Manchester City vs. Burnley Live Blog

Free Stuff!!

So first off, apologies for 10 days without a post. I've been rather busy, however over that span I estimate I've watched around 30 matches, so look for thoughts on those later in the day.

But, to the point of this post! (Sorry if this reads like a terribly narrated story, was just so excited about it.)


When I got the mail in today, I was puzzled to receive something labeled Royal Mail. I figured it was junk, then realized I had sent in for a Times Online Wall Chart around 2 weeks ago. I opened the package and to my surprise, they had actually sent me a full sized wall poster.


The poster had previews of all 20 teams, with information on celebrity fans (my favorite- Mikail Gorbachev is an alleged Wigan supporter), title odds, and fixtures. The back side features a graphic on England's run to the World Cup.


I haven't even looked at the information on the poster, but the point of this post is to give loads of credit to the Times of London, first that they would give a poster like this away free to readers in the UK. And secondly, that they would give it away free to a person like myself in the United States, and on top of that pay for airmail postage to send it to me. Fantastically great of them.


The offer closes TODAY, so if you want one you still have some time. Go to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/commercial/article6741578.ece

all they ask for is e-mail and home address.

Thanks again Times!

Carling Cup Darlington v. Leeds

This Monday evening in Britain, Leeds United travel to Darlington for a Carling Cup 2nd round tie. Most fans know the sad tale of Leeds United, who reached the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2001 only to go in a massive financial tailspin. In 2007, LUFC would have clinched automatic promotion, if not for a 15 point deduction to start the season, instead they lost in the promotion play off finals. Leeds lost in the promotion playoff semifinal round last season, and still are toiling in League 1.
Darlington FC won the Premier League title in 2009, behind 30 goals from CF Jozy Altidore. Alright, that was only on my copy of FIFA 07. In real life, Darlington have been mired in League 2 since 1992. The Quakers have scrapped their way to middling finishes over the past two seasons, and this year will be hoping to improve. Darlington recently came out of administration, one of the main reasons being their arena, Darlington Arena (officially it's sponsored by some company and is so named, but has had a multitude of sponsors since it's inception, so I feel safer with Darlington Arena.) Anyways, the Arena seats 25,000 but Darlington only pulls 3,000 a game, which is understandably quite draining on the money supply.

This match comes our way 1:30 Central Time, on ESPN360.com and myp2p.eu.

Love Them or Loathe Them Part 1: Tommy Smyth

Welcome to a new feature here on Football Is On, "Love Them or Loathe Them". This blog is about watching the beautiful game, so logically it follows that we should talk about the various faces and voices you will run into while watching games. For Part 1 we will start off with an easy target, Mr. Tommy Smyth. Tommy has been working for ESPN since 1993, calling Champions League and World Cup games here in the States and various other leagues for ESPN international. So why do people

Loathe Him?

- His accent, the man has been here for 46 years, yet somehow his accent continues to grow more Irish. To me, it's a demonstration of ESPN's line of thinking 16 years ago, "Oh he's foreign, he must know the game."
-His sayings, "The auld onion bag", "That's Smyth with a y" , grate on people to no end.
Strangely, the reasons people loathe him are much the same as those who

Love Him

-One of my friends from school, whose soccer watching is limited to Champions League on ESPN, loves Tommy Smyth. He loves the accent, and claims Tommy really knows the game

-The same friend also uses the phrase "Auld onion bag" regularly when talking about the game

-I did a search of "Hate Tommy Smyth" in writing this post, and there was a surprising lack of vitriol out there towards the man. Yes, people certainly dislike him, but there were far more defending him than I would have thought.

So how do you feel? Please vote in the poll below.

Tommy Smyth, Love or Loathe?

Love Him?

Loathe Him?

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Catching Up

Yesterday was football filled, unfortunately it wasn't blogging filled for me. Here's a little recap of the games I took in yesterday.

West Brom 1: 1 Newcastle

This one was really entertaining. West Brom edged ahead in the 39th minute on a goal by Shelton Martis. After a scrum in front of the net during which Newcastle striker Shola Ameobi kicked keeper Mark Harper in the face Martis emerged with a goal. West Brom should have been 2-0 in front early in the 2nd half if not for some excellent work by Newcastle substitute keeper Tim Krul who made several excellent saves throughout the day. In the 55th minute Newcastle equalized after a fantastic build up. Damien Duff finished with class and both sides were set to share the points. After a Gutieriez handball, West Brom was awarded a free kick, which Jonas Olsson headed home to put them 2-1 up. Unfortunately for the Baggies, the goal would be disallowed, assistant referee Simon Beck rightfully flagged Olsson offside, and this one finished up 1-1.

Lightning round now, some quick thoughts on a bunch of games that I caught at least part of.

MLS Columbus 3:0 San Jose

Held at Candlestick Park, over 40,000 will be creditied with seeing this one, while in reality it was probably closer to 10,000. After a dire first half Columbus scored a two goals in quick succession in the 69th and 73rd'. Substitute Adam Moffat put the Crew 3-0 up in the 86th. Other than the goals nothing really notable happened in this one.

Real Salt Lake 1: 0 Seattle

Robbie Findley ran onto a long goal kick from Nick Rimando and rolled past Kasey Keller in the 62nd minute to give RSL a win. Seattle's puzzling run of form continues.

Charlie Davies and Sochaux got off to a good start with a 1-0 win over Auxerre. This morning Kenny Cooper's 1860 Munich also won their opener 2-0. Davies played the last 20 minutes for Sochaux, while Kenny Cooper started and scored 1860s opening goal. Good for him.

At this moment Borussia Moenchengladbach have raced out to a 3-0 lead against Bochum. American Michael Bradley picked up a yellow card in this one, thus validating Andrea Canales squad selection for Mexico- just kidding, that was still absolutely crazy.

Chelsea- Man United is also on FSC as we speak. Nani had a nice strike in the 10th to put United up a goal.

I'll be back later today to wrap up Chelsea-United and preview tomorrow. Plus a feature on Tommy Smyth.

A Saturday Morning Preview

Kick-off weekend around Europe continues tomorrow as France's Ligue 1 swings into the the 2009-10 season. Champions Bordeaux wait until Sunday to start their league campaign against Lens, but tomorrow still manages to serve up a couple of interesting matches. While 2nd and 3rd placed teams Lyon and Marseille are both in action tomorrow, my focus will be slightly down the table, watching FC Sochaux take on AJ Auxerre in Auxerre. American footy fans hope to see Sochaux new signing Charlie Davies feature in this one, I for one am inclined to see how the French people's delicate sensibilities react to a goal celebration tastefully named the "Stanky Legg". When watching tomorrow you may hear a commentator remark that all of Auxerre is inside the stadium, for once this may not be too far off- with a capacity of over 24,000, the Stade l'Abbe Deschamps seats over half the town's population of 40,000. In other Americans in France action tomorrow, Carlos Bocanegra's Rennes is in action against Boulogne.

The Coca Cola Championship continues tomorrow, with a tilt between Newcastle and West Brom. When West Brom was last in the Championship in 2007-2008, they played some pretty football and were rewarded with a promotion to the top flight. That same pretty football went on to net them a bottom of the barrel finish in the Prem last season, while Stoke uglied their way to twelfth with a combination of hard tackling and long throw ins. It will be interesting to see tomorrow what style new boss Roberto Di Matteo opts for. For Newcastle, their preseason has been a comedy of errors, from the disastrous away kit, to the prolonged sale of the team, to the stunning 6-1 defeat to Leyton Orient. One wonders if Alan Shearer will consider just making it to the Hawthornes without something tragic happening on the bus a success.

I may also try to catch the Norwich City-Colchester Coca Cola League 1 match, as readers of Unprofessional Foul have read so much about them that they feel like fans themselves.

Some loose ends to tie up: I'm working hard on the blog roll to give everyone their proper shout outs. Hopefully that should be done soon. If you are looking for online streaming options and haven't heard of it, the Veetle player has done a great jop for me so far. Don't think I've forgotten about all the good MLS action tomorrow, I didn't want to include it in this post because it was long enough already, I should get that post up sometime tomorrow morning.

Early Friday Recap

Vfl Wolfsburg 2: 0 VfB Stuttgart

The Bundesliga kicked off this afternoon with a good match between Wolfsburg and Stuttgart. The first half was a lively affair that saw a few long range efforts from both sides be parried away by goalkeepers. In the 27th, Stuttgart worked a nice move that involved 2 backheeled passes, but the final ball fell just out of reach. For the first 20 minutes after the half time break, Stuttgart looked like they were going to walk out of the fortress that Wolfsburg have crafted out of VW Arena with a well earned point. In the 70th minute however, Zvjezdan Misimović dashed the Reds hopes with a super strike from the top of the 18 that curled around Jens Lehman and into the left side of the net. Things turned even bleaker for VfB in the 80th minute when defender Christian Träsch broke his left hand and could not continue. Stuttgart had already made all 3 of their allotted subs, meaning they had to play the last 10 minutes a man down. Grafite is a tough enough man to contain with a full side, and Stuttagart's 10 man side was no match for him. The Brazilian broke through in the 83rd minute and rolled the 2nd goal past Mad Jens. Watch the goals here- http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/3143075/

I watched this one on GOL TV, this was my first experience with the channel. Some thoughts:

-Play by play man Phil Schoen was solid throughout the match, his best attribute was how little he said that annoyed me, something that can not be said for many other American commentators.

-I doubt the GOL people were controlling the cameras, but whoever was at the controls struggled a bit, a couple times Stuttgart or Wolfsburg would have the ball at the top of the box, but the camera inexplicably would be showing the action from the other side of the field

- I know ESPN took a lot of junk during the 2006 World Cup for taking up the screen with their bottom line and full screen pop-ups, but GOL TV and Univision have taken to doing the same things. I don't know why GOL had the urge in the middle of the match to shrink the game down to 1/4 size to show me their lineup for tomorrow, but it's a small quibble I suppose.

In the other match I teased earlier, Boro drew with Sheffield United 0-0. My online stream was finnicky throughout and I really don't think I have much of value to add to that one.

Look later tonight for a preview of tomorrow's action, including what I hope to be Charlie Davies' debut with Sochaux.