The Groundsman’s Shed

-After an unfortunate 0-1 loss to Spain earlier this month, and the excruiatingly dull 2-0 loss to England I witnessed at Wembley, the United States men’s national team got an exercise in ego boosting with an 8-0 trouncing of Barbados in a World Cup qualifying match on Sunday.  The scoreline looks pretty awesome, but the opponents were truly hopeless.  There are still some severe problems with fundamentals like ball handling and control, and even when given plenty of room by Barbados for improvisation and creativity, we played an extremely direct forward attacking style. 

-Roman Abramovich is coming to America!  It’s old news, but it still brings a shiver to the spine, thinking he could buy up the Colorado Rapids club in the MLS and turn it into Chel$ki-Lite.  The Russian oil billionaire bought at 36 million dollar ranch near Aspen.  He already bought another property near Snowmass, CO back in February.  …so just what is he planning to do in Colorado that requires so much land and two houses?  (Answer: Pick up hottie snow bunnies on the slopes, no shame in that)

-Waar de Engelsen zijn? Wo Englisch ist? где английские языки? Where are the English?  For the first few days of Euro2008, fans were singing it and saying it in different languages- and we have the answer… the English national team players are on beaches ’round the world, working diligently on their tans, apparently not even bothering with a bit of keepy uppy on the sand.  I mean, at least Steve McClaren is watching a bit of footy on the time off.

-The life of a football blogger is a bit well, different, during a major tournament.  With major news outlets analyzing every last morsel of each match, a blogger’s reach for material (when not on site) is somewhat limited.  So they go with whatever Getty images has available for a cheap ‘n’ easy post: WAGS and hot girls in the stands.  Por ejemplo: The top posts on both Newsnow and Soccerblogs have had to do “sexy girls” and/or “body paint” for the past 5 days or so. 

Snippets:

• A cheat sheet for lazy newspaper headline writers. (The Offside)
• David Bentley is so over Blackburn. Seriously. He just can’t wait to leave, because he’s such an amazing player. (This is Extra Time)
• Racism in Poland: What you didn’t see on the BBC- a Polish football fan’s view of a documentary on racism in the sport in that country. (Pitch Invasion)
• Wayne Rooney and Coleen McCloughlin have officially tied the knot- and spent millions to show their love to the world. But what about the chavtastic family members they leave behind? (Sniffing the Touchline)