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So what do you do when your ENTIRE national basketball team poses for a picture doing the asian “slant eyes” thing? as a joke? Obviously you fire back with the textbook racist’s response. From the Ball Don’t Lie Yahoo NBA Blog.

Via RaptorBlog, Jose Calderon explains the thinking (if you can call it that) behind Team Spain’s controversial photo: “… one of our sponsors asked us to pose with a “wink” to our participation in Beijing, we made an oriental expression with our eyes. We thought it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as somewhat loving. Never the less some of the European media did not see it this way. From here I would like to declare that we have a huge respect for the East and their people, some of my best friends in Toronto are from China and one of our Spanish National Team sponsors is the Chinese brand Li Ning. Anyone who would like to interpret this differently is absolutely confused.” Oh, wait, you guys were just winking? Well then, that settl— no, I’m still confused.

Spain may be having a banner year in sports, but it seems they’re having a banner decade in race relations. From their soccer coach calling Thierry Henry a “black shit” to Real Zaragoza fans making monkey chants at Samuel Eto’o to F1 driver Lewis Hamilton being taunted in a race in Spain by people in blackface. And let’s not forget the obligatory Confederate flag being flown at every La Liga match I see.

Why? probably because no one has made it a priority to address this kind of behavior. I know that FIFA hasn’t! Oh - they say they have, but they haven’t. The same problems exist all over Europe to varying degrees - primarily because they haven’t had an accute awakening event like we had in the civil rights movement. Even we aren’t completely free of blame:

The USA plays Spain on Saturday at 10:15am ET on NBC - set your Tivos.

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Arsenal, fresh from their 2-2 draw at the Emirates vs Manchester United, travel to the Czech Republic to play Slavia Prague today. The last time these two met in London, Slavia were on the wrong end of a 7-0 beatdown, a Champions League record (tied) until Liverpool’s 8-0 thrashing of Besiktas yesterday. And apparently some of those Besiktas players WILL be walking alone soon.

Meanwhile ol’ inaudible SAF is at it again, plugging down the tired old road about too many foreigners in the premiership and that causing the decline in quality of the English national team. Of course Wenger and the arseblog hits it right on the head:

I always felt that sport rewards quality and does not hide behind artificial rules. If you put the level of the class down, it does not necessarily make the bad students better. It makes them worse. The real question is how can England take the opportunity to produce world-class players?

And that’s spot on, in my opinion. It’s too easy for people to say that the lack of England’s quality players is down to foreigners. There’s no question that some local players don’t get the chances they should but that is almost entirely to do with the inflated transfer market for English players. Simple economics dictates that a manager who can buy a Frenchman or a Spaniard or a German for 1/4 of the price of an English player of the same quality is going to shop abroad.
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FIFA’s ideas about limiting the number of foreign players are not designed to improve the game. Not one bit. As I’ve always said they’re designed to lower the quality of the club game so the decline in quality of international football becomes less obvious. Septic Bladder won’t be happy with the EU’s comments that such a rule is unenforceable and would be a restriction of free movement of workers within the community. What did he expect though? Still, the charade will go on. The next time England fail to qualify for a tournament or get knocked out in the 1/4 finals the bleating about foreigners will start again and the real issues will be ignored again and again.

Perhaps SAF and the others who are upset at the quality of English football would do well to look at the quality of their current head coach. Instead of looking at some of the players coming off injuries or otherwise playing in England like Lampard, Wright Phillips and Hargraves, he decided to fly to LA to check out David Beckham practicing with the Galaxy and playing in a charity game against Hollywood United - a team made up of, among other wannabe athletes, Drew Carey and a guy from Def Leppard. Allegedly:

Since LA Galaxy coach Frank Yallop had just quit rather than continue with the Beckham circus, we might presume the real cause being helped here is McClaren’s job appeal. I hope the FA made him pay for his ticket.

To say the whole thing is Mickey Mouse would be an insult to cartoon characters everywhere.

As the boys on Fox Football Fone-In mention - if Russia manage to beat Israel next Saturday and knock England out of Euro 2008, England will be the last place Stevie will want to be. Even worse if Russia draws and England drop the ball against Croatia.

Finally Barcelona prepare for a rematch against Rangers at the Camp Nou. Despite the abundance of talent in Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi, Rangers were able to hold them at Ibrox to a draw, with American Damarcus Beasly even warning beforehand, “We Wont Stand Back To Admire.” And they didn’t, but this is a whole different ballgame. Rangers actually have a decent chance of making the Knockout round!

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England were half an hour away from qualifying for Euro 2008, putting behind their poor start in qualifying, choice of manager, team selection debates, and goalkeeping errors. Then it happened. The bottom fell out with a silly Wayne Rooney tackle and another Paul Robinson blunder in goal. McClaren reacted in a panic, bringing on Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch too late to make an impact. And now Russia
are in the driver’s seat with a 2-1 victory.

England’s Euro 2008 qualifying hopes were wrenched out of their own hands as they crashed to defeat in Moscow. The result means Steve McClaren’s side must now beat Croatia at Wembley next month and hope Russia stumble in their remaining games against a hopeless Andorra and an Israel side with nothing to play for.

The Russia substitute Roman Pavlyuchenko grabbed both of his team’s goals in a four-minute spell in the second half, cancelling out Wayne Rooney’s delightfully volleyed first-half opener.

Of course the focus will be on the ineffectiveness of Lampard, the hapless Paul Robinson and the “plastic pitch” - an advanced FieldTurf surface which bears no resemblance to the awful Astroturf surfaces of the 70’s and 80’s - instead of maybe focussing on the overrated Wayne Rooney who scores only for his club, and seems to always make boneheaded decisions that cost England. How many penalties and red cards, hot headed challenges, and ineffective play is worth his supposed special talent? Michael Owen and Emile Heskey or Peter Crouch have yielded much better results for England while Wayne Rooney tries to play left back.

Perhaps one can blame McClaren for putting him in the lineup with Owen instead of trying a better combination - as well as sticking with Paul Robinson even with his poor club play (can you remember successive clean sheets for Tottenham?). There’s also keeping the Gerrard/Lampard combination for too long. All topics for spirited debate over the next month until Russia kick off against Israel. Just don’t blame the surface.

UPDATE (10:39pm Paris time):  France’s Thierry Henry has just put 2 past Lithuania with 10 minutes to go - this coupled with Scotland doing what they do and choking against Georgia and their 17 year old keeper means that neither England nor Scotland now look favorites to go through. I wonder what this means for ESPN’s viewership for the Euro 2008 next summer. At least one good piece of news came out. The US finally won in Europe. Michael Bradley scored the only goal against Euro co-host Switzerland to win 1-0. Freddy Adu almost had another.

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There’s footy on TV tonight
Man U play with all of their might
David Beckham’s side,
Real Madrid, try
To look like they’ll put up a fight

Tomorrow it’s Barca and Chelsea
Ronaldinho will give ‘em hell, see
And my new cable package
Let’s me watch all the matches
Just need that large TV from LG

I’m impressed by Olympic Lyon
Juninho and Fred are da bomb
Can they climb the tower
That is Steaua
Or will the Romanians be too strong?

Liverpool sure needs a reuslt
Or Anfield will erupt in tumult
Rafa’s chameleon
Lineups are dealing un-
Rest that is all his fault

CSKA Moscow was tipped
To be the surprise side, but if
They don’t get on
The experts prove wrong
And they won’t sell very many kits

Louis Saha is a star
Rosicky can score from far
But Becks’ touch ain’t Midas
He has tonsillitus
His coach thinks his game is sub-par

Thierry Henry is back
But some fans taunt him cuz he’s black
FIFA is trying
To stop fans relying
On silly, divisive race cracks

Apparently, Frank Lampard has been found
He bulged the net twice on the ground
But John Terry’s in pain
His back spasms won’t wane
And Gallas? On the other side of town

That’s all for now. Enjoy the games

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Up 37-21 with 9 minutes left in the game and they subsequently pissed it all away. Put that coffee down, Spartans. Coffee is for closers. Ugh!! Talk about making the silliest decisions when it matters most.

Florida only beat Kentucky 26-7 at home. Michigan shows that they don’t have a letdown in them. And Penn State played well, but lost as Joe Pa had to use the loo in the middle of the game. Makes me wonder about the classless sign by an Ohio State Supporter that read: ” Joe Pa: Boxers or Briefs? Depends.” Good football team, classless fans.

In other, more pleasant news, Thierry Henry returned for Arsenal and played a lively 90 minutes, involved in in some way in every one of Arsenal’s 3 goals today and the Gunners are firing again.

John Arne Riise has a wicked leg. So does Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s going to be scary if he ever learns to incorporate his dancing within a change of direction burst like Ronaldinho.

Frank Lampard has been found. It’s about time. Chelsea take temporary control of the tables as Portsmouth plays on Monday night.

Fred for Lyon looks to be the next Brazillian wonder striker. And here I was making fun of his name (supposedly pronounced FRE-ji).

Becks was brought on as a sub for the second time in a row for Real Madrid. If this continues, will he really want to extend his time in Madrid or perhaps become a big fish in the small pond here in the US. It may not exactly be the Pele/Beckenbauer New York Cosmos from decades ago, but I’m sure Becks/Djorkaeff or Becks/Donovan will draw a few spectators.

Champions League this week - no interesting matchups to speak of. Maybe Lille vs AC Milan or Inter vs Bayern, but I sure wanna see how Steaua Bucharest handle Fred!
Add a comment categories: Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Steaua Bucharest, Michigan State Spartans, Thierry Henry, Premiership, NCAA Football, Christiano Ronaldo, Fred, Lyon, David Beckham, New York Cosmos, Champions League, Arsenal, Chelsea, Frank Lampard, SOCCER

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