Ronaldinho

This guy is pretty good. But he needs a haircut.

Spring Soccer

We're probably going to start our Spring season around March 12 or so. I'm thinking we should go with uniforms like these worn by Muslim women soccer players for the first couple of weeks.

Iran Banned From Asian Games

Or at least that is what this article says.

Oops! Never mind!

FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

I don't know how I missed this...Brazil beat Uraguay in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in November. I don't know anything about beach soccer, but it appears that: 1) it is played on the beach, and 2) players are barefoot.

That's Uraguay's Coco in red.

Iraqi National Team

The Iraqi National Team made it to the finals of the Asian Games, but lost to Qatar, 0-1. There are 6 guys on the team whose first or last name is Mohamed (or Mohammed, or Mohammad, or Mohemed) and 5 guys named Ali. There's even a guy named Ali Mohamed. Think about that when you get confused because your team has a couple of Hannahs or Dakotas.

Please do not try this at OUR field

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SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean soccer fan protests against what he considers to be the referee's unfair judgment after South Korea's national soccer team lost to Switzerland in their World Cup Group G match as they watched the match on a screen in Seoul. Switzerland defeated South Korea 2-0. (06/27/06 AP photo)

Sikeston Tournament Results

VERY belated results from the Sikeston Tournament. Overall, we finished 15-8-3, with three champions!

BOYS 1st & 2nd

Beat Perryville 6-1 and Kennett 9-0; lost to Cape Titans 1-5.

GIRLS 1st & 2nd

Beat Jackson Red 4-1; tied Farmington AND Cape Stars 2-2. That was good enough for FIRST PLACE in the Red Division!

BOYS 3rd

Beat Farmington 2-0, Perryville 2-1, Cape Terminators 4-0, and Sikeston Black 6-5(!). Another FIRST PLACE winner in the Black Division!

BOYS 4th

Tied Perryville 2-2, beat Sikeston 2-0. In the semifinal, lost to Marion 0-1.

GIRLS 3rd & 4th

Beat Cape Stars 4-0, Jackson White 2-0, and Perryville 2-1. Beat Pacific in the CHAMPIONSHIP game, 2-1!

BOYS 5th & 6th

Beat Farmington 3-1; lost to Saline 0-4 and Frederickton 0-5.

GIRLS 5th & 6th

Beat Carbondale 7-0; lost to Marion 0-7 and Jackson Red 1-4.

JUNIOR HIGH

Lost to Cape Fear 1-3 and Perryville Power 2-3; beat Kennett 3-1.

It Pays to be in Charge!

At least, this guy thinks so.

The Penalty Kick

Ouch.

3rd Grade Boys, SIKESTON CHAMPIONS

First row: Isaac Pender, JT Moore, Collin Prather, Logan Spalt, Elijah Haar, Ryan Stark; Second row: Zach Parr, Dakota Earnhart, Wyatt Smith, Dale Prater, Hunter Garver; Coaches: David Prather, Butch Earnhart, Gary Stark.
Photo provided by Tracy Prather.
 

3rd and 4th Grade Girls, SIKESTON CHAMPIONS

Back row: Coach Marc Korb, Miranda Lingle, Samantha Schott, Hannah Schlenker, Callie Mowery, Hannah Pineau, Sports Psychologist Matt Denny
Front Row: Sammy Brimm, Natalyn Hepburn, Madison Calhoun, Taylor Smith, and Bailie Denny  

And Doug won the Championship without his hat. Go figure. 

The 5th and 6th Grade Girls, CHAMPIONS at the 2006 Carbondale Tournament! 

A Room in Sikeston

If you presently have a booked hotel room in Sikeston and are NOT going to use it, please call me before you cancel it!

Dr. Wells, Call Your Office

Yes... it's a retainer. 

3rd Grade Coed (OK, they're boys)

The Third Grade Boys took 2nd place at the Carbondale Tournament. They are:
First row: Elijah Haar; Ryan Stark, JT Moore, Logan Spalt; Isaac Pender Second row: Collin Prather; Dakota Earnhart; Dale Prater; Hunter Garver; Zack Parr; Wyatt Smith Third row: Butch Earnhart; Gary Stark; David Prather
 

Losing has crushed the spirit of Natalyn Hepburn. 

Doug Hayward, Call Your Office

"Soccer Referees Not Always Fair"

Sikeston Tournament

I have been in regular communication with Philip Black, Director of the upcoming Sikeston Tournament. At present, he has the 3rd grade boys, the 4th grade boys, and the 5/6 girls slotted in the A bracket. He may slot the 1/2 girls in A, but he has to see how many teams he has first. Everyone else will be in the B brackets.

Carbondale Results

As many of you know, we were put into the A division at all levels in the Carbondale Tournament and, to tell you the truth, we did better than I expected. We had a CHAMPION in the 5th and 6th Girls Division. The 3rd grade boys played for the Championship, but lost a tough one to Farmington 2-3. The 1st and 2nd grade girls finished second, and the 4th grade boys were in the playoff for 3rd place (I still don't know how they did).

1&2 Coed

5-3 Marion
0-7 Perryville Lightning
3-9 Farmington



1&2 Girls

1-0 Perryville Hurricanes
2-1 Carbondale
1-3 Jackson Red



3 Coed

1-0 Perryville Stingers
7-0 Saline County
6-1 Sikeston Black
8-0 Marion
2-3 Farmington (Championship)



4th Coed

2-2 Perryville Thunder
1-1 Washington, Indiana
1-0 Carbondale

Third/Fourth playoff ?



3&4 Girls

1-1 Carbondale
0-3 Perryville Hotshots
0-2 Jackson Red
1-2 Marion


5&6 Coed

Tied one, lost 3



5&6 Girls

Champions; tied one and won the others. No scores reported



Junior High

0-3 Carbondale
1-1 Sikeston Black
0-5 Marion
1-3 Perryville Storm

Call Me Josinho!

What's your Brazilian Soccer Name?

September 23 Rain Out

The question has arisen - will we reschedule the games cancelled on the 23rd?

The answer is yes. I will try to have the rescheduled games posted by Monday night. It will probably mean Monday games...

Blame the Ref

One of the reasons I like our teams to play in other towns is because they come back with a newfound respect for the UCSL refs.

But no matter how bad the refs get, it would be hard to top this. The shot goes out of bounds. The ball boy picks it up, drops it on the field in front of the goal and kicks it into the net. And it's COUNTED!

The ref said, "I was counting on my assistant. I guess I should have trusted my own eyes." Ya think?

COLTEN SEZ

Colten sez, "Everything's A-OK!!!" 

One more thing about the World Cup

Yes, I picked England to win. But it was subliminally brought on by this.

New Pre-k/K schedule

I have redrawn the schedule. It has four teams playing 9 games each. It's very symetrical! Let me know if there are problems.

ATTENTION PRE-K/K COACHES

I have to redo the schedule. We don't have enough players for 5 teams. The new schedule will be up tomorrow.

Safe But Not Dry

A reminder to coaches and parents... when the weather is bad, our primary concern is keeping the kids safe - not dry. We will play games in the rain, but WILL NOT play if there is lightning in the area (that is, you can hear thunder). The same holds true for practices! 

Fall Schedules

The schedules are now up. You may want to wait a couple of days before printing and distributing because there will likely be changes made. I will mark updated schedules with the word REVISED in the heading.

P/K and 1/2 schedules...

...are now posted. Please check every once in a while during the next week as I will most likely have to make revisions!

Fall Schedules

I have posted the 1&2 schedule as well as the 5&6 and JH schedules. I'll get to the rest today.

IF YOU PRINTED OUT THE 1&2 SCHEDULE YESTERDAY (MONDAY, AUGUST 28) PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES. Specifically, the starting time of the weekday September games will be 5:45PM. October games will begin at 5:30.

There's something kinda creepy about this...

No names are mentioned in this article, and probably for good reason.

By the way, did you know David Beckham has two sons named Romeo and Brooklyn?

Disaster!

My hard drive crashed. I'm busy reconstructing our database. I'll get back to you.

Fall Season

I know that many of you are anxious to get the schedules...I'm waiting until the sponsors have been assigned to post them. Give me a couple more days!

I think we have all the coaches now and all the teams. If you're child has not been assigned a team please call me at 833-4160.

Also, if you know of any pre-k/k players who have not signed up yet, let me know. We need another 5 or so.

Thanks for your patience.

Susan Butcher, RIP

I know this is a soccer blog, but I want to recognize the passing of one of the greatest women competitors ever. Susan Butcher was a sled-dog racer who won the Iditarod FOUR times. For the unitiated, the Iditarod is a race between Anchorage and Nome - a total of 1,152 miles. She would have won in 1985, too, if not for her team being attacked by a moose which killed two of her dogs and injured another 13. She tried to defend her team with an ax... 

Fall Season Info

The deadline for registering for the the Fall 2006 season has passed. If you missed the deadline but still want to register your child please drop the form in the mail TODAY! Once I have entered those who made the deadline into the database, I may be able to add some more players if room is available.

I have created a link (Over there! On the right!) to the FIFA rule book. It's a PDF file and is 84 pages long, but if you want to know the rules of the game that's the place to go. I will be uploading and creating a link to the UCSL Rules and Laws soon.

It's even scarier than an Italian mime! It's the start of the Fall 2006 soccer season. The registration deadline is July 23, the same day that we will be doing registration as at the Junior High in Anna from 9AM through noon.  

Thank God Ronaldino has found something to do since Brazil lost in the World Cup. 

ZIDANE FOR A DAY!

You, too, can be a world famous soccer player!

Zinedine Zidane is the goat of the Cup.....

Not a goat! A RAM! 

Portugal is #1!

In yellow cards, that is. But really the grand champ has to be Tunisia which managed to garner 14 cards in only 3 games, followed by Ghana with 18 in 4.

Team MP YC RC FC FS TC TS
POR 7 24 2 121 116 167 194
GHA 4 18 1 100 55 67 88
NED 4 16 2 85 53 91 73
TUN 3 14 1 65 37 75 95

In case you missed it....

Here's a summary of the last World Cup game by James Gaugherty at the National Review:

“kick… kick… pass… pass… oh, the other guy got it. Now the other guys try to advance. Kick… kick… pass… pass… out of bounds, throw-in. Kick… Kick… out of bounds, corner kick. Oh, two guys ran into each other, each one is insisting the other hit him. The stretcher comes out. They wave off the stretcher. Kick. Kick. Another run-in. Somebody’s getting a yellow card. The offender is giving the universal, “Who, me?” reaction. Kick, kick. Out of bounds. Throw in. Kick. One team’s coach is making wild arm gestures, the other is smoking. Kick. Header. Kick. Annnnd… SHOT ON GOAL! The fans wake up and go insane with excitement! But the goalie caught it. He punts it to the other end of the field, er, pitch. And… it’s in the hands of the other goalie. He punts it back. Header. Kick. Kick. Pass. Oh, wait, somebody’s lying on the ground again, insisting the other guy elbowed him.” (Repeat for forty-five minutes, plus injury time.)

Hey... I only see one striker! We'll never score! 

The other Ronaldo

After Portugal lost to France yesterday, the always classy Christiano Ronaldo said:

"Anyone who understands soccer saw that the referee wasn't fair," Ronaldo said.

What a baby.

Maybe he should instead be asking his coach why he played with one striker when they were down after 30 minutes. And why in around the 75th minute he TOOK OUT HIS ONLY STRIKER AND REPLACED HIM WITH A WINGER.

One Striker...and then

Both Germany and Italy played with a one striker configuration for the first 110 minutes or so. But when penalty kicks loomed, Italy substituted in two more strikers (presumably because they were good PK takers). The result? Two goals in less than two minutes.

Germany Surrenders!

From the Associated Press:

July 4, 2006 — BERLIN - Michael Ballack looks at scorelines from recent matches between Italy and Germany and draws a grim conclusion.

"We really stand no chance," the German captain said on the eve of today's semifinal match. "They beat us clearly and dominated us. Everything speaks against Germany."

Of course, he's kidding. I think that it will be the Italians feeling down.

Top 20 Soccer Players

What? No Fred? No Loco? No Ruud???

Tournament Prediction

Back on June 4, I wrote that Brazil was favored to win the World Cup, but European teams traditionally do well when the tournament is played in Europe, especially the home team (in this case, Germany).

The final four are Germany versus Italy and Portugal (the dirtiest and floppingest team in the Cup) versus France.

Yesterday's Prediction

I predicted yesterday that if England went with a single striker against Portugal, they wouldn't score. On that I was right. What I didn't predict was that being double teamed most of the game would frustrate that striker (Wayne Rooney) to the point where he did the bunny hop on the groin of Carvalho and get tossed from the game. 

Hops

German Coach Klinsmann's got hops. 

The Germans beat Argentina on penalty shots, and will play Italy in the semifinals. My Brits play Portugal today and Brazil goes against the French. I don't know who will win, but I will predict that 1) Roberto Carlos (Brazil) will be out of position most of the game; and 2) England will use one striker and not score.

Watch France's Ribery...

This is lame...

DEALING BY WHEELING: Three Argentinean fans were thrown out of their home nation's World Cup match against Holland after it was discovered that they masqueraded as disabled in order to buy discount tickets. The three rolled wheelchairs to their fraudulent seats, Ananova.com reported on June 27. But their ruse was discovered when one got so excited by the game that he leapt out of his seat. His buddy explained: "Our friend couldn't stop jumping and a person near us thought there was a miracle happening."

Third-World Cup results

Somalia Defeats Rwanda To Win Third-World Cup

June 29, 2006 | Onion Sports

KHARTOUM, SUDAN—The host city of the 2006 Developing Nations Football Championship erupted in cheers that nearly drowned out the cries of the starving and wounded Tuesday when the underdog Somali side, playing four down due to injuries and landmines, outlasted the more experienced if disease-ridden Rwandans 1-0 to win the inaugural Third-World Cup.

Quarter-Final Round

England plays Portugal, France plays Brazil, Germany plays Argentina, and Italy plays Ukraine.

Wouldn't it be cool if the final four were Germany, Italy, France, and England? It would be like World War II without all the guns and stuff. Italy is particularly suited for the role seeing as how their players dive for cover whenever a shadow passes near them.

Italy Sucks

In the final seconds of the Italy - Australia game, Italy's Fabio Grosso had the ball in the goalie box. The Australian defender tried to slide tackle the ball away but missed. Grosso had a choice - step over the defender and take a shot, or flop and try to get a penalty kick. Being on the Italian team he naturally took the flop option and got a penalty kick. Francesco Totti scored; game over, 1-0. After scoring Totti ran around SUCKING HIS THUMB! Classy. 

About the Portugal-Netherlands game...

What a disgusting display. Portugal managed to prove themselves to be the dirtiest team in the Cup, while also managing to take the title for biggest babies of the tournament. Holland wasn't much better.

And in defense of Referee Valentin Ivanov... in my opinion, the teams DESERVED the 16 yellow cards laid on them. Despite knowing that he was going to be slapping cards, neither team could control themselves. Portugal now faces England without Deco and Costinha Good. I hope they lose.

Sunday's Games

Sven Eriksson (England's coach) dissed me. No sooner did I write an entry questioning the single striker strategy he CHANGED to it. And got lucky, thanks to Beckham's goal.

Holland's coach, Marco Van Basten, also dissed me. He BENCHED HIS BEST SCORER, Ruud Van Nistelrooij. Not only benched him, but DIDN'T even PLAY HIM. And lost 0-1.

BRILLIANT!

That's what Maxi Rodriguez's goal to beat Mexico was...brilliant. 

200TH POST

The 200th post to this blog was a photo of a guy in a kangaroo suit. What does it mean?

AUSTRALIA IN THE FINALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 32 YEARS!

How can you NOT cheer for a them? 

I Don't Know Much About Soccer, But...

Teams playing in the World Cup fell in to two basic categories, those that use a single striker and those that use two. It occured to me (and I could be wrong) that those who used two strikers in the first round scored more goals than those that didn't. Argentina, Spain and Germany scored 8 goals each, Brazil 7 goals. They use two strikers. Portugal(5), Holland (3), U.S.A. (2) and France (only 1 goal when using a single striker) attack with one.

Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you want to score you want to use two strikers. I'm no Bruce Arena but I WAS born in Brooklyn...

Soccer as Metaphor

Mostly soccer is just guys in shorts running around aimlessly, a metaphor for the meaninglessness of life.

Last Day of the First Round

After today, we'll know who will fill the last spots in the Round of 16. There are eight teams playing; only Togo has been eliminated. Spain is just about a lock.

Don't forget, you can go to the FIFA World Cup web site for a schedule of the next round's games!

Why Americans Don't Care

From the Weekly Standard's Jonathan V. Last:

But there is one obstacle to soccer acceptance that seems insurmountable: the flop-'n'-bawl.

Turn on a World Cup game, and within 15 minutes you'll see a grown man fall to the ground, clutch his leg and writhe in agony after being tapped on the shoulder by an opposing player. Soccer players do this routinely in an attempt to get the referees to call foul. If the ref doesn't immediately bite, the player gets up and moves along.

Making a show of your physical vulnerability runs counter to every impulse in American sports. And pretending to be hurt simply compounds the outrage. Basketball has floppers, but the players who do it--like Bill Laimbeer, whose flopping skills helped the Detroit Pistons win two NBA championships--are widely vilified and, in any case, they're pretending to be fouled; they never pretend to be injured.

The U.S. team has gone the way of the pig-footed bandicoot. 

Groups C and D

Play is complete. Moving on are Argentina, who will play Mexico in the next round and Netherlands (RUUD!), who will play Portugal.

Wayne Rooney

This is a Nike ad starring England's Wayne Rooney. What do you see? To me, it's a shirtless footballer who is excited and painted with the national symbol of St. George's cross. Creepy? Yes. Make me want to buy Nike? No.

What do other's see? From The Daily Mail:
Labour MP Stephen Pound said the advert was 'truly horrible.'

'This is such a horrible image and is so horribly war-like that it can only be described as Nike being crass, offensive and insensitive as they try to hitch poor old Rooney to their commercial band-wagon.'

Rev Rod Thomas of Church of England evangelical group Reform says, 'It therefore brings to mind the crucifixion to many people, and why Nike would want to do that, I haven't a clue, unless it is simply as a publicity stunt.

'The trivialisation of Christ's suffering is highly offensive to Christians and to God. This will cause real hurt to people."

Geez...lighten up, guys. 

Bart should play for Portugal, THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH!