I caught a Bolton-Man U match from last season today. United prevailed 2-1, and deservedly so. Bolton's Davies nutmegged Ferdinand (a bit luckily, I think) to draw blood. Man U equalized with a pretty goal by Saha and then a right place right time goal by Ruud (on nice passes from Neville to Saha to RVN). RVN always seems to be in the right place.

There's no ignoring Cristiano Ronaldo's skill. He's a very talented player with excellent touch and dominant dribbling ability. Unfortunately, there's no ignoring his repellant personality, either. A diver, a whiner, a crier, a petulant critic of the refereeing (for which he rightfully received a yellow), Ronaldo is the very opposite of a sportsman. A shame. A player with his talent could, with a friendly and sporting personality, be beloved instead of hated.

FF

SI.com's Jonah Freedman's latest club rankings are up. He asks for input from readers on how we're going to keep up with futbol post World Cup. I sent in the following:

"Dear Jonah:

I'm an interesting combination of new and old soccer fan. I'm old because I've been religiously watching the World Cup since 94, and new because I've never followed club soccer outside of a few Champions League games a year in bars...until now. I've resolved this year to follow European club soccer, and in that regard I've been watching as many "classic" matches on FSC as I can before the club seasons start. I'm also keeping a blog at http://screamingvulcan.blogspot.com/ that's just devoted to futbol.

Once the seasons start, I'll keep up with club soccer during the season by watching FSC for EPL and Serie A, plus ESPN for Champions League, but I'm at a loss as to how to watch La Liga games here in the states. If anyone happens to write in with a good pub to watch La Liga in the Dallas area, I'd be much obliged."

I saw the first leg of the Barca-Milan 06 CL semi today. I really need to find out how to watch La Liga games during the season. Barca's a blast to watch -- and I haven't even yet seen Ronaldinho play a top game.

FF

A friend of FF writes (in bold):

As for picking an English team to support, no doubt you saw Bill Simmons' recent article on this topic. His reasoning was, for the most part, sound.

Yep, saw and loved the Sports Guys' stuff. I had the idea (shortly after my FSC discovery) in advance of the Sports Guy's column, and, incidentally, have had the "have an idea about sports, then shortly thereafter SG writes it up" many times in the past. This probably says a lot about the type of fellow I am, but I love it when that happens. Having your sports thinking vindicated by the SG is very pleasing.

If I were starting from scratch (which I'm not; I support the Gunners) I'd want a team with some history, with a decent shot at winning someday, and I'd want to be safe from accusations of bandwagon-jumping. One obvious problem is that, arguably, there are four teams that would see you accused of bandwagon jumping (I don't think I even need to name them), and they might be the only teams with a realistic shot of winning the league for the foreseeable future. So in the short term at least you might need to satisfy yourself with cup wins and the fight for European places. Anyway, going back to my original point, if I were picking a team at this point I'd go with West Ham, although Simmons' selection of Spurs also makes sense. Still, if you decide to pick an established winner, Arsenal has a lot to recommend it - tons of great young players, the best striker in the world, a great book about them, a brilliant manager (whom you'll end up hating if you support any other team) ...

Agreed -- although I may have trouble living up to the "no frontfunner rule" for three of the four:

1. As a neutral, Chelsea really are marvelous to watch. So many talented players, many of whom seem not to be sh**heads (except Robben, perhaps, although I'm basing that entirely on the look he has on his face and nothing more). Then there's the unbelievable Jose Mourinho, who appears to engage in as much self-worship as William Shatner, in equally hilarious fashion. Unfortunately, choosing the current two-time champions as your team virtually qualifies as a tort.

2. Arsenal are excellent (Arsenal-Barca CL final was terrific), and I'm particularly eager to see how USA killer Tomas Rosicky will do in the EPL, but Henry's lack of clutch performances (given his outrageous talent) are troubling in an A-Rod/Peyton Manning type of way.

3. It might be impossible to avoid rooting for Liverpool. I think Gerrard is the best midfielder in the EPL, and I'm partial to midfield skill. Liverpool also reminds me a bit of Pittsburgh, an NFL team I've always respected. Finally, I'm inexplicably fascinated with oddman Peter Crouch, the skinniest professional athlete since Manute Bol. I keep expecting his limbs to collapse in a pile. After "Crouchy," one of his many nicknames apparently is "Crouchinho," which made me wet my pants the first time I read it, and still makes me laugh every time I think it.

4. Like I said below, I'm not even considering Man U.

FF

I recently caught the second leg of the 05-06 Champions League semifinal between Barca and Milan. Fabulous match. It ended 0-0, which meant Barca advanced on the strength of its previous 1-0 victory over Milan (which I have not yet seen). Barca looked to be the better club for most of the game, although Milan poured it on in the latter part of the second half.

Critics who bemoan soccer's lack of scoring puzzle me. It's not as if nothing is happening merely because the score isn't being run up. Battles for open balls, one-on-ones, quick serial passes, precise long balls, defensive stops, gradually unfolding attacks, rapid counterattacks, errant shots, set pieces, saves -- all of these entertain. Would complainers prefer if points were awarded every time a team moved the ball into certain sections of the field -- a graduated system where a goal was several points (say, six); possession in the opponent's box half that; and possession in the opponent's half one point? Then there'd be plenty of "scoring" -- but it wouldn't be the "new scoring" that made the match interesting, it'd be the stuff that results in the scoring. The very stuff that already goes on now, if you do more than watch the non-graduated scoreboard.

FF

One fellow who hasn't impressed: Frank Lampard. He had a shoddy Cup, and I've seen him perform poorly in the old club matches on FSC. For now the sample is too small to draw a damning conclusion, but the other world-class players I've seen -- Gerrard, Drogba, Pirlo, Shevchenko, Kaka, etc. -- have presented well. I'm still waiting for Frankie to live up to his billing.

FF

One team I am not considering for fanship: Man U. Even assuming the loathesome Cristiano Ronaldo departs, something about their carriage rubs me the wrong way. One might find this odd coming from a longtime Yankees fan. But my Yankee fanship was involuntary -- I grew up in NY and my father rooted for them when I was a boy. You love who you root for as a kid, even if some of the team's traits (arrogance, high-priced dominance, etc.) are traits that may objectively turn you off in others.

The cosmic balance is even, though, because the other team I inherited from Dad was the Buffalo Bills.

FF

I've been quite impressed with Kaka's play in the old Milan matches I've seen. Great movement, ball control, and attacking flair. I think (like Joe Cole) his field vision needs improvement, and he's young, so perhaps that will come.

FF

Because my pontificating friends (Art, SV, KT, what happened, guys?) who set up this blog with the intention of filing "serious posts" have failed utterly, I'm taking over The Screaming Vulcan and turning it into someting considerably more fun: a blog de futbol. I'm not changing the blog's name. No one can dispute that futbol gives one lots to scream about. Even robots get excited about it.


A bit about my futbol/football/soccer resume: I'm an American who played organized soccer for twelve years, mostly on "select" teams on the east coast, and in high school, where I was captain. I played center and right mid.

I attended Stanford for undergrad, where I did not play varsity, but kept up playing in intramural and pickup games. I moved onto Harvard Law and then Manhattan after Stanford, and my post-collegiate futbol career exlusively consisted of hoisting pints while cheering the pros on TV. NYC is a great town to watch futbol in bars.

I have religiously watched the World Cup since 1994, and have watched various Champions League and EPL games sporadically from the late 90s through today. (I have tried many times to watch MLS, but just can't get into it.) I recently moved into a place that, for the first time, supplied me with the Fox Soccer Channel. I've been watching FSC as much as possible and am thrilled to finally be able to follow, regularly, the EPL and European club soccer. I don't yet have a team -- more on that below.

Because the only games I could regularly watch in the past were World Cup games, I've never regularly followed a European league and have no allegiance to any club. Essentially I've only followed individual players in the past, identifying a few WC favorites and then making an effort to watch their club games in between Cups. With FSC at my disposal, I aim to pick a team this year.

Perhaps because of my own playing experience, I am most impressed with midfielders, and will almost certainly choose a team with a quality midfield. Like many, my favorite player over the last decade was Zidane, who is the best and most elegant soccer player I've ever seen play full matches. The 2006 quarterfinal performance against Brazil was so inspired that it almost brought me to tears. I am so sorry to see him go.

So far, I've really enjoyed the Chelsea, Milan, and Liverpool matches FSC replays, with my favorite players in those games being Joe Cole, Pirlo, and Steven Gerrard.

That's all for now.

FF