Dave’s Football Blog

Before I point you to a bunch of other articles today, did anyone else see how quickly Carlos Tevez scored a goal after Argentina put him in the game last night? Seriously, why did he start out on the bench? This guy could outscore the entire U.S. side in the Copa America group stage if the blue and white would give him the minutes.

Also, did any one see how quickly the U.S. defense broke down as soon as Eddie Gaven replaced Ben Olsen? Was Bob Bradley just trying to prove a point there or something?

Okay, that’s off my chest. Now he’s some fun stuff that you should read today…

• Your AFL Round 13 preview. (Das FanHaus)
• And a Gaelic football weekend preview. (RTE Sport)
• Are association football viewers bypassing TV for the Internet? (Pitch Invasion)
• “Accusations of betrayal and cowardice being flung across the Indian Ocean with abandon.” In South African rugby, that’s called “Thursday.” (AllAfrica.com)
• Mbale Heroes got some bad eggs. (Das FanHaus)
• Lincoln Kennedy tries the Arena Football diet. (NFL FanHouse)
• Mrs. Beckham has something to do now. (What Would Tyler Durden Do?)
• Comparing Jerome Bettis and Franco Harris. (Steelers FanHouse)
• Speaking of the Steelers, why don’t they offer draftees four-year contracts? (Steelers FanHouse)
• Mexican football cheerleaders are smokin’ hot. (Who Ate All the Pies)
• Breaking: NFL Europa is done. (NFL FanHouse)

Oh, and if any readers in the Raleigh-Durham area want to watch that West Coast-Adelaide game with me on Saturday night, post a comment here. Games are always more fun to watch with a crowd.

We’ll never agree on how to play rugby, will we?

We all agree on the basic laws of the Association football game. Interpretations vary from nation to nation, but for the most part, it’s the same game wherever you go, which has helped make it the world’s most popular football code.

But we can’t agree on one set of laws for rugby football, can we? It’s bad enough that the game was split in the nation where it was born, but then it evolved into something completely different in North America. There’s no way to put this game back together again in such a way that the whole world can play by one set of rules, is there?

Oh, sure, you can change the rules that are out there now. Rugby unions around the world are now testing out a series of Experimental Law Variations, or ELVs, that are speeding up the game and garnering rave reviews from players and fans alike. They won’t be in place in time for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, but they might prove to make the game more interesting by the time the next World Cup rolls around in 2011.

Meanwhile, rugby league pundits are suggesting that the current game has gotten stale, and perhaps some rules changes are required to make things more interesting. Rugby league has its own World Cup in 2008, and whether anything in the game changes between now and then remains to be seen.

What would really help rugby is for these unions and leagues to get everyone together and agree on one set of rules by which everyone can play — rugby reunification, if you will. This century-old split in the code may be the only thing that’s preventing rugby from becoming as popular around the world as, say, soccer or basketball. If everyone could get on the same page, maybe rugby football could become as big as Association football, rather than akin to HD-DVD v. Blu-ray.

Alas, this may just be wishful thinking. We humans are a tribal sort, and there’s always that us v. them mentality lurking about — our club is better than your club, our football game is better than your football game, and so on. This is why the NFL and AFL will always have uphill battles when trying to spread their games to other countries. The rest of the world just doesn’t play football like that.

It’s one thing for an AFL team to royally suck until Round 12. It’s quite another for this recent survey by Roy Morgan Research to reveal this little factoid:

Richmond supporters are 70 per cent more likely to agree that “I consider myself a homosexual.”

Yeah, nobody’s having any fun with that spot of information on a testosterone-soaked continent like Australia, are they? On the bright side, though, if the KSK Gay Mafia ever started following the AFL, here’s a club ready-made for them to barrack. They could become instant superstars of the Official Richmond Grog Squad. Let’s go have a disco! naaaaaa naaaaa naaaaa hey…

Before I got all anthropological on everyone’s asses, this blog was all about the NFL. It was a great three seasons, really. I got to write about my Pittsburgh Steelers as they won a Super Bowl. I had fun liveblogging games with my cell phone in sports bars and having beer-soaked fans in replica jerseys ask me, “Dude, what the hell is that?” I even got great footage of Pam Oliver’s backside.

The Internet is a fickle place, though, and less than a year after I had called up Sports Bloggers Live and predicted the rise of Willie Parker, a wily bunch of Deadspin commenters got together and stiffarmed the entire pro football blogging world. We were all doomed. Sure, some of us got on board with the FanHouse and got monthly checks for our musings, but we just weren’t the new cool anymore. We got our asses kicked three times a week on the average and twice on Monday morning, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

So happy anniversary, Kissing Suzy Kolber. And thanks for making us all look like utter shite.

Bastards.

No, Gilbert Arenas isn’t going to spend the NBA offseason nailing cougar-aged hookers and heckling Lionel Richie. Everyone’s favorite athlete-blogger is going to be working out with D.C. United this summer after his knee finishes healing.

I have a sinking feeling this is going to turn into the hot new workout trend. Remember when boxing workouts got lots of pub? Try a soccer workout. After all, running five miles a day is a lot more fun when you’re playing a game, rather than just, y’know, running. Anyone can run. How many people can run and kick a ball at the same time?

Of course, this will lead to all manner of horrid soccer workout videos from guys like Eric Wynalda who see an opportunity to make a quick buck on infomercials. Thanks a lot, Agent Zero, for putting that image in my head. Man, these big name sports bloggers are all getting on nerves today. I’m going to end up apologizing to Jamie Mottram for a nasty Blog Show rant before this day is over…

(Spotted on Pitch Invasion.)

Since people are starting to complain that Deadspin is playing favorites — it was bound to happen sooner or later — we’ve decided to have some fun with that concept in the sidebar. If you’re using Wordpress, you can download your very own days since counter widget here and show the world just how much one karaoke-challenged sports blogger who happens to have a little street cred is utterly disrespecting your immense writing talents.

It’s just a blog, guys. Don’t take it so seriously.

Folks, is it really all that shocking that the Spanish-language telecast of the USA v. Mexico Gold Cup Final pulled a larger audience than NBC’s coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals?

I suppose it’s newsworthy if you want to demonstrate how far the NHL has fallen off the sports landscape since that lockout in 2004. Hockey never made it back to ESPN, the unfortunate arbiter of sporting taste in America, and the league is spread so thin in fair-weather fan markets — markets that have won the Stanley Cup lately — that it grows more unappealing every year. The NHL is still where baseball was in 1995, and it doesn’t have a Cal Ripken or a Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa combo to put it back on the map again.

People in Tampa, Raleigh and Anaheim didn’t grow up with hockey. People in Mexico, meanwhile, live and breathe association football, and USA v. Mexico always gets their attention. Of course, every Mexican immigrant in this country was going to watch the Gold Cup Final. Hell, the immigrants in Soldier Field outnumbered the USA fans by about 5-1. When Benny Feilhaber hit that wonderstrike that sealed the deal, Soldier Field got really quiet. We’re talking “Brett Favre come-from-behind touchdown” quiet.

So yeah, lots of Mexican soccer fans watched this game. What I want to know is how many American fans watched this game. We’ll never really know, because Fox Soccer Channel isn’t measured by Nielsen. If we assume the ratio of Mexican fans to American fans in the stadium reflects on the TV audience, that means a little more than half a million Americans watched USA v. Mexico — which means 3 1/2 times more American sports fans watched the Stanley Cup Finals, and 16 1/2 times more American sports fans watched the NBA Finals, which many considered a bonafide ratings disaster.

Wake me when the MLS Cup Final or the U.S. Open Cup Final gets better ratings than the Stanley Cup Finals. Then we’ll know soccer has truly arrived on the American sports landscape. Until then, just enjoy that big shiny CONCACAF trophy, because there aren’t too many others in Team USA’s immediate future — certainly not at Copa America, where the youngsters and 2nd-teamers on the USA side will probably be outscored by Carlos Tevez alone.

Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith went to Ohio State and is now a Baltimore Raven, so by default, this lifelong Steelers fan and Indiana alumnus is predisposed to hating his ass. That’s awfully hard to do, though, after this little Q&A with Roger Goodell, in which he asked when the NFL commissioner was going to say something positive about the players.

“When you say positive stuff, I walk around talking about the players and what they do in their communities every place I go,” Goodell said. “Unfortunately, the media hits you with the negavites, and the commissioner has to deal with a lof of negatives. But I promote our players every chance I can about what we are doing in our communities, (and) what the players our doing in the community that relects on the shield.

“When I talk about that shield, I talk about that shield because everyone here has an interest in it Troy. It is not just about your individual team. It is not just about where you came from, the Ohio State University. It’s about what you represent as an NFL player right now, and we all represent that shield.”

Profootballtalk.com reports the NFL Network didn’t televise Smith’s next statement in the report: “You haven’t answered my question.”

Nice. It’s not often you see an NFL quarterback go Helen Thomas on the commish. Granted, Smith would have gotten booted out of the White House press room for that, and he’ll probably have Goodell’s spies watching his every move from now on, but hey, if it doesn’t work out with the Ravens, he’s already qualified enough to replace Desmond Howard on ESPN.

(Spotted on We Are the Postmen.)

Canadians aren’t just crazy about their association football. They love their 110-yard gridiron, too, and with the Canadian Football League season starting tomorrow night, the good folks at The Boatmen Blog and Sports Grumblings have their team previews ready for all to peruse.

There are reports that Eric Crouch, Akili Smith and Shaun King are all challenging for starting QB jobs in the CFL. Wasn’t Shaun King a bust in Arena Football recently? When I become famous, I want his agent.

Meet Paul Dimattina. He played eight years for the Western Bulldogs and had a reputation as a hard-nosed possession-getter. After retiring from footy in 2005, he decided to become a “runner” for the Essendon Bombers. Runners in the AFL deliver messages to players from the coaching box during games, then get off the field as quickly as possible.

Dimattina, however, decided to take a detour in getting off the field to have a chat with a referee during the Essendon-Port Adelaide match a couple of weeks ago. He just wanted to remind Stefan Grun that footy was a “man’s game” and awarding a free kick for a bump “was a bit precious.”

Apparently, the AFL thought Dimattina was a bit precious, too. They slapped him with a four-match ban, reminding him that a runner’s role is not to chat up a ref. Dimattina insisted he wasn’t abusive in his language, but the AFL would like you to know that … well, any language toward a ref is off limits for runners.

So now you know what those guys in yellow shirts are doing out there. I don’t think any other code of football lets you have coaches’ assistants on the field during the game. Or am I wrong on this?