Dave’s Football Blog

The BBC catches a con man posing as a Manchester United scout in Nigeria, Chris Hansen-style.

I have ended my affiliation with AOL Sports today.

I suspect most of you would assume this decision had something to do with this sordid incident, and yes, that played a role. The Fantasy Sports Girl mess was indicative of the mismanagement going on behind the scenes at FanHouse. All the female bloggers we had brought in over the last two years were basically told they didn’t matter, and some people we like were nudged out of their jobs over this “new direction” that the boys at AOL Sports wanted to take — a direction over which we bloggers appeared to have zero say. Plus, that URL switchover to FanHouse.com was buggier than the first release of Windows Vista, and somewhere along the way, FanHouse lost its Google News placement.

For me, though, that’s really only part of the story, and it gets at something that’s been eating at me for a while.

Two weeks ago, before this started shaking out, I had this dream where I was carrying suitcases and duffel bags out to some cars and vans parked against the wall. It was me, a couple of friends and about a dozen NFL players, past and present. I was talking to players, trying to making sure everyone had everything, because we were on a tight deadline, and I put extra gadgets and notebooks and such into some players’ bags because I knew that’s what they needed or what they liked.

Finally, we got everything loaded up, and someone said impatiently, “Okay, let’s go,” because we were running late. A few of us were about to climb into the first car… but just as I was about to get in, I jumped back, slammed the door shut, and put my hands on my head in total panic. A friend looked at me and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I literally cried out, “I forgot to pack my own bag!”
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Man, I hope this isn't the thing that officially turns Smitty into America's Joey Barton...

Seriously, this is the best description of GolTV's Ray Hudson that I've ever read. Go check it out.

Laurie at The Offside looks at the state of MLS and the notion that Americans who talk about soccer often feel like imposters. What does that say about Americans who talk about Aussie Rules?

DC Sports Bog caught a D.C. United fan wearing a life vest during the team's second waterlogged home game in a row. Awesome.

The Offside serves up this handy translation guide for the silly season. "I have always wanted to play for Aston Villa." = "I can't believe Man U wouldn't return my calls."

Deuce of Davenport finds all sorts of NFL-licensed products that he thinks shouldn't be NFL-licensed products. I, on the other hand, think a Steelers pool chlorinator would be AWESOME. If I had a pool, anyway...

I'm sure this has nothing to do with that Batman movie opening this week. Either way, Shawne Merriman as Bane is genius.

A youth club in Sydney, Australia, is funneling players to Croatia. Somewhere, an Irishman is grinning at the karmic retribution of it all...