Where do we go from here?

Wow. Out of Champions League. An "easy" draw in Europa League. Then the Reds lose to last place Portsmouth. A terrible run, some terrible signings over the years. Rafa is still in (for now).

And I can't help but throw in a contrast - Man City. Heaps of cash, incredible players, exciting games, they beat Sunderland, a club Liverpool didn't beat, and the sack Mark Hughes.

Embarrassing.

How can anyone seriously support this team? I am one turn away from any club that is built on a open wallet with endless funds (Yankees, Rangers, Chelsea, Madrid), but over the last two years Man City takes the cake. From trying to sign Kaka for a disgusting fee - for ditching Dunne for LESCOTT for a disgusting fee, to going through Sven and now Hughes - what is there to look forward to? Mancini? What player IS Man City? Please.

I guess I should sympathize - because two teams who are really passing each other in opposite directions are at the mercy of their ownership who clearly have their heads up their asses.

Again, can't help but throw out the Blues are nothing more than a poor man's Real Madrid. And it's too bad because they don't have to be. Hughes, I am certain of it, could have gotten the results. But when you are buying the hot shit players and coaches, for 2-5X their worth, you don't have the balance to have truly long-term greatness. Chelsea, who I hate, are essentially the same team as the last year and you can see why they are doing well because there is legitimate chemistry and stability.

Such a messed up era in sports. I think back not even that long ago, within my lifetime anyway, where coaches/managers are brought in and you can look back over a long span of their career with a certain team (especially baseball - Sparky Anderson, Tony LaRussa, Tommy LaSorda etc ...) and see seasons with success and failure - but the teams stuck with them. You can even look at Shankly who wins the First Division in '63/'64 but finish seventh the next year. If this was today, he would be canned and we all know what happens after this.

I shake my head and as much as I flip flop on Benitez I have to say I'd rather be a Red (in their current state) than a Blue any day of the week.

Too slow

Well geez you get tied up for two days and miss the window for a perfectly timed post!! Trying to not always be second place (ok fifth) I went down to BMO Sunday morning to scope out the turf getting all ripped up and shed a single tear. But alas it wasn't the idle machinery and concrete pitch I took note of, it was the missing beer garden and the first time I'd seen the north end completely cleared out. Well, I thought to myself, this really would be a perfect spot to fit a pretty decent permanent stand. The RM Game a good start - hell tear down those stupid VIP bunkers and we'd have a badass south and north end! As noted ... well, everywhere, looks like MLSE (or the Globe and Mail) have set up some futuristic mind reading device around BMO Field. Much like a force field, anyone who breaks it's plain their thoughts will be transmitted to MLSE IN THE FUTURE where they can make it look like they had been planning the whole thing for weeks.

No clue what that was all about.
Either way, here's hoping the north end is for supporters, but knowing those suits it'll probably seats that are $40 a pop and scalpers will now have even more real estate to keep empty.


And not to mention the bubble is where is always should have been.

Late Pass Pt. II

I have no idea if this has been circulated everywhere but I got this link and laughed my ass of... eerr ... I mean LOLMAO!!!


You can see the back and forth which may or may not be real here.
Just to give you a hand with this, the President of France is 5'5. It also would have been 10X more amazing had Ireland won.

This also reminds me about a priceless crank call some comedy troupe in Ireland did pretending to be Steve Staunton wanting the Chelsea manager position. I couldn't find the audio file which is way back somewhere in an episode of World Soccer Daily.

Hats off to the Irish and their sense of humour!

Haven't woken up yet

from this nightmare!
Good grief. Well time heals all wounds, and clearly 22hrs is not enough. You know the links, blogs, forums etc ... so I'll leave you to those devices. Nothing I'll say here you won't be able to find anywhere else. Yes I will leave it at that. I had a decent night despite the 90 minutes of pure hell.

Rode my bike north of bloor for a dinner party and saw this along the way. I threw a quarter on the field for good luck. Should'a parted with a twenty!!


Locked up my trusty ride.


Token screen shot. Yes had to watch it online, and am lucky enough to have a great girl who didn't mind me sneaking away for two hours to whinge and get wasted in a different room.


End of story, end of season. I'm sure there will be some good posts in the future madly bitching about this team - get ready!!

A night at the pub

Well it's been another crazy week. At least I was able to get a sweet vid up for all to see. But gotta keep moving along and keep up the football hustle. Last night was a good one were once again I got to spend some time on AM980 with the man who knows all sports, Norman James. Norman put together a timely panel of myself, a Reds supporter here and abroad, with his good friend Mike Boothman a ManU supporter leading up to the massive match this Sunday.

It went pretty well but it's hard to hold your ground as a Canadian boy through and through who grew up on a steady diet of hockey and baseball and didn't get into football until I was in my teens. It's one thing to talk about the history of your club, but it's completely different when you were actually there to follow them as it happened, as Mike has done.

Norman promised me no curveballs but when he asked me (along the lines of) historically why Liverpool is better than ManU it kinda threw me for a loop. Using what I mentioned above about when I started to follow Liverpool, which was during the Fowler then into Owen era, well it's kinda hard to argue how great Liverpool is - especially compared to ManU. I would feel a bit ... phoney? going on how great they are and titles won in the 70s and 80s that I had no idea were happening at that time. Ask me about the Leafs and Jays from '82 on, ok then, but for me to be honest about my club and my support towards them, I feel like I can really only comment on what I've actually seen. I'm proud to call myself a Liverpool supporter and as I found out earlier this year my link to them is more than an exciting goal scorer or Champion's League title.

I wanted to throw out one more story of being a supporter of Liverpool, but didn't have time. It would have been perfect. My first game at BMO Field (2007 keep in mind) I was walking through the concourse when this stout, grouchy guy in a ManU shirt says to me as I walk by "SHIT SHIRT MATE". I thought it was kinda funny given we were at a TFC game so as I walked back to my seats I saw him again and said, "Hey nice kit MATE. Better luck in Champions League next year, eh?" he came back with something like, "Champions of England! AGAIN!" so my only comeback was "Hey that's great, you can have England, we'll take EUROPE." (Woops I spoke too soon on that one!) By now there are two security guards watching this conversation (bear in mind there was definitely more jibber jabber going on) then he had a doozy where he said "You know what's the best part of being from Liverpool? FORTY-FIVE MILES FROM GREATNESS." Ouch. My only comeback was "Or you could say YOU are forty-five miles from seeing what it takes to beat Chelsea!" (They had just lost the FA Cup that morning to Chelsea). Anyway I had a laugh but he clearly hated me. I'm pretty sure that wasn't Mike Boothman.

With that in mind, Liverpool won at home last year without Gerrard and Torres starting. And didn't have Glen Johnson. So much negativity circling the club they need a massive effort from some unlikely players. COME ON YOU REDS.

Extra! Extra!

Well I figured it out today how to get a few more awesome blogs in during the week that had the whole "no fuss no muss" feeling. Heard about this today (or last night) dorking out to one of too many podcasts.

Apparently this was a game for promotion and at some point this team was winning 2-0. They then found out the team they were up against won 5-1 or something like that. I won't spoil the rest but just watch the other team this is too much.

The countdown begins

270 minutes and counting ...
I don't know how I feel about this whole "most important in club history blalblalb". Please. Personally I'd be more stoked if we were fighting to win first overall, not squeek into the playoffs, most of which will determine on other teams losing. But I like to think that I'm a positive guy. Hey, when I step into BMO Field, I am there to cheer the team on and hopefully watch us win.

I'm back into what my pal/co-host Stephe Perry has dubbed "The Silence Pit" aka Section 105. Swapping tix with Timmy V so he can sit with his dad who is hilarious listening to when a game is going on. I've watched the last two road games with Steve (not co-host Stephe, but Mr. V) and he yells out the most obvious/basic things but TFC can't do it. "CROSS IT INTO THE MIDDLE!! COME ON NOW!!" Hmmm put the cross into the middle? Who'd have thought?! "GO FORWARD!! NO!! NOT BACKWARDS, FORWARD!!!" Holy shit! Sometimes I think Stefan Frei makes more passes than anyone else on the team. I think I will start referring to the team as the broken wheel. It makes sense to me.

But back to 105. Interesting comment from Chris Cummins this week with regards to needing a 12th man today to get behind the team. I will now beat a dead horse. Sorry Chris, in case you were unaware, TFC/MLSE does not promote this kind of behaviour outside of their Marketing Sect .. err.... I mean Supporters Sections. It bums me out that in the next two games, which are super important, missing key players, where the team NEEDS that 12th 'man', that in 70% of the stadium we have to sit and watch in a polite, baseball game/tennis match manner. Because if they/we become overwhelmed with the urge to cheer the lads on - well that is not acceptable and such types will be removed from the grounds. I'm sorry but BMO will never be a fortress in this regulated, carefully constructed way.

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Hey well at least we have the wave!! BARRFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF


Ok, who cares? One hour to go - time to get red!

It's Saturday!

And what a day. The only thing missing is a TFC home game. This weather is disgusting. I almost got in a fist fight biking around earlier when at a red light some jerkoff thinks it's his right to ride his horn trying to make a right turn when I'm waiting for the light to change to go straight through. Do I need to have a copy of the Highway Act every time I go out? Hey man, 20 seconds isn't going to kill you. Take a deep breath, count to ten and say "serenity now".

So that ruined what was an already ruined Saturday due to horrible weather. BUT when taking my sweet time home last night I was able to find this:


I guess it's not that big a deal but considering I'd much rather not step foot in Chapters/Indigo, I was pretty shocked to see this WAAAY at the back in the football section of the magazine rack. I was looking for the Champion's League mag, but this was a nice surprise. I've hooted and hollar'd about the guys who write for this a couple times through My Favorite Year and I just read the sort of Encyclopedia of football in the UK they put out. I want a subscription to this! And this is super nerd but they even have cool shirts - STUFF YER SUPERLEAGUE! HAR HAR HAR!!


Well I'm glad one decent thing happened so far this weekend. And as I look out the window now, it seems to be clearing up! WHoo-Rah!

Can't Stop. Won't Stop.

A busy weekend finally over and now rolling into the usual weekdays of working 9-5 then 7-11. Is blogging considered work? I say yes. Well it is when you are wearing red plaid and have a beard. I have both. Still feeling a bit wiped from a non-stop weekend, which always feels that way when TFC play a home game.

Now that the insane schedule is over from April and May, that one game a month really stands out. And it makes it 10X more important that when I get a chance to add something to RNO it gets taken advantage of. With a completely bananas week of drama with TFC (they suck on Sunday, Dichio retires on Tuesday, Grass imminent on Thursday, De Guzman signs on Friday, and they rule again on Saturday) there was so much to talk about.



The shitty thing was that my two co-hosts for East Side Stand Up (This name IS NOT about that ridiculous chant, which they don't do on the East Side of BMO - they prefer THE WAVE) were out of town and true to form I left trying to find guests to the last second. This has happened a few times this season and I resigned to the fact that I just wouldn't do a podcast. But this time I had in the back of my mind the guys from Some Canadian Guys Talking/Writing About Soccer who I recall reading a post a while back about their podcast on hold or on hiatus so I thought, maybe they'd be up for getting a podcast in and talking shop. Well needless to say it all worked out and they brought along Ben Knight from Onward! to boot! That was pretty cool considering I think that in the first two seasons of TFC (you know, before the 'recession' ruined football coverage in the newspapers here) his and Morgan Campbell's columns were the best in the city.

When we do our podcast it's usually focused on analysis from the game in question from the three of us who all sit in the same section. Tim has a great sense of seeing the game from growing up in London following West Ham United. Stephe has played the game at a high level and still plays to this day and I'm really into Championship Manager. So together I think we can cover alot of different perspectives of what went on that day. But it was really cool to listen to Ben, Squizz and Jamie give their take on TFC - not just from where they watch at BMO but as fans of the team and in the media. You don't always get to sit in a room (well I don't) and talk like that so it was pretty sweet.

But even before that - within two weeks of my last appearance on Norman James THE HOOK I got the call again. Football was the topic of the week and this time Norman hooked (heyoooo) us up with something like 20 minutes on his show. Seriously check out his blog and see how fast this show is growing. One of the reasons we started RNO is because the media in Canada has football (especially Canadian football) as such a low priority, or 5th page news if you will. Regardless of whether or not we are on this show, it is awesome to see that someone is out there willing to give it 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes of exposure. I'm really grateful for being included in that show, but most importantly for the fact that I own the all-time guest appearance title!!

That is right - and you are right Norman, Saturday night I did drink to that!!

A day to reflect

Well two teams in red, up and down results, but not a bad weekend at all. A 3-2 win over Bolton ehhh not the greatest but it'll do as long as it's a win. TFC on the other hand, I think was a bit soft on them considering how terrible they were last weekend. At least they decided to show up for the full 90 minutes this week, even though as some people have pointed out, the finishing needs to be there. I can recall having that conversation that the most frustrating thing with them is it takes them 5-10 chances to convert and leave themselves open to their opponent scoring in their first or second chance. Chicago at home was a game where the Fire hardly had any opportunities, but they scored on them. Either way, after last week a point is a point, I'm just really hoping when they go into Colorado next week it's not another 180 back to the week before.

So yeah, I watched the game at home and took pictures of my TV. Lame!




But after the game I was lucky enough to get called back to go onto the air with Norman James' THE HOOK out of London. This time we talked TFC, an article RN posted that pissed alot of people off, and EPL! Outside of doing our own podcast which is super DIY and totally free-form, it's a little bit tougher being mentally prepared for something live that you don't know 100% what you're going to be asked. I can think of more than one time where I started rambling on about something and halfway through asking myself "Holy shit what was the question again?" Or forgetting the last name of Stoke City's manager. Tony Pulis guys - PU-LIS. So yeah, it's stuff like that that gives you a bit of anxiety because football supporters have zero tolerance for a bullshitter or people who don't have their facts straight. Thank god I make up for it with my good looks.



And last but not least today was a day to celebrate the lord and listen to a slew of football podcasts since WSD is off the air. Well apparently they are back as World FOOTBALL Daily, but it will be subscriber based (which I say go for it), so I have to mix it up. 606 Phone in was first and the host Alan Green is pretty intense. Actually I just googled him - YIKES. Now it's onto Football weekly from the Guardian and it's not half bad. I guess I'll have to try these out to see which is best.

Final note - I know nobody ever comments here but is there a Bundesliga/La Liga/Serie A equivalent of BBC/Times/Guardian football site? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Recovery Room

Wow. Well after last night I'm not sure who was celebrating with these on Friday night more - myself or TFC.


Who knew the starting XI of TFC all had the same BDay weekend as me! What else could explain how after 15mins everyone looked like they were nursing a massive hangover. "Oh man I just tried really hard, ok well i'll take it easy now for a bit". We've harped it over and over the schizo nature of this club, how the second things look pretty good and I have to admit even though we predicted a 1-0 victory it took everything I could think of to not just throw up my hands and say "come on it's a road game against a western division team - we lose 2-0." Well they say listen to your instincts and my instinct right now says we are going to get WHOOPED in Seattle.

I took it easy last night even though I was officially one year grayer, Friday night was when I made a mess of myself. Not to talk about age or partying, but to keep it on the topic of this blog. A few sweet things came through the mail this week that is worth sharing, most notably this:


Pretty much anything of historical reference I'm totally in to, so when Brother Lemoine (check blogroll - the Canadian in a City of Angels) sent me this the reaction was nothing more than "whoa!" Argentina '78 was something else and if you check out the reviews tab, more than one book in there covers that World Cup. Brilliant Orange talks about it from the Dutch perspective and Soccer Against the Enemy from the socio/political end in Argentina.





Now that I'm on the topic of items of historical reference, I might as well show these. A month or so back on my trip to Barca I went to the Nou Camp and the tour was ok, but what I was into was this wall of all the membership cards. It's cool seeing an evolution of design from the past 100 years all on these little 3.5X5 cards.


So as I was walking around the city a few days later ... ok I was going to not specifically mention this to keep as my own secret for when I go back, but hey, I live to give, so I'll pass this one forward. At the main cathedral (you can see in the pic) they have an antique market and there's only two rows of stalls/tents but if you walk down the middle row there is a lady that has these two glass cases and in them is pretty much every Barcelona Membership card from the past 80+ years, as well as tickets to numerous international games from the past fifty years. Well I nearly shit myself.



There you have it - the 50th anniversary membership card, one from 1954 and the 25th anniversary of the Nou Camp 1982 Membership card. A pre-birthday present for myself (fyi they cost 20-30 euros. ouch) BUT in that I also saw this ticket (photocopied in the photo) and thought to myself - oh my buddy rick who works for RedNation, his kids are part Hungarian, this would be cool so they could have a memento to know they have football in their blood from both sides of their family. Well holy shit, do you know about this game?? Look it up. 100,000 people - the first game England loses at Wembly, and in the midst of Hungary's 3-4 year unbeaten streak. Anyway, look it up and if you decide to visit beautiful Barcelona, maybe you could check for me if she has another one of those tickets :)

Jet laaaaag

Ugh. Oh man feeling a bit rough. Is it 9pm or 3pm?? I have no clue. Back from two weeks across the pond working on the man tan and seeing the sights. Tried to squeeze in as much football as possible but had a tough time making that a priority when I was short on time and spent over a week with people who don't really care for the sport. But regardless saw some good stuff. It was cool seeing games and coverage on TV all the time, specifically Bundesliga and Eredivisie. The latter I think would be a sweet league to follow as there is some cool teams, specifically there was alot of VVV highlights with their captain Keisuke Honda who looked pretty damn good. Anyways, let's get to the football specific roll of film. The trip went a little something like this - Barca-Valencia-Sete-Vevey-Berlin-Amsterdam. And here are the highlights:

Started the trip off in a mad dash because I was doing too much bloggin/podcastin/websitin when I should have been packin! So I jump in the cab to rush off to the airport. I live right by BMO field so the guy floors it outta my neighborhood, is flying through traffic, onto the highway ... EAST. I'm just sitting there waiting until this moron realizes that Pearson is not located downtown Toronto. Finally he says "Ummm. Hmmm. I think we are going the wrong way. We might need to turn around." REALLY? YOU THINK? MIGHT? HOW ABOUT TURNING THAT METER OFF PAUL TRACY CUZ I'M NOT PAYING TO SIT IN TRAFFIC DOWNTOWN. So after that I finally arrived to the airport, rushed to the nearest bar and snapped this picture off that pretty much summarizes Team Canada. Tough loss guys.


Flew into Barca here and wanted to find where Espanyol is playing this season but for real I think you really won't find much in this city unless you know where to go because it's 100% Barcelona FC. After getting settled in, went up to Camp Nou but this time (I've been once before) decided to take the stadium/museum tour.


First thing you do is watch this super cheesy 3-D movie that left me thinking man this is going to be the most ghetto tour ever, but it actually wasn't that bad.


No grass on the pitch yet but pretty impressive inside. I am such a loser that I was here before when a game was going on (Getafe, so give me a break) and didn't go.



Maybe MLSE should take a good hard look at this.


The museum has cool historical memorabilia of posters, uniforms, membership cards and whatnot.


The Treble!


This was a bit of a sight - seeing tons of people just standing around the outside fence watching players board the bus to training.



So after that I headed down to Valencia. I unfortunately only had one day and could not get to the Mestalla BUT, I thought to myself, I can definitely get down with a Valencia kit or shirt, their crest is pretty badass. Until I saw THIS:


WTF! Have some dignity! UNIBET? Ok, maybe not the name but that is the ugliest logo ever and those shirts look brutal. I couldn't get out of that team store fast enough. So instead my hard earned money was spent at the bull ring. I did not go in because it had already started but it was super loud and I bought a sweet t-shirt on the street of a bull chucking a matador out of the ring! GO VEGETARIAN!!


So after a few more days around that area of Spain I drove up to Berlin, which took about three days. Stopped in Switzerland and had to practice my Italian.


Continued north and on the way saw ... HOFFENHEIM!


AND THIS. This picture does not do it justice, trust me it was a monstrosity.


My battery died in Berlin and had to wait a day to buy an adaptor. Rolled into Amsterdam but could not get to the stadium. Instead just found a few things here and there and watched football on TV late at night.




Good times, sucks to be back in a way but stoked to get to work on RedNation starting tonight with the TFC game. Missed alot of action over the last two weeks. My only regret was missing Liverpool play Espanyol in Barcelona, I seriously should have looked at the schedule and flown out of there. Another trip, another bungled football experience. Oh well, it's good to be home and being able to see TFC!

Those are some lads

Whoo-Ah! Top of the group to ya! Wow what a difference a year makes. Now I won't get into theories and all that hippy mumbo jumbo but I'm sure if we all thought real hard we can figure out why Canada is doing well this Gold Cup. But it doesn't matter to me. I'm a "what have you done for me lately" kinda guy and right now it's winning!

The one thing that has sucked for the last two games was I've had to watch them on my computer. What a pain in the ass. My roomie was watching Eastern Promises on Tuesday night and tonight, unless I am a complete moron (there will be NO COMMENTS allowed on that subject, thank you) I did not see it on sportsnet. So I was subjected to the absolute worst commentating on this Setanta feed I was getting. These guys had no clue who was on our team or what they played. I mean, apparently our keeper was none other than body building guru Paul Sutton.


If that wasn't enough, I had no idea that our starting striker was none other than former WBC Middleweight Champion, Julian Jackson. That is right, never mind that he is now 48 years old, the guy can score! How many footballers can say they beat Terry Norris AND Thomas Tate?!


And let's not forget about the El Salvador game that I watched on some latino feed. At least I wasn't subjected to fake players. But I was subjected to this amazing commercial.



Guys I know what you're thinking - I WISH THEY MADE THIS FOR MEN!!

BEHOLD!


In conclusion, TV on the internet is fabulous. Team Canada are a real motley crew, but get the job done. And in future Setanta commentator, this is Simeon Jackson:


THIS is Julian Jackson