COME ON YOU PIIIES

that was the resounding cry around craven cottage for my first live taste of english football. and yes that is notts county's nickname, the pies!
First of all, craven cottage is all sorts of cool, perched literally on thames with the water rusted roof you've always seen on tv, not to mention the charming little one mile walk from the tube station through some gardens and churches to the stadium, and that there is an actual cottage that people can watch the game from in one of the corners, well just awesome.

Apparently 15 pounds gets you three rows from the field adjacent to the fulham bench for a 5th round FA cup tie, and I have mr Hawes to thank for that, but we were both shocked at how close we were to the action, "cheapest courside seat i'll ever see." I could have reached over and touched erik nevland riding on the stationary bike the whole time to stay loose.

As for the actual game, Notts County were unlucky to be losing 2-0 at the break. Bobby Zamora is much more impressive in person that you'd have ever known from the tv, and he wasn't up against the best center halfs, but he was doing whatever he wanted when he got the ball to his feet, esp in the box.

But what made this game so cool was the little things that you can't pick up on tv, like how a little guy like Nickey Shorey times his jump to perfection to win headers he has no business winning, how much Riise the younger enjoys his keep-me-uppy at halftime, or just how fucking tall brede hangeland really is.

It wasn't much of a contest in the end on the field, but the back and forth between the 3,000 or so Notts county supporters and the not so vocal ho-hum fulham supporters was also well worth the price of admission. At 0-3 the county faithful decided to break out the: your support, your support, YOUR SUPPORT IS FUCKING SHIT! chant. and all sorts of "who are yas" were exchanged until fulham scored the 4th and final goal, which didn't actually quiet the travelling fans. In fact, they were perhaps the loudest after every fulham goal, never faltering in their support, with this "on top of
spaghetti..."

but this video pretty much sums it up, notts hired-actor-bald-white-guy-of-a-striker whose name is hughsey apparently has a dance named after him, which is pretty badass, he appeased the crowed after he'd been subbed off in like the 80th minute. and then in this video straight into the wheelbarrel



will we ever see a luckier goal than paul scholes off the standing leg?

another discouraging loss

yep. not much else to say about chelsea's brushing aside of the arsenal this past weekend. although i will say its amazing how far almunia has regressed. remember when people were talking about him for england?

here is some off season goodness courtesy of buster olney, this page is just loaded with baseball fight goodies.

PROBLEM #2!!!!!!

'Tacón de Dios'

Yeah, i don't really care for Real Madrid, and certainly not what they stand for. And yeah, I think Raul is overrated, Pepe is a thug, and Ronaldo is prima-donna. But my god, if you can't appreciate Guti and his semi-psychotic backheel, then you don't have a footballing pulse. I dont care that this is what Phil Ball wrote about, and I dont care that it was 5 days ago, it's still worthy of reposting here, and as Mr. Ball so keenly points out, notice how old Guti Haz never even bothers to glance over his shoulder to see if Benzema is indeed arriving at the penalty spot. One of the most daring things I've seen ever come off. Wow.



this does not bode well

just awesome

although i didn't quite grow up on the radio. i can see what made it so special. i like to stream the o's games on mlb.tv, mute it, and keep the radio audio. these 2 guys, are my 2 best friends in the dog days of summer. joe angel and jon miller. the whole video is awesome, but skip to like 3 mins if you want your vin scully impression.

London here i come in 2 weeks. look out craven cottage, i'm wearing my N'Zogbia jersey

tidbits

need a laugh? then check out cinncinnatti's basketball roster for a few chuckles. its good to see that there's a little reverse discrimination and that they've got their token jew in there.

i saw that dick vitale made his way into the nba. sickening. how long has he been rewinding those 3 catch phrases. god.

but by far the funniest thing i've come across in a while....

Notes on COCAN

Eurosport has been showing way too much African Cup of Nations and not enough of the Australian Open as I would like, so I thought I might as well give you my 2 cents on the African lot...

first of all what concerns us, ALGERIA- they look to be a limited, but very competent side. egypt's retarded stepdaughter if you like. There is a huge gap and contrast between the styles of the North African teams and the rest, and Algeria are no exception. They're a conservative, defensive minded, counter-attacking side. (sound familiar?) I still cant figure out how they beat Egypt, but they were able to stave them off when it counted, so they shouldn't be underestimated. That being said, they were atrocious in their first game, their best player looks like its their left back, portsmouth's belhadj, they dont have any real playmakers on the ball, and they only scored 1 goal in the group stage which was enough to limp through. they should lose to the ivory coast today, but you never know with them. and just a side note their goalless draw with angola, was probably the most sorry excuse of a football match you'll ever see.

maybe its just this competition, but EGYPT look far and away like the team best equipped to handle international football. they defend well as a unit, and they have the talent going forward. Momo Zidan is probably the best player on the continent (yeah i said it Essien), so we can count ourselves as lucky that it is algeria and not egypt we're facing.

as for the rest the usual african suspects, i just don't trust em. that means Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Nigeria. (ghana are missing too many players to be judged realistically in this tournament). Their defenses are seemingly capable of lapses at any given moment. Everyone wants to hop on the ivory coast's bandwagon, but any team with Eboue in its 11 isnt going to win a major tournament...ever. Nigeria too are a scary team. My man Odemwingue is disgusting, and should still be in france, or spain, but went to russia for the $. and obafemi martins is still the fastest man on this side of the Sahara, but its almost inexplicable this tendency these african teams have to lose their concentration, ball watch, and let whoever just waltz right through them will ultimately catch up to them and hold them back in a major tournament.

The same holds true for Cameroon,and Carlos kameni, who you figure is a legitimate keeper because he plays at Espanyol, has been guilty of some of the most outrageous keeping in the entire tournament so far. Dont trust em. Egypt to win, if not Angola, who have looked as good as anyone, and have a more (ahem) traditional keeper.
I like Egypt over Angola in the final.

how good is fabregas? (rhetorical)

what's that jussi?


Bolton weren't even all that bad in the doubleheader. And the Arsenal of the last two years wouldn't necessarily have grinded those two games out. But my oh my what a dynamic player young cesc has turned into. He's always been great on the ball, but especially lately he's been doing more "running" at people and even letting fly with his left foot from 25+, I can never remember him being more of an offensive threat. I say "running" because if you've watched fabregas at all, you'll have realized that everything he does seems to be with less-than-maximum effort, he's doing more jogging than anything.


But anyway, if we were to try and measure a footballers value, we'd have to acknowledge the ingrained subjectivity and even arbitrariness. I hate it when people come up with these lists of top 5 players in the world, because that is basically meaningless. But being the hypocrite that I am, last year, about this time, I ventured to say amongst my Partisan club-mates that no man means more to his club in the premiership than fabregas. I was met with a bunch of typical british responses subsequent to their clubs of RONALDO! and LAMPARD!, but none more adamant than the one inevitable liverpool supporter who started preaching the steven gerrard story to me like I'd never heard it before. Fair cases can be made for all these guys, and maybe even Danny Murphy, but I wonder if any of them would be in my camp after Fabregas' last month.

What is so crazy about Cesc is that he probably won't even be in Spain's starting XI in SA this summer. And he can't even really have any complaints. I'm all for country over club, but it is a bit odd that the best club player in the world won't even be in his country's XI? I think so, and I dare you to find me someone who is playing better than the Arsenal #4 right now. I still am unconvinced that Arsenal have the longevity to out-muscle Chelsea and United, but fuck it, Cesc has been superman this year, and if we keep winning games with Eduardos and Denilsons on the field, then why not?