Strap On Those Shin Guards, It's Kicking Time

I'll try not to get too long-winded here because I know most of you really don't care, but it's Champions League time again and there actually are a few games really worth watching this go-round. If you'll recall the Champions League is basically the European championship and they squeeze it in between league matches finally ending in the spring. We're in the final game of the group stage (much like the World Cup except everybody plays twice, home and away) and there's some big name teams with actual potential to go down in flames.

At 2:45 today (ESPN2), Barcelona (Spain) plays Werder Bremen (Germany). This is a super tough group also featuring Chelsea who managed to get four points out of two matches with defending champions Barca. Werder Bremen is tied for the lead in the German Bundesliga right now so they are no joke. Barcelona is two points behind both clubs and their only chance to get through to the knockout stage is to get a win today. You've gotta expect some fireworks from Ronaldinho today in a desperate effort. I'm looking for an up-tempo agressive game, and how can that not be fun to watch?

Tomorrow at 2:30 pm (ESPN2) Manchester United (England) plays Benficia (Portugal) who is another tough team, but luckily for them it just happens to be home at Old Trafford. With Celtic (Scottish Premiere League) coming out of the gates hot and getting a huge win over ManU, they are likely to make the knockout round having only to play bottom feeders FC Copenhagen tomorrow. However, Benficia is going to look to come out agressive against the Red Devils with their only salvation being a win and three points. Look for another fun one with a little bit of drama when Christiano Ronaldo goes up against his countrymen in this clash. If he takes a phantom penalty in the box, could he possibly be hated by both English and Portugese fans? Let's hope so.

Elsewhere, French team Lille needs a win over AC Milan (Italy) to have any shot, while Arsenal (EPL) and FC Porto (Portugal) could play for a draw and both advance. But, I'm guessing both teams would like to win the group for seeding purposes, so let's hope for a couple of agressive sides in that one as well. Also, note that Liverpool already has thirteen points and nothing to worry about in their tie with Galatasaray. Eat that ManU and Arsenal.

What Gage Is Thinking About Today

Here comes another fast paced, quit hitting post, because you know you want it. Here's what's on my mind.

- The Heat lose by 42 to the Bulls. Ok this is why the NBA is a total wasteland. No team in the league is forty points better than another team. The recurring problem is that the players just barely seem to care. Usually teams take turns completely not giving a shit. Team A plays hard for a quarter and builds a big lead. Then they get bored and start thinking about paying those alimony checks to their babies' mamas and how it sucks being famous because you can't get away with being a deadbeat dad, etc. Team B suddenly goes on a streak and so on. Most games wind up close at the end. Last night we just ran into a situation where team H started thinking about the post-game meal before tipoff. Dreadful.

- Liverpool (and soccer in general). The Reds had been playing at the middle of the pack all season and I was starting to think it was just to spite me, but this past weekend they got their shit together. I managed to get up and watch them stick it to Aston Villa 3-1 on Saturday with three beautiful goals, particularly one by Dirk Kuyt. Then, yesterday they played Bordeaux at home in the Champions League group round and basically controlled the entire game winning 3-nil. Steven Gerrard got his first goal of the season, the Reds move on to the knockout round and all is well at Anfield today. In other Champions League news, Chelsea played at Barcelona last night and somehow managed to score a tying goal (friggin Drogba) in the 90th minute. Crazy. But the really wild thing about this game was that Chelsea got five yellow cards. Five in one game?? Miami players, take note.

- Scrabble. That's right, not a sport, I know. But, I read Word Freak after a Simmons reccomendation last year and it's really an engaging, interesting read. Well the author of that book, Stefan Fatsis, wrote this article about a player scoring 830 points in one game, an all time record. I've heard speculation that there was some cheating going on, but I don't feel that way, at least not from this article. Somebody was probably just wearing their lucky rainbow suspenders. The interesting thing here is that this record only came about because neither player in the game was very good. Two better players would have never scored as high. What's a good sports equivalent to this? A free-swinging minor league baseball player hitting 80 home runs?

- MotoGP and Americans actually being good at something. Due to the suggestions of a co-worker I sat down and watch a motorcycle race this weekend. It was the final race of the Motorcycle Grand Prix (MotoGP) circuit which, as I understand, is quite popular in Europe. Without being too long winded about it, going in the five-time defending champ Valentino Rossi (Italian) had a slim lead over the American Nicky Hayden. Anyway, Rossi crashed out of the race in a stunningly unpredictable mistake and Hayden won the points title. This is particularly exciting to me because Hayden is from Kentucky and really had to work his way up to this level. It's nice to see Americans thriving overseas after our basketball/baseball/soccer debacles. This is a big deal to lots of motorcycle racing fans, way to go Nicky.

Hump Day Soccer

With the never-ending NCLS dominating headlines and the NFL in mid-season form, it would be easy to forget about the world of soccer. However, for those of you unemployed or with jobs where you get to watch tv all day (damn, I miss that job) today is a good day to settle in and watch a couple of high profile Champions League group matches.

2:30pm ESPN2 - Chelsea vs. Barcelona. The biggest spending team with the most talent (Chelsea) matched up against last year's Champions league winner (Barcelona). Plus, the best player in the world (Ronaldinho) who basicially dissapeared for Brazil in the World Cup plays for Barca. And he's bound to do something crazy awesome. In addition Peter Cech, who just might be the best keeper in the world went down with some brain injury (his dad says he's lucky to be alive), and they lost their backup in the same game so we're down to the third stringer in net. Could be a disaster.

5:00pm ESPN Classic - Liverpool vs. Bordeaux. The Reds go to France to take on a buch of croissant loving fashionistas. This probably matters more to me because I've been following them, but I'd really like to see them play well. They haven't put together a really good match lately, and suddenly Gerrard is out with a hammy (thanks English national team). Not good, and now they're at the middle of the pack in the Premiership standings. At least there's still Champions League for the '05 champs.

A Long Way From Home Field: Two Months Following Soccer

I had World Cup fever. No idea what brought it on, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I started watching USA friendlies in the spring and never looked back. Every match (read: game) was on TV, even the standard media outlets were covering the event. The whole thing was easy to get wrapped up in. It all culminated with my being fortunate enough to be in a hotel bar in Europe with a gaggle of 12 year old Italian kids for the final match. They laughed, cried, cheered and sang through the whole game. I was hooked, I was enthralled, I wanted to know more and suddenly it was all over. I was a man without a football club (read: soccer team). So I decided to follow English Premiere League (and the soccer world in general). I get Fox Soccer channel, why not? More specificially I was following Liverpool for the purposes of having a team. They are the Reds so it seemed only natural.

Here's an all-too-wordy rundown of what I've learned:
- It's really fucking hard to learn twenty new teams. As if just learning the players on Liverpool isn't hard enough, I can't even name every team in the Premiership. I'm constantly asking myself "Ok that jersey looks familiar, who is that?" followed by "Why the fuck can't they put their team name on the jersey instead of these goddamned ads?" Plus, the whole jersey situation is an enormous fiasco. In virtually every US sport the home team wears the solid color and the away team wears white. Easy. Not in the EPL. Liverpool wears solid red home jerseys but then wears solid yellow (why??) away jerseys. This leads to some confusion on my part. Take for example Liverpool vs. Chelsea. At Anfield (Liverpool's home field) the game would be a red team vs. a black team. However, switch the home team and you've got a yellow team vs. a blue team. Boggles the mind, no?

- Watching an entire sporting event with only a commercial break at halftime is incredible. You know how when you first get HBO you sit down to watch a show, get totally sucked in and the time just flys by? Episodes of Entourage seem to last only five minutes some weeks. As someone who regularly attends NFL games, I can tell you it can seem like you've seen three plays in the past twenty minutes. My only question is: when do these people take piss breaks?

- I'm having an unreasonably hard time understanding the post-season. Given 10 minutes I believe I could fully explain the playoffs for any major US sport to a reasonable person. Apparently Liverpool is playing in the Champions League. Teams from all over the world qualify and compete. The winner of the Champions League is generally considered the best team in the world. Last year Barcelona won it all. The final is sometime in the spring. But the really odd thing is that the Champions League matches are taking place DURING THE SEASON. This means a team will play a league game in their home country and then might go play in Iran or somewhere equally desolate and then come back to league play. Then there is a UEFA Cup for teams not good enough to qualify for the Champions League. I would guess this is a big deal as well. It seems that a NCAA/NIT comparison would not be accurate in terms of importance but I can't think or a better one. Also, I believe that teams busting out of the Champions League early can still go play in the UEFA Cup. Astounding. Then there's some other league championship in the English system but I'm so spent at this point that I don't have the energy to investigate.

(I realize Trout will chide me for this, but did you ever see Baseketball where the playoffs are this ridiculously drawn out system and Al Michaels and Bob Costas look completely overwhemed? That's how I feel.)

- Liverpool's manager, Rafa Benitez, has used something like 94 straight different starting lineups. Jerry Narron has found his soulmate.

- Arsenal's manager is named Arsene. Did he change that after getting the job? Is it just fate? Kismet? Not sure why, but I really needed to get this off my chest.

- There are about eight billion teams throughout the world, and a lot of them play in various tournaments, etc. What an awesome thing, to have a truly world game be played in a global manner. However, it seems that there are less than ten teams who truly have a chance at winning the Champions League, a few from England, a couple from Spain, a couple French teams and some others sprinkled in. That kind of sucks, but there's no real way to creat parity throughout the entire world. (And don't forget to never, ever mention MLS)

- Other countries take their national teams VERY seriously. It was front page news this week that England is thinking about using a 3-5-2 lineup in their next match. 3-5-2!!! OMFG!!! Seriously, take a deep breath.

- USA still doesn't have a coach and still can't pull their heads out of their asses. It was probably time for Arena to go, but you might want to hire somebody else in the meantime. Plus, they just got invited to play in the South American championship next summer which seems like a good idea but will be hard to do with no coach or team. On a similar note, I'm not the one to come up with this idea, but why not have a North/South America tournament every four years? Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and USA would probably be the top four teams with some scrappy underdogs (assuming the USA doesn't fall off the map). That would be fun to watch and on maybe even on par with the Euro tournament.

Well, that seems like enough for now. If you made it this far, here's your lesson: there's a lot of fucking soccer out there, and it's hard to keep track, but for those of us who are the type to check the MLB standings daily, it can be real fun. And, it's still great to watch.