sprawler? nah man, its sprawler lime

If it were up to Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light division -- department: Lime, specifically -- my summer wouldn't qualify as having even started yet, despite the calendar now reading August/Agosto. (I haven't brought one out, sadly. I'm presuming I won't by autumn, either, by which I'll have then denied myself a summer, which may or may not retard the space-time continuum.) Now, quite frankly, that's horseshite. I don't need lollipop beer to a) actually provide the feeling of a cavity during its formation and b) try to disparage the amount of interest I've feigned towards the States' Summer of Soccer! -- the Confederations Cup and subsequent is-this-it? debate, The Beckham Experiment and subsequent catfight, Gooch to Milan, a jejune Gold Cup (best documented here, which you should have read already), a god damn ESPY award, the friendlies and their astonishing attendance -- feigned but still consumed, every last morsel, licked cleaned from its plate.

How pleased was I to learn appetizers were officially over this past weekend, that it was time to get on with the pertinent? Sure, the first to kick off 09/10 was the Eredivisie, and thus (thanks to Deportes) I was afforded PSV's opener against just-promoted VVV-Venlo; a game not trancing children into the piss-dance from stimulation but a game worth actual points nonetheless. I had sort of forgotten what an invested crowd actually sounds like (there is a difference between invested and demented, Mexicans); the PSV faithful's acoustics and tone were more than helpful in reminding everyone but their own team (3-3 draw) that this one mattered, that this had implications, that this shit was on. Give me that over a preseason friendly any day, mastodons and HD be damned (unless taken in live, which is a different contextual beast entirely).


Now I'm atop no apple crate here, bellowing "brothers and sisters, come hither!" ; for mostly in theory but also a fair amount in actual action, the Peace Cup lapped the other friendliments (not to be mistaken for friendly mints) tenfold, and could even perhaps have been dubbed as "interesting". Four teams staging four games in two days? Please -- try a dozen teams, from ten countries in four confederations, complete with a group stage and semifinals -- close your eyes and you could dupe yourself into thinking it actually possessed some meaning. And maybe it did. If Juve display a similarly raunchy performance on spot-kicks during the season as they did in the Final, it might not be that naïve to launch blame that way, though in turn it might be very. And more so it could hold varying degrees of weight for the Peace Cup 2009 Champions, the lil' engine that could (but probably won't), Mad Marty's Aston Villans. A benign trophy in the bank, perhaps the exact consolation deserved for the two-thirds of last year where they had us all going reeeal nice-like.

But perhaps most so for -- you guessed it -- a Damn Yankee; Brad Guzan, who won't be the opening-day starter for Villa this year but surely now will be the second World B. Friedel (Berman, eat your stomach out) leaves the post, in case O'Neill had had any doubt, which is probably one of the prominent litmus tests he had outlined coming into the tourney. Yes, all three botched takes by bianconeri were of their own doing, but Guzan did what was laid out in front of him to do, including equipoising ADP's stare and telling him to take his guile and fuck right off (not to mention the saves and clean sheet preceding the penalties, and the tournament's performance preceding that). He, like so many 'Merican keeps and now our national (A, not C) team before him, have shown they at least have the, or at least enough, mettle, be it with seismograph-consistency or what have you.


So why can't it just be about that then, the growth and the betterment? I know how loaded an inquiry that is, but most of what's trodden in this are cul-de-sacs, seemingly posed to piss off the US soccer contingent. Need every discussion of the sport in the mainstream media waste no time in putting everything in terms of "Is it soccer's time?", no matter the story? It's as though they think their connotation won't be sniffed out, asking not really if it's time but if it's time for them to actually have to pay attention to it -- rather akin to similar debates concerning MMA, a comparison at once horribly laughable and laughably horrible. Many are quick to criticize the elitism coupled with following soccer, and are then even quicker to be bovinely elitist towards it. Why doesn't get golf get this kind of slung mud? It's slow, it's boring, it's European, perhaps all in higher doses. (...alright, not more European.) I've watched but one golf tournament the past, I don't know, seven years; Tom Watson relieving himself in the Fountain of Youth last month, which was as large of a white whale as you're bound to see in sport. Has golf arrived then, really? (Shortsighted? Absolutely -- but I can only really use myself as a barometer anyway, however obtuse that is, and the name on top of this page doesn't read Birdie me, Ballesteros!, now does it?)


I'm probably in the minority here, and the cynic's cap doesn't fit my head all that well (or it does and I think I look putrid in it), but it just isn't fully complying why soccer has to become a leading name, as though that's actually even possible. Why can't it stay a cult sport? The MLS can (and should and hopefully will) grow and grow and grow like Dubai's skyline and it still won't be anywhere near the NBA, let alone the NFL, or even Major League Baseball, so why all this burlesque conversation?

Yeah, you're right, obvious-but-unsatisfying-reason-why, that it's la hostia in pretty much every other nation on the planet. But xenophobia is as ingrained an attribute in the Yank psyche as is the hush-hush looting of other's customs, and since soccer isn't exactly hush-hush anymore, we've come too far now to embrace it wholescale. It's not that it won't happen, but soccer's ephemeral rise this summer will be forgotten once pro/college football commences, and further once baseball's postseason starts, and furtherer once basketball season begins; to lay dormant in its niche until June 11, 2010. This is because it was remembered this summer beside Brett Favre, Michael Vick, and steroids in baseball -- not exactly the sexiest corral of topics. So why all this disrespectful fuss about vogue when all that seems to ever be in vogue is backhandedly complimenting the sport and its followers? Can't we just enjoy this?

Now, I've ruined these pants a tad early, I recognize, as the SOS has yet to have found its proverbial conclusion, on the twelfth in the Azteca, which if there's some or any sort of divinity will provide the US with a befitting cap to a fascinating summer, of which I have proof I experienced (fuck Busch!) through an inordinate amount of passive-aggressive soccer and a birthday suit uncannily resembling the Peruvian flag.

you can't pop your collar if it's a guillotine

I've been estranged for the better part of a year now about the fourth CL spot. Supporting Villa's quest to break the English caste system should be right up my alley in theory, however they've yet to entice me into actually walking down the damn thing. I've preferred squinting at and speculating from a distance instead. (This caution could be because there's a closet, located somewhere in the deepest & darkest annals of my affections, that contains just a minute amount of love for Arsenal; that's not a door for today, unfortunately.)


I almost did take that walk, though. Martin was this close to talking me into it. He at the least commanded my heightened attention, as from afar a man resembling a coke-binging sprite on the touchline often will. Every goal Villa scores (or concedes, but emphasis on the former), they are to him each their own unique rapture, though from what it's hard to say, for few are as safe in their posts as O'Neill is in his. Whatever the reason, his elations have now ceased where they should instead be finding most warrant, for his Villans have scored just five in their last eight and are gazing skyward towards fourth after so long staring down from it. The side could actually finish as they did a year prior if they don't find their bearings right quick; a promising vision, but sixth place and trophyless.

Most will be quick to condemn; I just kinda wanna know what the hell happened. The usual suspects are all there in broad daylight, primed for criticism, but when corralled they seem more than a little inaccordant. Everyone seems to wanna point the finger at his team selection in Moscow, as though there couldn't be a worse infraction than disrespecting a trophy and the arduous quest for, but then these same fingers will later direct themselves towards the squad's paucity and how ragged his boys' legs have run. So what should O'Neill have done, exactly? Conceded the UEFA Cup back in July by playing the nobodies then? I look at their beating at Liverpool's hands today, and I see things through more modest and specified lenses.

I see 6'3 Alberto Riera turning 5'9 Nigel Reo-Coker into his bitch on one flank; I see 6'0 Luke Young playing out of position on the opposite; I see a fit Nicky Shorey (not to mention Zat Knight, who could shove the 6'3 Cuellar over onto Riera) languishing on the bench entirely, an all-too-common occurance for the smallest squad in the PL. Warming that same bench I see a 22 year-old Gabby Agbonlahor, saving his energy after the exhausting one-game-in-two-and-a-half-weeks schedule he just labored through; I did not see Emile Heskey do absolutely anything of note before being yanked besides drift out left and clog any drains Ashley Young would normally flow through. I see five-nil from four set pieces and a Pepe Reina masterstroke (of which should be regarded at Delap-like levels and defended accordingly from now on, it's such a weapon), and I see said goalkeeper saving a duo of beyond solid Carew attempts when the score read much more favorably.

But most importantly? I see Martin O'Neill. I see Old Trafford looming in a fortnight's time, coinciding with an improbable and unthinkable hiccup in Man Utd's blessed step, which are either the best or worst circumstances to play there under. The tactical miscues above, I suspect them abberant, and to be eliminated in but a game's time. There's work to be done, yes, but after everything this year, I just don't see Villa collapsing with but a whimper in late March, their story to be forgotten faster than it could have ever been conceived. Not in 08/09--it wouldn't seem right. Don't get complacent, Gunners. It's not over quite yet.