Schalke vs ManU

Setting an alarm for 4:30 in the morning is never a pleasant thing, but when you do it to support your natural rival, it becomes a whole new thing. I cursed and twirled but I got out of bed, lined up 3 coffee mugs and plugged in the sandwich maker, for what you ask? To support Schalke, even though I am a true Bayern fan, I wanted to see a German team in the Champions League final this year. Sadly it will probably stay a dream.

There are 10 Schalke players that should hang their head in shame after that performance, and one that should be proud of himself and happy that he made the decision to leave Gelsenkirchen at the end of the season. If it hadn't been for Manuel Neuer Schalke would have drowned 4/5 - 0 today. Yes it was that bad. The Arena auf Schalke is arguably the best (again this hurts me to say) stadium when it comes to German stadiums, perhaps only contested by the Westfahlen stadion (yes I will continue to call it that) and the Allianz Arena (Because I wouldn't be a true Bayern fan if I didn't include it), and there were plenty of Schalke fans there to support their team, but they played the slowest and most uncreative football I have seen in while. There was no tempo up front, no heart to push forward, no teeth to show Manchester what they are capable of.

This is the same team that beat Inter 5-2 after conceding after just 25 seconds, what happened to that. A lucky Giggs goal and they just switched off, no wonder Neuer was furious at his defense. Farfan was the biggest disappointment in my eyes, the man is brilliant but it seems he has on and off days at random and for no reason, he let the ball run through his foot passed the out line twice today, in a Semi-final! Most of the players were rested in last weekends defeat against Kaiserslautern (0-1) so it can't even be said that they were tired. Needless to say it is near impossible to win by 3 goals in Manchester's "theater of dreams" and even though I myself don't really belief it will happen, I will wake up and show you the continued support, except this time it will be more because of my love for the beautiful game (if you can call it that when Rooney is present) rather than to shout for Schalke.

Let me point out one thing, there is no shame in losing to Manchester United by 2 goals, they are a great team, and at times also a lucky team. There is however shame if you lose by 2 goals and look like you didn't even want to be on that pitch, if you've made the long and hard way to the semi-final, I don't understand why you don't want to fight to make the pot yours.

Manufactured Attendance

I've been thoroughly unimpressed by the quality of (for the sake of thedrunkenstriker's primary audience) football displayed thus far in the current MLS season. While living Saigon, I'd heard that the MLS was improving: additional clubs had entered the league, crowd sizes were increasing, talent was sprouting up and being flown in from Europe, etc. The fact that the United States had more supporters in South Africa than any other nation (aside from the hosts, naturally) seemed like confirmation that these rumors of growth had some legitimacy.

But, ya know, a US supporter who has traveled to South Africa is a wee different than, say, a Mexican who has traveled halfway cross the globe to support his/her country. While in South Africa last summer, I was a bit appalled in talking to some of my fellow countrymen who had sacrificed their money and time to serve in Uncle Sam's Army; that many individuals' knowledge of our national squad was limited to Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, and Clint Dempsey. Others still, after surveying the pitch during our opener against England in Rustenburg turned to the nearest guy in the bar or stadium wearing a white sashed jersey and asked, "Where's Freddy Adu?". No joke, on the walk from my hostel to the Ellis Park Stadium to watch our match against Slovenia, I was explaining the concept of offsides to a North Carolinian.

Oh yeah, US National Team supporters are one-of-a-kind. No other country can claim to have such ill-informed followers. My theory: the US excels in nationalism. We f'n bleed the Red, White, and Blue and whether our sons and/or daughters are heading to war or to the World Cup, we're gonna show(off) our support.

And don't get me started on our chants... Essentially, we have one. It's three letters long. The first letter is 'U' and the last 'A'. When delivered, you must try and achieve as deep of tone as possible- achieved en masse, you'll produce a chant that effectively makes others both laugh at you and hate you at once. Seriously, there's plenty I like about my country and our football team, but I hate this chant. Hate it.

Ok, this is getting lengthy, but I'm gonna plow forward in my intended trajectory so that I can tie the lameness of our National team's support with the lameness of our domestic support. First, watch this video taken at a Vancouver Whitecap (a first-year club in the MLS) match:

Ok, so, I love Steve Nash. I can't say that about many Canadians (frankly, I find most I meet to be extreme braggarts with a real superiority complex when it comes to their relationship with their southern neighbors). Nash and I are both alumni of Santa Clara University and we're both above average basketball and football players (he's far above-average on the hardwood, but I reckon I could defend him well on the pitch). Nash has long hair; I once had long hair. Steve Nash's father used to play for the Canadian National team; my father used to referee high school girls soccer. The similarities go on and on...

I think it's rad that Steve Nash would be in the stands at one of his home club's matches this year. I mean this guy is a two-time NBA MVP and it looks like he's chilling in Row L or something. I wouldn't put it past the guy to suggest that he's probably got a flask of whiskey in his pocket, too!

But notice the crowd's reaction. They're as pumped as I would be, but maybe a little too pumped. You get the feeling that when the match is over and they go home to their families eh they'll have more to say about who was in the crowd eh than about who won the contest eh. And these are Canadians. You'd think with nothing else to do up in their country apart from watching hockey, going ice-fishing, and making maple syrup, they'd have the time to really care about their football clubs.

In the US, I'm afraid the state of futbol fandom is even more bleak. In matches I've attended, the lure of attending seems to be for men: how drunk you can in the course of ninety minutes (+ extra time), for women: somebody has to drive the SUV home, for kids: the fact that all your other youth club teammates will be there.

Of course, there are encouraging exceptions to the sorry supporters criticized above, but for the most part, by far the truest contingent of supporters in the MLS (in Chicago, for sure) are the foreigners (mostly Latinos) who come to the matches because they love the sport and are compelled to watch the sport and support the local club that represents that sport. Their blood isn't sullied with American football, baseball, basketball, and NASCAR and is in constant need of injections of touchdowns, homeruns, alley-oops, crashes, bloody faces, stops and gos and highlights, highlights, highlights.. No-their blood flows in the milder pace of the beautiful game.

Quick update on the getafe rant

For those of you that haven't read it read it here. For those of you that have, thank you, here is what the new logo is supposed to look like, this almost makes me want to go on my next rant.

End of year party dirty tackle award

So Tenby AFC, who play in the Pembrokeshire 1st Division had a bit of a party, and when I say party, I don't mean your usual team social, because that wouldn't see someone in hospital. The had their end of season party, which is fair enough, got drunk again why not and then I'm going to directly quote what happened because there is no way I can explain this better "It was a bit of horseplay that went ­ seriously wrong. We'd all had a few drinks when one of the lads did a moonie. A player picked up a pool cue and it all went wrong from there." Seriously, I've been drunk around teammates before, and I have played pool on those occasions as well, perhaps there was even one or the other bare ass being shown but never ever did the thought cross my mind "I'll just ram this up there, the lads will piss themselves laughing." The guy is still in Hospital! I mean how much force could have been used there, seriously?

That said it does sound like one hell of a party, perhaps the sort where our sneaky mate Wayne might have had a good time?

Getafe sold to Royal Emirates Group, wants to be called ‘Team Dubai’

NOOOO!"UAE-based holding company chaired by Sheikh Butti Bin Suhail Al Maktoum of The Emirates' ruling family has bought 14th-place La Liga side Getafe" F-That, excuse my direct swearing, but seriously I have had it with foreign investors coming in and buying everyone's team. These teams have tradition, history, most of them were founded by a few drunk villagers (raiders anyone?) that decided they wanted to start a team, they worked their ass off to come from the 15th county side division II to make it to the top league of their respected countries, only to see Americans/Russians/Arabs come in and say "uhhh nice team you got, how much? 90million? Hah! Peanuts, here keep the change, alright where are the hoops in this sport?" Seriously there should be a FIFA law against this.

Let's be honest here, how many people do you know that 10 years ago if you would have told them that you support chelsea they would have a) paid you out cause they were average at most b) shaken their head and asked why you don't support ManU. Now you go to the smallest Kampung in the jungle of Sulawesi in Indonesia and you'll spot a kid with a Drogba Jersey telling you it's the best team in the world. It isn't it simply isn't! Now I am not saying you shouldn't support Chelsea, that's not my point at all, I'm just fed up with these big shots coming in buying a club, pumping it full with money (yes I'm looking at you Man City) and then buying all new players and winning stuff. That isn't sport.

I've got nothing against investing in a team, it's every ones right and sure it sounds like fun, but seriously, help them pay their debt, modernize their stadium, get 2 or 3 big names to help the club out, but don't restructure the entire team, if you want to do that then do what SAP's owner has done to Hoffenheim, sure he invested some money, he built a stadium, but he also took a club from the 6th division to the first division, yes that took 7 years, but that shows dedication, not your typical *unravel rope, show $$, check FIFA 11 for player with highest stats, tell agent you want that 12 year old kid genius that dribbles around everyone at the Nou Camp, name starting with M*

If you really want to make a difference in the Football world, invest in your own league, and I'm not even saying buy a team, I mean help the league to progress, invest in infrastructure, build better stadiums, promote more teams, win international events like the champions league (whether it is the American/Asian/European one) and raise awareness for football fans around the world to watch your league, sure that takes time and isn't as fancy as saying you own a team in Manchester even though you know jack **** about football and still call it soccer, (tell me then why is it Fc and not Sc). The premier league, Bundesliga, La liga all weren't created in a day or a week, put some effort in it and maybe your home league will become something football fans around the world will gather around their tellies for every weekend to watch.

Lastly if you buy a team, respect the fans, they are the ones that are in the stadium, whether its 35C or -15 they are there, they are the ones canceling family holidays to drive to your away games, they understand football and I'll be damned if you can show me one real Getafe Fan, that has stayed on through thick and thin, that will devout his own time to paint banners saying "Team Dubai" not even if you donate the turban to paint it on!

Top Fernando Torres Jokes

Those of you who know me, know that I absolutely cannot stand Fernando Torres, why you ask? Well let me give you a few reasons, He scored the winner against Germany in the 2008 Euro Final, beating us, he was a part of the Spanish squat that beat us in the 2010 world cup, before he finally cut his hair he looked like a 15 year old girl, and not a pretty one if I may add, the sort that sneaks out at night and puts make up on to go to clubs where she meets guys in their 30's who "really Love her" and last but not least, even though he makes millions each year he seems to have never heard of soap or any sort of facial wash in his live, I mean the guys face looks greasier then that piece of cloth your mechanic uses, you know what I'm talking about.

So I was delighted when he finally decided to do us all a big favor and move from Liverpool to Chelsea, it seemed appropriate because I love Liverpool and now I could finally support all of its players and not cheer for 10 men on the field each week and I hate Chelsea, so needless to say he fitted right in, or you would think, because it seems to our spanish drag queen has forgotten his trade, which as I would assume is to score goals.

Luckily this has sparked some great jokes, here are a few of my favorites, for you to enjoy:

Worried about her son, Torres's mum sends him to a careers adviser. All goes well until he asks: 'What are your goals?'

Worried about her son, Torres's mum sends him to a careers adviser. All goes well until he asks: 'What are your goals?'

Fernando Torres walks into a bar and says: "I'll have a couple of shots please." The barman says: "That's not like you."

I'm going out tonight dressed as Fernando Torres. I'm not planning to score.

Ceasefire in Libya, specialist Fernando Torres sent in to make sure no more shots are fired.

My girlfriend is a huge chelsea fan, so i got her a blank DVD Titled "Fernando Torres, Chelsea goals"

Q - What is the difference between Fernando Torres and the beachball at the Stadium of Light?
A - The beachball found the back of the net first.

And my personal favourite sent to me by one of the authors of this blog late one night:

I had what we call a "Fernando Torres Night" tonight, It was fucking expensive, had a lot of shots and didn't even manage to score.

Hope you enjoyed if you have anymore that you think are great, feel free to leave them in the comment box below

Frankie Hejduk: The beer chugging elf surfer

When the LA Galaxy come to town to play the Chicago Fire and you're offered by your footy teammate a free ticket (row 6, half line), well, you think David Beckham...Landon Donovan...yes! So, we provided our manager with poorly coordinated excuses as to why we couldn't play in our club's friendly that same day (he claimed an injury and I told the truth - thus exposing his injury as a lie), and we were ready to see the Hollywood bros. in action.

Only one hitch- er two: Becks was suspended due to an accumulation of yellows and Landon "Largest Forehead in the Universe" Donovan had a hurt pinky finger (inflamed knee, actually, but I wouldn't put it past the prima donna).

Naturally, we were disappointed, but luckily a majestic stadium, free fleece blankets upon entry, and "damn, that grass is well-kept" seats made the fact that we knew nobody on the pitch a non-issue. Nobody, that is, except for an tireless aged elf and former USA international defenseman, Frankie Hejduk.

Hejduk is small and wiry like a marathon runner with long golden locks that he tucks behind his rather pointy ears. These features, together with a rather sprightly way of movement, make one think 'elf' the way observing Puyol makes one think 'caveman'. The guy has 85 caps for his country, won an MLS Cup title in 2008 with the Columbus Crews, and even had a fairly successful spell at Bayer Leverkusen from '98 to '02.

But, the most admirable things about the guy: 1) he's apparently an awesome surfer and 2) check it>

or, even better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_X8anlNYQk

btw: 2-1 Galaxy. Chicago Fire are sitting on 4 points in five matches (bottom of the Eastern Conference)