Category: SoccerTalk with Paul Gardner

So I’m following all the pre-season scores that are coming in from these various little tournaments and exhibition games that the European clubs are playing. Well, you have to, don’t you?

It’s the guys at Concacaf — not the Americans — who have most reason to feel aggrieved at Mexico’s 5-0 walloping of the USA in the Gold Cup final.

The so-called World Football Challenge brings with it some intriguing positive factors, along with a couple of decidedly negative aspects.

The latest in the tedious series of non-events that make up David Beckham’s contribution to American soccer took place last week in New Jersey’s Giants Stadium.

Javier Aguirre, the coach of Mexico, gets no sympathy here. He got himself ejected during the Gold Cup game against Panama for a moment of blatant stupidity, and he’s paying the penalty with a three-game suspension.

Reasonably entertaining, moderately interesting and … well, and nothing. The USA’s 2-0 win over Honduras last night gave us nothing new, neither in fresh players nor in a new approach to the game.

I watched two rather different MLS games on Saturday. Both made enjoyable TV viewing: Columbus-D.C. United, for some intelligent soccer and for the ongoing attempt by both teams to play that way; while the Los Angeles-New England game, without offering much in the way of exalted soccer, created excitement from its physical qualities, its pace and commitment and so on.

Here we go again. It’s open Cup time. Ho hum, ho hum, ho hummm. No, you guessed it, the mention of the Open Cup has not set my nerves vibrating uncontrollably, nor raised my adrenaline to burn-out levels.

With much huffing and puffing and groaning and grimacing the old order of world soccer was restored in South Africa over the weekend. In the Confederations Cup, Spain put down the upstarts from South Africa, while Brazil took care of the even more uppity United States.

Bob Bradley is definitely the man of the hour here – but hold on, Bob – let the man you so soundly beat have the first say: “They had huge energy, were very quick in attack, and caught us by surprise,” – the words of Spanish coach Vicente del Bosque.

Stunning is the word, I think, for the USA’s rebirth at the Confederations Cup. Did I think the USA could beat Egypt? Maybe, but certainly not by 3-0.

There are, I suppose, a whole bunch of different reasons for enjoying a soccer game — but aside from the obvious one of seeing your own team win, they probably all boil down to one thing: exciting action.

What on earth is FIFA waiting for? The reports out of Nigeria make it alarmingly clear that to stage the Under-17 World Cup there Oct. 24-Nov. 15, as currently scheduled, would be exposing the young players to considerable risk.

So the Confederations Cup got itself moving — rather sluggishly — with a 0-0 tie, a scoreline that is now virtually traditional for opening games at international tournaments.

Brazil, of course, will qualify for the World Cup in South Africa. Of course — for a whole bunch of reasons: because it’s Brazil, because it has been present at every World Cup so far played (and no other country can match that), and because a World Cup without Brazil is simply unthinkable, it wouldn’t be a World Cup at all. And then, Brazil will be there on merit, because Brazil has more of the world’s great players and plays the sort of soccer that everyone loves to watch.

It would seem that, with the USA’s 2-1 victory over Honduras on Saturday, sanity and justice and decency and common sense have returned to the soccer world.

Uncertainty would seem to be the only certainty on the soccer scene as I write this. The doubts start at the very top where the normally confident Sepp Blatter has reluctantly admitted that the plans for his treasured 6+5 scheme will have to be put on hold for the moment.

The return of David Beckham nears. Far from being a return in triumph, this is not even an occasion for celebration. Beckham, apparently, understands nothing of this. Guilty of deserting his post with the Galaxy, he hopes that the team’s fans “realize by now the reasons why I made this move. I’m sure they do deep down. I’m sure they’ll be supportive when I come back.”

The Rout of Rome. Manchester United, for sure, will want to forget this one. The 2-0 scoreline doesn’t sound all that bad — but it was, it was. Apart from a hectic first 10 minutes or so, when ManU charged energetically forward, trying frantically to be the first to score, this was all Barcelona.

The UEFA Champions League final has come to stand for a good deal more than just a climactic game. It represents a yearly check on the health of the soccer body, a temperature reading, a diagnosis. How goes our sport? Healthy? Feverish? Sick? Strong? Weak?

Inevitably, Werder Bremen lost yesterday’s UEFA Cup final to Shakhtar Donetsk. I’m not belittling the Ukrainian club, which deserved its win. It was better than Bremen. That is to say, Shakhtar was better than Bremen without Diego.

The way that so many people involved in sports manage to live happily with the most extraordinary delusions continues to bewilder me.

Referee Tim Weyland was kept busy by the Sounders and the Galaxy on Sunday — to the tune of eight yellow cards and one red. He also called 27 fouls — which is high, but not outrageously so.

During the first half of Sunday’s game between Arsenal and Chelsea, there were two aspects of the modern game that sprang to my attention. Two highly irritating aspects.

Chelsea lost big-time yesterday. With almost the last action of the game, it lost a 1-0 lead over Barcelona, and so it lost the chance to be in the UEFA Champions league final. But it lost a lot more than that.