David Beckham to leave MLS to play for England?

David Beckham is ready to leave the Los Angeles Galaxy to play for England in a friendly against Holland in Amsterdam next month, according to The Telegraph website on Tuesday.

The newspaper is reporting that Beckham told the English national team that he is available for the game despite Galaxy coach Bruce Arena objections.

The friendly will be on August 12 and is sandwiched between two Galaxy games. They have a game in Boston against the New England Revolution on the 8th and a home game on the 15th against Seattle Sounders FC.

Holland, who reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2008, is considered an important match for the team.

The attitude of England manager Fabio Capello, however, is that there can be no special treatment for any player while Beckham would consider the schedule to be manageable.

There is also a realisation that Capello believes friendlies are important and it could amount to international suicide for any player to miss an England get-together.

Normally, this would not be a big deal. But it is not good for a player who is getting a reputation as a “me” guy. He  is picking fights with fans and the general belief is that he would rather be playing anywhere else.

This will not go over well if he does go.

Chelsea beats Inter, 2-0 in Rose Bowl

On Tuesday, 81,224 fans packed the Rose Bowl and saw Chelsea down Inter Milan 2-0.

Will Ferrell, Charlize Theron and other stars showed up for this game in the round-robin World Football Challenge.

I thought it was a good game and a good event. There were not 81,000 people there. But I thought it was a good show.

But, it looks like there was someone who thought differently.

What’s More Boring? Soccer — Or A Confirmation Hearing?

From NPR:

The Two-Way  blog from NPR asks what is more boring:

Baseball

Golf

Cricket

Soccer/Football

The Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings

The results: Although it’s early, soccer was last. Golf was first.

America downs Inter Milan in World Football Challenge

Oscar Rojas scored the shootout winner as Mexico’s Club America defeated Inter Milan 5-4 on penalties Sunday in the World Football Challenge.

The next match in the series is at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, where Chelsea will play Inter on July 21. Club America faces AC Milan July 22 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, then on July 24 Chelsea and AC Milan play in Baltimore.

Most of Inter’s top players did not play as these are exhibition matches. I became an Club America fan after spending time in Mexico, so that is who I am rooting for.

Be careful what you tweet soccer players

From Houston Chronicle

Dynamo forward Brian Ching was the first one to get it, along with a $500 fine for what the league deemed public criticism of an MLS official through a comment – or tweet – made on the popular social networking site.

Ching’s tweet to an audience of about 1,800 followers on Twitter: “Ref in Seattle just cheated the dynamo. What a joke. Not even close. Ref is a cheat.”

Ching made the tweet during the Dynamo’s 2-1 loss at the Seattle Sounders on Saturday afternoon. The match was marred by controversy after referee Mark Geiger upheld a questionable goal call in favor of the Sounders, the very play Ching referred to in his tweet.

Author Grant Wahl: The Beckham Experiment – ESPN Video – ESPN

Here is Grant talking about his book. Let me know if it is good or not.

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U.S. Men Move on to Gold Cup Semifinals With 2-1 Overtime Victory Against Panama

The U.S. Men’s National Team got a stunning strike from Kyle Beckerman and a penalty kick in overtime from Kenny Cooper to defeat Panama 2-1 this evening at Lincoln Financial Field and advance to the semifinals of the 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

The U.S. got the game-winner from the foot of Cooper. Looking for the towering forward, Holden struck a pass into the top of the box.

Attempting to collect, Cooper was kicked high in his chest by defender Roman Torres. With a perfect view of the foul, referee Benito Archundia wasted no time in pointing to the spot and giving a yellow card to Torres.

Stepping up to take his own penalty, Cooper hesitated on the run-up before placing the ball perfectly on the inside left post and into the goal.

Penedo guessed correctly, but the bottom corner shot was just out of reach. It was Cooper’s third career goal for the U.S. and first penalty strike.

“It’s fortunate any time you can get a penalty,” said Cooper. “It obviously came at a good time in overtime. Fortunately, it snuck in and the guys did great to hold on defensively.”

The U.S. will face Honduras in the semifinals on Thursday, July 23 at 6 p.m. CT at Soldier Field in Chicago. The match will be broadcast live on Fox Soccer Channel, TeleFutura and the Futbol de Primera Radio Network.

The U.S. fell behind when Panama capitalized on a corner kick during injury time of the first half, but Beckerman struck back early in the second half for the equalizer.

“It was a challenge to the team to be in that spot at halftime and I still felt good that the response was strong,” said U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Bob Bradley. “When we didn’t finish the game in regulation, you still got a sense the mentality was “we’re going to take care of this thing. The players deserve a lot of credit for that.”

Women’s Soccer: Success or Failure

I have to be honest. I do not pay much attention to women’s soccer outside of the World Cup.

I did come across this interesting article in the Chicago Tribune debating the impact of the Women’s World Cup in 1999 and the first-year Women’s Professional Soccer league.

This is where women’s soccer is 10 years after a women’s soccer tournament made the covers of Time and Newsweek and Sports Illustrated, when the team David Letterman called “Babe City” drew by far the largest U.S. TV audience (13.3 rating for the biggest markets) for a soccer match, men’s or women’s.

Some will say the current stature represents failure, especially since the first U.S. women’s pro league, the spendthrift Women’s United Soccer Association, shut down after only three seasons in 2003.

Success and failure are relative terms. It depends on expectations. Are you going to rival second-tier sports like hockey (sorry hockey fans, but it’s true)? Or, do you want to be a very good niche sport and hope for the one breakout star that will attract people to your league.

For example, Danica Patrick bringing fans to IRL. Tiger Woods bringing fans to golf. Soccer wanted Freddy Adu to be that start for men’s soccer, but it has not worked yet.

The article noted that the league has a average attendance of 4,000-6,000. Not too bad.

As long as they are realistic, there is a place for professional women’s soccer on the sports landscape.

Mexico’s Javier Aguiree gone for 3 days

Looks like we got an answer about what the Aguirre question from a previous  post.

From the AP,

MEXICO COACH SUSPENDED Mexico Coach Javier Aguirre was suspended for three matches for starting a melee during a Gold Cup match against Panama, putting him in danger of missing the team’s World Cup qualifier Aug. 12 against the United States.

The Mexican Football Federation was also fined $25,000 for what the Concacaf disciplinary committee called “serious irresponsible behavior” by the Mexican team’s coaching staff.

Mexico did not collapse, but went out and beat Guadeloupe 2-0 on Sunday to win their group and advance to the quarterfinals.

Live on Telemundo: US-Mexico qualifer shown on mun2

The USA and Mexico plays a World Cup qualifier on Aug. 12 at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. American fans will be able to see the English telecasy on the mun2 network at 4 ET. Live blog is here

mun2?

Never heard of it. Not surprised. I will be honest. I saw on ESPN that it was Comcast Digital, which I have. And sure enough, it’s ch. 607 on the dial.

The Spanish call will be on Telemundo which owns the rights to all Mexican National Team matches played in Mexico.

From the Washington Post:

While the main network will carry the game in Spanish, Telemundo senior vice president for sports Jorge Hidalgo told the Insider today that his company will keep the English rights and show the match on mun2, an eight-year-old cable outlet geared toward a younger Latino audience that regularly shows programming with audio in English. The identity of the announcers, who will call the game in English, will be unveiled soon, Hidalgo said.

Telemundo is planning a one-hour pregame show, while mun2 will offer just a few minutes. The video feeds will be identical, Hidalgo said.

Awesome ratings plan geniuses! You force people to watch your channel in the 600s for a game at 4 p.m. on the East Coast, 1 p.m. on the West Coast. So let’s review:

You want to introduce your network for a non-primetime game. Great coordination.

Who wants to take bets that they will force the game back to primetime just to increase their ratings?

However, they are not the only network to do this. The NFL Network does this because they can. They can air its games on its network for better access on the cable dial. It took a couple of years, but the NFL finally got what they wanted.

So how did this happen? Media giants can not play nice and the fans lose in the end.

More from the Washington Post:

Since 2000, Telemundo has had a contract to show Mexican matches on U.S. television. For past USA-Mexico qualifiers at Azteca, the game would end up being shown on an ESPN outlet because the U.S. Soccer Federation had a formal relationship with Telemundo. But for the past two years…..

the USSF has worked with Telemundo’s rival, Univision, which shows USA matches on its main network as well as Galavision and Telefutura.

NBC owns both Telemundo (available in most markets) and mun2 (30 million U.S. households).

Sources told the Insider that ESPN did make an effort to acquire the English rights for the USA-Mexico game. Telemundo, however, clearly sees the potential for a huge audience — on both of its outlets.