Those of you discouraged about the possibility of soccer climbing out of “dork fetish” status here in the states can breathe a little easier today: The MLS All-Star Game happened last night, but instead of the league’s best players playing each other, they formed a single team and took on Manchester United, the perennial Champions League power who happen to be stateside for a preseason tour. How’d the All-Stars fare? They lost, 5-2.

[T]he scoreline — against a club in preseason mode, missing its World Cup players, using four starters age 21 or younger — doesn’t reflect well on the league. Twenty seconds had passed when Kevin Alston, a long-term prospect at outside back for the defense-depleted national team, delivered a lazy pass that led to the first of two goals by 18-year-old Federico Macheda. MLS did exhibit some nice work in midfield and caused a stir late in the match, but by then Darron Gibson (age 22) had struck a perfect free kick for a 3-1 advantage, Tom Cleverley (20) had flicked the ball to himself and Mexican idol Javier Hernandez (22) had scored in his debut. –Steven Goff/WaPo.

So basically we got our asses run over by a bunch of college-aged kids. From Europe. I haven’t been this embarrassed since I opened a condom in bed and it turned out to be a packet of Ramen noodle flavoring. But Josh, it’s only one game. Yeah, but the WNBA is kicking your asses in the TV ratings, too. And it’s soccer without the star-spangled laundry to generate my rooting interest. The defense rests. After last night, you should be familiar with that concept. Read the rest of this entry »

We could have made a bigger deal about this Bayern-Manchester United match from last week, where Bayern essentially knocked the prominent English club out of Champions League title contention. Fortunately, somebody else did it for us. Some of the Lego re-enactments that are floating around the web right now are pretty lame, poorly conceived and hastily executed. But that’s because stop-motion animation, generally speaking, sucks. But this one is solid, and true to form. And honestly, I enjoy the Champions anthem so much, I’d probably link any video that had it. Enjoy it yourself after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

When Manchester City and Manchester United squared off on the pitch last weekend, not only were the teams going at it, but so were the fans. And Europe has pulled off something that we’ll probably never see in America–they’ve put a fan from each team in the broadcast booth and turned them loose. It’s amazing in concept and hilarious in excution. But all you can really tell was that Man U won this game 4-3, and really that’s all the information we needed. Cheers, Anthony.

Seriously, I love British people. But this Craig Bellamy from Manchester City is just a little bit testy. Watch him unload on this Manchester United fan, and everyone’s afraid it was going to overshadow a great game between Man U and whatever that other team was.

Man United players immediately came up to Bellamy and expressed their disdain at the Welshman’s actions.

The video also shows Javier Garrido being struck by a coin thrown by a Manchester United supporter at half-time. via.

It doesn’t really look like a punch until you see a still of the whole thing, and then it’s pretty obvious that, yeah, he pretty much decked the guy. Dude’s no LeGarrette Blount, but that’s not bad for a wimpy little Briton. But at that point, the security people have to cut that fan loose and let him go after Bellamy. Anyone can be a hero when the other guy has his arms tied up.

Don’t think of this a soccer story so much as it’s a triumph of capitalism in the most pinko sport in the world. Spanish soccer juggernaut Real Madrid extended a €93 million bid (almost $131 million US, or 13.1 million bags of weed) to English team Manchester United for the services of Christiano Ronaldo (not pictured), considered the best player in the world by people that care about that sort of thing.

The remarkable bid comes just days after the Spanish giants signed Brazilian Kaka from AC Milan for a then-world record sum, maginally short of £57.5m [about $94m US]. Former United manager Tommy Doherty told Sky News the deal was good news for United, but a further indication “the game’s gone mad”. |Sky News|

After purchasing the rights of two of the most sought-after players in the world [a transfer is basically a trade for cash], some people are left wondering where Real Madrid will find the money.

Xavier Sala i Martin, Exectutive at Barcelona FC does not understand how Real Madrid and Florentino Perez, who have admitted to having huge debts recently, can suddenly gain access to the huge sums of cash they are now spending.

“I do not know where the €300 million that Florentino Perez thinks he has for signings actually comes from,” Sala i Martin told radio station, RAC1. “Florentino Perez says he will recover that money by selling shirts but, in order to do that, he will have to sell 30 million shirts. That is impossible.” |via News Bizarre|

I don’t know anything about soccer (that’s the game with the really skinny swords where they all wear white, isn’t it?) but $225 million is a lot of money to just buy the rights of two players. But hey, here we are on Thursday morning talking soccer. Which means we might be totally screwed for topics once the NBA and NHL playoffs are over.

|WAG img from Uncoached|

In the wake of the UEFA Champions League final and crazy-assed soccer fandom worldwide, a bus driver in Nigeria who also happened to be a Manchester United fan ran over four celebrating FC Barcelona fans after Barca defeated Man U 2-0. From the monolith:

The crowd in the town of Ogbo were celebrating Barcelona’s victory after Wednesday night’s match when the bus drove into them. A police spokeswoman said 10 people were injured and the driver was arrested.

“The driver had passed the crowd then made a U-turn and ran into them,” she said.

I’m really just blown away by this whole thing; it’s as weird as a couple of African-Americans in Florida getting into a fistfight over the Stanley Cup final. But I think people that are really diehard for one team have to be a frustrated lot. And I’d think bus drivers in Nigeria would have plenty on their plates to begin with. I’m sure they come home to their wives after a rough day and scream, “One of these days, Umbachukwu! Bang, zoom, to the moon!”