweden, he
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November 6, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Fox has called it for incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. I resigned myself to losing this race a while ago.
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October 30, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Last Sunday’s clash between neighbors Everton and Liverpool produced a highly contentious Derby, even by Merseyside standards. The match was played with feverish intensity but, sadly, will be best remembered for an awful refereeing decision that disallowed a Liverpool goal and preserved a 2-2 draw. All four goals were scored in the frantic first half. When Liverpool netted the first two, I (and doubtless many other Evertonians) feared a rout.
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September 17, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
On April 15, 1989, Liverpool FC played Nottingham Forest in a semi-final of the highly prestigious FA Cup. Because of its importance, the match took place on a neutral ground — Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Liverpool fans filled one end of the stadium, a “terrace” area with no seats. When the main entrance to that area became highly conjested, authorities permitted entry through an exit. The sudden influx of supporters
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August 20, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Everton 1 Manchester 0. That’s all. JOHN adds: That isn’t quite all. There is also this: Billionaire Soros buys piece of Manchester United. I may have to start rooting for Everton, too! Only…can it really be true that they are known as the “Toffees”?
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