Loge Level

I was posting this because it’s pretty ridiculous. (Link) Mr. Donegan’s point that Hicks and Gillett should show more respect to Benitez because of the Champions League victory might be a fair one.  However, his claim that this is happening because they are American is preposterous. I see no difference in the Liverpool situation than what happened at Tottenham, Newcastle, and Chelsea.  And unless I’m mistaken none of those clubs are owned by Americans.

Great Britain and the United States; two nations divided by an ocean and a wildly differing view of the manager’s place in the hierarchy of a sports team or, if you prefer, sports franchise.

Over here, team managers enjoy great power and influence for as long as they occupy the office. The great ones become legends. They have stands named after them and gates erected in their honour; Shankley, Paisley, Busby, Stein and, when he retires no doubt, Ferguson.

It’s different in the world of North American baseball, where the team manager is the guy who picks the team, executes the match-day tactics and, if he has a strong personality or a death wish, isn’t scared to challenge the club’s general manager or owners - aka. the real bosses - about the club’s signing policies. Nothing more. In baseball, the great managers are no longer exalted, they are treated like day workers, to be summarily dismissed at the owner’s whim, as Joe Torre, who brought great success to the New York Yankees, discovered to his cost at the end of the 2007 Major League Baseball season.

Once upon a time British football fans could afford to ignore this particular quirk of the American sports world. No longer. The recent influx of American money in British football has meant an influx of American attitudes, most notably at Liverpool, which has now been owned by the American pair of Tom Hicks and George Gillett for nine months.

There have been a lot of weird stories concerning Chelsea and animals.

Most recently there was this one concerning a parrot.

A blue-throated Amazon parrot called Chelsea, who screeches whenever anyone mentions Manchester United, has been stolen from his cage.
Chelsea was taken from a garden in North Street in Mears Ashby, Northamptonshire, early on Tuesday. (Link)

Which came on the heals of Jose being arrested for hiding his dog from the police.

JOSE Mourinho’s dog was flown on a private jet to Portugal yesterday at a cost of £20,000. Yorkshire terrier Leya — which had been wanted by authorities over fears it had broken rabies rules — was whisked away from Heathrow by Mourinho’s wife Tami.

The pooch had been hidden since a police raid on Tuesday night by Mourinho, who was arrested and cautioned for obstructing cops. (Link)

While earlier in the year Frank Lampard was in the news when his French mastiff had puppies.

In November Frank Lampard showed that his principal loyalty lies with his French mastiff, Daphne. He refused go to with the Chelsea team to a hotel as Daphne had gone into labour and he demanded to be at the birth. (Link)

CHELSEA superstar Frank Lampard is looking for a lucky fan to give a new home to his two nine-week-old French Mastiff puppies.

The puppies, a boy and a girl, were a part of a large litter born by the England midfielder’s adult dogs Daphney and Rocco. (Link)

Football365.com is reporting that Juan Pablo Angel has agreed to terms with the Red Bulls

Colombia striker Juan Pablo Angel has joined Major League Soccer outfit New York Red Bulls from Aston Villa.

The 31-year-old, who cost Villa £9.5million when they bought him from River Plate in Argentina in 2001, is thought to have signed a two-year contract with the American club.

Football365: RED BULLS GIVE ANGEL WINGS

New York Red Bulls Team Home: Red Bulls acquire English Premiership striker Juan Pablo Angel

Allenby For Heisman! on the Crew’s recent transfer target Guillermo Barros Schelotto.

Just wanted to provide an update on Columbus Crew transfer target Guillermo Barros Schelotto. We at Allenby For Heisman! are still waiting for an official announcement from Major League Soccer or the Crew. But according to SI.com, the deal is done:

Guillermo Barros Schelotto is on his way to Major League Soccer. The Argentine superstar will join the Columbus Crew on a one-year deal that will be announced on Tuesday, according to his representative Gustavo Goñi.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Guille could make his Crew debut as soon as Thursday, when the Crew take on the New England Revolution on ESPN2.

In other MLS transfer news, Columbian forward Juan Pablo Angel of Premier League side Aston Villa looks set to sign with the New York Red Bulls. A4H! will have more on this later in the week. It’s a good signing. Angel is a quality player and Villa’s record signing – he cost the Birmingham club £9.5million six years ago. That’s it for now.

Onward and upward!

We at Allenby For Heisman! have always liked the number thirteen. We patrolled the midfield and backcourt of Allenby High for years in the late nineties sporting the so-called unlucky number. We felt it not only gave us character but also panache. Sadly, our love for the number derailed our attempts at launching a career in motorsports. Or designing tall buildings.

These days, A4H! gets little opportunity to show our love for thirteen. Except on Friday the Thirteenth, that is, when we storm through the day bickering with people who are much more handsome, successful and wealthy than ourselves. The hope, of course, is that we’ll undergo some sort of cosmic body swap. From this swap we’ll learn that the Rich & Beautiful don’t have it quite that easy, and that humble A4H! actually has it made. Right. Which is more believable – that two people can switch bodies, or that the Rich & Beautiful don’t have it made?

As I’m writing this and not kicking it with Spencer and Brody and Lauren and Heidi in Los Angeles, it should be obvious that once again the freakiness of this Friday has passed me by. Oh well, there’s another one in July. On with the weekend news:

–The Worldwide Leader’s Andy Katz joins the Coach Billy Clyde party:

Billy Donovan was the first choice. You can debate whether Rick Barnes was second. Either way, Kentucky hit a home run in hiring Billy Gillispie. He will be married to the job. He will make practice worth watching — or even selling tickets for — on a regular basis. He will be beloved by the Kentucky faithful. Hard to find a single fault in Gillispie-to-Kentucky because he just seems to be such a fit.

Fox Sports’ Jeff Goodman, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too impressed with Coach Billy Clyde, or with the distinction between an arrest and a conviction:

BEST WAY TO GET A JOB: Billy Gillispie was hired at Kentucky despite a pair of DUIs.

Except that Billy Clyde doesn’t have two DUI convictions, Mr. Goodman. He was arrested twice on suspicion of DUI, but neither arrest resulted in a DUI conviction. One led to a reckless driving conviction, and the other charge was dismissed.

–Cristiano Ronaldo inks a new five-year deal with Manchester United. Well, that sucks, doesn’t it? We were really hoping he’d be off to the Iberian Peninsula this close season. Surely he doesn’t see this deal through? Please? [Tangential questions: Would this year’s Liverpool side win the Premiership with Cris Ronaldo? With Didier Drogba?]

–The FA Cup semis are this weekend, with Watford and United squaring off at Villa Park on Saturday while Blackburn and Chelsea play at Old Trafford on Sunday. We second this sentiment.

–In Stateside action, A4H!’s Columbus Crew head to Utah to battle Freddy “I Once Was a Teenage Sensation!” Adu and Real Salt Lake on Saturday at 6 p.m. Jeff Cunningham, last season’s top scorer and Columbus’ joint all-time leading goal scorer, scored twice in Salt Lake’s season-opening draw against FC Dallas. If Columbus can find a way to corral Cunny, and in Marcos Gonzalez we think they will, the Crew will find its first win of the season.

Crew striker Jason Garey, who failed to impress in last week’s season-opening draw against the New York Red Bulls, got some love from SI.com.

It seems like there were a couple of other things we wanted to mention. But there’s still time for a cosmic body swap. So we’re off to imagine how easy the Rich & Beautiful have it. Onward and upward!

Thursday’s are always tough on Allenby For Heisman! We still haven’t mastered the school-to-workforce transition and, frankly, rising at 6.45 a.m. for four straight days is still taking it out of us. (Fridays, on the other hand, are a relative breeze. The promise of the weekend is a welcome adrenaline shot.) Once The Man announces quittin’ time, we like nothing better than to head straight home, kick our feet up, and cue up Magnum, P.I. on the DVR. But A4H! doesn’t write itself, does it? So, instead of settling into our Brooks Brothers Recliner* and watching Magnum, Rick, TC, and Higgins undertake their latest misadventure – no doubt with hilarious consequences – it’s fingers pecking at keys. These are the sacrifices we make.

*Not an actual Brooks Brothers recliner. A4H! doesn’t even think Brooks Brothers makes recliners, or any other piece of furniture. But a guy who lived down the hall from us in our fraternity house – yes, A4H! was in a frat, sorry if we’ve let you down – thought its pattern looked particularly Brooks Brothersish.

But it’s not all good news for you, Reader. As of today, A4H! has declared that Thursdays be MIXED BAG THURSDAYS. Instead of one supremely crafted piece of prose, you, dear Reader, get a hodgepodge of lame and belabored observations and quips that will no doubt leave you decidedly disinterested or completely bored, or both. It’ll be just like the “list” columns that your local sports columnist churns out when he doesn’t have enough for a legit column. (Only one columnist has consistently delivered with the “list” column: the incomparable Chuck Culpepper.) In short, we’re mailing it on Thursdays, but we’re still keeping last week’s promise of more posts.

And with that, on to today’s talking points:

–Careful, Coach Billy Clyde, you’re raising that bar too high too fast.

If someone had asked us last week what our goals for next season were, we’d have asked for three things: 1) A team that again creates a buzz about the program; 2) a team that plays an exciting brand of basketball; and 3) a team that looks like it enjoys playing basketball. Those things have been missing for consecutive seasons, even though NCAA Tournament appearances have always been present.

But next year? Well, Tubby Smith left the cupboard pretty bare, and the odds of turning sixteen straight NCAAs into seventeen looked pretty long. That’s why we were willing to settle for intangible improvement.

But after this week’s happenings . . . what were we thinking? First, there was the news that ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi thinks we’ll be a six seed in the 2008 Big Dance. Yesterday, we had Stewart Mandel ranking the top ten coaches in college basketball. And of course Coach Billy Clyde is on that list, sliding in at the ten spot. (Conspicuous by his absence: Tubby Smith, who didn’t make the “just missed” list or the “also considered” list. No word on whether Dick Vitale’s head exploded.)

So, let’s review: People who (presumably? hopefully?) know much more about college basketball than we do think we’ll be better next year than this year, and they think we’ve made a significant upgrade at head coach.

Now, to revise those expectations: Screw the honeymoon, Coach Billy Clyde, it’s Final Four or bust! (And suddenly all is once again right in Vitale’s world.)

–A word on the Uefa Champions League.

For the third straight year A4H!’s beloved Liverpool will face Chelsea in the Champions League, and for the second time in three years a spot in the finals is the reward. Manchester United and AC Milan play the other semifinal. Next week will bring a preview of the Liverpool/Chelsea clash. But for now, praise for United. Ugh.

We’d so love to say they weren’t that great and Italian side AS Roma were just awful (and there’s a bit of truth in that – the Columbus Crew most certainly wouldn’t have allowed United’s second and third goals). But after Liverpool progressed past Barcelona in the Round of Sixteen, all we heard was how Liverpool were actually quite average and only progressed because Barca were so poor. We got sick of it, and to avoid a case of pot/kettle, we’ll just say United were great Wednesday. A4H! will be sick for the remainder of the evening.

–Twins.

Not Arnold and DeVito. Not Kirby and Hrbek. Once again, we’re talking Guillermo Barros Schelotto, also known as El Mellizo (the Twin) because he has a twin brother. There’s still no word Stateside that the deal is official. But reputable Argentine news outlets say it’s a done deal. We should find out on Monday.

–All together, you be Tom Jackson, we’ll be Chris Berman, say it with us now: Primetime, primetime.

Not Dieon. Major League Soccer. The league makes its ESPN2’s MLS Primetime Thursday debut tonight as the Los Angeles Galaxy play host to FC Dallas. [ESPN2, 10 p.m.] Since ESPN is now paying for the rights to broadcast MLS matches, we were hoping the Worldwide Leader would give the league a bit more visibility. (As we never tire of repeating, nobody does self-promotion like ESPN.) We have seen more commercials and promos on ESPN for the league than ever before. But we haven’t seen a noticeable difference in league coverage on SportsCenter, and there was no feature on the front page of ESPN.com today. But, hey, at least the league got mentioned in Deadspin’s To Watch Tonight. And ESPN Classic had an MLS marathon on earlier today. Baby steps.

And with that, we’re going to settle in for Galaxy/Hoops. Onward and upward!

So, long time between posts. A4H! was stuck at a conference the last two days where I ran into some old friends who were disappointed with the lack of posting. There has been no posting because I didn’t really know if anyone was reading, and it seemed egocentric to carry on. But there are at least two readers out there, so it’s once again fingers to keys for me.

–The big news today, of course, is that Billy Donovan isn’t coming to Kentucky. But I’d decided about a week ago that he wasn’t coming, and A4H! is over the whole Donovan Thing. He’s a great coach, and it would have been brilliant if he’d come. But he didn’t. So I move on.

Now to answer the question on the tip of your tongue: who is A4H!’s pick for UK coach? Billy Gillispie with a bullet. I’ll admit to knowing little to nothing about this guy before the NCAAs started up. I’d really only looked at box scores, which told me that Texas A&M didn’t exactly score a ton of points. And I knew they were very good defensively. This led me to assume Gillispie was a Ben Howland/Tom Izzo/Tubby Smith type. Those guys are all good coaches who have had great success. But A4H! hates that brand of basketball. It’s ugly. It puts me to sleep. And the most gifted kids don’t want to play it.

Anyway, that was my view of A&M. Then I saw the Aggies play twice in Rupp Arena in the first and second rounds of the NCAAs, and I remembered that sometimes it’s a good idea to educate yourself about things before making up your mind about them. (While good practice, this, sadly, disqualifies me from ever appearing on “Around the Horn,” “PTI,” and any number of sports radio programs.)

The Aggies push the ball. They get up and down. They look for good looks in transition. But if those looks aren’t there, they run a patient halfcourt set and don’t settle for bad shots. I think UK fans would have no qualms with his style.

By all accounts he’s a good Xs and Os guy, he’s a workaholic, and he’s a scratch recruiter. What’s not to like?

I now make the following Allenby For Heisman! guarantees: If UK hires Billy Gillispie as coach, we will be hugely successful within three seasons, and he becomes a legend. Fact.

(For further reading on the man and other candidates, check Crazy Gregg Doyel, who also hearts Gillispie (and is becoming an A4H! favorite; something I definitely didn’t foresee)).

That’s UK basketball out of the way. Now a few random thoughts:

–Liverpool FC demolished Dutch club PSV Tuesday in the first leg of their quarterfinal Champions League tie. My beloved Reds now have one foot in the semifinal.

–Speaking of knockout tournaments, I’m watching Major League Soccer side Houston Dynamo take on Pachuca of the Mexican first division in the CONCACAF Champions Cup action on Fox Soccer Channel. Houston took a two goal advantage into this game and looked set to reach the finals of the competition. But Pachuca has already scored twice in the first twenty minutes. Houston is falling apart. It’s looking like an all-Mexican final.

–I’ll be in frigid Columbus Saturday night to watch my Crew open the 2007 MLS season against Red Bull New York. Expect a mini-report early next week. (FYI: Columbus’ status as a massive club has been confirmed.)

That’s all for now. Onward and upward!

No, this isn’t about how much cooler Jay-Z was before he started hanging out with Fallout Boy and making Budweiser commercials. (Of course, I heard on the radio the other day that Beyonce was named the world’s most desirable female, so he’s obviously still doing OK, despite the loss in Street Cred.)

It’s about the end of an era at A4H!’s beloved Liverpool Football Club. Today the club announced it has accepted the offer of Americans George Gillett — owner of the National Hockey League’s Montreal Canadiens — and Tom Hicks — owner of the NHL’s Dallas Stars and Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers. [Link.]

The deal includes financing for the new stadium in Stanley Park and a promise to invest in new players.

I’ll have more to say on this later, but for now, work calls.

Onward and upward!

Related Posts: 
DIC ending negotiations (1/31/07)
West Ham Takeover (11/22/06)

The accolades keep coming for former United States International Brian McBride.  Last weekend football365.com rated him Fulham’s player of the season thus far and this week Chris Coleman claims he is one of the top Premiership transfer ever.

“If you look at it pound for pound, you can’t buy anyone who attacks the ball like he does and score goals like he does. For the amount of money we spent and the service he has given us, it has got to be the best £700,000 that anyone has ever spent.”  (Link)

Earlier on LogeLevel: An appreciation for Brian McBride (12/4/2006)

So A4H! has been away for a bit. The list of excuses runs long: work picking up, training a new pup, indoor seasons overlapping, trying to keep fitness-related resolutions, mourning the passing of another football season, and so on. Anyway, no time for that, so let’s get right to it.

–We begin today with A4H!’s beloved Liverpool Football Club. The Mighty Reds were 2-1 winners over West Ham yesterday at Upton Park. This puts a four-point buffer between LFC and Arsenal – who don’t play another league game until Saturday (and by that time ‘Pool could be seven points clear). The win – Liverpool’s ninth out of its last ten league games (A4H! told you talk of a crisis after the cup losses to the Arse was silly, didn’t he?) – closes the gap on second-place Chelsea to a razor-thin two points and cuts ManYoo’s lead to eight points. Of course, both clubs are expected to extend their leads today; Chelsea host Blackburn while ManYoo host Watford, who are bottom of the league. Nevertheless, crazy things can and do happen in the beautiful game. And who doesn’t want to see a three-horse title race? Come on Watburn! Come on Blackford!

And no, A4H! certainly didn’t forget that the transfer window will slam shut today. The Reds have been in the thick of that, too. Today’s big news is that FIFA have given ‘Pool the green light to sign West Ham’s Argentine midfielder Javier Mascherano (hereinafter Mash or Monster Mash, for spelling-related reasons and as a nod to ol’ No. 24) [Link]. I’ve got a couple of thoughts on this. First, it doesn’t bother me in the least that FIFA waived it’s silly rule about not allowing a player to compete for more than two teams in the same season (the Mash turned out for Brazilian club Corinthians in July and West Ham this EPL season). Maybe I’ll feel different if fans of other English clubs or big European clubs can provide an example of lining up a player, and then being unable to sign the player because of this rule. But I haven’t heard of such a situation. Second, I also don’t mind that the Mash was a massive flop for the Hammers. I saw him play this summer for Argentina in the World Cup and he was good. The player has quality, there’s no disputing it. Whether he can shine in England is certainly a valid question, but Liverpool will provide a better opportunity than West Ham for him to prove it. (Scary thought: if he does come good, how does Liverpool accommodate the Mash, Gerrard, Alonso and Sissoko? Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?) Also, it should be noted that the deal for Mash isn’t official yet.

Today’s other big Liverpool news is that Dubai Investment Capital’s proposed takeover of the club off. DIC have ended negotiations after the club rejected their offer yesterday. [link] The club is analyzing a rival offer from US businessman George Gillett, who owns the National Hockey League’s Montreal Canadiens (yes, the NHL is still around, no, I don’t know what channel Versus is, yes, A4H! sees the irony in a soccer fan poking fun at the NHL’s irrelevancy). As A4H! sees it, there must be something the public doesn’t know about this. The DIC offer seemed almost too good to be true. DIC promised to wipe out existing debt, fund the building of a new stadium, and provide a sizeable transfer kitty. If you’re going to go down the road of selling out to foreign investment (which is a whole other topic best addressed in another post), DIC seemed like the perfect partner. Gillett’s offer, on the other hand, didn’t provide as much financial information and proposed a ground share with Everton. I don’t know what to make of it, but perhaps the DIC offer really was too good to be true?    

–Let me throw in some other Yanks Abroad EPL news: Brian McBride won’t be coming back to MLS this year. He signed an extension with Fulham. Can’t say that I blame him. I would have loved to have seen him back in the States, but this year he’s been the best player on a team playing in perhaps the best league in the world. Why would you walk away from that? … Status Quo’s favorite Yank, Clinton Deuce “What it do?” Dempsey, completed his move to Fulham and has already turned out three times for the Cottagers, though he’s yet to start. In his debut, Deuce fanboys report that he executed the bestest backheel ever! … Oguchi Onyewu finally got his Premiership move. He was linked with loads of clubs, and if you believe his agent, turned down moves to Fulham, Middlesboro, and Real Madrid (which one doesn’t look like the others?), but ended up signing on loan with Newcastle United. He should see plenty of time there as they don’t have a decent center back. It’s a big (perennially underachieving) club with plenty of resources, so Gooch certainly has a shot at success. Best of luck to him with the Barcodes!

–And now for something completely different. A4H! is in the process of writing a cheesy, clichéd sports movie script (is there any other kind?) about a rag-tag soccer team who enter the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup and, against all the odds, progress all the way to the finals. When they get there, they’ll face David Beckham’s Los Angeles Galaxy. (There’s no question that his people will give this the OK. Simon Cowell will love it.) We’re in the developmental stages right now, but so far I know this: (1) the team’s best player has to be a Johnny Foreigner who speaks little to no English; (2) there will be a sweet montage scene where the team gets it all together; (3) there will be some bending of the soccer ball; (4) there will be a fat kid and said fat kid will likely be hit in the groin area at least once; (5) all this movie needs to be a sure fire hit is one of the Frat Pack to star – paging Vince Vaughn, the Brothers Wilson, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, and Steve Carell. 

–That’s it for today. But I hope to offer my take on the Basketball Wildcats and Super Bowl XLI (by the way, if you’re scoring at home, both of A4H!’s picks made it) by the end of the week.

Onward and upward!

Looks like Rocky is an Everton fan.

LIVERPOOL, England — As L.A. prepares to welcome David Beckham, Sylvester Stallone took to the Liverpool soccer field on Sunday.

At the start of Everton Football Club’s Premiership match against Reading, the “Rocky” star held up a blue-and-white Everton scarf to loud cheers from the 30,000-strong crowd. (Link)

PROLOGUE

Welcome to the first installment of the of the Status Quo.  This blog will be a fan’s perspective of any and all things Manchester United.  This is my first such endeavor, so please bear with me.  Let’s get right into it…

DERBY DAY

Saturday marked the latest installment of the Manchester Derby with Manchester City visiting Old Trafford.  Wayne Rooney wasted no time and bagged a goal 6 minutes into the contest.  Louis Saha and Cristiano Ronaldo also joined in as United rolled to a 3-1 victory.  It’s always nice to get a win from a cross-town rival. 

(more…)

Football365.com profiles how McBride became one of Fulham’s most beloved players.

Picture Brian McBride and it’s difficult not to imagine him with blood dripping down his face, or at least a black eye. If anyone can convince Americans that ’soccer’ is not just a sport for girls, it’s McBride - a genuine hard b***ard if ever there was one. (Link)

The Times is reporting that Clint Dempsey will be the next American to move to Fulham.  The move would allow him to join fellow American’s Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra.

West Ham United is delighted to announce that the takeover bid from a consortium led by Icelandic businessman Eggert Magnusson has been successfully completed this morning. (Link)

Yesterday with this message, West Ham announced that they would now be owned by a foreigner, making them the fifth such Premiership team along with Chelsea, Manchester United, Portsmouth, and Aston Villa.  These five teams amount for 1/4^th of the league.  While foreign ownership doesn’t seam to affect the performance of these clubs, this takeover will no doubt effect the debate over whether this ultimately good for the game.