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[Osorio]

:lol Seriously, how have they not fired him yet?

It shouldve happened last year.

 

[Cornballer]

14,000+ posts now. I wonder how many we can get before August 1st. With the transfer market and a few tournaments going on, we're still racking up the posts.

 

[Osorio]

I think it's time for more MLS talk.

So Cornballer, how's it feel to get your team back?

 

[Cornballer]

I'm pretty fired up about the whole thing. There are still a few things that have to fall into place for the stadium deal to work out, but it's moving in the right direction. I guess the strange thing will be having our team back, but at the same time having just about all of the former Quakes in MLS with other teams (and most of them with Houston.) Weird.

Angel is on the tear right now - you have to be happy about that. Interesting that Arena is resting Altidore a lot right now. Sort of surprised with the decision.

 

[Osorio]

I'm fine with it. I think Arena appreciates the international game more than most MLS coaches due to his former position. Thus, I'm thinking he wants Jozy to do well at the U-20s.

As for the Quakes, I hope they do well having a whole new staff. All I know is that it's good to have them back. They were a respectable team, and I know once that stadium gets built it should be pretty full.

 

[Karakand]

You're a braver man than I am.

More like a glutton for punishment. :lol The only club I root for that's got an outside chance for success in the current / coming season is Juve.

 

[Cornballer]

I'm fine with it. I think Arena appreciates the international game more than most MLS coaches due to his former position. Thus, I'm thinking he wants Jozy to do well at the U-20s.

Good point. And RBNY are still playing well, so I guess the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra works here.

As for the Quakes, I hope they do well having a whole new staff. All I know is that it's good to have them back. They were a respectable team, and I know once that stadium gets built it should be pretty full.

Undoubtedly there will be at least a year of awfulness like most recent expansion teams, but that's ok. Great to just have the team back and get work done on the new facility.

More like a glutton for punishment. :lol

That's a much more apt description.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Undoubtedly there will be at least a year of awfulness like most recent expansion teams, but that's ok.

Hey ya never know. They could win the MLS Cup their first season and then fade into obscurity 10 years later.

 

[Cornballer]

Hey ya never know. They could win the MLS Cup their first season and then fade into obscurity 10 years later.

:lol I actually wrote "all expansion teams" the first time around, then I remembered the Fire's run. You were in the MLS Cup against the Quakes in 2003(?), which wasn't that long ago.

 

[Osorio]

Good point. And RBNY are still playing well, so I guess the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra works here.

They could be playing better but I guess 3 points in 3 games isn't bad for a road trip. Hopefully people will come out for the team and energize what I feel is a must-win game against Kansas City. If anything they should also play for revenge on that horrible game 2 Saturdays ago at Arrowhead.

 

[Osorio]

:lol I actually wrote "all expansion teams" the first time around, then I remembered the Fire's run. You were in the MLS Cup against the Quakes in 2003(?), which wasn't that long ago.

=/ At least your teams have made it to an MLS Cup.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Pfff, soccer

 

[Cornballer]

=/ At least your teams have made it to an MLS Cup.

True, but NE have been in 3 of the last 5 and lost every time.

 

[Karakand]

Hey ya never know. They could win the MLS Cup their first season and then fade into obscurity 10 years later.

Hey now, the Fire are Lamar Hunt Cup monsters.

 

[Osorio]

Pfff, soccer

Read it:

David Beckham is going to the LA Galaxy. Hurrah. Let's all laugh at American soccer. Again.

Modern Englishmen are in two minds about Americans playing proper football. Some think it only right the poor benighted heathens be gifted the game historian Eric Hobsbawm rightly described as an artform. But others fear it'll make Americans more like us and therefore much more difficult to despise.

I am firmly in the former camp. Public toilets, atheism, publicly funded radio and association football - these are all things of which no society can have too much. Witness the fact that soccer-playing America is massively liberal, loving, caring, socially conscious and nice. While soccer-hating America consists of increasingly isolated gangs of Bush-supporting, bible-bashing, gun-crazed, dungaree wearing, banjo-playing, quasi-fascist chicken-lovers and their twelve fingered, pin-headed, cyclopic, drooling monster children.

Alas, Englishmen who live in desperate fear of an American soccer planet are legion. As the recent spate of stories about US businessmen buying British clubs and Goldenballs relocating to LA proved, there's no shortage of stuck up limey soccer snobs who still think it's frightfully funny the ghastly Yanks play the round ball game at all.

Like most prejudices, this hatred disguises fear. Recently a leading English soccer journalist told me he "really hopes football fails in America". Others are less blatant but they make their loathing plain through sarcasm, satire and snidery.

You know whom I'm talking about. Reader, I am about to piss on my chips. I will not only bite the hand that feeds me, I will take the arm off at the shoulder. For no one has mocked American soccer more consistently or with more vigour than the sneering, primly moustached, stiff-lipped cads of the Guardian Unlimited Sports desk.

It's always been thus. In the 1970s, when the star-studded New York Cosmos were filling stadiums during the first American soccer revolution, Roy of the Rovers found himself playing Stateside for the Pine City Pirates. Roy was appalled by the shallowness, ballyhoo and sheer incompetence of American soccer. "I thought I was going to learn something by coming to the States!" he moaned. "I didn't dream I'd have to teach them how to play the game!"

And who could forget the 2002 World Cup and Gary Lineker reading from a typically and hilariously stoopid Yank match report: "Wolff procrastinates over a sideline handpass and is ref-charged for clock abuse" and "he top-bodies the sphere into the score-bag, and Mexico have a double-negative stat!"

Oh those pig-ignorant cack-gobbed Yank wankers! How we laughed. What more confirmation could we possibly need that these gibbering, thumb-fingered mouth-breathers will never understand the beautiful game?

 

[Cornballer]

Here's the rest...

Then Bex signed for the LA Galaxy-and the whole sad circus started all over again.

Trouble is, the joke tells us nothing about America or American football (or "soccer" as those crazy, propeller beanie-wearing goofballs call it!!!!!!!!!!!!). And it tells us everything about us.

We - a substantial chunk of us, anyway - are desperately scared that association football will succeed in America. That the USA will become a footballing power. That the yanks will develop a version of the beautiful game as irresistible as jazz, rock'n'roll or the amazing American language (and unless you've checked the English/American phrase books handed out to GIs in 1942, you probably have no idea how much American you speak, limey).

Why are we scared? Because as a nation we have a desperate need to feel superior to the vibrant barbarian culture that's replaced us as top global ass-kicker.

Face it, feeling superior to Americans is about all we've got left. But the list of things we actually do better than the Yanks is slim and getting slimmer. Did you know that the bastards even brew decent beer these days?

So what have we got left to be smug about? Wensleydale cheese, Ricky Gervais, Theakston Old Peculier and Helen Mirren. And, oh yeah, football.

Sorry, the Yanks get it. Not all of them. Not even most of them. But enough of them. Even if Bex bombs. Even if the MLS collapses, American soccer isn't going away.

It's time for a new joke.

Spoiler

Funny, I was about to post that....

 

[hadareud]

pfff ... the guardian

 

[Karakand]

True, but NE have been in 3 of the last 5 and lost every time.

DC : Galaxy :: Galaxy : NE

 

[Osorio]

True, but NE have been in 3 of the last 5 and lost every time.

No wonder the two teams' fans are so nice to each other.

 

[Mama Smurf]

I don't dislike Americans getting into football, or even that they call it soccer. I don't even dislike America, I'd choose to live there over the UK if it was as easy as that.

What I have a problem with is people talking about in my thread in my presence. My presence. Me! I'm beginning to regret mixing with the little people, have you seen my post count?

 

[hadareud]

:lol

 

[Karakand]

I never understood why people hate on us using "soccer".

From alteration of [I]assoc.[/I], abbreviation of [I]association football[/I].

Basically you're hating on us for using "don't"! Efficiency is the wave of the future!

Spoiler

I usually call it futbol, though that doesn't really work in speech as well as text.

 

[Cornballer]

What I have a problem with is people talking about in my thread in my presence. My presence. Me! I'm beginning to regret mixing with the little people, have you seen my post count?

Spoiler

 

[Osorio]

Don't worry Mama the EPL only starts in 2 months.

 

[hadareud]

in unrelated news, the goonernews website is trying to install a trojan on my pc

this truly is the summer of transfernews horror for arsenal fans. even if there's good news, it's bad news.

 

[Cornballer]

in unrelated news, the goonernews website is trying to install a trojan on my pc

this truly is the summer of transfernews horror for arsenal fans. even if there's good news, it's bad news.

This seems to imply there was good news on the transfer front....

 

[hadareud]

not yet, but it's only a question of minutes until nothing at all happens.

I consider that good news

 

[Mama Smurf]

I think the hatred of soccer is just a byproduct of another sport called football, that has little to do with playing the ball with the feet.

 

[Wes]

I don't dislike Americans getting into football, or even that they call it soccer. I don't even dislike America, I'd choose to live there over the UK if it was as easy as that.

What I have a problem with is people talking about in my thread in my presence. My presence. Me! I'm beginning to regret mixing with the little people, have you seen my post count?

Let's have an indepth look shall we?


Total Posts in thread: 14,020
Mama Smurf's posts: 2,252

= 16.06%

The thread started on the 7th of October 2006. So that's 252 days.

That gives us an average of just under 9 Mama posts a day.

The forum only allows one post ever minute. Lets say on average Mama's posts (ranging from the small :lol posts to the mega theory/facts wham job he sometimes does) would take about 30 seconds for each "post".

That's 67560 seconds combining all his posts.
Or 1126 minutes.
Or 18.77 hours.

So basically Mama has spent a day of his waking life (I'm going to say he gets about 6 hours sleep, but he probably dreams about this thread for part of that) CONTRIBUTING TO THIS THREAD.

Now give the man some ****ing respect. I, for one, love him for it.

 

[Karakand]

I think the hatred of soccer is just a byproduct of another sport called football, that has little to do with playing the ball with the feet.

That's rugby's fault.

 

[bud]

Let's have an indepth look shall we?


Total Posts in thread: 14,020
Mama Smurf's posts: 2,252

= 16.06%

The thread started on the 7th of October 2006. So that's 252 days.

That gives us an average of just under 9 Mama posts a day.

The forum only allows one post ever minute. Lets say on average Mama's posts (ranging from the small :lol posts to the mega theory/facts wham job he sometimes does) would take about 30 seconds for each "post".

That's 67560 seconds combining all his posts.
Or 1126 minutes.
Or 18.77 hours.

So basically Mama has spent a day of his waking life (I'm going to say he gets about 6 hours sleep, but he probably dreams about this thread for part of that) CONTRIBUTING TO THIS THREAD.

Now give the man some ****ing respect. I, for one, love him for it.

how the hell can you see how many times/if someone has posted in a thread?

 

[Mama Smurf]

While I do deserve everybody's respect, I must point out that the thread started on the 10th of July. You're getting confused by the American dating, which for some reason goes months, days, years, rather than putting them in order.

 

[Cornballer]

Now give the man some ****ing respect. I, for one, love him for it.

C'mon, you know we all <3 Mama. We just needed to get the fake cross-Atlantic slap fight over with sooner or later.

 

[Wes]

how the hell can you see how many times/if someone has posted in a thread?

 

[Wes]

While I do deserve everybody's respect, I must point out that the thread started on the 10th of July. You're getting confused by the American dating, which for some reason goes months, days, years, rather than putting them in order.

The swines! So that just lowers your post-a-day ratio a tad. Still impressive and worthy of devotion though.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Absolutely.

 

[hadareud]

I really think we are forgetting about the most important thing here:

the man that birthed, tweaked and goosed this thread. A person whose posts, while mostly useless, have contributed hugely (by number) to this thread.

 

[Mama Smurf]

I really think we are forgetting about the most important thing here:

the man that birthed, tweaked and goosed this thread. A person whose posts, while mostly useless, have contributed hugely (by number) to this thread.

See, it was going so well, and then you've gone and put yourself down there. That's why you'll never be a Mama Smurf. Or a Jose Mourinho.

 

[hadareud]

yeah, but who cares. I just won the league with Arsenal in FM.

With the FA cup final still to come I do not fear any comparisons.

 

[Mama Smurf]

I once kissed a girl.

 

[Wes]

yeah, but who cares. I just won the league with Arsenal in FM.

With the FA cup final still to come I do not fear any comparisons.

SCREENSHOT OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN111

 

[hadareud]

SCREENSHOT OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN111

I once kissed a girl.

:lol

screensh... I mean pic or I didn't happen

 

[Mama Smurf]

I'd post a pic but I need her permission, she's got an embarrassingly large adam's apple.

How much do you think Hollywood is praying Beckham wins the league with Madrid this Sunday? Talk about the ideal movie ending, "BECKHAM" will be in the cinemas within a year.

 

[jamesinclair]

14,000+ posts now. I wonder how many we can get before August 1st. With the transfer market and a few tournaments going on, we're still racking up the posts.

Why cant this thread follow the calander year?

August 1st is such a random and arbitrary date.

 

[Mama Smurf]

The majority of us are European or follow the European leagues. Those leagues go, roughly, from August to June. We're following a season, not a year.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Giggs has got an OBE and Sheringham has an MBE in the honours.

Not that it's ever going to happen, but I'd turn down anything like that. I don't have too much problem with them being given out, but they're worthless and would just piss me off. I don't want letters after my name, and I don't want it mentioned all the time like it means anything.

It's like when people meet the Queen and are told how to address her. No, **** that. I don't mind us having a monarch, but no one's telling me how to address someone, I already know how. I'll be polite and friendly like I am with everyone, what's with this formal crap? I'd be seriously tempted to give her a hug just to piss these people off.

...nobody's ever gonna let me meet the queen.

 

[Steroyd]

I never understood why people hate on us using "soccer".

Not people English.

We created the beautiful game for you to play but no the yanks had to be different and make their own football minus the foot part.

Don't get me started on rugby comparisons.

Armour?
Throwing the ball forward?

HA!!

It's 1am and I'm grumpy need to sleep.

 

[hadareud]

it's difficult to refuse though. It's somebody giving you a gift basically. Like receiving some key or needle from your city or something.

I agree about the monarchy crap though.

 

[Mama Smurf]

I could fix all the American sports, no problem.

Ice Hockey - it's fine already

Basketball - make the court three times longer

A Football - get rid of all the stoppages, just keep going, no padding or helmets either

Baseball - remove the ball, put a few walls and structures around the field for hiding places, have the batter chase the other team around the stadium, beating them to death until one remains standing, who then takes the bat and does the same to the other team. The two left are given a bat each and go at it until only one live player remains. These single players are collected together after their matches and go to the grand showdown, where they all have bats, and THIS last man is the king of baseball, until the umpire strikes him three times over the head and no more baseball players are left

 

[jamesinclair]

The majority of us are European or follow the European leagues. Those leagues go, roughly, from August to June. We're following a season, not a year.

Football is a world sport, and most leagues in the Americas, and all leagues in the southern Hemisphere follow the calander year.

Add in various tournaments (UEFA Cup, Sudamericana) which start towards the end of the year, and it makes more sense to follow the calander year, since theres no real start and stop point in football.

The 2007 Club World Cup in December uses teams who are classified in April (Oceania, CONCACAF), May (Europe), June (South America), November (Asia and Africa). (All 2007)

I think all the confederations should be in the same year/thread.