At 6:00 a.m. central time on Monday October 15, 2012, SiriusXM will launch a new channel devoted to soccer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The channel, called SiriusXM FC, will be on Sirius 94, XM 207, and online channel 960. Additionally, certain programs on the new channel will be available on SiriusXM's On Demand feature. In addition to daily broadcasts of The Football Show and Counter Attack, the channel will feature English Premier League matches, FA Cup matches, and MLS Cup playoff matches. SiriusXM's coverage of American soccer will ramp up more with this new channel since it will be airing MLS Extra Time in addition to the MLS playoff matches. Grantland based Men and Blazers will also be featured on the new channel. Additional programming from talkSport will be used on SiriusXM FC to help round out the 24 hour broadcast schedule.
SiriusXM is a subscriber-based satellite radio company. While SiriusXM is built into many new automobiles, it is possible to retrofit an older vehicle with the service, and it is possible to purchase an online subscription only. For more information about subscribing to SiriusXM, home to The Howard Stern Show, visit: SiriusXM's Subscriptions page.
After all the hype of "Call Me Maybe" this summer, the US Women's team decided to go a different direction in having a little fun before the 2012 London Olympics:
Sometimes the best way for a soccer player to make a racist shut the f**k up is to show the racist why he's an ignorant idiot sitting in the stands and why the player being taunted is on the pitch making more money than the racist could ever dream of making. Karma's a bitch.
Not sure what match this is from, if anyone knows, feel free to post in the comments.
If soccer becomes more popular with tween girls in the United States it won't be because of Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, or MLS, it'll be because of Justin Bieber using his fame to hang out with top international clubs - okay, that fits for when he hung out with Barcelona, considering the state of Chelsea fans they might argue my calling their club a "top international club." But I'll leave that debate for Chelsea fans to argue on twitter and in message boards, as for now, the young Mr. Selena Gomez spent some time hanging out at Stamford Bridge wit the likes of Frank Lampard and Fernando Torres, hmmm, wonder why John Terry wasn't allowed to hang out with the Bieber . . .
Speaking of Chelsea fans, this post is for you Messrs. Marcus Coleman & Johnathan Starling!
On Sunday December 4th, the United States finally managed to best Germany on the pitch with a 9-2 victory that will surely be remembered by American soccer historians for centuries to come. I kid, I kid. Actually, on Sunday a group from the US Navy managed to beat a group from the German Navy at that lovely little paradise in Africa known as Djibouti.
The United States Men's National Team beat Panama 1-0 in the semifinals of the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup at Reliant Stadium on Wednesday night thanks to a goal from Clint Dempsey. As of the posting time, it appears that Mexico will beat Honduras by 2-0 to also advance to the final. Here is raw, and I mean raw, audio from the US side following their victory. The audio includes Clint Dempsey, Bob Bradley, Sunil Gulati, Eric Lichaj, and Freddy Adu.
Earlier this week I received my review copy of Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, so the first thing I did was jump to the index to find any sections that deal with soccer. Based on the directions that the index sent me in, and I should note the index seems a bit poor, the book only focuses on soccer in the context of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, which isn't a bad thing, but it seems to leave out the World Wide Leader's dabbling with the Beautiful Game during the bulk of its 31 years.
In the book, which is written as an oral history, ESPN's treatment of the 2010 World Cup finals is presented in a very positive light. The voices heard in this discussion primarily belong to Ian Darke, Landon Donovan, and John Skipper.
Although ESPN/ABC had broadcast the World Cup finals in the United States prior to 2010, those earlier ventures involved sub-licensing through Soccer United Marketing. The first time that ESPN/ABC, in conjunction with Univision, obtained the direct World Cup finals broadcast rights from FIFA was for the 2010 finals, rights that they almost lost to NBC because previous Vice-President of Content, Mark Shapiro, had little interest in soccer.
Thanks to Chuck Blazer, who either feared NBC treating the World Cup finals like it treats the Olympics or knew about an impending power change at ESPN, the FIFA deal with NBC was delayed, giving the new ESPN Vice-President of Content, John Skipper, a chance to meet with FIFA officials and steal the broadcast rights away from NBC. Skipper was a fan of soccer thanks to his earlier work with ESPN's Soccernet.
While soccer fans might have complaints about certain aspects of ESPN's coverage of the 2010 World Cup finals, the reality is that the network took the tournament seriously, being one of the first broadcast networks on the ground in South Africa to prepare for the finals, and making it possible for Americans to view every single match. Not surprisingly, there was positive focus on the Landon Donovan goal against Algeria the viral aspect of US fan reaction on YouTube.
The impression left on the reader is that ESPN has even bigger plans for future coverage of the World Cup finals.
After checking out the book's coverage of ESPN's relationship with the Beautiful Game, I started reading it from the beginning. So far it has been very entertaining, I'll give you my final verdict here when I'm finished.
Today was a day many people were looking forward to because today was the day that the long awaited book about ESPN, Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, was released. I expect to receive my copy to review within this week, and since my focus tends to be soccer, I am interested in whether the book mentions anything about ESPN's coverage of the Beautiful Game. I wouldn't be surprised if the book doesn't mention soccer, after all, this book is more about the history of the people who made ESPN what it is today, but we'll see what it contains in its over 700 pages.
Until I get a chance to read the book for myself, figured now is a good time to take advantage of the fact that ESPN is a tv network and see what kind of visual history of ESPN and soccer that I can splice together - and not surprisingly, most of the clips are fairly recent.
Don't know what it is about college students, music, and video cameras, but the University of North Carolina's soccer team is the latest group to bring their "musical" talents to YouTube with this parody of Black & Yellow:
Since Sunday is Halloween and since I haven't done a soccer video post in a while, I figured I'd do my best to combine soccer & Halloween for a post, here's what I got for you:
Prior to playing Brian Clough in "The Damned United," British actor Michael Sheen appeared in this short film of Saki's classic story "The Open Window:"
Did you miss this past week's Halloween episode of Community on NBC? Jeff Winger (played by Joel McHale) dressed as David Beckham for the episode (not the insider bonus for those of you who recognize the costume for Winning Ugly Radio's Scott Bornstein), here's the sneak peak video that NBC released:
This has been around for awhile, thankfully the player doesn't die as some have suggested:
The Houston Dynamo got a solid victory over Chivas USA this past Saturday. On this pod, I give me thoughts on the match and include Coach Dominic Kinnear's entire press conference. I wanted to include our interview with Lovel Palmer from this past week's Orange Slice Show on 1560 The Game here in Houston, but the audio was not synching correctly, so I'll upload that separately later this week. This week's music includes Club Dogo, Danzig, and Black Kids.
Last night, which was a bone chilling cold night, Mexican Soccer came to Robertson Stadium in Houston, Texas, in the form of InterLiga. Last night was a Group A Doubleheader featuring Toluca and Atlas and Club America and Morelia.
The first match was a rather slow paced, nil-nil draw that saw the ball spend most of the 90 minutes in the middle of the field, a match that did very little to warm up the 9000 or so fans that ventured out to take in the matches. Maybe it was the cold that prevented the players from focusing on the task at hand. I note I saw numerous Toluca fans, but can't recall seeing a single Atlas fan.
The second match of the evening was well worth the wait. Club America won it with a goal by Alejandro Arguello in the 12th minute, but I have to give Morelia credit, they never gave up. In fact Morelia may have come away with a win or a tie but for the beautiful goaltending of America's Guillermo Ocha, especially when he saved a penalty kick taken by Mauricio Romero in the 55th minute.
Saturday will feature a Group B doubleheader at Robertson with Pumas, San Luis, Cruz Azul, and Monterrey.
Keep an eye here for more detailed stats on last night's matches and on Saturday's matches.
Roma's Captain, Francesco Totti, is set to sign a new contract that will keep him in Rome until 2012, and will expire just shy of his 36th birthday. This extends a contract that would have expired in 2010.
Seeing that I have a BA in History, my New Year's Resolution is to try to do several blogs about the History of Soccer/Football in America during 2008.
Back in 1620 when those fun lovin Puritans - The Pilgrims - landed at Plymouth Rock in what is now Massachusetts, they observed the local natives playing a game very similar to what is now soccer - it was called Pasuckquakkohwog, which means "they gather to play football."
Let's all keep in mind that what we know call football/soccer, has been played in varying forms for thousands of years - a form of the game existed in China, possibly as early as 1 a.d., and a form of the game existed in Italy before the folks in Genoa saw the Brits playing the modern style.
What is to come . . . America is a country built on the backs of immigrants, many from Europe who brought their love of soccer with them, and I will do my best to chronicle this over the next twelve months and make the case that soccer is not a foriegn sport, it is the birthright of all Americans, whether you're a EuroTrash Mutt like myself or not.
In the early years of American soccer, the teams were supported by factories and ethnic clubs, many of which were part of the American Soccer League. And it was a blood sport, the plastic cleats did not exist, but nails did. Weekends were a time for immigrants to take out frustrations on each other, especially in the northeast, like New Jersey. Can you san Bethleham Steel F.C., Newark Stitch, New York United, Philadelphia Ukrainians, Kearny Scots, or Kearny Irish???? One of the greatest American players, Billy Gonsalves - the Babe Ruth of American Soccer, spent his last days tending bar in Kearny.
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