Congratulations! You've managed to find a post, published on November 4th, 2008 - Election Day - that contains no scent of politics, polls, or partisanship. In fact, the only spin here will be the one your head will dizzy itself into after reading this post. Some bloggers are compelled to reference politics on such a day. Click to continue reading...

Okay, so beating West Ham -- a team that barely finished in the top half of the Premiership table -- isn't as exciting as, say, Chelsea or Celtic.

But it's still good to see.

Overall the whole day appeared to be a success. A lot of exciting action and goals with the stars in the forefront. Click to continue reading...

Expect David Villa not to be in the line up, the Valencia striker has a muscle tear in his thigh and has been ruled out.

Expect Cesc Fabregas to start. Arsenal's maestro has been having quite a tournament

Expect Michael Ballack to be a gametime decision.

Expect a foul filled initial 20 minutes as the Germans try and break the rhythm of the free flowing Spanish midfield.

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It's pretty sad when two soccer columnists who represent what is supposedly one of the nation's top newspapers are so incompetent and out-of-touch with reality. Last November, I called New York Times soccer columnist Jack Bell a wanker for writing an idiotic article criticizing Fox Soccer Channel for broadcasting the Premier League, the world's most popular [. Click to continue reading...

ESPN and ABC's dreams have come true. Sunday's Euro 2008 final between Germany and Spain is a far better proposition for the Disney owned TV networks than Turkey against Russia would have been. With plenty of German Americans living in the United States as well as a massive hispanic population, TV ratings should be high. Click to continue reading...

Tommy Smyth is an execrable piece of humanity. After the Turkey - Germany match, he condescendingly dismissed Turkey's performance as "No one will remember who played the semi-finals, it only matters who won, and Germany won." He then went into a paean on how Lahm scored a goal which strikers would be well advised to watch.

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Hopefully you saw that one. The Turkey goal that tied the score at 2-2 in the 86th minute was improbable, the Philip Lahm winner in the 90th minute was much less probable.

Turkey is fantastic. That winner was fantastic.

We've talked about Andy Gray recently: he really rose to the occasion, and used his strong accent to humorous effect. Click to continue reading...

Weirdest exchange between Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth during the last two quarterfinal games (tie): 1. On Hamit Altintop Smyth: 'Hamit' means 'golden ball,' you know. Rae: 'Altintop' does. Smyth: Right. Rae: 'Ball that is golden.' Smyth: One or the other. Rae: I'm surprised you don't remember our Turkish lessons during those very pleasant days we spent in Istanbul a few years [. Click to continue reading...

This is a subject near and dear to my heart due to my history of being in the broadcast world over the last few years. I've been working on coming up with some sort of guide for people for when it comes to who they will probably be listening to on a broadcast of a [...] Click to continue reading...

Its a pretty empty studio at halftime for the last round of matches. Rece Davis with Julie Foudy. Its a relief not to hear or look at that gnome Tommy Smyth who pound for pound is the most obnoxious and annoying sports pundit. His buffoonish attempts at humour are usually swatted away by Derek Rae with , "I won't go there.

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Euro 2008 is finally here after the standard mega sports event buildup.  And for ESPN, today is the beginning of their broadcast of the entire tournmanet for the first time.  The network has been rolling the ads for weeks and made a big addition to its on-air talent with Andy Gray.  Now, at last, the coverage itself is the focus. Click to continue reading...

Andy Gray, one of the top football co-commentators and pundits in the world, made his appearance this afternoon not on Sky Sports but instead on ESPN. What Gray gives ESPN is instant credibility, which the network desperately needs if it's to establish itself as an authority on soccer coverage both in the United States and [. Click to continue reading...

So much focus is put on the Champions League Final and what happened during the game that it's often easy to overlook the admirable job that ESPN2 did behind the scenes yesterday. Their production was excellent and what I was most impressed by is that they continued the coverage all the way through until after Man [. Click to continue reading...

 • I miss Tommy Smyth and Derek Rae on the call. I'm assuming they'll be working the Manchester United-Barcelona game tomorrow, but I'm not sure why they couldn't do this game as well... • The first shot on goal came nearly eight minutes in, and it was a relatively slow dribbler from Steven Gerrard. Click to continue reading...

*For those of you who watched last night's US-Mexico match, you just witnessed a star being born.

Thrown into the wolf den known as the fiercest rivalry in North America, the much-heralded Jozy Altidore shined. Even without the deft header he scored to put the States up 2-1, the 18-year-old looked like a man amongst boys many times. Click to continue reading...

Any other DC United fans out there watching the Liverpool-Marseille Champions' League match? I don't know about you, but those all black with white and red trim Liverpool kits are making me feel the long, cold painful hand of winter and the MLS offseason on my still-sore black & red heart of hearts. Click to continue reading...

As you probably would expect, most the news coming out of Anfield is about our 1-0 loss to Marseilles yesterday in Champions League play. What doesn't surprise me is that Rafa is not sharing his true opinion of the match. Why should he? There's no reason to give the English press more fodder to spin.

The only Benitez statement of remote truth that made print was him saying the Besiktas match in three weeks was now a must-win. Click to continue reading...

Dan Loney has some fun here trashing Tommy Smyth and company for their commentary the other night I can't say that I blame him. I've caught Smyth saying some pretty stupid things even when he's had time to think about them. But naming your children after Eric "Waldo" Wynaldo? Calling for him to be president? Please calm down Dan before you do something rash. Click to continue reading...

Well, the happy dance had to come to a close at some point didn't it? United looked to be in the same unstoppable, steamroller form that they've ridden hard through the last month or so as they built a two goal cushion in the early going. But just when things were looking rosiest and Chivas were in disarray, the Perkins debacle gifted them a goal and the wheels fell off. Click to continue reading...