Dave’s Football Blog

From The Offside: Coca-Cola Championship clubs that win the promotion playoff get relegated from the Premier League after one season about 60% of the time. Three of the last four promotion playoff winners have gone right back down the following season.

Remember when the FA took all the trophies away from the club formerly known as Wimbledon FC and gave them to AFC Wimbledon instead? Well, Milton Keynes Dons’ trophy cabinet isn’t empty anymore. Enjoy that Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, guys.

World Footy News recommends an International Rules Tri-Nations series between Australia, Ireland and the USA. Somehow, I doubt the AFL and GAA will listen, though it might be fun if they did.

I’m playing with a new Wordpress toy today that was passed on to me from The Postmen. So if things look weird here for the next day or two, that’s why.

There are a ton of big important association football matches to look forward to this weekend. There’s the Merseyside Derby on Sunday between Liverpool and Everton, in which both teams are battling for fourth place and the final Champions League spot in the Premier League. There’s the Old Firm Derby on Saturday between Celtic and Rangers, which could impact who wins the Scottish title. Roma and Inter Milan have big ties tomorrow which will impact the Serie A title chase. Fulham, Bolton and Birmingham are all fighting to stave off relegation.

Yet the game I’m most looking forward to … is a friendly.

Red Bull New York is in town to face my Carolina Railhawks tonight. They were going to start the season in San Jose, but the new-look Earthquakes’ new stadium isn’t ready yet. So they get a run out against our boys, and we’ll all get to see how the Railhawks’ new offensive weapons — and their back line — stand up against professionals, because they do just fine against college teams.

This game doesn’t count toward any standings, it has no title implications, and it won’t advance us in any cup competitions. And you know what? I couldn’t care less. That’s my club. I want to see them play and improve over last season. Plus, that’s Jozy Altidore, who plays for my country’s national team. This might be the only chance I get to see him play live before he takes off for Europe. (We even have a special song for Jozy if he scores tonight.)

The Merseyside and Old Firm Derbies? Sure, they’re big games, but they’re an ocean away from North Carolina. This game is here, and I get to meet up with my fellow Railhawks supporters tonight to sing and chant and beat drums and (hopefully) celebrate some goals. Thousands of MLS fans will be doing this same thing all across America this weekend. Are our teams as good as Liverpool and Everton? Who cares? They’re still our teams, and that’s what gives them meaning.

Football, like politics, is ultimately local. So if you’re looking for me tonight, I’ll be out singing for my local team. That’s what football is all about.

We’d rather drink Bawls!
We’d rather drink Bawls!
Hi ho de-dairio!
We’d rather drink Bawls!

Remember when I pondered what football in America would look like today if the Canadians had brought soccer to Harvard in 1874 instead of rugby? Well, maybe it would look something like this…

That footage comes from yesterday’s Estonia v. Canada friendly in Tallinn, which Estonia won, 2-0. That looks very, very cold. Just imagine it for a moment as a Sunday afternoon in Green Bay, where the snow covers the field as the Giants and Packers duke it out to see who goes to the Super Bowl…

Aren’t alternate worlds fun?

(Thanks, Dave!)

So the gang over at 100% Injury Rate started diving into Sports Illustrated’s new SI Vault, an online archive of all the once-great magazine’s stories. They stumbled upon this gem of a Frank DeFord column from 1979 that described how the NFL would look in the year 2000.

DeFord quotes heavily from some guy named Byron Donzis, a football fan/inventor who demonstrated the flak jacket to Houston Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini by walking into the QB’s hospital room and having a friend whack Donzis in the chest with a baseball bat. Donzis’ 1979 view of football in the year 2000 was, to put it mildly, insane.

“I think you’ll have a lot of women playing quarterback by 2000. For one thing, they have a higher threshold of pain.”

“The quarterback will have a calculator in his helmet. It will be on his Lexan visor, so he’ll be able to see readouts based on percentages and statistics to determine the ideal play to run.”

“I’m visualizing devices that will allow a player—a receiver, say—to jump two or three feet higher than he does now. Or we’ll put a strong enough biomechanical device on a quarterback’s back so he can pass 150 yards, which will be important, because the field will have to be that large by then. Or a power-pack device on a running back’s legs, so he can drive through the line.”

Now here’s the kick in the ass.

“There’s got to be more strategy put into football. It’s got to be more of a war game. I’m really very concerned about football because I’ve loved it all my life, and if it doesn’t move ahead, we are going to be a country of soccer players in 2000.”

Well, God forbid that ever happens. God forbid that our children discover that there’s more than one type of football played on this planet, or that this country ever becomes a true citizen of the world and plays a game the rest of the world plays. What would happen if our children became entranced by these free-flowing kicking games that those loony leftists in Brazil and Australia play? We’re Americans, dammit! We’ll play our own football, and the rest of you commie pinkos can kiss our red, white and blue asses!

I’d like to think America has grown past such isolationism since 1979, but I’m pretty sure I’m wrong about that — just as wrong as Byron Donzis was about football in the year 2000.

The obvious trouble with attempting to follow every form of football around the world is that you’re bound to miss things — especially when the rest of your life gets in the way.

I had intended to get up a little early this morning to catch the second half of the Geelong Cats v. Port Adelaide Power rematch. (Geelong won, by the way.) However, last night I got wrapped up in getting my NCAA Tournament brackets filled out and setting up that bracket pool for my college buddies, getting my shiny new Slingbox set up for remote viewing — sadly, a day too late to watch that corker between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur on my Treo while at work — and putting up FanHouse posts on the CONCACAF Champions Cup and Cristiano Ronaldo’s deadly aim.

Oh, and the girlfriend stopped by last night. Always a pleasant distraction, to be sure.

Suffice to say, I missed the AFL opener. It’s not all I miss around here. On Monday, I was going to write something about Gaelic Football for St. Patrick’s Day, which turned into St. Vincent’s Day in Dublin. That passed me by, too.

Three years ago around this time, I sat in front of my PC and thought, “What the hell am I going to write about on this blog for the next five months?” Then I shut it down, went to a sports bar and watched basketball all afternoon.

So when I wrote back in January that I wanted to shift things around a bit, this was why. Writing about the football in all its forms is fun, but I’m starting to think the origins and evolution of football is a subject better suited to a book than a blog. Maybe that’s what I should be writing. Hell, maybe half of it is already written here…

This is the day the GAA has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!

Or something.

Yes, just six months after I declared the International Rules Football series dead, the Gaelic Athletic Association has announced that it will resume talks with the AFL about reviving the series in 2008. This comes on the heels of the GAA preparing to legalize a sort of payment system for Gaelic Footballers that involves government grants — kind of like scholarships for college football players in America, but with actual cash instead of tuition and meal reimbursement.

The AFL would have to agree to a couple of things first, though. For starters, the GAA wants AFL players who get involved in fights to be suspended for AFL matches the following season. (That’s mostly Irish coach Sean Boylan talking here.) Second, the GAA wants a deal in place that would curtail the AFL’s raid on young Gaelic footballers. Given that the AFL commish Andrew Demetriou loves the cash International Rules brings in, I suspect he will agree to both these things.

Of course, fans still have issues with International Rules. Some Irish will continue to say it’s too violent, while some Aussies will say it’s just Gaelic Football with behind posts and tackling. Still, I think it’s fun to see two codes merge into something different, even if we only see it for two games a year. Besides, if you search for “International Rules Football” on Google, two things I wrote are in the top four. Why wouldn’t I be in favor of a resumption of this series?

And yes, I’m aware that picture of Jesus has nothing to with Aussie Rules or Gaelic Football. Google searches for Jesus playing either of these codes turned up squat. I considered putting a picture of Chris Judd there, but hey, he’s no messiah.

Next on KSK: You jackin’ it? [Kissing Suzy Kolber]