Dave’s Football Blog

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All apologies to The Run of Play, of course.

Seriously, though, Brett Favre is making me hate the NFL. The more I hear about him, the more I want a full-season lockout in 2011. Just go away, old man.

The Run of Play‘s Brian Phillips in Slate, on the never-ending argument over Pelé and Diego Maradona:

Scrape away the grime of scandals and sound bites, and the contrast between these two great players says something about the imaginative possibilities presented by this game or by any game. Think of how you approach sports at different stages of your life. Pelé, the best player on the best team who scored the most goals and won the most trophies and was the happiest and the most famous and most beloved, offers the child’s narrative of sports heroism, an exuberant conquest of a just and welcoming world. Maradona, who railed against authority and sabotaged himself and, in 1986, dragged an inferior Argentina team to the World Cup title by sheer force of will, represents the adolescent narrative: an unjust world forced to yield to a superior ego.

It’s these two ways of looking at the world that guide the endless, unresolvable debate about which man was the better player.

Good stuff. Make with the clicky, people.

Disappointed that you couldn’t beat Off Constantly in this blog’s World Cup Fantasy League? Here’s your shot at redemption.

Dave’s Football Blog is officially opening its Fantasy Premier League Contest today. This is your opportunity to A.) prove your fantasy football superiority to me, and B.) win a fabulous prize that will be determined at a later date — once, y’know, someone steps up and offers to pay for it. (UPDATE (8/30): We have a prize to give away now.)

Here’s all you need to do to enter:

1. Go to fantasy.premierleague.com.
2. Build your fantasy team.
3. Click on Leagues in the left-hand menu.
4. Click the Create/Join tab.
5. Where it prompts you to enter a code for a private league, enter this code: 673397-250679

The Premier League season begins on August 14, so you have just as much time to get your team together prior to the start of the season as Aston Villa has to find a new manager. I’m planning on launching a fantasy Champions League as well, so stay tuned for that.

You have to hand it to Dave Stala of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Most CFL players couldn’t play keepie-uppie with a spherical football, let alone an oblong ball with pointy ends. It’s a fine display of showmanship. I fully expect Chad Ochocinco to steal this touchdown celebration, at least during the preseason.

Meanwhile, that play-by-play guy should probably be reminded that the French national team actually got to the World Cup, something the Canadian national team has only done once in its entire existence. But hey, last night Toronto FC got to the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League on its third attempt. Progress!

(Spotted on Soccer By Ives.)

Earlier this year, an old college pal of mine called me up and gave me a little stick about the Pittsburgh Pirates getting blown away by Stephen Strasburg in his major league debut. I calmly told him the Pirates haven’t cared about winning since they blew it in 1992, and when they start caring about baseball again, I’ll start caring again, too.

I think MLS is hoping soccer fans in America will feel the exact same way about the CONCACAF Champions League. If nothing else, it will help those 500 or so Galaxy fans who actually showed up last night pretend that their team’s comprehensive collapse against the Puerto Rico Islanders wasn’t real. Besides, winning the MLS Cup before Landon Donovan returns to England in January is what really matters, right? Right?

The 2010-11 CONCACAF Champions League begins play tonight with the preliminary round. In that round, the Los Angeles Galaxy, currently the pacesetters in Major League Soccer so far, take on the Puerto Rico Islanders in the first of a two-legged tie at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

The next day, Galaxy boss Bruce Arena and four of his best players – U.S. national team star Landon Donovan, leading MLS goal scorer Edson Buddle, goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts and defender Omar Gonzalez — will fly to Houston to compete in the MLS All-Star Game against Manchester United.

You would think that MLS would be a little more cognizant of the fact that it’s hindering its top club’s chances of winning silverware this year by scheduling a meaningless friendly one day after a qualifying match in what’s supposed to be a major continental competition. Even Arena has come right out and said the All-Star Game is “secondary.” If Fabio Capello called up Jermain Defoe and Michael Dawson for an England friendly within a week of Tottenham Hotspur’s UEFA Champions League qualifying match, White Hart Lane and half the Premier League would be in an uproar.

MLS, however, still believes it has to sell both the game and its league to sports fans in this country, and let’s face it — the Puerto Rico Islanders won’t put fannies in the seats like Manchester United will. So it will continue to put the emphasis on these media circuses in the hopes that it will bring in new fans.

This post-World Cup period seems like a passing strange time for American soccer. Two of the biggest clubs in the Premier League came to America to face MLS squads and lost. Sure, Man United and Man City played a bunch of reserves and transfer targets in those games, but surely even United’s reserves, who won a Carling Cup two seasons ago, are good enough to run roughshod over a 10-man Kansas City Wizards squad. They didn’t.

The question, then, is does that say more about the quality of play in MLS than it does about the current state of Man United? And if so, then how much longer will MLS continue to put on these dog-and-pony shows before it starts taking winning its top continental competition seriously?

Given the lack of say MLS had in creating the CONCACAF Champions League, I suspect we’ll see them continue to put the emphasis on these friendlies for a long time to come. It’s a shame, too, because the Galaxy right now might just be good enough to win this Champions League, if it can keep its current roster intact through May. That’s too big an if, though, no matter what MLS says publicly. Even Landon Donovan has his price.