Saturday, May 22, 2010

World Cup 2010 Blog: “Monday May 24th Friendlies Schedule: World Cup Warmup Begins” plus 5 more

World Cup 2010 Blog: “Monday May 24th Friendlies Schedule: World Cup Warmup Begins” plus 5 more

Link to World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010

Monday May 24th Friendlies Schedule: World Cup Warmup Begins

Posted: 21 May 2010 05:40 PM PDT

warm-up-only1Once the Champions League final is done and dusted tomorrow, that’s pretty much it for big time domestic football.

Whoever’s holding the big-eared trophy on Saturday night will be celebrated on Sunday, but once Monday comes it’s all about World Cup build up again.

Not least because that’s when the proper World Cup warm up games begin.

On Monday 24th May we’ve got the following games to look forward to:




Australia v. New Zealand
Japan v. South Korea
Portugal v. Cape Verde Islands
Argentina v. Canada
England v. Mexico

Tickets are available for England v. Mexico at Wembley.

Not a bad way to begin the buildup eh? A couple of good local rivalries there, especially Australia vs New Zealand and Japan vs South Korea. Pride and local bragging rights are at stake in both of those games. England vs Mexico has plenty of potential, though part of me thinks England are playing Mexico in the mistaken belief that El Tri will be similar to the USA. Argentina vs Canada might be something of a mismatch (or not, we’ll see) but not as much as Portugal vs Cape Verde Islands. Really Portugal? Is that a good warm up? It’s true that both Cape Verde and Brazil used to be part of the Portuguese Empire, but in football terms I think the similarity ends there.

Those are the games for Monday, but from there the World Cup warm ups just keep coming. Literally every day of the week. Take a look at our complete schedule of pre-World Cup friendlies post to see who your team is playing, and when.


Daily Dose: May 21st, 2010 – Zinedine Zidane is God?

Posted: 21 May 2010 03:40 PM PDT



That’s what this adidas commercial for their new F50 boot featuring Leo Messi and David Villa seems to be suggesting. Or at least that Zidane is one of many football gods. Though I wouldn’t necessarily have him figured as the god of anything involving pace, would you? Anyway, on to the links…


Podcast: World Cup 2010 Group H Preview: “I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.”

Posted: 21 May 2010 01:40 PM PDT

nerudaOur eighth and final World Cup preview podcast is finally done and dusted. We know our alphabet, so after previewing groups A through G, we round it off with a look at Group H, which features Spain, Switzerland, Honduras and Chile. Your four co-hosts debate the merits of each team in various categories (some serious: Best Coach, some not so much: Best Celebrity Spokesperson) and then add up the points to see which two teams will go through.

This eight episode of the Total Football Soccer Show’s World Cup previews was originally broadcast Thursday, May 20th on WRIR 97.3, and is now available as a podcast. Click play below to listen.

- You can download the mp3 here, or you can make a long-term commitment and subscribe to the show via iTunes here.

- More World Cup 2010 preview podcasts available here.


World Cup Players in the Champions League Final

Posted: 21 May 2010 11:38 AM PDT

champions league plus world cupIt’s Inter vs Bayern in the 2010 Champions League Final tomorrow. The biggest game in club football. Maybe in the world, if you believe Jose Mourinho, who recently claimed the Champions League was bigger than the World Cup.

Plenty of the players involved in tomorrow’s game will soon be able to make a direct comparison between the two, as the Champions League final is their last game before joining their national teams for World Cup duty. The following is a (hopefully?) complete list of every player potentially involved in the Champions League final, and currently listed on a national team squad for World Cup 2010.


Bayern Munich:
Hans Jorg Butt (Germany)
Phillip Lahm (Germany)
Martin Demichelis (Argentina)
Holger Badstuber (Germany)
Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany)
Mark van Bommel (Netherlands)
Arjen Robben (Netherlands)
Miroslav Klose (Germany)
Mario Gomez (Germany)
Thomas Müller (Germany)

Internazionale Milano:
Julio Cesar (Brazil)
Maicon (Brazil)
Lucio (Brazil)
Nicolas Burdisso (Argentina)
Walter Samuel (Argentina)
Sulley Muntari (Ghana)
Rene Krhin (Slovenia)
Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)
Dejan Stanković (Serbia)
Diego Milito (Argentina)
Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon)

Notes: Franck Ribery is in the France squad, but suspended for the Champions League final. Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso are (for some reason) not in the Argentina World Cup squad. Any more that need adding to (or removing from) the list? Let me know in the comments.

So which Champions League squad has the better list of World Cup bound players? Clearly Inter have more variety, with players from South America, Africa and Eastern Europe, while Bayern have more talent from closer to home, with seven players currently in the Germany World Cup squad. I’m calling it a tie.

The Champions League final will kickoff tomorrow, Saturday May 22nd, at 8:45pm CET (2:45 US Eastern). I’ll be LiveBlogging the game over at The Offside.


World Cup Moments: Maradona & Saeed Owairan Do Solos, ‘86 & ‘94

Posted: 21 May 2010 07:40 AM PDT

saeed_owairan


That goal?
Surely not. Many forget that Maradona didn’t take one off after his dazzling heroics and choice words from the English in ‘86. In between the quarterfinal of legend against England and final against West Germany, there was a semifinal against Belgium. Sure, Belgium has scraped through twice by the very skin of their teeth and Maradona’s Argentina was Maradona’s Argentina, but one doesn’t make a World Cup semifinal entirely undeserved. (We know, England.)

Meanwhile eight years after Maradona’s Goal of the Century, Saudi Arabia’s Saeed Al-Owairan did the very same – from much deeper in the pitch. Both recreations in their own special way, both against Belgium.

Some countries just have all the bad luck.

Sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves how Maradona got into the position that we can laugh at his every folly – and frequently: he was awfully good with that little sphere at his feet. The England goal – better, the Maradona Goal – is surely his finest, but the encore against Belgium wasn’t terribly far behind.

Of course the encore was really the encore to the encore – his first goal was phenomenal as well. But with the score 1-0, he split the defense like it wasn’t even there, burst quickly to the left and casually put it over Jean-Marie Pfaff like it was the easiest thing he’s ever done. And it might’ve been.

What I love most about this is, knowing nothing of Belgium’s tactics at the time, the complete disregard for space in the midfield so they can latch that central man onto Diego, and it didn’t matter one bit.

Most who’ve ever heard of futbol have likely heard the name of Maradona; the same cannot be said for Saeed Owairan.

Five minutes into Saudi Arabia’s final group match with Belgium – he wasn’t even warm yet – he took the ball from deep in his own half and didn’t stop running until he’d scored one of the finest goals the game has ever seen. It’d be his only World Cup goal, earning what is undoubtedly highest degree of beauty per goal in tournament history.

- More World Cup Memories.


World Cup History In Pixels

Posted: 21 May 2010 06:10 AM PDT

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Tiny Industry lays out the coolest mission of them all: “We are Tiny Industry. We want to make cool things that we like and hopefully other people will like as well.” – the aim for any good entrepreneurial adventure. And they do make cool things.

More specifically, they make pixelated representations of some fairly famous World Cup moments, like that lovely little image of Zizou above which looks like it came straight in a time machine from 1982. They are also decidedly English, so you’ll have to forgive if they don’t have a tee of Geoff Hurst’s ball not crossing the line just yet.

This isn’t solicited, paid or done with the promise of a handshake with many, many dead presidents, like the type Sepp receives often – just cool football art. The faves:

Roger Milla does his, err, pole dance.

work.5127474.2.fig,creme,mens,fbfbfb.foot-t-dance-v3


Best title of them all: ‘Not a dive. At all. No way’. Yes way.

work.5170223.3.fig,orange,mens,fbfbfb.foot-t-not-a-dive-at-all-no-way-v3

Alexi Lalas when he was just being Alexi Lalas. And much less annoying.

work.5170262.1.fig,army,mens,fbfbfb.foot-t-ginger-beard-v3

Hand of God.

work.5127499.2.fig,grass_green,mens,fbfbfb.foot-t-hand-of-god-v3


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