Dave’s Football Blog

This arrived in my inbox yesterday. Take a close look at it and tell me what’s wrong with it…

Take a minute. I’ll wait. Then look after the jump for the answer.

It was quite a day yesterday in the UEFA Champions League, too, what with Russian Champs FK Rubin Kazan walking into the Nou Camp and stunning Barcelona, 2-1. That upset, combined with Dynamo Kiev’s 2-2 draw against Inter Milan at the San Siro, has left Group F deadlocked, with Barcelona, Dynamo and Rubin Kazan level on 4 points and Inter on 3. Surely, that will be the group to watch from here on out.

Meanwhile, Lyon came back from a goal down to plunge Liverpool into an even deeper crisis. I would encourage people not to listen to the British press about Rafa Benitez’ job being in jeopardy, though. They won’t sack him for one simple reason — there’s no way any equal or better manager will work for Tom Hicks and George Gillette right now, with the club in such financial chaos. Plus. Rafa still has the support of the fans. Middlesbrough finally sacked Gareth Southgate because supporters started losing interest. Are any Liverpool supporters losing interest right now? Hell, no. Phil Brown will easily beat Rafa in the sack race.

Finally, for a while last night, I wondered if the spirit of upsets was about to flow from Europe to North America. In the CONCACAF Champions League, D.C. United had a 1-0 halftime lead against Toluca in Mexico, where no U.S. club has ever won a match. Alas, Toluca converted a clear penalty in the 62nd minute to earn a 1-1 draw — a good result for any MLS club, to be sure, but one that will likely send D.C. out of the competition.

D.C. United, you’re no Rubin Kazan.

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These were the scenes on the streets of La Ceiba last night after Honduras beat El Salvador 1-0 and the USA got a last-second equalizer from Jonathan Bornstein to earn a 2-2 draw against Costa Rica. Those two results gave Honduras an automatic berth in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and forced Costa Rica, who beat the US squad 3-0 the a qualifier in Saprissa, into a playoff with Uruguay. It also prompted my buddy Jeff to ask whether Costa Ricans will now talk about Bornstein the way Bostonians talk about Bucky Dent.

My favorite part of this video might be the chants of “USA! USA!” at the end. The USA had already qualified on Saturday by beating Honduras 3-2 in an epic match that should have been shown on ESPN2, but was instead limited to closed circuit TV to any establishment willing to pay $1,000 or more for the game.

So of course, four of my fellow Railhawks supporters and I decided to pay $20 to go watch it. At a Honduran restaurant. In full Team USA regalia — shirts, hats, scarves, flags, the works.

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It’s a shame that NFL teams can’t loan players out to other teams.

In soccer, clubs loan players to other clubs all the time, usually because those players are young prospects on the end of the bench that need some experience. So big club A and small club B have a chat, and small club B gets to put said prospect in their starting lineup for a set period of time. Villarreal loaned Jozy Altidore out to Hull City for this season. (Of course, why Phil Brown isn’t playing the young man remains a mystery to me.)

We need this policy in the NFL, and the first deal should be for the Pittsburgh Steelers to loan Limas Sweed to the New York Jets.

Why? Because apparently, the New York Jets actually teach their receivers how to catch the ball.

Seriously, you saw Braylon Edwards out there in Miami last night, right? It took him all of one game to go from being Ol’ Iron Hands in Cleveland to making one clutch catch after another in a Jets uniform. That performance must have had every Browns player thinking to himself, “Damn, who can I punch to get the hell out of this town?”

So how did Braylon Edwards suddenly become clutch? Was he suddenly free of staph? Does Mark Sanchez put some special mojo on the ball that Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson don’t? I doubt it. Clearly, Edwards got coached up in a few days in New York, and that might have been better coaching than he had gotten in several years in Cleveland.

What a shame that the Steelers can’t loan Limas Sweed out to the Jets to figure this out. Clearly, Ben Roethlisberger throws a decent ball. He’s neck-in-neck with Peyton Manning for the league lead in completion percentage. There must be some reason why can’t Sweed catch his passes. He wouldn’t have been a 2nd-round draft pick if he couldn’t catch, right?

Maybe this will be the purpose of the UFL in the long run. Maybe the Steelers will be able to loan Sweed out to the California Redwoods one day and let Dennis Green coach him up. Until then, though, we have to settle for watching the Jets work miracles, while we hope Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes don’t pick up an injuries — because, y’know, they can catch a football. That’s why the Steelers pay them.

Since I wrote this post yesterday, the UFL web site has added a PDF box score and a 99-second highlight reel, which was taken directly from the Versus broadcast.

Plus, this popped up on the UFL’s Twitter feed:

Y’know, it’s almost as if someone other than Different Dave and Jeff actually reads this blog. Interesting. Perhaps I mention here that the league standings tab on the front page needs updating, too…