So I still haven’t finished Monday Morning Pesadito yet. These long layoffs are deceptive. Actually, its more like finals week is a pain in my ass. So to keep your monday morning occupied, I stole some of my MMP material to put in a separate post.
In commemoration of the 2nd Old Firm game in twelve days, along with the recent FCD match that pitched a Northern Irishman against a Scotsman, its only appropriate to have a special installment (well, actually the 2nd ever) of Unlikely Degrees of Separation with this Old Firm montage that has two teams with the Celtic theme and four with the Rangers theme. There isn’t any room to label the edges, so some of them might stump you (and I totally gave up on making it neat, I’m not gonna three-color this thing so I cut myself off after 10 minutes of re-arranging things).
There are so many more possibilities! I’m sure that I’ve missed some good ones, like some crap team from northern Scotland who are sub-0.500 and are about to release most of their good players (no, not Gretna). Kudos to anyone who can name every edge.
Also, here’s an idea we can copy for the Dynamo fans. Those yellow things, I’ll give you a hint, they ain’t railings:
By the way, the Celts prevailed 3-2 and Scott McDonald is back on form with a brace. The SPL title just got a little more interesting (not quite as interesting as the EPL title, but I care about as much for the English league as New Yorkers care for Isiah Thomas). Why do they schedule finals week at a time like this?
For those of you expecting a Friday Morning Pescadito (RIP), tough, you’ll just have to wait another couple of days for the best analysis from a supporters website with the initials LT and also containing a hyphen. Its a tough competition, but I dominate it hands down.
Meanwhile, we must discuss Alexi Lalas. Note that this might have absolutely nothing to do with Alexi Lalas — all I know is some combination of morons in the Galaxy front office. But lets be honest, its Lalas.
First, we need a logical model under which we can establish Lalas’ and the Galaxy’s Medal of Honor worthy performance. Ladies and Gentlemen, Jon Stewart:
Next we hear from Goal.com that the LA Nebulae supposedly scheduled a game against the Iranian National Team (according to the Iranians) that never was really scheduled (according to the Galaxy). Since I have nothing else go on, I’ll just make up a scenario under which this quagmire could be achieved:
The LA Galaxy front office looked this actual world map (pre-existing annotations in red, “brilliant” idea in blue):
Gals called up Iran and set up a friendly.
Someone of modest intelligence pointed out that if Iran played in LA there would be a protest on about this scale:
Gals decided to pretend the whole thing never happened.
Now this leads us back to the heroes Alexi Lalas and the LA Beckhams must be. According to our irrefutable logical model, by providing aid to Iran (by means of a friendly), the Gals are fighting Al Qaeda (probably b/c FIFA won’t approve a Taliban National Team, thus making many an Al Qaeda supporter jealous). Second, by then spurning Iran, we hurt public enemy #1b because they’ll probably have to schedule a decent team for the original fixture date (and thus be beaten down into submission as opposed to running circles around Abel “Traffic Cone” Xavier and gaining loads of confidence).
See, and you all thought the Galaxy was such a disgrace.
A column about my favorite commentary subjects: unnecessary laziness and flashy brilliance.
Your weekly Transcendentalist Horoscope
Random yet oddly appropriate quotes from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
For I purposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be one. I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men’s beginning to redeem themselves.
It has come to my attention that some of you think this section is pointless. However, the third word in the section title should have given that away. I could choose quotes from Shakespeare (too English for my taste) or from Homer (if he ever really existed). However, that would take effort, and that isn’t the Pescadito (RIP) way. Skip over it if you like and leave me to my intellectual superiority complex.
FCD vs. Chivas de Carson Reserves
MMP Prediction: 2-1
Actual Result: 2-0
FCD continue to defy my lowly expectations. The only undefeated team in MLS and top of the West after playing Western Conference champs twice and MLS champs on the road. Really class act.
Unfortunately, all of these teams had question marks (Chivas without their two wings and essentially a reserve team + Galindo, Red Bulls w/o Angel, Houston in pre-season form), but the good news is that we’ve yet to play the real crap teams, so to steal from Max Bretos, yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaah! I’ll take scheduling luck any time, cause my real fear was that we’d take our early season monster schedule and bomb, thus hurting our confidence for the rest of the season. Having said that, we all know what this team tends to do come September, so its safe to say that everyone should hold on for the ride.
I keep hearing all this talk from Ives about the possibility of a 2nd New York area team. Before the Don considers such, he should consider this:
Ouch. Now Chivas USA has a lot of passionate supporters — especially of the “I’ll never cheer for Becks, Landycakes, and the Nebulae” strain. But their fan base is pretty poor, which I attribute to be a combination of (1) an over-reliance on Chivas de Guadalajara fans while driving away most of Los Angeles’ Hispanic community, (2) a false assumption that Mexican-Americans and other Latin Americans could carry this team, and (3) the Galaxy’s lack of attendance was the result of a lack of focus on Hispanic fans. The really unfortunate part of all this is that Chivas USA is such a better team than the Galaxy — they’re actually worth watching!
Enough about business, back to the game. For all of FCD’s lack of possession in this game, I still have no concerns. I’ll chalk this up to the early goal plus both Juan Toja and Pablo Richetti being injured.
The hallmark moment of this game was the realization that, despite all Ricardinho and Oduro’s talent and promise, Abe Thompson is still the third best striker on this team and the faster we come to accept this the better (HDT agrees, apparently). When Arturo Alvarez played him the ball in the 80th minute you know there was only one thing going through his mind: beat Guzan and put one in the back of the net. His thoughts were not clouded by drawing a foul or earning a penalty. He has one of the best soccer minds on the team and yet his game often seems so simple (again, HDT brilliance — I swear I chose that quote 24 hours before the game kicked off). Clearly, his securing of the 3 points is MotM worthy. However, his earning the points through work ethic and intelligence ain’t exactly the Pescadito (RIP) way, so no MMP MotM award for Abe. Indeed, he is the ultimate un-Pescadito player. Instead, I will remind people that I have always thought highly of Abe Thompson for both his work ethic and his utter manliness, so as a tribute to Honest Abe’s strengths and weaknesses:
Heavy boots of lead
Fills his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron Man lives again!
The Pescadito (RIP) Man of the Match goes to Kenny Cooper for a Ruiz-worthy poacher followed by 85 consecutive minutes of being caught out of position. Artie had the better chances down the stretch, but this team played like it had an early goal on the road and didn’t have Chris Gbandi around to screw it all up (remember that? When was the last time you saw a red card and penalty from a set piece while covering someone as worthless as Chris Klein?). At one point Kenny was on the sideline 35 yards from goal and Alvarez was 5 feet from him. Somewhere there’s a AA quote about them playing on opposite sides of the play, or maybe I was just dreaming. At some point he’s going to need to realize that quality is better than quantity. You get a lot more touches on the wing but he’s finished a whopping zero of them. Meanwhile, his 2nd-best-in-the-league 4 goals have come from either being around the box (3: Houston, Chivas) or charging towards it on a breakaway (1: Red Bulls).
I actually thought Duilio Davino and the rest of the defense looked pretty good. Maykel Galindo had some chances (he was basically their only attacking outlet), but with his speed that’s gonna happen. In one of Chivas’ best chances of the game, Davino smartly shouldered the Cuban as he came flying by. Some would say the Galindo totally beat Davino, but the nudge Davino applied knocked Galindo off his balance enough so that his shot was Eddie Johnson worthy.
… and now for other games I happened to glance at:
DC South Americans 1-2 Columbus South Americans
Every Forward and CAM for both teams are South Americans (J Moreno, L Emilio, M Gallardo, Fred, GB Schelotto, A Moreno). The most aggressive non-Brazilian/Argentine/Bolivian/Venezuelan had to have been Robbie Rogers. Of course, every worthless lump of flesh was American (E Gaven).
Memo to D.C. United: The Pope was in your city. Seriously, step it up. Then again…
I was never worried. There was a German pope in town who gave a German Mass. With me being a German coach, I was never worried at all.
Sigi Schmid
Unfair.
Some Lookalikes:
Frankie Hejduk and Gino Padula
Apparently in order to play fullback for Columbus, you have to be sporting a Lt. Dan impression.
Tony Parker and Fred
Ok, let’s see if this lookalike passes the wife test:
Almost dude, just grow 4 more inches (in height, *cough*) and get her a couple of shots of Grand Marnier and Eva may never know the difference. Might help to have a big boat.
Colorado Crapids 0-2 San Jose Fifequakes
Anyone else not buy into the Colorado Rapids hysteria? Well now they’re 2-2, which is distinctly average. I thought Christian Gomez disappeared for large portions of the game (hence DC’s Argentine upgrade) and he’s too important of a player to be pulling Eddie Gavens.
Ronnie O’Brien is the Earthquake’s highest paid player for a reason: his right foot is solid gold. He missed an open net with his left foot, so I had to wonder:
I remember laughing when I learned the Rapids signed Tam “Savior of Crap Teams” McManus. Possibly one of the most inconsistent players evar. Even has his own song:
What? Couldn’t understand those fine Fife accents? Here’s my best interpretation:
Tam McManus is magic
He wears a magic hat
And when he first saw East End
He said “I’d fancy that!”
He could have stayed at Falkirk
And Played for Blue and Shite
But instead he came to Athletic
Cause we’re f**king Dynamite
This screams for a Kenny Cooper adaptation (suggestions about how to tone down the language are welcome)
Kenny Cooper is magic
He wears a magic hat
When he first saw FC Dallas
He said “I’d fancy that!”
He could have stayed in England
And played for Fergie’s shite
But instead he came to Dallas
Cause we’re frickin’ Dynamite
It would be nice for Houston games to change the last line to “And kick some Dynamo”. I’m not really big on the shite/Dynamite thing either, but ripping on Alex Ferguson is great fun (sorry Nathan, but he had to go and get knighted).
WTF Commentary of the Week
Let’s venture away from soccer for a minute for a personal pet peeve of mine:
Danica Patrick has now established herself as one of the most successful female racing drivers ever.
Really? Contemplate that statement a little bit. Is that really the best you can offer? “One of the most successful”? Name a female driver who has finished in the top 10. I could only think of one (Janet Guthrie, now 70 years old, who never got higher than 5th).
I hate sappy sports writing! It’s too easy to imitate Dan Le Betard! Though unfortunately it looks like someone is knocking on that door in the soccer world.
Minutiae
I didn’t get to see the Red Bulls game, but apparently the turf in Giants stadium is causing Claudio Reyna to age at Warp 3. Well, technically at Warp 3 he would age slower. But, you get my point and I’ll stop nerding this column up. Moving on…
Club América dumped Davino like Posh Spice dumps her entire 4-month old wardrobe off the thrift store when she perceives its gone out of fashion. Point being, they thought they didn’t need those intangible leadership qualities. Turns out, they be wrong. You see, the most wealthy team in Mexico is putting a new definition to the concept of suckage. They are in dead last place — not just in their group, but in the entire league. They’ve scored 11 goals in 14 games, only 4 goals at home — how do their fans take it? They have 8 points, 2 wins. That’s Gretna worthy. Mexico’s relegation system will protect them, but still… Mo Johnston could lead this team better. Wow, great idea. One more country that will despise him.
Speaking of Mo, I survived the latest Old Firm game (another one this weekend), though Rangers need to suck it up some more and drop another 4 points to other teams. The prospect of a Gers quadruple still sends shivers down me spine. Enjoy some visual goodness:
Shunsuke Nakamura
…. Caldwell v. Weir
……………………………………………………………………………Nacho Novo
……………………………….. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink
And yes, his name really is “Nacho”. Also, VoH’s name really is that long (supposedly the longest in football). His winner (read: Celtic’s only hope of staying in the race) was in stoppage time.
and your Weekly Namesake Update
Out of action probably cause he didn’t want to get kicked in the shoulder by Ricardo Clark in his 2nd game back from the suspension.
Shunsuke Nakamura
Loading ...