Category: Soccer

Where The Money’s At

by A.J. Coltrane

ESPN has published a list of the 200 best-paying teams. The top 10:

Rank Team Average Annual Salary Per Player
1 Barcelona $7,910,737.00
2 Real Madrid $7,356,632.00
3 New York Yankees $6,756,301.00
4 Los Angeles Lakers $6,540,690.00
5 Orlando Magic $6,367,114.00
6 Chelsea $6,020,741.00
7 Inter Milan $5,999,643.00
8 Boston Red Sox $5,991,203.00
9 Denver Nuggets $5,990,174.00
10 Manchester City $5,863,585.00

The M’s are #71 at $2.88m per player, the Seahawks are #80 at $2.80m per player — The top NFL team is the Redskins at #70, $2.91m per player.

In fact:

Soccer Baseball Basketball Football Rank
5 2 3 0 Top 10
10 6 9 0 Top 25
16 11 23 0 Top 50

Most of the NBA is clustered between $4.5 and $3.8 million per player per team, which happens to fall in the #26-#50 range.

Here’s an odd one:  The top paying NHL team, the Detroit Red Wings, pay better than the best paying NFL team, the Washington Redskins. I hadn’t expected the NHL to pay that well. That’s also a byproduct of the NFL’s 20 game schedule and a 53-man rosters.



I’ve used All About The Benjamins elsewhere, so here’s Weird Al’s “All About The Pentiums.”

Check out the lyrics.

“Double clickin on my mizouse!”

For the First Time in World Cup History…

By Blaidd Drwg

We will have a European Champion in a tournament not played in Europe. As hard as it is to believe, no European team has ever won a World Cup Title when the tournament was played outside of Europe. With the Dutch 3-2 Victory over Uruguay this morning, it guarantees a European champion for the 2010 tournament.

I do have to wonder how the people of South Africa feel about having their former colonizers in the finals.

Jozy Altidore and Dwight Howard

by Coltrane

It looks like ESPN is now “on board” with soccer in America.  Here’s today’s piece by Bill Simmons, it has an interesting comparison between Jozy Altidore and the NBA’s Dwight Howard.

We scored five goals in four games: two on hustle goals off second chances, one on a penalty kick, one on a brain fart by England’s goalie, and Donovan’s goal against Slovenia, which came with the help of a mistimed defensive play. Not a single “WOW!!!!!!!!!” play among them. 

…We reached a certain plateau in 2010, a little like a 47-win NBA team that everyone knows can’t make the Finals. Watch how those crafty Germans bang home scoring chances, or the blinding speed of their young stud Mesut Ozil on the wing. Rewatch that “WOW!!!!!!!!!” goal scored by Uruguay’s striker to beat Korea Republic, or the one by Tevez in the Argentina-Mexico game. Team USA never made you scream “WOW!!!!!!!!!” for a really good reason: We don’t have a player with that kind of chops. This was a team of grinders and overachievers. We didn’t have enough speed without Charlie Davies, and we certainly don’t have a world-class striker who creates scoring chances out of thin air. In four Cup games, our forwards scored zero goals. That’s why we went home over everything else.

By 2014, maybe young Jozy Altidore (only 20) will get there; he certainly has the physical gifts, although it’s unclear whether he has any scoring touch. (It’s the difference between Dwight Howard’s low-post game and Pau Gasol’s low-post game; you can work at it all you want, but you’ll never be as good as the guys who are born to put it into the net. A guy like Germany’s Miroslav Klose could find the far post falling out of a wheelchair when he’s 60. It’s a DNA thing. I am convinced. So the worry is that Jozy has too much Howard in him and not enough Gasol.) Maybe Davies and Fast Young Guy X will provide that missing burst on the wing. Maybe Teenage Prodigy X is four years from saving us and we don’t even know his name. But you can’t advance to the semifinals without the “WOW!!!!!!!!!” factor. Impossible.

I’m rooting for Altidore to make The Leap, but I’m definitely concerned that he has too much Dwight Howard in him.  The U.S. Soccer Team needs more guys with the physicality and athleticism of Terrell Owens and Allen Iverson — if those guys were “heady” soccer players.

I just named three headcases for my desired athlete(?)  

(2-1/2, at least.)

Maybe that’s the reason U.S. soccer has yet to win big on the world stage — all of the headcases gravitate to the “big three” sports —  if only because that’s where they’re tolerated.

Check out Simmon’s piece — it’s 20 bullet points about the World Cup and soccer in America in general.

Squeeeeakk!!

by Coltrane

The U.S. defeated Algeria 1-0 to advance in the World Cup.  Landon Donavon scored the winning goal in stoppage time.

With the U.S. perhaps three minutes from elimination Wednesday, Donovan brought the ball upfield on a counterattack and Jozy Altidore’s shot on the breakaway was tipped by Clint Dempsey into goalkeeper Rais Bolihi. The rebound went to Donovan, who kicked it in from about 8 yards for one of the biggest goals in U.S. soccer history.

Nothing to see here, move along..

It’s Inter vs. Bayern

By Blaidd Drwg

For the Champions League final after Inter advanced on a 3-2 aggregate over Barca despite losing today 1-0 and Bayern advancing after crushing Lyon in the other semi-final.

I only got to see the last 15 minutes of the Inter-Barca game and it was a hell of a match. I still think that the goal that Barca scored late in the game was a offside, but Inter still managed to ward off a tremendous onslaught, down a man for most of the game, against arguably the most talented club in the world.

The Finals on May 22nd should be interesting. My prediction – Inter on top 2-1.

Stars of the World Cup

by Coltrane

ESPN profiles the top 50 players in the upcoming World Cup. 

#1-25

#26-50

Spain is stacked.  Here it is broken it down by team:

Argentina (5)
 
#1 – Lionel Messi, F
 
#23 – Carlos Tevez, F
 
#26 – Gonzalo Higuain, F
 
#29 – Sergio Aguero, F
 
#36 – Javier Mascherano, M
 
Brazil (6)
#4 – Kaka, M
#14 – Luis Fabiano, F

#18 – Dani Alves, D

#21 – Maicon, D

#31 – Julio Cesar, G

#35 – Lucio, D

Cameroon (1)

#13 – Samuel Eto’o, F

England (5)

#3 – Wayne Rooney, F

#9 – Steven Gerrard, M

#22 – Frank Lampard, M

#37 – John Terry, D

#41 – Ashley Cole, D

France (6)

#12 – Franck Ribery, M

#28 – Thierry Henry, F

#40 – Nicolas Anelka, F

#42 – Patrice Evra, D

#44 – Karim Benzema, F

#45 – Yoann Gourcuff, M

Germany (3)

#30 – Michael Ballack, M

#34 – Miroslav Klose, F

#47 – Philipp Lahm, D

Ghana (1)

#10 – Michael Essien, M

Italy (4)

#17 – Gianluigi Buffon, G

#24 – Andrea Pirlo, M

#46 – Daniele de Rossi

#49 – Giorgio Cheillini

Ivory Coast (2)

#6 – Didier Drogba, F

#48 – Yaya Toure, M

Netherlands (3)

#20 – Wesley Sneijder, M

#25 – Robin van Persie, F

#32 – Arjen Robben, M

Portugal (1)

#2 – Critiano Renaldo, M

Serbia (1)

#19 – Nemanja Vidic, D

Slovakia (1)

#43- Marek Hamsik, M

Spain (9)

#5 – Xavi, M

#7 – Andreas Iniesta, M

#8 – Fernando Torres, F

#11 – David Villa, F

#15 – Iker Casillas, G

#16 – Cesc Fabregas, M

#33 – Gerard Pique, D

#38 – David Silva, M

#39 – Carles Puyol, D

United States (1)

#50 – Landon Donovan, M

Uruguay (1)

#27 – Diego Forlan, F

There are only 3 keepers in the top 50.  There are almost no defenders in the top 25, period.  Check out Argentina.  The squad has five of the top 50 players.  Of those, four are Forwards.

It seems that when youth coaches find a guy that can really play they don’t waste his talent on defense – they use him to put the ball in the goal.