Altidore's Dream Debut

In case you didn't see this from this past weekend, Jozy Altidore came on in the 60th minute in his debut in the EPL for Hull City against Bolton. 28 seconds later, on his first touch, he sends a sick backwards pass in and claims the assist on Hull's only goal in their 1-0 victory. It doesn't stop there...he had 3 more chances in the next 2 minutes after that goal that just barely missed. Truly a dream debut for the 19-year-old U.S. phenom, and hopefully this is the start of many more Saturdays and Sundays with Jozy in the starting XI in the Premiership.

ESPN Begins Coverage of EPL, La Liga In U.S.

On Saturday, August 15th, the EPL kicked off a new season. However, this season kickoff was at 7:45am here on the East Coast, and it was quite a bit different: it was in HD. Chelsea opened up the season against Hull City, and in the U.S., this game was not on Fox Soccer Channel or Setanta. It was on ESPN2. In light of Setanta’s financial troubles over in England, ESPN was able to pull Setanta’s share of EPL games in a bidding war when the FA revoked Setanta’s contract for failure to pay. That meant, in a deal with Fox Soccer Channel that was struck a mere hours before the first game was to air, that ESPN will have a weekly Saturday game as well as the Monday afternoon game if there is one. This is great because most of the games will be in HD and will allow millions of people who didn’t have FSC to watch a game each Saturday morning.

Not done with their soccer coverage, ESPN then snapped up the rights to a slot of La Liga matches on Sundays, also to be broadcast in HD. This is great for a league that, until this year, was only on GolTV. While GolTV gave great coverage, high profile games with the influx of talent that has come to La Liga will get to take center stage on Sundays. Imagine El Clásico (Real Madrid-Barcelona) on ESPN2 in HD…oooh I can’t wait.

I do hope that ESPN not only shows the big-time teams, like Chelsea or Real or Man U or Barca, but also gets a chance to show off the smaller teams in both leagues. So far, the 3 games shown on ESPN2 have been Chelsea-Hull, Wigan-Man U and Liverpool-Aston Villa. I believe this Saturday will feature Chelsea against recently-promoted Burnley. This is what this is all about: to grow the popularity of the sport through having access to the 2 top leagues in the world, and to showcase those teams in these leagues that don’t normally get the airtime. I hope it succeeds this year, and that ESPN, along with FSC and GolTV, will be able to broadcast more soccer in HD to the masses as this sport grows in this country, and I hope that this leads to better deals with these networks with MLS and USL to grow the domestic leagues as well.

Live In Person For The First Time

On Sunday, August 9th, Real Madrid played DC United in front of 72,000+ people at FedEx Field as part of their U.S. preseason tour. And, for the very first time, I was in the crowd to witness my favorite soccer team play. It was a great moment for me, because the game was a friendly against my second team, DC United. But, I will definitely never forget seeing Los Blancos come out on the field and being in the stands for that electric atmosphere. The final score was 3-0 Real, but DC United didn’t play bad at all. Their defense held Real for most of the game, especially the play of keeper Josh Wicks. Wicks played out of his mind and definitely earned the standing ovation he received from the large crowd.

While there was a lot of white in the stands, the DC fans were large and boisterous as well. It was a tremendous atmosphere for a friendly between the best club team in U.S. history and the greatest club team in soccer history. I was proud to be there, and hopefully my next time seeing Real Madrid live won’t take another 26 years!

Cristiano Ronaldo To Real Madrid in WR Big

£80 million = €93.9 million = $130.5 million = C. Ronaldo to Real Madrid. Manchester United accepted this world record bid this morning from Real Madrid, and a deal with the player will be confirmed in the next few days. After 2 years of former Real President Ramón Calderón promising to bring CR7 to the Bernabeu, it has taken Perez just under 2 weeks. In one week, Kaká and C. Ronaldo are both confirmed to be joining Los Galácticos. I’m ecstatic! Who’s next? Already, there are reports of a combination of David Villa and perhaps Raúl Albiol coming. Maicon also wants out of Inter…could we swoop in and get him? After Perez getting C. Ronaldo and Kaká, the two past FIFA World Players of the Year, in a matter of less than a full work week, anything’s possible. This is already shaping up to be a great summer transfer wire for Madridistas everywhere!

Here’s the 23-man roster that is heading to South Africa today for the Confederations Cup. Not a lot of surprises. Maurice Edu, Frankie Hejduk and Brian Ching were omitted from the roster due to injuries, while Pablo Mastroeni, out of favor, also will not make the trip to South Africa.

Goalkeepers: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, England), Tim Howard (Everton, England), Luis Robles (Kaiserslautern, Germany)

Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes, France), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Danny Califf (Midtjylland, Denmark), Jay DeMerit (Watford, England), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock, Germany), Jonathan Spector (West Ham, England), Marvell Wynne (Toronto)

Midfielders: Freddy Adu (AS Monaco), DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Michael Bradley (Borussia Moenchengladbach, Germany), Ricardo Clark (Houston), Benny Feilhaber (Aarhus, Denmark), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Jose Francisco Torres (Pachuca, Mexico)

Forwards: Jozy Altidore (Xerez, Spain), Conor Casey (Colorado), Charlie Davies (Hammarby, Sweden), Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles)

I think this is the first-team lineup I would want to see:

------------------Howard-------------------------
----Spector---Onyewu---Bocanegra---Pearce--------
-----------------Bradley-------------------------
------Donovan------------------------Torres------
--------------------Adu--------------------------
---------Dempsey-----------Altidore--------------

I think my first choice bench players would be DeMerit, Bornstein or Wynne on defense, Beasley and Clark in the midfield, and Davies up front. But, we shall see what Bob Bradley puts on the field for the first match against Italy on June 14th.

Kaká to Real!

It has been reported in several media outlets all over the world that Kaká will officially be announced as the newest Real Madrid signing this evening. He has apparently passed a physical in Brazil and will speak at a press conference in Brazil tonight. He will not be officially introduced in Madrid until June 30, after Brazil has finished at the Confederations Cup.

The first Galactico signing of the new Galactico 2.0 era under new Real prez Florentino Perez, Kaká will definitely fit in well into Pellegrini’s 4-4-2 system. Now that this signing is apparently out of the way, Real can focus on some of the other big signings that are rumored, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Franck Ribery, Xabi Alonso, David Villa and David Silva.

Also, Negredo has been re-bought by Real from Almeria for the bargain price of €5 million. He was sold to Almeria last year with an option to re-buy, and with Negredo finishing 6th in La Liga with scoring last season with 19 goals, it’s great to have him back. While it’s rumored that he is back with Los Galacticos only to be sold off again, possibly in a swap with Xabi Alonso of Liverpool, this 23-year old product of the Real Madrid system should be reconsidered as a major part of the plans, as he has a chance to become a major star.

But, for now, ¡Bienvenidos, Kaká!

Get A Legendary Football Team

Have £100 million lying around in a jar for a rainy day? You can buy Newcastle United! So, dig around for that change, ladies and gentlemen!