I noticed today that not only has Southampton's official web site's RSS been broken for the last 3 weeks, if you actually try viwing it's RSS feeds at it's site (http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/rss) right now you just see the naked PHP code used to build them. Oi vey! A horrible security risk. Is the club really so low on funds that they can't be bothered to fix this?
Major league Soccer held their waiver draft today. The waiver draft process is as sexy as a pair of Rosanne Bahrs soiled undies. It's understandable tha tthe league's marketers didn't put effort into promoting the event.
Unfortunately for Rpaids fans Mike Petke was placed on waivers and taken by the New York Red Bulls. The Bohemia, New York native is the Colorado Rpaids all-time leader for games started with 129 in his 4 years with the team.
Petke looked good later in 2008 once he recovered from last years injury. At age 32 he likely has a couple years left in him. With Gary Smith showing in 2007 that he was happy to start a healthy Petke, it's likely that the Mike Petke wanted this move. It could be that this is a chance for Mike to work his way into the Red Bulls front office.
We wish Mike and his family the best fo luck with the move.
I found myself wondering if Italian legend Walter Zenga's time in Major League Soccer (MLS) damaged his mind after reading this article. If you haven't heard, Zenga seems to think that having his players drop their shorts during a free kick is strategy. Zenga has hist players at Catania, where he currently coaches, lowering their shorts to their knees because it blocks the goalkeepers vision.
To be honest, I don't understand how this act in and of itself is making a difference in terms of blocking the goalkeeper's vision. A free kick situation where the opposing team has a chance to take a crack at goal is usually a mess of bodies with the opposing team forming a wall of players and many others crowded in there. Having a couple players lowering their shorts isn't making it easier for the goalkeeper to see the ball. But it would just be making an already difficult situation a bit more difficult.
And that doesn't leave out the affect it has on the players lowering their shorts. No, I'm not talking not having a clean pair of undies to wear for the world to see. If a players shorts are at their knees, how can they react to the play on the field? How many times have you seen a free kick taken where the team with the kick has a player that was trying to mess with the wall now desperately trying to get out of the way to let it through? How many times has a free kick hit the wall or been saved by a goalkeeper and had everyone scrambling to get to the ball to have another chance at goal? Well, if you're shorts are around your knees you're going to have a tough time reacting to these things. Has Zenga actually taken this into consideration?
Of course it does bring up a few issues. This is a game after all that automatically gives a player a yellow card for taking their shirt off to celebrate scoring a goal. Those are pretty strict standards. Surely showing off ones tighty-whities during a game is worse than taking off a shirt to celebrate a goal? Then again, this is a game that has sunk to the low of accepting diving as something professionals should do; that when they get hit they should go down. If that's being embraced by the game, why should anyone get bothered over a bit of short dropping?
The rules of the game aside, what would ever prompt Walter Zenga to even consider using this?
Gary Smith is a now officially the head coach for the Colorado Rapids. Smith was signed to a 3 year deal. The Rapids also announced they re-signed Pablo Mastroeni, coming off arguably his best year ever in the MLS, to a 4 year deal. Mike Petke, Bouna Coundoul and Jose Burciaga Jr. are all out of contract with no announcements having been made on their status.
View From The Couch is reporting that it's rumored that the Rapids will announce their new coach today at 1pm. Money is on it being Gary Smith as the Rapids have already signed one of Smith's friend Steve Guppy as assistant coach. In fact Sunday while I was at work eating bugs, Brian Forbes over at the Denver Post reported that short of an official announcement from the Rapids, everything points to Gary Smith including Guppy on a radio show stating that it'll be Smith.
What does this mean for Christian Gomez? Bouna Coundoul? Facundo Erpen? These are all players that Smith didn't seem to fully embrace.
