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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
McNabb on the move? Trade of QB would impact many teams
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
World Cup 2010 Blog: “South Africa Make The Fake House for World Cup 2010” plus 1 more
World Cup 2010 Blog: “South Africa Make The Fake House for World Cup 2010” plus 1 more |  |
| South Africa Make The Fake House for World Cup 2010 Posted: 29 Mar 2010 12:50 PM PDT
What does this have to do with football you ask? Well, turns out South Africa are “making the fake house” for World Cup 2010 by removing the homeless population from World Cup venue cities and temporarily dumping them into overcrowded settlements. Basically the World Cup organizers want the streets looking nice and shiny for June and July 2010 and that involves moving the homeless far, far away. If the relocated people were being given somewhere relatively comfortable for the duration of World Cup 2010, then maybe this would be OK. But according to reports the 300 individuals who’ve been removed from Cape Town so far “have been taken to nearby Blikkiesdorp camp on Cape Flats, where 1,450 families are packed into an area designed for 450 people.” Similarly, 800 people have already been removed from Johannesburg. Johannesburg councillor Sipho Masigo was unrepentant. “Homelessness and begging are big problems in the city,” he said. “You have to clean your house before you have guests. There is nothing wrong with that. “The numbers of homeless are in the hundreds, leading up to thousands.” Clearly councilor Masigo is the Debra in this argument, while the role of Raymond is played by people like Bill Rogers and Warren Whitfield.
Apologies for making light of this with references to syndicated sitcoms. But this is one of those situations that makes me so depressed about the state of humanity that I need to approach it less than directly. What’s most depressing is that this isn’t rare when it comes to international sporting events. The Ghanaian government literally burned shanty towns to the ground to make Kumasi look a bit nicer for Africa Cup of Nations 2008, while China’s very polished hosting of the 2008 Olympics was apparently the result of an increase in human rights abuses. I’m sure we’ll continue to celebrate sporting events like the World Cup as the joyous global spectacles that they are. It’s hard not to, because they’re so damn enjoyable. But when we applaud the host nation for how smoothly everything seems to run during a given tournament, it’s worth remembering that the shiny spectacle we’re seeing is a fake house, and it was made to look that way by sweeping someone else’s suffering under the rug.
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| Sven Takes Côte d’Ivoire Job, Proving You Can’t Keep Swedes Away From World Cup 2010 Posted: 29 Mar 2010 07:42 AM PDT
Sven’s 2002 and 2006 England teams didn’t exactly light up the tournament. The 2006 version was especially uninspiring. Sven followed that up with a so-so season at Man City and then an almost laughable attempt to manage Mexico through what should have been an easy CONCACAF World Cup 2010 qualification hexagonal. Sven’s spell in Mexico ended like this:
So how does a man who failed to achieve anything notable with England at two previous World Cups and then almost managed to keep Mexico out of this World Cup (don’t worry, El Tri still made thanks to Javier Aguirre’s rescue act) get offered a job coaching one of the more star-studded teams at World Cup 2010? The answer is: I don’t know. Maybe he’s better at coaching than he is at PR, and people in the game think very highly of him? Maybe he has a safe containing incriminating photos of every football association and federation president in the world? Or maybe it’s just because he’s Swedish, and 2010 is the year where Swedish managers are determined to be at the World Cup. Despite Sweden failing to qualify for World Cup 2010, Sven will be joined in South Africa by compatriot Lars Lagerback. Yes, the same Lars Lagerback who failed to get the Swedish national team to the big show, but recently took the Nigeria job. Seems Swedish managers can’t lose, even when they do so a lot. It’s massively unfair maybe, but at least this is good news for Swedish football fans, who may not have Sweden to support at World Cup 2010, but in the first World Cup ever on African soil, they’ll have not one but two African teams to cheer for.
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I wasn’t a huge fan, but I remember an episode of the sitcom 
Sven-Göran Eriksson has been linked with the Cote d’Ivoire coaching job ever since Vahid Halilhodžić was shown the door for his team’s poor Africa Cup of Nations 2010 showing. Yet somehow I was still surprised when Sven was officially | You are subscribed to email updates from World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010 To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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X-factors: Twins, Red Sox, Brewers counting on pivotal players to deliver
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Monday, March 29, 2010
Sporting News Today Improvements
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Devil of Final Four will end with Duke on top
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
Bracket Butlers: Bulldogs, WVU headed to Final Four
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
World Cup 2010 Blog: “Fans to Choose Man of the Match at World Cup 2010. Is This a Good Thing?” plus 1 more
World Cup 2010 Blog: “Fans to Choose Man of the Match at World Cup 2010. Is This a Good Thing?” plus 1 more | |
| Fans to Choose Man of the Match at World Cup 2010. Is This a Good Thing? Posted: 26 Mar 2010 11:18 AM PDT
Except after a bit of pondering (I’m a possible ponderholic) I’m not so sure. FIFA’s technical committee is made up of former players, coaches and other football experts from around the world. The current chairman is Temarii Reynald from Tahiti, who’s also current chairman of the Oceania football confederation for example. As such, I’m assuming the committee took its role very seriously, and chose each man of the match based on the performances they just witnessed. Part of me worries that fans may not take this quite so seriously. Once a decision like this is opened up to the global public, you invite all kinds of other external factors. Fans have favourites that they’ll be biased towards, and so someone like Leo Messi (who’s impossible not to love right now) could conceivably win an online vote for a half-decent albiceleste performance, even if someone less glamorous – let’s say Walter Samuel – has had a flawless game at the back for Argentina. On the flipside, some players have no chance. Does anyone see Thierry Henry winning any popularity contests in South Africa? He’d have to score 50 goals in one game to win the vote. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s something to the wisdom of crowds idea that the majority will usually make the right decision. I hope the world works like that. I really do. What I’m 99% certain of is that FIFA didn’t consider any of the above when switching the man of the match award to a public vote. Because it isn’t just the man of the match award we’re talking about, it’s actually the YourNameHere Man of the Match Award, and has been since 2006. What better way to have the sponsors name repeated multiple times throughout a game than by having commentators and on screen graphics that remind people: “Don’t forget to vote for your Budweiser Man of the Match”? So maybe it’s not power to the people. Maybe it’s power to the sponsors instead.
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| Posted: 26 Mar 2010 10:01 AM PDT
a) They’re a handy guide to who’s playing who, and when. If you have a wall chart, you have no excuse for missing a game. Unless you have one of those job things, and If that sounds appealing then you’ll be pleased to hear about our World Cup 2010 Wall Chart, available here for the very reasonable cost of free. The people behind World Cup Blog (I can’t take any credit for this) have put together two options. The first is a “classic” style wall chart made up of one page with the schedule and box scores. The second is a “bracket” style version made up of two pages. Here’s a quick teaser image:
If you’re interested in having either or both of our wall charts someone where in your home or office, then here’s a step by step: 1. Visit our World Cup 2010 Wall Chart page.
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Bit of interesting World Cup news today. For the first time in history the man of the match award for each World Cup game 
Wall charts are a World Cup tradition. I’ve had one either pinned, Blu-Tacked or taped to a wall (and one time attached to a fridge with magnets) for every tournament I can remember. They’re useful for two things:
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