ESPN Classic Comes Through for CL Soccer

One of my biggest US television soccer frustrations has been the decisions made by the programmers at ESPN2 when it comes to which Champions League matches to air in this country. Whether they have it on good authority or not, the folks at ESPN seem to believe that any game involving an English team is preferable to any other matchup, regardless of how compelling it is. What this usually translates to is: Manchester United one day and Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool the next. So, for Matchday 1, we were treated to the excruciatingly dull snoozefest that was Liverpool vs. PSV. We could have been watching Barcelona put on a clinic against Levski Sofia or Sporting take Inter down a notch. The next day we had to watch ManU vs. Celtic (granted, this was a pretty good game) when we could have seen the more interesting Real Madrid-Lyon match. Last year I missed a good number of Barcelona's games because ESPN decided we'd be better off watching Everton or Arsenal or Liverpool. (I did catch the occasional taped Barça-Milan game when FSC aired Milan Weekly, the downside being that I had to watch the match narrated by the annoyingly obsequious Brit that does the play-by-play for Milan)

However, my usual scan of the extremely valuable SoccerTV this morning revealed something that is new (or I'd never noticed before) -- ESPN Classic is airing alternate CL matches a couple of hours later. This means that next week, for Matchday 2, the Deuce will air ManU vs. Benfica (of course) live, but ESPN Classic will air Madrid vs. Dynamo Kiev at 2 pm PDT. The next day, Classic will air the Barcelona-Bremen game.

Maybe the best part of watching these games on Classic? Tommy Smyth won't be ruining the games with his nonsense...

Clint Dempsey: Scrappy All-American?

I just read a pretty good article by Dan Gerstle of the Princeton U. newspaper on Clint Dempsey, the new "future of American soccer." Gerstle makes some points that I really appreciate, namely that Landon Donovan is/was a failure and that this country needs a new model/inspiration. The author makes some dubious comparisons to Ronaldinho and Wayne Rooney in his piece but he also has some gems, like this:

"Donovan was once considered the great American soccer hope and his failure is instructive. In a sense, he represents American privilege. He could have been a great player, but he never had the mindset, just as the bankers in New York never had the mindset to be great fans. Donovan fled the trials and competitiveness of high-level club soccer in Germany for assured dominance in the MLS. As a soccer nation, America seems too comfortable."

I also found the article instructive as I spend very little time reading about US players or watching the MLS. I did not know, for example, that Dempsey was born poor. What our national team needs are more kids that are products of crappily-maintained fields and playgrounds and fewer upper-middle class products of insanely priced soccer "academies" and traveling teams. This of course is not to say that a kid born into means can't be a quality player (Kaká and Bebeto are but two examples), I just wish our national team looked more like our public schools and less like some posh prep school.

I enjoyed watching Dempsey during the World Cup. After Bobby Convey, I thought he was the most impressive player for the US. It's a crime that MLS isn't letting him move to Europe to prove himself at the highest level.

Bombonera Here I Come!

Last night we booked our apartment in Buenos Aires for our upcoming Argentina/Uruguay trip. Apart from steaks, nice weather, and cheap consumer goods, I'm most looking forward to catching some live futbol games in Buenos Aires. Ideally, we will be able to see a Boca Juniors home game at the legendary Bombonera but so far I've had little luck finding a reliable schedule of games on the team's Web site. Maybe I'll try River Plate or Independiente...

Speaking of the Boca Web site, there's a really cool page with loads of audio and video files including a clip of Juan Roman Riquelme scoring a game-winning penalty against River in the Copa Libertadores. I don't think I've ever seen Riquelme so excited. I don't think I've seen him so much as crack a smile since I've been watching him playing for Barça or Villareal. The dour one announced this week that he was retiring from the Argentine national team. Sad for fans, that is unless you're merely a fan of the Yellow Submarines, who are languishing in La Liga with only a point from three games.