Guess Who's Back

Welcome back to Footie 101 class.

Apologies from your professor. I've found it quite difficult to maintain my drinking regime AND compose timely, witty repartee for your class lectures. Class, when there's World Cup football and alcohol involved, you'll lose every time.

That said, I start today's massive catch up lecture with outright disdain for the so-called “World Wide Leader In Sports.” ESPN, while stepping up its coverage of the World Cup, is still clearly designing its coverage without the acumen of people from football culture. When the network was broadcasting the UEFA Champions League it would regularly show the score of the second match before it had actually broadcast the game. Anyone who's watched even a little bit of footie knows this is a cardinal sin. Big ups to the Mad Frenchman Michel Platini for taking the current UEFA contract in the US away from ESPN and awarding it to Fox Soccer Channel!

Yesterday, a friend also complained to me about ESPN. He said he had been prompted by a local ESPN radio station's boast that it would be the radio home of the World Cup, but when he tuned to the station when he couldn't get to a television, NCAA baseball was on. The World Wide Leader In Sports indeed.

Worst of all for everyone is the realization that although ESPN pledged to cover the cup domestically to the same degree it’s covered in the rest of the world, ESPN's coverage is still embarrassingly short. Why, for example, is the two hour window between the second and third match of the day filled with regular Sports Center and other regular ESPN programming instead of World Cup coverage? I know for a fact that the only subject being covered in that window in the Europe, South America, Asia and Africa is World Cup commentary. ESPN has six channels to choose from to maintain constant coverage (ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Classic, ESPN News, ESPN Deportes and ABC). That very same aforementioned friend sought Spanish commentary during the two hour break and found ESPN Deportes covering (wait for it)... NASCAR. I'm sorry, NASCAR?!?! Where do they find these people?

Then there's (deep breath) Alexi Lalas - actual first name: Panayotis. I cannot say just how absolutely, comically inept Panayotis' so called “insights” are. The man has the pedigree, but when he opens his mouth, the most absurd nonsense comes out. He started his drivel by predicting Greece would advance in the tournament via the team's “boring brilliance.” I know he's Greek, but ESPN could have grabbed any Greek dude off the streets to make a biased prediction. Panayotis is supposed to be there to share his astute insight into the game, not to babble like Dudley Moore in Arthur. Moore: arrested for drinking and driving – and now dead. Lalas: sadly free (despite repeated drinking and talking offenses) – and still alive.

This is the man that (as general manager of the LA Galaxy) claimed the club was one of the world’s elite after signing a 32-year-old David Beckham. The club went on to finish in the bottom of its division two years in a row and has still yet to win an MLS championship. In a moment of clarity, the club owners fired Lalas. That was followed by a moment of lunacy by ESPN execs when they hired him. ESPN could have done just as well hiring Grizzly Adams.

Lastly - and more fundamentally - is the lack of halftime and post match stats on ESPN. This is standard for football coverage and yet they are sorely missing from ESPN's coverage. Last time I looked, even EA Sports includes them in its FIFA video game! But apparently it’s too much to ask the network carrying the event to do the same... I'd call them the NIKE of soccer broadcasting (outside of mainstream soccer culture looking in), but that'd be an insult to NIKE.

I will say that Americans Bob Ley and Mike Tirico have been quite sound as the anchor of the commentary, while Ruud Gullit, Jürgen Klinsmann, Steve McManaman and Roberto Martinez have given valuable insight that's viewers need. Note: they're all European (Dutch, German, English and Spanish respectively). Martin Tyler has led the line spendidly as commentator. But when you put Lalas in the midst of that master class of experience, he stinks like Ms Piggy doing a 4-shows-a-night burlesque show off Broadway. Sesame Street would say it best: “One of these pundits doesn't fit in here. One of these pundits does not belong...” Case in point, in the build up to the US-England game, Lalas attempted to rile Englishman McManaman by suggesting he used too much hair gel. There's insightful soccer commentary for you... brought to you by the good people at ESPN.

Perhaps ESPN is orchestrating a conspiracy to undermine the growth of footie in the US. By providing lame, counterproductive, and inconsistent coverage, along with lackluster lead commentators, no first time “soccer” viewer will ever want to watch it again. It's just like the argument many domestic soccer people make about “Americanizing” the sport to appeal to the US audience, and it’s absolutely wrong. Football is a global sport with a global culture. The people in the US that enjoy it are drawn to it for the same reason people in Italy, Ghana, Australia, S. Korea and Peru are attracted to it - they want to be part of that global culture. Any change to it to suit the domestic audience is a fundamental mistake. ESPN, MLS, US Soccer: Stop chasing the people who don't get it, and better service the people that do!

Phew….. Now, I predicted a couple of matches and have gone on record on radio about the fortunes of a few teams. Unlike most other pundits and sports prognosticators who never measure whether their predictions hold water (I’m talking to you Mel Kiper Jr.), I’ll actually stand up and take my medicine. I picked Mexico 2-S. Africa 1 and Bafana Bafana pulled out a high octane draw. I then picked a 1 all draw between France and Uruguay. It was a draw, but pathetically was also goalless. Meanwhile, I picked Nigeria to advance from its group on WOL’s Sportsgroove program. The Super Eagles lost to Argentina and look hard pressed to now advance from the group… but we shall see.

Matches are already underway today, so I’ll pick tomorrows. I’m going for two massive upsets tomorrow. I like New Zealand to shock Slovakia with a 1-0 victory, while the Ivory Coast will outlast Portugal by the same 1-0 score line. Elsewhere, Brazil will re-invent “Jogo Bonito” with a 6-0 demolition of the North Koreans. This will prompt N. Korean Coach Kim Jong-Il to invade southern Brazil, re-start Joseph Mengele’s Nazi breeding experiments and genetically engineer super human cyborg Kor-zilians for World Cup 2014.

In other news, English football has agreed to the so-called “home-grown” players rule, which will limit the number of foreign players in hopes of fostering more domestic player development. The rule will require the first-team squads of each club to be limited to 25 players over the age of 21 - 10 of them must be registered in English football for at least three seasons before their 21st birthday. But there's no restriction on players under the age of 21. The Brits also decided to impose a transfer embargo on clubs that do not file their financial accounts in time.

What's the immediate effect of all this - sugar daddy clubs that have tried to buy their way to success without investing in youth development - will be scrambling to sign English players like the Village People sailor trying to score on shore leave.

BUT WAIT! In South African business meetings FIFA has decided against moving forward with its version of the rule, which would have required every club have at least 6 home grown players starting from 2012. European officials have advised FIFA that the proposal may violate EU labor laws. Meanwhile, FIFA plans to explore other eligibility rules.

In other footie news FIFA King Sepp Blatter, who has held the position since 1998, announced at the Johannesburg congress that he will be seeking another term. “I have not yet completed my mission as president of FIFA,” said the 74-year-old Swiss demigod. “My next goal is to convince ESPN to get out of the football business and into the oil spill cleanup business. Hey, they can’t be any worse than BP!”
Then there's the news that moving this year's UEFA Champions League final from the traditional Wednesday to Saturday did NOT generate higher television ratings - in Europe. European TV ratings monitors reported an 18.5 percent drop in viewers in the continent's 5 major markets (UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy) to 36.9 million. UEFA argues that there was always going to be a drop from record viewership from the previous final between the very popular Manchester United and Barcelona. UEFA also hope the viewership will increase once fans get used to the final on the weekend. That said, I bet the ratings were better Stateside than previous years, as most of our big sporting events always take place on the weekend. WHY? Because we work like bees during the week and party like its 1999 on weekends.

And of course there's the annual Italian football game show “Which Club will be Caught,” as five Italian clubs are being investigated for tax evasion. Serie A clubs Catania, Udinese and the recently promoted Cesena, along with Serie B Ascoli and Empoli, face the harsh Italian legal system that has allowed a certain Argentine legend to owe the country nearly $40 million in unpaid taxes for decades. Yawwwwwwn... let me know when the Chianti is served.

Lastly, there’s news that Adrian Mutu must pay former club Chelsea $21 million after losing his final appeal in a five-year battle to avoid being sued for breach of contract. Mutu, you’ll remember, was banned after testing positive for cocaine after joining the Blues. In a moment of frugality, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich decided he wanted his $21 million back. His plans for the money: stir up hostilities between ancient enemies Fraggle Nation and Black Smurfland.
Oh The Horror!

There's a lesson here for you class: Do coke and score lots of goals for Argentina and Napoli like Diego Maradona, and be worshiped as god. Do coke, don't score enough goals for Abramovich's Chelsea and be sued for your transfer fee like Mutu.

A now, your footie anecdote:

Indian businessman and teetotaler Putul Bora has kept a bottle of whisky buried in his back garden for the last 16 years waiting for his favorite football team - Germany - to win the World Cup. Bora, of the remote town of Diphu in India, gave up alcohol in 2002 but is prepared dig up the bottle that be bought in 1994 the day after Germany lost to Bulgaria in the quarter-final.

“After the Bulgaria game I got the bottle of whisky back home and buried it in our courtyard. No one knows about this, not even my wife,” Bora said. “I shall resume drinking only when Germany lifts the Cup. No one can lure me to consume alcohol before that.”

CLASS DISMISSED