It's not all whistles and handshakes

BEIJING, March 12 (Reuters) - More than 200 Chinese soccer officials have been sent on a five-day "Anti-corruption Rectification Education Camp" as China tries to rebuild the game after the match-fixing scandal, local media reported on Friday.

Huang Junjie, a FIFA international referee since 1998, was taken away for questioning by police earlier this week as part of the investigation into corruption in the Chinese domestic game.

The professional match officials, who will officiate in next season's men and women's Chinese leagues, will receive lectures on anti-corruption, training in refereeing skills and take an exam, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Who will make it to South Africa?

Yanks Abroad is out with its latest '23 tickets to South Africa' list, and while I agree with most names, there are a few points to make:

During the USA-Netherlands match, the scrawl said Feilhaber was out "indefintely." Let's hope his returning to traiing with his club is swift. He ought to be on the squad, but his health is unkown.

Stuart Holden is close to a lock, depending on fitness afeter breaking his leg in the Holland game.

Brian Ching would go into the "Work to Do" category. He doesn't score goals when it counts and couldn't rally the younger guys when the team was getting pasted by Mexico.

Replace him with Conor Casey, who has scored in WC qualifiers lately. Never can take too many strikers to a month-long tournament.
Bedoya should have a good chance of making the team.

Nice to see Beasley back, and playing the ball forward. He will be a good sub in South Africa

Not sold on Goodson yet and wondering when Ricardo Clark will be healthy.

New World Cup, new Adidas Ball

I think keepers will be unhappy with this new ball. More speed but easier grip doesn't sound like much help...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/graphic/2009/dec/07/how-why-world-cup-ball-jabulani

Goals in 3-D!

Good news: 

Sony Corp. said Friday it has signed a deal with FIFA, the international football governing body, to record up to 25 World Cup games in 3-D — a technology that gives viewers an illusion of depth on the screen.

.....

They will be shown at Sony booths at FIFA events in Berlin, London, Mexico City, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Sydney in June and July. Highlights will be shown in Sony showrooms, and a video version will be sold through Sony Pictures.

But why not in the US?!?!?

So the WC seeds are in

Pot 1: Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England join hosts South Africa

Pot 2: Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic), North, Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico, USA) and Oceania (New Zealand)

Pot 3: Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay)

Pot 4: the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland)

South Africa will be automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H, but will always be in position “1” of their group

Groups will be drawn from A to H and the positions in the group will be drawn for Pots 2 to 4

FIFA says "Geographical criteria will also be respected, meaning that no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group). For example, South Africa cannot play the African teams from Pot 3 and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams.

The Ref talks US v Brazil

From time to time, especially after U.S. Men's Team matches and other big games, the Ref chats with a seasoned USMNT observer -- the Samurai.

Samurai is familiar with the academy system and is a longtime watcher of the US team and club soccer.

Here is the conversation after the U.S. lost to Italy in the Confederations Cup.

Samurai : i was so depressed about the US game yesterday, but _____ pointed out some positives, and i didn't feel so bad

Samurai: he said US had some chances, just couldn’t finish, and he pointed out how Donovan took on a bunch of Brazilians in one run, and so did Dempsey

Samurai : maybe not in 2010, but by 2014, we should really start making some noise

The Ref : that Conor Casey was a bright spot

Samurai: yeah, he was.


The Ref : coulda been 3-2

Samurai : easily


The Ref : but I was depressed also

Samurai: Feilhaber took that shot really confidently, too


The Ref : that’s what I like about him and Casey. It's like they are hungry-- FIRE that ball in from under 20 yards


The Ref : like uhm, Giuseppe Rossi

Samurai : the US is going to have big fast kids coming up, too. ______'s not small, but when he goes to some of the U16 academy practices (they are '92s and '93s, and he's a '94), he's usually the smallest one by a good 6 inches


The Ref : that part is encouraging-- that there is not these one-offs like Dempsey coming out of US Soccer


The Ref : there are a lot

Samurai: the academy thing will help. now kids have somewhere to go, where colleges will recognize them. If they get recognized, they’re more likely to keep playing

Samurai : that's the key. Give the kids incentive to keep playing rather than just because they like it

The Ref : Eddie Johnson can tell them that they have to work a lot harder than the MLS to be in top shape for Europe clubs

Samurai: totally. and they need real confidence, which he seems to have lost

Samurai: Beasley too

Samurai: the other players are probably running circles around them in practice


The Ref : like Walcott on John Terry!

Samurai: the academy practices are so intense because they're constantly being pushed. so the ones that get through will be in great shape. I doubt the big MLS stars feel much heat in practices to keep pushing them

Samurai: the MLS still can afford to bring in players to push their stars, they're still bringing in players to be back ups

Samurai : see how Pearce left Walcott off the starting team, because he didn't do much in the previous game

Samurai: so when he did come in as a sub, they said he was electric

Samurai: that's what the players need, fear of not playing


The Ref : it seemed to have done the opposite to Beasley

Samurai: yeah, he probably realized he wasn't 'special'. he has good speed, but his touch and crosses aren't great. I bet those Rangers players all have great touch and can put the ball on a dime; they just might not be as fast as him

Samurai : when Beasley sees a sub crack a 30-yard shot on target, he probably gets disillusioned. I’ve never seen Beasley do stuff like that


The Ref : man this whole discussion should be a blog post


The Ref : like "today's trade" or something

Samurai: that's a great idea

The glory of winning on European soil

OK, so Gooch isn't doing too bad these days...

Welcome Back

We will be up and running again soon, in time for the prep for South Africa 2010

Why the U.S. is poised for soccer success

As measured by FIFA points, the U.S. seems to come fairly close to satisfying the criteria needed.

This is from a paper by Eva Marikova Leeds and Michael A. Leeds, given at the Eastern Economics Association Conference, February 2007, New York, NY.

Using OLS and Poisson regressions, we corroborate previous studies and find that success increases with income, population, and having hosted a World Cup competition. We also find that a country’s political institutions and colonial heritage affect its soccer performance. In particular, being a wealthy democracy adds greatly to soccer performance. We also find that the success of a country’s club teams is a good predictor of the national team’s success. We conclude that club success reflects a nation’s willingness and ability to finance soccer success.

The full link can be found here:
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/economics/RePEc/spe/Leeds_Soccer.pdf

Claudio Who?

Let's officially do an about-face on Landon Donovan. His goals, all three of them, were superb.
We had our doubts, especially after an anemic World Cup in Germany, that he could change a game.

On Sunday, he wasn't wandering around mopping up for the midfield so much as he went and grabbed that game to call his own. Has to make one feel better about the future of the U.S. Men's team scoring ability. Landon, You're L.A. and all, but you're the top player on the squad, and we will say it.


GOOD: Attacking midfield, Landon Donovan. Beasley and Dempsey actually moved the ball forward. That's been too rare of late, unfortunately.

GOOD: Feilhaber and Bradley. Good play all around.

BAD: TV coverage. The state of replay on ESPN2. How about a shot of whether the Ecuador strikers (or the U.S. ones in the first half) were offside? And Dave O'Brien. C'mon man, baseball starts soon, go there and get your kicks.

BAD: Those blue jerseys with white pin stripes looked like the cheapest ones in the Adidas' catalog. And this a Nike team!

Ratings for the U.S. win over Mexico

From U.S. Soccer:

ESPN2's broadcast was the most-watched U.S. game in the team's history, outside of the World Cup and World Cup qualifiers. The network earned a 0.7 household rating, which translates to 1.1 million viewers and comes on the heels of the network’s impressive 2006 World Cup ratings. Even more impressively, the game averaged a 1.0 rating during the final 15 minutes as the USA iced the victory.

On Univision, the match also set records with more than 6 million total viewers. The U.S. victory was the No. 2 most-watched Spanish-language sports cast in history, beating every Super Bowl among Hispanic Adults 18-49, Men 18-49 and Total Viewers.

Roster announced for the US-Mexico game Feb 7

GOALKEEPERS (4) – Joe Cannon (Los Angeles Galaxy), Matt Pickens (Chicago Fire), Troy Perkins (D.C. United), Matt Reis (New England Revolution)

DEFENDERS (9) – Chris Albright (Los Angeles Galaxy), Bobby Boswell (D.C. United), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards), Todd Dunivant (New York Red Bulls), Bryan Namoff (D.C. United), Michael Parkhurst (New England Revolution), Dasan Robinson (Chicago Fire) Eddie Robinson (Houston Dynamo)

MIDFIELDERS (7) – Kyle Beckerman (Colorado Rapids), Brian Carroll (D.C. United), Ricardo Clark (Houston Dynamo), Joshua Gros (D.C. United), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Justin Mapp (Chicago Fire), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids)

FORWARDS (6) – Kenny Cooper (FC Dallas), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Eddie Johnson (Kansas Cit y Wizards), Nate Jaqua (Los Angeles Galaxy), Chris Rolfe (Chicago Fire), Taylor Twellman (New England Revolution)

A little-known aspect of the Beckham-MLS signing

The guys over at Yanks-Abroad have nailed it. Are there really going to be more Europeans coming over to play in the U.S.?

But tell me, how many top European players are going to sacrifice top paychecks in England, Germany, Italy and Spain to play in front of 20,000 on a hot and humid New York City evening in July?

A remote chance of playing in the CONCACAF Champions Cup or a legitimate shot of playing in the Champions League (probably the best tournament in the world of ANY sport)?

Lets face it, even with the new rule, MLS will still be as likely to attract old, nearly has-been soccer players as it ever has before. They just have the ability to pay them better (are you listening, Ronaldo?).

Beckham signing and the death of the MLS

Who got the better deal, Fulham paying $4 million for Clint Dempsey or MLS shelling out $150 million for Beckham?

Fulham. No doubt about it. Beckham’s signing is the death of the MLS.

Quick quiz: Who said this:

"I didn't want to go out there at 34 years old and for people to turn around and say he's only going there to get the money. It's not what I'm going out there to do.

"I'm going to hopefully build a club and a team that has a lot of potential. I think that is what excites me."

A) Lothar Matthaeus

B) Yuri Djorkaeff

C) David Beckham

The answer is D) all of the above.

if(fanid.length > 0 &&amp; typeof(nflDefaultLeague)!= "undefined") { leagueId = nflDefaultLeague; //find teamId of default league (if exists) for(var i=0; i < defaultteamid =" teamsInfo[i][0];" fantasyleagueplayerjspath =" 'http://msn.foxsports.com'"> LONDON (AP) - David Beckham will leave Real Madrid at the end of the season to join the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer in a five-year deal believed to be one of the richest in sports history.

Why the World Cup is important, reason #315

An 89% TV market share in France for the semifinal against Portugal, that's why ---

French commercial broadcaster TF1 attracted record TV ratings in 2006, in large part due to the success of its World Cup coverage.

TF1 broadcast 98 of the top 100 programmes in France in 2006, one more than in 2005 and its best annual result since 1991.

The top audience figure of the year was for the World Cup semi-final match between France and Portugal on July 5 which brought in 22,2 million viewers and a 76.7 per cent audience share according to Médiamétrie figures, beating the 21.4 million TF1 brought in for the final of Euro 2000, between France and Italy.

The peak for the France-Portugal match registered at 25.1 million viewers, an 88.5 per cent share.

US Men's roster for training for Denmark, Jan. 20

Roster By Position

GOALKEEPERS (4) – Joe Cannon (Los Angeles Galaxy), Troy Perkins (D.C. United), Matt Pickens (Chicago Fire), Matt Reis (New England Revolution)

DEFENDERS (11) – Chris Albright (Los Angeles Galaxy), Bobby Boswell (D.C. United), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Danny Califf (Aalborg BK), Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards), Todd Dunivant (New York Red Bulls), Bryan Namoff (D.C. United), Michael Parkhurst (New England Revolution), Heath Pearce (FC Nordsjælland), Dasan Robinson (Chicago Fire), Eddie Robinson (Houston Dynamo)

MIDFIELDERS (10) – Kyle Beckerman (Colorado Rapids), Brian Carroll (D.C. United), Ricardo Clark (Houston Dynamo), Clint Dempsey (New England Revolution), Joshua Gros (D.C. United), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Justin Mapp (Chicago Fire), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids), Brian Mullan (Houston Dynamo), Pat Noonan (New England Revolution)

FORWARDS (6) – Kenny Cooper (FC Dallas), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Alecko Eskandarian (Toronto FC), Nate Jaqua (Los Angeles Galaxy), Eddie Johnson Kansas City Wizards), Chris Rolfe (Chicago Fire)

FIFA axes staff after Mastercard decision

FIFA announced Monday that it has fired its director of marketing and three other employees in the wake of a ruling by a New York judge earlier this month that credit card company MasterCard can sponsor the 2010 and 2014 World Cups.

MasterCard sued football's ruling body over the way sponsorship rights were awarded earlier this year, arguing that FIFA had signed a deal with rival Visa in April and ignored the fact that it had first refusal on hosting the 2010 and 2014 World Cups.

FIFA is currently considering lodging an appeal against the December 7 decision but has already decided that its director of marketing & TV division, Jerome Valcke, and three other employees in the division have to go.

Stories are here and here

Highlights of the Euro 2008-ESPN deal

Highlights of the agreement:

TELEVISION AND RADIO RIGHTS
· United States: ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic will combine to present exclusive live coverage of all matches, including the title match on ABC, June 29. Additional coverage will include highlights show on match days, unlimited re-air rights across all networks and media platforms, magazine programs, and UEFA EURO 2008™ Final Draw. ESPN Deportes will be the exclusive Spanish-language network for EURO 2008 in the United States. The network will feature separate Spanish-language studio highlights show on match days, and Spanish-language editions of the EURO 2008 Final Draw, magazine programs and match re-airs.

· Exclusive radio rights in U.S. (ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio or via a sub-license in the region)
· Canada: Exclusive coverage of all matches in English (TSN) and French (RDS); 30-minute pre-game and 15-minute post-game shows on English-language telecasts; and other ancillary programming listed above.

1 Latin America Territory: Coverage of all matches and other ancillary programming listed above across ESPN, and regional networks ESPN Dos and ESPN+.

NEW MEDIA RIGHTS

• ESPN360 – ESPN’s growing interactive and customizable broadband service will simulcast one live match per day (except ABC matches). In addition, matches will be available on-demand following the telecasts.
• Mobile ESPN Publishing – ESPN’s wireless content licensing business will offer in-progress UEFA EURO 2008™ video clips, in-progress slide shows, highlight packages, scoring updates.
• ESPN.com, ESPNSoccernet.com and ESPNDeportes.com – Dedicated UEFA EURO 2008™ sections featuring live match coverage, highlights and video news reports, columns, match previews, player profiles and real-time data.
  

A column on US Soccer's coaching approach that just about gets it right

This column nails it, mostly. Nothing against Bradley, but this deal should be about taking US Soccer to the next level, not being a marketing puppet for the MLS.


Some choice excerpts:

"That giggling the Americans are hearing? It's coming from Italy, Brazil, Germany, France and England. If you want to be a powerhouse, it starts with finding somebody — not just anybody — to run the show. Now."

"Instead, the Americans proved again they're second-class citizens of the soccer world. Not only did U.S. Soccer not seal the deal with Klinsmann after five months, they couldn't decide on anybody."

"Most important, Klinsmann would have generated interest with Americans whose soccer knowledge begins and ends with David Beckham. He's good-looking, intelligent and articulate, and just look what he did for his home country. After decades of repressing even the slightest hint of nationalism, the Germans broke loose with a monthlong bender of jubilation and pride."

Good news, Euro 2008 coming to Stateside TV!

As long as it's not up against the NBA draft or NASCAR pre-race commentary, or ice-dancing, ABC will put it on the air!

NYON, Switzerland - ESPN and ABC will televise soccer's 2008 European Championship under an agreement announced Friday by the Union of European Football Associations.

All 31 games will be televised in the United States: two by ABC and the rest by ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPN Classic. The tournament will be played in Austria and Switzerland from June 7-29.

"We continue to see the appeal of soccer in America growing, and particularly when comes in a time of the day that's unique and not up against U.S. sports prime time," ESPN International executive vice president Russell Wolff said.