A column about my favorite commentary subjects: unnecessary laziness and flashy brilliance.

Your weekly Transcendentalist Horoscope
Random yet oddly appropriate quotes from HDT’s Walden.

It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

I can totally work this one in.

FCD vs. Houston Amazon File Systems

MMP Prediction: 1-2
Actual Result: 3-3

If you had given me that scoreline before the match, I would have taken it. Three goals? Coop and AA getting on the stat sheet with a triplet of South American assists. But still… Errr… Days like this make me ask: What would Pescadito (RIP) do? The answer: shrug it off and generally not give a shit. So go read 3rd Degree for a blow-by-blow, cause that ain’t was Pescadito (RIP) would do.

Introducing a new feature here at Monday Morning Pescadito (RIP): Unlikely Degrees of Separation. Because Kevin Bacon really ain’t that special, other than having ‘bacon’ as a surname.

Unlikely Degrees of Separation: Jared to Kenny Cooper
What? Both like to eat healthy? Not really, Kenny Cooper eats healthy, Jared just eats cardboard with sickly tomatoes and 1000 Island sauce. For those of you that read this blog regularly, you’ve probably figured out the source of all the world’s ills: Gretna F.C. (sorry Vladimir Putin, you’ve been relegated to 2nd tier so you can hang out with Carrot Top) We here at Los Toros have been ripping on ‘lil Gretna since before she went bankrupt. Small, small world…

I’m sure we’ll have more Gretna-caused drama before the season is out. After all, both RSL and NY have Gretna off-loads. Hell, Gretna is the only team Celtic can actually score against… grumble grumble… moving on.

Who knew B-Wag had it in him? Well, considering his Pescadito (RIP) Man of the Match performance last week, I guess he showed another side of Lil Fish’s game by taking Pat Onstad out. In fairness, Blake just made an honest attempt for the ball and Onstad’s 60 year old shoulder just gave out. What did you expect for the oldest man in MLS? Does Blake deserve a Pescadito (RIP) MotM award for his performance? A record second-straight? He would be the Green Bay Packers of MMP MotM awards. Alas, no. Far more Fishy qualities were on display yesterday.

Speaking of physicality, I maintain my prediction for an upcoming Andre Rocha hammer punch. Every match I’ve watched this guy loves to mix it up against whomever is in the spotlight, whether its Becks, Onstad, Waibel, or practically all of Chivas.

In preparation for the presentation of the Pescadito (RIP) Man of the Match, I present to you my special-access transcription of how one of God’s own screenwriters thought up the end to this game:

Quick! We need a script for one of the most frustrating endings to a soccer game of all time… wait… wait… something’s coming into my head now… yes… we need two players… forwards… young… fast… let’s go with a Brazilian and… no not a European… let’s go with an African… make him Ghanan. OK.. Perfect… Now let’s have them constantly running at goal, of course they’ll never score… no… that would be an exciting ending… we don’t want that… the goalkeeper really needs to suck hard… let’s make him a former Gretna player… Great… Now they’ll keep running at goal… flopping left and right… anytime they’re touched… they’ll have 3-on-1 opportunities… they’ll never pass… always take ill-advised shots… way to early, yes, impatient! Brilliant! Now… how can we fill 10 minutes with this? Screw it… make it repetitive, it’ll be even more frustrating… AND THEY NEED TO KEEP DIVING… that’s important… now… we need one last finishing touch… Got it! We’ll take a worthless rookie on the opposing team who’s only on the park cause 2 other midfielders are injured an one is suspended for an absurdly long time… and he’ll score, in the 91st minute! PERFECT.

In case you hadn’t figured it out, the Pescadito (RIP) Man of the Match award goes to both Ricardinho and Dominic Oduro (its ok to share, cause they were only on for a combined 26 minutes). Now I love both these guys (again, if I hated them, the wouldn’t be MMP MotM candidates), but seriously, if they’re going to get that many chances, they need to finish off the game. We were pretty fortunate to have scored 3 goals and you could make the argument that a draw was how the run of play went. But come playoff time, we need to finish teams off, plain and simple. Dropping to the ground upon contact ain’t going to take time off the clock or earn you a free kick, only a Pescadito (RIP) Man of the Match award, which from what I hear is total crap.

Chicago Blancos 4-0 New England Gambians

Cuauhtemoc Blanco is a beast. Chicago’s 2nd goal was created on a 30+ yard pass that screamed past NE’s midfield and magically slowed to a speed that even Chad Barrett could control. He’s far more involved than any of the games I watched him play last year, and with such a scoreline, he didn’t feel the need to get into the ref’s face (too often).

Speaking of Chad Barrett, he was a worthless lump of flesh for the USA U-23. He must have rubbed ‘Temoc’s dirty underwear all over his body while making love to a poster of Wayne Rooney. Ok, that’s a stretch. Maybe he just forgot to eat his Wheaties before the Olympic Qualifiers. I’ll stick with that. He’s always worked hard and run around, but then again, so do Hamsters.

Tomasz Frankowski, Chicago’s new Pole-man, is quite the poacher. Of his two goals, I think the farthest from goal was all of 5 yards. Now all the Fire need to do now is sign Robbie Keane, a Sicilian hitman and a corrupt mayor and they’ll have all Chicago’s demographics covered.

I probably should say something about New England. But without Steve Ralston and Taylor Twellman out, and with an early red card, I doubt this was much of a barometer for the Revolution. However, now that Mo Johnston is sitting behind a desk in Canadia, Steve Nicol moves up the ladder to my least favorite MLS coach, so I’ll mention that it doesn’t say much for a former defender to run a team that gave up four goals that were pretty much all related to defensive awareness and composure. Don’t believe me? Look at where the goals came from:

LA Gullits 2-0 San Jose Don’t-Get-the-Dynamo-Backs

Lot’s of people are saying the Quakes are terrible. This is true, Ryan Cochrane had a Gbandi-worthy performance. Ronnie O’Brien curses like an Irishman (oh, nevermind). Despite all this, the Quakes should have scored on a connection between these two in the 2nd minute which was totally onside. But remember, this is the Galaxy we’re talking about, they get more calls than a UFO hotline in South Georgia.

If the Quakes had gone 1-0 after being a franchise for all of 2 minutes, I just don’t see the Galaxy scoring those same two goals. We’ve seen so often that an early goal changes the game entirely. The Quakes have lots of speed, and the LA defense ain’t got any of that stuff, so San Jose would have sat back and counter-attacked all night. Considering that Steve Cronin still looked like he’d rather be counting cats in Zanzibar, he could have easily let 1-2 more slide right by him.

As a sidebar, beyond from Landycakes, does this team have a real forward? Take a look at LA’s depth chart after Pescadito (RIP) and Donovan:

NY Colombians 2-0 Columbus In-Need-of-Colombians

This match totally bored the socks off me. All the NY Giants stuff all over the place and the NFL logo in the middle of the field always depress me. Houston and RSL playing in college stadiums just makes me laugh, but I’m constantly blown away by the field turf for an NFL team that could afford to fly in new grass anytime it was needed.

Without Jozy playing, the only thing that inspired me about this match is a Who Ate All The Pies-inspired Shit Lookalike (though I really need a better picture of Will Hesmer, he _totally_ looks like Screech when he’s smiling):

WTF Commentary of the Week

David James on how goalkeepers save penalties:

Sometimes it’s just instinctive. There have been a couple times this season - including yesterday - when I knew which way the ball was going as soon as the guy put it on the spot. Then the only thing you have to do is stand up long enough to save it. When the ref pointed to the spot yesterday I thought ‘Oh no, it’s Wednesday again’, but then as soon as Ryan Taylor put the ball down I thought: ‘I know which way he’s going to put this.’ I was right.

Now you gotta be a little nuts to be a professional ‘keeper (Exhibit A). And anyone who has watched David James play (or just seen his hair) knows that this dude is straight up Macadamia. But apparently he doesn’t understand that time only flows in one direction. How could someone know the future when they spend so much time shopping like a 5 yr old? (Exhibit B, Exhibit C)

As a side note, how desperate does England need to be to play a 37 year old in a friendly? This dude will turn 40 right after the 2010 World Cup. Then again, Paul Robinson and Robert Green are Capello’s other choices…ouch… May we can trade Brad Friedel for Ashley (and Cheryl) Cole?

Minutiae

I should penalize myself for ultra-nerdy references dropped in. If you didn’t find it, congratulate yourself and close the tab.

…and your Weekly Namesake Update
Out of action and probably sipping mojitos on some Guatemalan beach. Depending upon weather forecast, he might have to extend his injury.