Dave’s Football Blog

The West Coast Eagles are eager to put the excesses of the last two years behind them, stamp out the lawlessness — which probably scared Chris Judd away — and start living clean and sober. Their #1 draft pick? He’s fitting right in.

THE first important appearance for West Coast’s No.1 draft pick Chris Masten will be in court rather than on the field.

He has been summonsed by police on a charge of disorderly behaviour in public.

The East Fremantle recruit was caught up in trouble during Australia Day celebrations on Saturday night, prompting police to handcuff the 18-year-old, issue a him a “move-on” order and take him to the South Perth mobile police compound.

After learning of the teenager’s misdemeanour, the Eagles hierarchy and leadership group fined Masten $2000 on Monday, and more significantly suspended him from any involvement in this year’s AFL pre-season competition.

Had this happened with any other club, this would probably be a minor blip that would eventually be swept under the rug and forgotten. The specter of Ben Cousins, however, still looms large in Perth, and it would really like you to stop bogarting the horse tranquilizers.

Welcome to the Eagles, Chris. Hope you survive the experience.

The NFL is once again taking a regular season game to Wembley Stadium in 2008, because Roger Goodell will not be satisfied until American football is bigger in England than Amy Winehouse’s hair. He’s even taking America’s football sweethearts, the New Orleans Saints, with him this time, because Reggie Bush is just as good as Ashley Cole when it comes to providing outlandish tabloid fodder.

Oh, and Saints fans are venting at the NFL for taking a home game away from New Orleans next season.

Personally, I think their anger is a little misguided. After all, if Saints owner Tom Benson actually cared about all the people of New Orleans who earn their keep because of Saints games, he could have called Goodell, explained the situation and convinced them to take the Buccaneers instead. (Sure, Bucs fans would have been unhappy, but when has Malcolm Glazer ever listened to fan complaints?)

The truth is that Benson’s contempt for the city of New Orleans is legendary. He spent years threatening to move the team if they didn’t cut him a huge check for a new stadium to replace the Superdome. If not for Hurricane Katrina, Benson could have gotten a green light to take the Saints to Los Angeles. Paul Tagliabue only stopped a move two years ago because he knew how bad a PR hit the NFL would have taken if it had left the city after it suffered such devastation.

So the fact that Benson would sign off on giving up a home game to go to London — especially after the Saints gave up eight home games in 2005 — doesn’t surprise me. The team is expected to get a nice financial bonus from participating in this game, and you can be sure that none of that money will ever escape Benson’s wallet. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about helping the citizens of New Orleans, so long as he gets paid.

Don’t blame the NFL for this, Saints fans. Blame the asshole that owns your team. He’s laughing all the way to the bank at you.

UPDATE: Fellow FanHouser Tom Mantzouranis offers this counterpoint, saying New Orleans owes the NFL this much for preventing Benson from moving the team in the first place, and that this could net the Big Easy another Super Bowl in 2012. It makes sense. It doesn’t make Benson any less an asshole.

I did a write-up for FanHouse today on the new CONCACAF Champions League, which will replace the uncared-for Champions Cup this fall. You can read it here. Here are some other cogent takes on the new competition:

• Pitch Invasion
• 100 Percent Soccer
• Blue-Blooded Journo
• WVHooligan
• The Offside
• My Soccer Blog
• Yet Another Soccer Blog

I’ll just repeat something here that was somewhat buried in my FanHouse piece: I want to see the U.S. Open Cup winner qualify for this tournament. I realize the chances of this are ludicrously slim, but to me, the winner of a domestic title is more of a champion than the loser of a league playoff final. (Yes, yes, I know, the New England Revolution was both these things in 2007. My point is that they should qualify for the final that they won, not the one they lost.)

One day, playing out current-day football games in a video game that was made in 1991 will seem horribly trite and cliché. That day has not arrived yet, so I invite you to enjoy these video highlights of Tecmo Super Bowl XLII. (You can see the first half here.)

(Spotted on Deadspin.)

The 2008 AFL season is just around the corner, and what better way to get you psyched up for it than a highlight reel showcasing some of the best plays of the 2007 season? Will the Geelong Cats run roughshod over the field again? Will the Sydney Swans regain their Grand Final form? Will Chris Judd help the Carlton Blues climb out of the cellar? Will the West Coast Eagles ever stop using drugs?

I’m more stoked for this than I am the Super Bowl. Maybe that’s because I wish the New England Patriots would just hurry up and get it over with so that I can move on with my life. Or choke. Yes, I would much rather see them choke. It’s more fun that way.

(Spotted on AFL Footy Blog)

If you thought my reaction to that historic FA Cup match between Liverpool and Havant & Waterlooville was a little over the top, wait until you see the reactions of these Sky Sports presenters describing the game as it’s happening. It’s as if all their cynicism just melted away with each Havant & Waterlooville goal, only to be replaced by unrestrained glee — save for that one guy who’s clearly a Liverpool supporter.

I don’t care what else happens in football in 2008. Havant & Waterlooville are the story of the year.

(Spotted on The Offside)

Soccer by Ives is reporting that the New York Red Bulls have scheduled a friendly with my Carolina Railhawks on Friday, March 28. I now must finagle my way into a blogger-to-blogger chat with Jozy Altidore…

That’s the only real question I have about Saturday’s rugby league test match in Jacksonville. I’m sure plenty of the 12,500 people who showed up — and by the way, that’s an impressive number for a football code about which most Americans haven’t the first clue — actually wanted to see the game, but this is America, after all, and star chasers are everywhere.

Plus, Crowe appears to have quite the mullet in this video, which should get the bloggers buzzing a little. Bloggers love mullets. I have no idea why.

The video is a little short on actual rugby league footage, which is disappointing. I’m sure some other footage from the stands will show up on YouTube this week.

Some random thoughts from the past weekend’s football action:

- Fox Soccer Channel was showing the one FA Cup game nobody really cared about at 10:00 AM, and Setanta Sports had no rights to the FA Cup and showed the lone Premier League game of the week — an Aston Villa-Blackburn tie that probably would have been entertaining had I paid attention to it. Thus, I was forced to use less-than-legal means to watch the game I really wanted to watch — Liverpool v. Havant & Waterlooville — and I missed Richard Pacquette’s goal in the 8th minute. Seeing their second goal, though, was a truly uplifting moment. Here’s a pub team playing in a once-in-a-lifetime (if that) game on one of English football’s biggest stages, and they’re winning. It makes you feel good about sports again, and it reminds you why the FA Cup is still the most romantic competition in sports this side of the NCAA basketball tournament. (BTW, I wrote more about that game here.)

- Speaking of romance, lots of folks will look at the lack of Premier League clubs still in the FA Cup and start suggesting that the top-flight clubs really don’t care about this competition anymore. This ignores the fact that a good number of Premier League clubs were eliminated by other Premier League clubs. Man U knocked off Villa, then knocked off Spurs, who beat Reading earlier. Chelsea beat Wigan, who knocked off Sunderland previously. Arsenal beat Newcastle. Sure, we’ve had our share of giant-killers so far, but the biggest of them so far may have been the one that got relegated out of the Premier League last year — Sheffield United, who have beaten Bolton and Man City so far.

- It just occurred to me yesterday that this is the first year in about eight years that I’m not throwing some kind of Super Bowl party. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I’ve been distracted by the fact that I have a girlfriend now. Perhaps I have this subconscious urge to reject everything involving the New England Patriots and that jackass safety of theirs. Perhaps I’m just looking forward to other things — the start of the AFL season, the start of the Carolina Railhawks’ season, an interesting free agency period, etc.

- Speaking of free agency, the Jacksonville Jaguars are one of the teams I cover for FanHouse, and they have more than $32 million in salary cap space. Given the season they just had, they might have a very good shot at a linebacker like Lance Briggs or Terrell Suggs. The problem they have, though, is that they need more help at receiver and cornerback, and it’s fairly slim pickings in the free agent market for those positions.

- BTW, I neglected to mention that Australia Day rugby league test match in Jacksonville on Saturday, which turned out to be a sellout. Leeds Rhinos beat Russell Crowe’s South Sydney Rabbitohs, 26-24. I considered traveling down there to that game, but I couldn’t really justify the expense, and besides, I had a date on Saturday night. There appears to be video of this, though, which I’ll post later.

- Finally, I’d like to pay more attention to the African Cup of Nations, but the organizers of that event are making it really, really hard for us. Max Bretos told everyone he campaigned to get the competition on Fox Soccer Channel, but the competition’s organizers priced it out of everyone’s range. Someone needs to help CAF understand that less money than you want is still better than no money at all. Obscurity is the enemy of competitions like this.

You may have noticed that I haven’t talked much about Super Bowl XLII this week.

There’s a simple and obvious reason for that — there’s nothing to talk about. The big game isn’t until a week from Sunday, and until then, we’ve got nothing but hype and bluster and journalists desperately looking for stories (and lots and lots of fluff) so they can look like they’re actually earning their money. There’s no real reason for the NFL to make us wait two weeks, but they do it anyway, so that we all get a chance to meet to the real Ahmad Bradshaw and have big giant parties in the desert and such.

Simply put, this is the week that made me glad that I learned to appreciate other forms of football. There are a hundred stories in England alone right now — Tottenham Hotspur finally beating Arsenal (and starting a Gooner dust-up), another American moving to Fulham, Havant & Waterlooville getting ready for their FA Cup match against Liverpool, whose new American owners pissing off fans, and transfers, transfers galore. The universe wants you to know who Havant & Waterlooville are — look here and here — and that’s a beautiful thing.

If that’s not enough for you, Six Nations rugby starts in two weeks, as does Super 14 rugby down in the Southern Hemisphere. The Australian Football League preseason starts in 3 weeks, and there’s already controversy about new NAB Cup test rules, not to mention a strong desire to dump the NAB Cup for good. Plus, they’re already playing Gaelic Football in Ireland this month.

And what are we doing in America? Going a whole week without football and yammering on about Tom Brady’s bogus walking boot and Jessica Simpson getting dumped by Tony Romo.

Y’know, I’d take Havant & Waterlooville over that pretty much any day of the week. At least they’re actually going to play this weekend.