Author Archives: Paul Gardner

This morning U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati will officially inform FIFA that the United States is eager to stage a future World Cup – two World Cups, in fact, those of 2018 and 2022, though it knows it can only get one of them.

Well, well! Such a brilliant idea from a Mexican newspaper — Let’s whip up support for the Mexican national team by giving away voodoo dolls. Suitably dressed up in the colors of the USA, the dolls would then be available for fans to stick pins into or cut limbs off, or set fire to, or possibly blow up with semtex, who knows.

I have been nurturing a theory for a number of years now. Actually, it’s more of a fear than a theory. A fear that Argentina and Brazil will run out of great players.

Let us assume that, come the end of February, David Beckham manages to remember that he is a Galaxy player, and that he bids a tearful farewell to his new AC Milan colleagues and returns to Los Angeles.

How ironic that the David Beckham fiasco should have cost Alexi Lalas his job as the Galaxy GM. Ironic because these two guys have so much in common. Both of them players hyped way beyond what their talents merit. Both of them guys with charisma and sex appeal and marketability to spare. Both of them guys carefully put into prominent positions where they could help spread the gospel of American soccer and the MLS. And both of them making a dreadful hash of things.

I shan’t be getting to St. Louis, so I’m afraid the coaches’ convention will have to muddle through without me. Quite possibly the organizers prefer it that way, but I have some regrets, regrets that I’ve managed to somewhat appease by visiting the convention online.

[U.S. WOMEN] The first U.S. women’s national team camp of the year will mark comebacks for several players, most notably forward Abby Wambach, who will be seeing her first national team action since suffering a broken leg against Brazil on Aug. 21, 2008, in the final match before the Olympic Games. Former University of Portland star Megan Rapinoe continues her comeback after major knee injuries in successive college seasons, while her former Pilot teammate, Angie Wonzuk, and defenders Jill Oakes and Kendall Fletcher get call-backs after extended absences.

Reading FC coach Wally Downes has warned that soccer games could become drawn-out four-hour affairs and be subject to abuse by advertisers if video technology is introduced. He believes soccer would be ruined if games become like American football matches, which require at least three hours to complete 60 minutes of actual play.   Downes’ […]

The world of commercialized soccer really doesn’t have much to say about romance. Unless you consider things like money, bank balances and profit romantic, that is. Most of us, no doubt, do not.

Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger has said that he will only sign players of “a special class” during the current transfer window. Arsenal is currently fifth in the Premier League, three points behind Aston Villa and Manchester United.   “At the moment I feel that if we do add somebody we need to add somebody who […]

I watched bits and pieces of three or four English Premier League games played on Boxing Day (I don’t know why I’m giving it capital letters, it’s a pretty meaningless designation — no one seems totally certain about what it means — but, for sure, nothing to do with boxing). Right — so I watched these Dec. 26 EPL games, and found them rather dull.

Which left me wondering. Could they have been as flat, as uninteresting as I found them? Or was it simply a wave of temps perdu from my boyhood that stirred suddenly to remind me of those bloody boring boxing days past?

Soon after David Beckham descended upon us, trailing clouds of glory in January 2007, I wrote an article that was headlined: “Beckham in MLS: A Force Or A Farce?”

A lifetime of attending soccer practices has left me totally jaded about such activities. Well, that’s something of an exaggeration, it’s hardly been a lifetime. It just seems like it. Sheer tedium. So why bother? Maybe because there’s a chance to chat with players or even — holy of holies! — the coach afterward.

As an event that should be of compelling interest, the college final four has ceased to engage me for a number of years. Mainly because the soccer itself is not that brilliant. It would be unfair to blame this entirely on the college sport — after all, when was the last time we had superb finals at any level of the sport, right up to the World Cup?

Juande Ramos is a pretty lucky guy. Direct from being a colossal flop with Tottenham in London, he returns to Spain and walks straight into what is arguably the top job in club soccer anywhere in the world — coach of Real Madrid.

Barely a week goes by — or so it seems — without an announcement that a foreign club, usually English, has “entered into an agreement” with an American youth club.

We now know that Cristiano Ronaldo is the best soccer player in the world. The annual poll conducted by the esteemed French magazine France Football gave him victory by an almost insultingly large number of points — 446 to 281 — over his nearest challenger, Lionel Messi.

Loyalty might seem to be an unarguably honorable trait, but like most examples of moral behavior, it turns out to be a relative concept. There is loyalty to good people and causes, and loyalty to bad people and causes. And it may not always be easy to work out which are the good guys, and which the bad. Actually, it’s never easy, because they’re changing all the time.

There will be a few coaching changes in MLS before the 2009 season begins — but nothing that will astound anyone, or will make any great difference to the teams involved. We know we’re getting a new coach at the Colorado Rapids — Gary Smith replacing Fernando Clavijo — but Smith is not exactly new as we suffered through 11 of his “interim coach” games only a couple of months back.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber was looking rather pleased with himself. The 13th MLS Cup final had passed into history only a couple of hours ago, the Columbus Crew was the new champion and Garber declared that it had been “a satisfactory afternoon. A good afternoon for soccer in America.”

Oh dear. I came to praise Juan Carlos Osorio. I really want to say all sorts of nice things about the way he’s taken the world’s worst franchise, the hopeless, hapless Red Bulls, nee the MetroStars, a.k.a. the RotMasters, a team that has been for 12 years — imagine that, 12 whole years! — the very definition of futility and stumblebum incompetence, almost state-of-the-art slapstick, and in the space of one season he’s transformed them into MLS Cup finalists.

So the Amazins did it again. Don’t ask me how, their last two games have been played as though the players are enchanted, as though they’ve created a magic spell around their goalmouth, a spell with the power to repel the ball, to make sure it just will not go into the goal.

Here we go again, deja vu with knobs on one more time. The Colorado Rapids have gone for an English coach. They should take a look at their own history. Their very first coach, back in 1996, was a highly touted Englishman, Bob Houghton. A total flop who was fired after just that one season. Having brought with him his English notions about soccer, having failed to realize that they’re not good enough for the American scene.

I was as shocked and amused as anyone by Danny Cepero’s 80-yard goalscoring feat for the Red Bulls against the Columbus Crew. The sort of crazy moment that lightens things up, that quickly becomes a conversation piece.

Now that’s what I call an upset – safe to call it the biggest one in MLS playoff history, I think. Here comes Juan Carlos Osorio with the, let us say, undistinguished Red Bulls, a team rendered even weaker by drug suspensions and injuries, and they knock off the high-flying Houston Dynamo. I’m not going to say that they did it in style, that would hardly be accurate. But they did it in just about as convincing a way as possible — by winning down there, in Houston, in the packed, hostile, stadium of the Dynamo. Winning? This was a wipe out — you can’t argue with a resounding 3-0 scoreline.