Giuseppe Rossi, who was born in Teaneck, NJ, might be the best American soccer player ever. The only problem is he chose to play for Italy instead.
Watching Giuseppe Rossi is exhausting for American soccer fans.
On the one hand, as witnessed in Villareal’s Champions League triumph against Danish side Odense FK on Tuesday, where the Teaneck, NJ native scored twice, Rossi has established himself as one of the game’s elite strikers. Last year he scored 32 times in all competitions, behind only Christiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi in Spain. And for American fans who have yet to see an American striker consistently score at that level, it instills a sense of pride and hope that in the future we might produce one again.
On the other hand, with every bit of skill, with every defender he dances around, and with every rocket left-footed finish, he reminds us how unlucky we are that he chose to play for Italy instead of the United States in international soccer.
It’s hard to deride him for his decision — he moved to his parents’ native Italy at the age of 12 to follow his dream of playing pro soccer and for the Azzurri. But the fact remains that we have to watch him score goal after goal after goal.
And every time he does, it’s so bittersweet it hurts.
In the end, I suggest that all of us American soccer fans accept his decision and love him all the same. We can be proud he is American without being angry at him for choosing to play for Italy.
After all, wasn’t it his decision to move to Italy at the age of 12 what got him to this point today? I’m pretty sure that given the opportunity, most of us would have made the same decision.
P.S. For those of you that missed the game, Villarreal’s Borja Valero pulled his own impression of a Zinedine Zidane head-butt. Enjoy.
Good-Bye Inter Milan, Hello $40 million a year. Samuel Eto'o is set to become the world's highest paid player with a surprise move to Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala.
And we thought American athletes made too much loot.
Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o, 30, has reportedly left Inter Milan, one of the world’s most accomplished clubs, for Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala, say reports in Italy.
Anzhi Makhchkala. That sounds like a side dish you would get a falafal joint doesn’t it?
Either way, Russian money wins big here, as oligarchs with tons of natural gas money have decided they want the Russian league to compete with the best in the world. So what have they done? Offered to pay an aging superstar almost $40 million dollars a year.
You heard me. $40 million per year.
Talk about over-paying.
On the one hand, Eto’o is a two-time Champions League winner with Barcelona, in 2006 and 2009, and for many years has been considered one of the most dangerous goal scorers in the world. Anzhi have already bought Chelsea’s Yuri Zhirkov and have Brazilian legend Roberto Carlos as a captain, so this purchase will solifdy them as one of the teams to beat in Russia.
Maybe.
So will that make them Champions League contenders?
Doubtful.
On the other hand, Eto’o is walking into a wonderful situation. Anzhi plays its home games in such a poor region that the team must be flown in from Moscow, where they live and train, for home games. And Moscow is over 1,000 miles away.
No joke. 1,000 miles over a dozen times per season. That won’t get old. It’s like living in New York and playing every week in Kansas. Kansas with a drug problem and massive unemployment rate.
Oh, and did I mention the racial abuse Russian fans vulgarly throw at African players? Just ask Roberto Carlos, who in his frist season with the club got so fed up with taunting from HIS OWN fans, that he threatened to retire.
But then he heard Eto’o was coming and figured the racial abuse would be directed elsewhere.
The next question is, who will Anzhi ridiculously overpay for next in their bid to turn a miniscule club into European champions? And what does this mean for the integrity of world soccer?
$60 million for Wayne Rooney? That will buy some serious hair plugs.
$80 million to Leo Messi? He can build a house in town made out of LEGOS for that kind of money.
It is purchases like these that drive market prices for players way up and causes clubs to go bankrupt. Just go talk to the La Liga league representative trying to hash out labor deals with the Spanish Players’ Union over wages paid to players when clubs go belly up.
All I know is that Eto’o better build like 50 schools in Africa for the kind of money he will reportedly be bringing in.
Good luck not blowing it this season Anzhi Makhachkala. And good luck with those fantastic fans of yours Samuel. I bet they won’t have any problem that you make more in one month than 80% of the population will in their entire lives.
No problem at all.
Makhachkala. Still sounds like some sort of stew, doesn’t it?
After five hotly contended meetings between the two teams last season, soccer fans already witnessed two Clasico’s between Spain’s top two teams this year as they contested the Spanish SuperCopa in a home-an-away series.
After a 2-2 draw over the weekend in Madrid, the second leg went north to Barcelona on Wednesday. The play was at times exquisite — Leo Messi proved his brilliance yet again with two sublime goals, including the late winner — but in the end, the scene was all too familiar as the match ended in bench clearing brawls with red cards handed out like promotional fliers on a street corner.
Again.
And it wasn’t only the players that got involved, Read Madrid’s head coach, Jose Mourinho, was seen poking an opposing coach in the eye in a sneak attack from behind. The best part of Mourinho’s stealth move? His retreat afterwards like he was walking down the street to buy a quart of milk. Ridiculous.
The bottom line is that, while we sports fans, especially American sports fans, love a good brawl between rival teams (I can’t help but think of the Red Sox and Yankees, of Pedro Martinez and Don Zimmer), enough is enough. I’m tired of the mud-slinging in the media between head coaches. I’m tired of the dirty tackles and I’m tired that both sides always blame their opponents for every fight.
This time, however, Barcelona have a case. Real Madrid completely lost control.
After Barca took an 88th minute 3-2 lead on a wonderful volley from Leo Messi, initiated by a pass from new signing Cesc Fabregas (the former Arsenal captain, whose prolonged, two-year long transfer back to his childhood team has warped the life from us all), Real Madrid turned into sore losers and starting hacking Barca players down like a weed-whacker.
The fact that the first half had two of the finest goals you’ll see this year has now been forgotten. The fact that much of the game enjoyed end-to-end action, proving that money can buy success and the world’s prettiest soccer — out the window. All I will remember about this game is Marcelo’s atrocious tackle on Fabregas in stoppage time, the ensuing brawl, Mourinho’s ridiculous contribution to the melee, and the fact that this Spanish soap opera has begun to bore me.
Real Madrid, who last season needed to play ultra defensively to have a chance against the reigning La Liga and Champions League champs, hung with and almost beat the best in the world. The season is looking up for Real, if only they keep their cool and stop acting like the bratty brother that can’t handle their exceptional sibling hogging all the attention.
Get over it and beat them once in a while if you think you deserve to win.
Chelsea star John Obi Mikel's father was abducted in his native Nigeria over the weekend. Why do we live in a world where someone so important to so many people in his country has to go through this. All we can do is hope for his prompt and safe return.
Hundreds of millions of us on this planet love soccer. We can’t get enough of it. Sometimes, even I forget that it’s just a game and that what happens on the soccer pitch should be taken for what it is.
Let me say this again: Soccer is just game.
Often, however, especially considering the sport’s appeal to all economic classes around the world, too much emphasis gets put on big time soccer. Multi-millionaire players often come from modest upbringings, granting dreams of similar success to millions of hopefuls. Underprivileged masses must look at the riches of those gifted few and wonder, “Why not me?” or “Why him?”, or worse, “How can I get my piece of that?”
And occasionally, in the most horrifying way, those who wonder the latter question take everything too far and scare the life out of the rest of us.
The father of Chelsea star and Nigeria international John Obi Mikel, a stalwart in the London-club’s midfield, has been abducted in his native Nigeria. Apparently, he has not been seen since Friday night. The player was told about the incident prior to the team’s match against Stoke City, but elected to play because he didn’t know enough about the situation and didn’t want to let the team down.
Since, it has been confirmed the player’s father is not merely missing. On Monday, Mikel issued a television message pleading for help finding his father’s whereabouts.
Via Sky Sports News and ESPN Soccernet:
“I have always tried to help the country in every way I can, playing for the country, serving the country. This is the time for the country to help me in this situation,” Mikel told Sky Sports News. “I am just going to say, whoever has got my dad, whoever knows where my dad is, should please contact me and hopefully he should be released.”
This is so unsettling. All that can be hoped for is that Michael Obi is returned unharmed. Mikel, whose family lives in the central region of Nigeria, admitted he always worried something like this might happen, but that their neighborhood was a safe place.
Apparently there has been violence in the region of late between Muslim and Christian residents, and kidnapping, though mostly of foreigners, has happened before, though primarily in the oil-rich south.
What makes this situation so appalling and depressing is that Mikel, who was listed in a Forbes magazine survey in June as the seventh highest-paid African player in Europe, is not the only world-class footballer from a third-world country that must worry about these types of problems. Problems that unfortunately, in this world we live in, are very real and extremely frightening.
This is how a nation repays a man that has given so much back to his community and played through injuries for his national team?
Newcastle's Joey Barton (L) makes the opening day of the Barclay's Premier League an interesting one when he instigated a brawl between his team and Arsenal during a 0-0 draw on saturday. In the fracas, Arsenal's Gervinho was red carded and awarded a three-match ban. Both clubs were sanctioned by the FA on Monday.
And think, I really liked Joey Barton before Saturday’s match. I thought he just got a bad rap.
I was wrong.
For those of us that watched the Newcastle vs. Arsenal game on Saturday, the real show came not from the play. but from the antics of Newcastle’s Barton.
Barton, a 29 year-old midfielder, who recently did a 3-month stint for getting into a bar fight where him and his brother beat a kid unconscious, who berated his own clubs’ officials on Twitter all summer for selling a host of the squad’s best players and was subsequently put on the market by the angry owner as a free transfer, and is basically known as the Premier League version of the NFL’s “Pacman Jones”, almost made it a whole game without losing his mind and getting into a fight. Almost.
Instead, he turned a bland 0-0 draw into an MMA spectacle in the 75th minute, in which both clubs were sanctioned by the league on Monday.
Somehow, Gervinho received red at the end of the day and Barton (No. 7) escaped with only a yellow despite his assault and subsequent dive.
With the game scoreless in the second half, Arsenal’s Gervinho, the club’s lone big-name signing of the summer, fell under a challenge in the penalty box. Barton, who was a few feet behind the play, stopped playing despite the no-call and furiously confronted the Ivory Coast international about the alleged offense. With the striker just picking himself up off the ground, Barton ran over and dragged him up by the shirt the way a bookie’s muscle might persuade someone to pay their debts. Gervinho managed to get away, but not before players from both teams started mingling. Still miffed, and probably a bit surprised Barton had picked him up, an offense I’ve honestly never seen on a soccer pitch before, Gervinho went back for more and slapped Barton in the face as he was being restrained.
Here’s where it gets good.
Barton, who moments earlier had started the brawl with his furious outburst over Gervinho’s dive, fell over as if he’d been knocked out by Mike Tyson. The man who has unabashedly admitted he loves to fight in, around, or outside any bar in England, was floored by a slap that wouldn’t have knocked over my 80 year-old grandmother.
After the match, in which Gervinho received a red card and three-match ban, while Barton got only a stern lecture from the match referee and a yellow-card, Barton admitted he may have gone down a bit too easily…
“I did go down easily but it is not okay to hit me because it’s me,” Barton told Radio 5 Live. “I have been hit harder at school. It does not make what he did right or wrong but he raised his hand and the rules are you can’t do that. I have made a meal of it but I knew Song had stamped on me and I was slightly aggrieved by that because I am aware the spotlight is on me at certain times, because of my stupidity in the past and people don’t condone me easily.
Simple solution for a guy who I had been convinced before the game had a bad rap? Learn to play one match without completely turning stupid Jersey Shore moron a$@% and maybe the whole soccer world won’t despise you and your creepy comb-over haircut.
Oh, and what did Arsenal manager Arsene Wegner do after the match? Just hint that perhaps his side could use the human battering ram instead of fighting it all the time… That would be an ironic and amusing end to the story… Joey Barton on Arsenal. Hey, after the loss of Captain Cesc to Barcelona, who knows what Wegner will do.
Freddy Adu (R) signed with the Philadelphia Union on Friday, ending his four-year odyssey through Europe. This is a move that not only benefits Adu, who will gain regular playing time and the chance to raise his stock for another move to Europe, but also the Union, who are currently in 2nd in the Eastern Conference and immediately become MLS Cup contenders (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
He’s Ba-ack.
Freddy Adu returned to MLS on Friday, signing a contract with the Philadelphia Union on a free transfer from Portuguese club Benfica.
We all know about Adu’s trials and tribulations since signing a professional contract with MLS when he was 14 years old. He was hyped as the next worldwide soccer sensation, and told to prove it. He was given sponsorship deals and asked to shoot commercials when he should have been nurtured as the gift he was. He was given big-time money, but along the way, people forgot he was just a teenage kid, barely in high school.
So, with over-expectation comes under-performance. Every time. In 2007, after four years in MLS, where Adu scored only 11 times for DC United over a three-year span from 2004-2006, only sometimes flashing signs of his brilliance, Adu left for Europe and Benfica. Finally, with the spotlight thousands of miles away, Adu was free to simply play and develop as any teenager, hoping to mold into the player everyone expected him to be.
That was the thing — people expected Adu to do this, or to do that. They didn’t just hope that this kid could navigate the treacherous waters of European pro soccer and find himself in a respectable starting XI. If he didn’t succeed, he was a bust, he was letting an entire nation down.
Those types of expectations can kill a man, let alone a boy. So Adu bounced around Europe for the next four seasons, each year trying to break into different club on loan because Benfica apparently didn’t want him — but were unwilling to give him up for less than they paid for him. And Adu logged some serious hours on planes, trains, and automobiles. He played in France, Greece, and most recently, Turkey, in an attempt to get regular playing time. Finally, in the Turkish 2nd division, he made a splash. So much so, that he was called into the US National team camp for this summer’s Gold Cup.
And finally, after all he’s been through, Adu played well in front of his country. We all saw his talent and technical ability. Against Panama and Mexico in the Gold Cup, we all got to witness his gifts, many of us for the first time. He was the single-best American in the tournament, and he only played in two games. His flair and creativity are attributes possesed by no other American player. Perhaps, ever.
So, after looking for a new club this summer, Adu finally chose to come home from the soccer wilderness that has been his life for the past four years. On Friday, he signed with the Union of MLS, a team coached by his first pro coach, Peter Nowak. The Union, currently in 2nd place in the Eastern Conference, play one of the most exciting brands in the league, have a host of young talent, and the addition of Adu as an attacking center midfielder adds an extra spark, making them immediate title contenders.
So, don’t miss the Union and Freddy Adu, they won’t disappoint, I guarantee it. Afterall, if all goes according to plan, he probably won’t be here for long.
But we’ve all heard that story before…
For those that haven’t seen him play, and even those that have, here is a little clip package of Adu…
In light of a meeting I attended this week for my local men’s league, the Amateur Soccer League of CT (ASL-CT), in which referees were a major talking point, I want to share this YouTube video I found on the Yahoo! soccer blog, Dirty Tackle, of an Argentine 5th division match.
After calling a foul for the White and Green team and awarding a yellow card to the guilty player, the ref must’ve heard something he didn’t like. He ran over to a player on the team of which he awarded the free kick and promptly tried to give him a red card. Before the ref could pull the card, the new culprit pushed the ref. The ref, not backing down, pushed, shoved, and punched at the player.
Ovbiously, the ref should avoid fighting players. Why? Well, aside from it going against his obligation to remain unbiased and objective, he doesn’t have a slew of buddies craving revenge. Over the next 20 second or so, the ref gets assaulted by about a dozen players and coaches before making a beeline for the parking lot.
This is where the video gets great however, as the ref isn’t out of the woods yet. Fans can be seen folling him and circling the field in an attempt to cut him off. Imagine how scary this would be for the ref. Seriously, No less than 50 people were chasing him. If and when they caught him i guarantee you that they wouldn’t have talked it out.
And we thought the players in our league were tough. And we thought our refs were bad. I got news for you, we obviously haven’t seen anything yet.
Oh, and the ref appeared to get away when he jumped a fence Wesley Snipes in U.S. Marshall style and saved his soon-to-be-short life.
Darlignton Nagbe (Green) is one of the most exciting rookies in MLS and his goal on July 2nd may be a candidate for goal of the year. Photo by Getty Images.
Even the casual American sports fan has seen his goal.
It has gotten 1.5 million hits on YouTube and won ESPN Sports Center’s Best of the Best for over a week, usurped only by Abby Wambach’s last-gasp header against Brazil in the WWC last month.
His July 2nd goal was brilliant. Nagbe, at the top of the box, collected a failed Sporting Kansas City clearnance on a corner kick. His juggled the ball twice with two touches on his right foot before swiveling and tearing a volley into the top corner. Basically, a hell of a way to score your first MLS goal.
In short the MLS Rookie Report, and by default SoccerSafari, were able to catch up to the 2010 Herman Trophy winner and 2011 No. 2 overall pick in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft. Nagbe is a really interesting guy. Born in Liberia, Nagbe and his older brother and two younger sisters lived throughout Europe as their dad, Joe, played professional soccer in France, Switzerland and Greece. Joe also captained the Liberian national team before the family moved to the Cleveland area when Darlington was 11 years old.
After a stellar career, where he won the Herman Trophy as the nation’s best collegiate player, Nagbe turned pro after his junior year and was taken second in the draft by the expansion Portland Timbers. Though he was injured early in the season, Nagbe has solidified his place in the starting lineup and is one of the most exciting and entertaining young attacking players in the league.
