Whack This Mole

Olsen on Boswell: "He could talk a dog off a meat truck, that guy."

I have to admit that's quite excellent. Fire Saint Benny anyway.

In other news, why the fucking fuck haven't I read yet that Adam Oates is fired? I mean, seriously, why didn't I read this two days ago? What the fucking fuck, Leonsis? I mean, based on what amounts to gossip*, I've mutated to the point where I won't mind if I read that you fired George McPhee, but I'm counting, Teddy Internet, and the number of days between last Sunday and the day you fire Adam Fucking Oates is no less than one half the number of days between the next time your team is playing hockey and the time I give you a fucking dime, you lying sack of dissembling horseshit.

*It is said that the Caps are on many players' "Please Massa don't trade me there" lists based on GMGM's allegedly draconian policies toward players and their agents. I have no idea whether it's really true, but based on some stuff I read and Leonis' recent publicizing of the Caps' policy on player-agent contacts after games, the story has the sweet stench of a relationship with reality. Given that GMGM has spent years walking a fine line because those years embodied his wandering horseshit on the player acquisition front (this year was the potentially saving exception, imhoe), he is no longer endearing. But Oates first, last, and always, though it pains me to say that of a guy who brought RPI a national title, even though he has no personality and no passion, and very clearly dyes his hair.**

**You may or may not recall, because you were or were not in the room***, that the first words out of my mouth after the horn for the first intermission of Adam Oates' tenure were, "Fire Oates."

***Or on the phone.

UPDATE: United news, while I'm here today (courtesy of Goff):

-Chris Pontius and the Hamstring of Doomitosis:

In his absence, United (2-2-1) has utilized Nick DeLeon, Davy Arnaud, Lewis Neal and Chris Rolfe on the flanks and relied on secondary forward Fabian Espindola to influence the attack. 

Fucking shoot me. Pontius, on whom the club has staked the future for I've lost count of how many fucking seasons now, is going to be playing in a fucking wheelchair soon.

-Bill Hamid's big toe, Chris Korb's knee injury (who the fuck cares, other than Korb and his girlfriend?), Luis Silva's giant Latin tonker (or maybe his ankle).

-Fucking shoot me some more:

With a victory Saturday, United would equal last season’s win total. Last year the club needed 22 games to achieve that — and then didn’t win again. Success in Columbus, though, does not come often: four consecutive defeats. A victory, combined with other results around the league, could also thrust United into a first-place tie in the Eastern Conference.

For 10 minutes. Fucking shoot me, again and again and again. People ask me why I gave up my season tickets. Check the last four bolded names in the Pontius blockquote. There's your fucking answer. Goddam team full of number twelves (which was once a badge of honor, but no more--in fact, the last honorable true Twelve went off to coach the fucking enemy). Am I fucking shot yet?

Why I Hate My Futbol Team Even Though It Just Went Up 2-1

I would have, by now, been demanding the firing of the last two DC United coaches. In fact, I did, long before now, at points where the team didn't suck nearly as bad as this one does. And you might well accuse me of hero worship for this. "Look at that dumbass Landru," you say to yourself right about now. "He's so blinded by love for Saint Benny the Lionhearted that he can't bring himself to call for the dumb fuck's head."

To coin a meme: Sadly, no. 

I'm not bothering to demand the dumb fuck's firing, because it's pointless. There's no way the cheap cocksuckers who own this team are going to buy out Saint Benny, as hapless as he is.

It's hard to hate on Benny Olsen, true enough. Heart of a lion, tears of a clown, and all that. And there's certainly something to the notion that the cheap cocksuckers Thohir and Levien aren't giving him much to work with. But that's not all of it, and Benny's not working with what he has. He has a fucking retard in a chess helmet in central defense, and he traded his best central defender to Jason Kreis for semen on a cracker the other week because...I"m not sure why. Because McDonald looked at him funny in practice or something. It takes a genius at stupidity to think that Daniel Woolard is a better central defender than Brandon McDonald. It takes a genius at stupidity not to notice that Dwayne DeRosario is aging and counterproductive, and that even before the age really started to show this season, his arrogance and attitude doomed him to useless. It takes a genius at stupidity to bench the best goalkeeper in the league upon his return from a winning Gold Cup team, to play a fucking retard like Joe Willis--which almost cost them three points, as Willis let in a goal that I think would've been almost physically impossible for Bill Hamid to let in.

Sure, they made the playoffs last year on...what, adrenaline? Other teams' suck? Not on Benny's management skills, that's for fucking sure. I've addressed this for a long time now; see here, and scroll down past the two futbol posts I've made this year, and start reading. Or just read samples:

(11/4/2012) The last is, as always, uncomfortable for me, because he's a fucking saint. Benny Olsen is a terrible fucking man manager, just absolutely fuckawful. The team fielded 10 men for almost 25 minutes. Benny had two subs left. He didn't use them.

(10/20/2012) It makes no sense to backpass and then restart the advance at a pace that lets the other team catch up and repack the defense (and let's not even discuss the countless episodes of inept backpassing followed by stupid turnovers and goooooollllls). None. I screamed at Tommy Soehn about it, I screamed at Curt Onalfo about it, and it's only fair that I say this: Goddammit, Saint Benny, you stupid motherfucker, stop fucking coaching them to backpass and then build slow. What the fucking fuck is wrong with you, other than that you learned this fucking repulsive horseshit from Soehn and Onalfo? Didn't Saint Piotr learn you better? Can't you fucking stand there, far closer to this abomination in the sight of the futbol gods than I am, and fucking learn from this? Wake the fucking fuck up, dood. I really, really want to believe that you're not still, after two fucking seasons, in way the fuck over your incredibly short head. I really do. Do please provide countering evidence. Soon.

(8/12/2012) Part of the thing here, and it's a part we're loathe to admit, is that Benny is a really, really fuckawful in-game coach, and a poor tactical manager. Can this improve? Maybe. Given time, he'll improve more in a year or two than Tommy Soehn or Curt Onalfo will for the rest of their lives.Will he get time? Will he deserve it? Beats the fuck out of me.

(5/28/2012) Fuck You, Chester, Pennsylvania, and Fuck You, PP&L Park. It'll be fucking cold day in Hell when I spend money in your city, or your stadium, ever again.

Oh, wait. That last one's not about Benny. But I stand by it anyway.

So as I've typed this, DCU actually managed to score a clincher and win the game 3-1. Our friends on Comcast, including the formerly discommendated but no longer uniformed and maybe forgiven, I can't remember, Santino Quaranta (but not sainted Terps coach Sasho Cirovski, who's been studio-commenting for CSN and appears to have either smartened up or taken a timely vacation--and look, at I typed that, my teevee flashed up an utterly bullshit commercial about how excited I should be about the giant clusterfuck rape that's going to be Maryland football this season, yay!), are just creaming themselves over this first home victory since...Jeebus...1492 or something. 

You know what? Fuck this, I'm tiring myself out. Have bunnies instead.

Yes. Yes, they will.

Stump Bunnies

Yes, that is seriously Shakira with a bunny.

Yes, that is seriously some naked broad I don't know, with a bunny.

Gaymo bunnies are still my favorite.

Yeah. I feel better now, don't you?

No, Canada

I've made pretty clear that I dislike the Canadian national womens' soccer team, and despise their pig-ignorant fans. The team is, generally, both whiny losers, several of whom use their dual citizenship to play for their third-rate sports nation because they're not nearly good enough to play for the U.S. womens' team, as most Canadian women players show every time they step onto the field for a professional match in one of the womens' leagues we've enjoyed here in the last few years (I'll except Christine Sinclair, who I despise, and Diana Matheson, who I adore). There are no fans of the Canadian womens' national soccer team who I adore.

So the two teams played a friendly in Toronto yesterday, their first meeting since the afore-linked Olympic semifinal last year, in which the Canadians firmly established themselves as galaxy-class cheaters, whiners, bullies, and hallucinators. The U.S. women won, 3-0. This was uncontroversial. The game was at nils until the 70th minute, when the Canadians fell apart and let Alex Morgan rip them open. Then they did it again 2 minutes later, and that was about it. Except it wasn't.

Late in the game, the U.S. brought in Sydney Leroux, a very, very good young player, a lovely and vibrant young woman. Who happened to be born in Canada, to a Canadian parent and an American parent. She played in the Canadian youth development system, and played for Canada at the national level in younger age brackets. Then, she figured out that she was good enough to play for us. So she did. This isn't a crime. We're better than Canada is.

I mean at soccer. Yes, of course that's what I mean.

Since then, Sydney Leroux has been subject to taunts and racial slurs from Canadian fans. Remember them? The polite ones? Yes, of course you do. In person and in social media, Sydney Leroux has taken a giant ration of shit, much of it unspeakably vile, from Canadian fans.Yesterday was no exception; Leroux was booed every time she touched the ball.

So in stoppage time, Sydney Leroux scored a goal to make it 3-0 USA. And then she kissed the badge on her USA shirt, and shushed the crowd.

For which she received a yellow card (justifiably, under the Laws of the Game, to which Canadians do not appear to refer very often). End of story, right?

Nah. Canadians are whinging. Again.

So let's get this straight. The Canadians start a fight, by thugging it up in the Olympic semifinal. It turns against them in the end. They whine. Their fans whine more.

The Canadians come into the teams' next meeting vowing revenge, seeking validation, &c. They get their asses kicked. I mean really, it was embarrassing for them. If I were a Canadian fan right now, I'd just shut the fuck up a whole lot and go hide in a ditch. But no. They wanna call Sydney Leroux "classless" and a "traitor."

Jesus fucking Christ, grow the fuck up, Canada. You're losers.

Look, I can manage to forgive most of the Canadian players, save maybe Melissa Tancredi, who belongs in prison. They are, by definition, world-class athletes, extremely competitive. It's hard for them to lose to a rival. The Olympic semifinal must've been difficult for them, though some (Sinclair) reacted badly. They didn't get ripped off; their coach gave them a bum steer, and it almost worked. Except it didn't, because they didn't have the resiliency to finish the job. Of course they were pissed. They wanted that game so badly they cheated to try to win it. And they failed. When you're that competitive, and you can't win fairly, and you can't even win by fucking cheating and getting away with it? Yeah, that's some hard fucking cheese.

Hey, you know who did a really fabulous job of keeping Sydney Leroux's abundantly justifiable celebration in perspective? Their asshat coach, John Herdman:

I didn't notice it, I think I was kicking a water bottle at the time," Herdman said with a laugh. "I'd love Sydney to be playing for Canada, wouldn't you? Imagine her playing up front with [Christine] Sinclair and [Melissa] Tancredi, that would make a big difference, but she's not. So I think we've just got to let it go. Let it go, let her enjoy her time in the U.S. and just respect her as a player.

Pretty classy, huh? No, seriously, really seriously. That's a very well-adjusted and professional reaction to a media frenzy. Good to know that some Canadians aren't total fucking shitheads, huh?

Oh, wait. John Herdman's from New Zealand.

The fans, though. Wow. Canadian fans have the unmitigated balls to call Sydney Leroux classless?

Fuck you, Canada. And fuck your sisters.

Oh, wait. You're already doing that.

Fucking losers.

Robbie Rogers

I've always liked him, because despite years on a yellow football team, he's a Terp. It's awesome that Robbie Rogers came out. It's not awesome that it's news. Or that he had to come out from anywhere. And it's a bummer that injuries are forcing him to retire.

I don't come around much any more. It's not that I don't love you. I have time for some grueling work hours, and to make some effort toward pretending I'm an actual part of my family, who are all brave and tolerant little toasters as I bust my ass and sink deeper into mire over what amounts to some seriously deep-seated personal/professional issues. Maybe that fog will lift in a couple of weeks, and maybe I'm just fucking delusional. We'll see. Be well.

Update: Holy fuck, Blogger tells me that was my 600th post. What a serendipitous blend of random and whine to mark that milestone.

DCU 1-1 NYRB

Let's be very clear here: Is Jair Marrufo an incompetent piece of shit? Yes, he sure is. Did it affect the outcome of tonight's match, already clouded by DCU having to give up its series home advantage because of the hurricane? Mmm, prolly not so much. And if it did, it seems to me to be as likely that Marrufo's haplessness helped DCU as that it hurt them.

But I speed to the punch line and ignore the point. United has had some fundamental problems that I've complained about all my life season. The team is agonizingly slow in transition; I think it's because of problems with the formation that Saint Benny imposes on them. Even when they play 4-4-2, they're playing 4-5-1, and really more often 4-4-1-1, or maybe some inept retardate bastard offspring of a 4-2-3-1. It looks to me like Benny has regressed to a notion that the only way to play defense is to park the bus, to get as many men between the ball and the goal as possible. The real problem with this is that it leaves no one free to counterattack, except for the guy up top. Everyone else, and I mean everyone, is involved deep in the defense.

There are teams that can get away with this. They're teams that have a quick, strong guy up top, a guy skilled at sitting right at midfield, so as not to get caught offsides when he breaks on a long clear, a guy with the pace to outrun the last defender, with the strength to hold up the ball as his teammates closer to the top of the defense catch up, if he can't outmaneuver that last guy or two.

That man is not Lionardo Pajoy. With 19 teams in the league, and most of them playing two men up top, at least nominally, I'd count 38 regular first-team strikers in MLS. Pajoy is about the 34th one I'd want in that lone position in a 4-5-1. In fact, he's far worse than the 34th one I'd want there, because there are at least three United players I'd rather see in that space. Pajoy is slow, he's overimpressed with his own South American-ness, he goes down too easily, he fouls too much, he's too easily frustrated by physical defenders, he's not physically strong, and two-thirds of his shots look like a 60-year-old prostate-less man's urine stream.

To compound the problem, the five midfielders who usually comprise DCU's 4-5-1 midfield are:

-Chris Pontius, who is the captain when the elderly, self-absorbed, abusive, and extremely injured Dwayne DeRosario is extremely injured, as he is now. Pontius is the captain because he is very responsible on defense when he's in an outside mid position. He's so responsible that he's buried back deep in the defense. He has the speed and smarts to get forward in transition, but he's most often doing it from way too far back. Pontius is, by the way, one of the three guys I'd rather have up top in a 4-5-1, but that creates problems at other positions that Saint Benny is either too stubborn, too stolid, too conservative, too loyal, or too unimaginative to solve.

-Branko Boskovic, who is beloved, and who is capable, but is slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. That Boskovic is so far back is a little galling, because he's fucking terrible on defense, and he's not particularly interested in rough challenges. That he contributed to an incisive and decisive breakaway against Columbus two weeks ago is the sort of miracle that would routinely be used to prove sainthood (except for that whole part about Columbus sucking donkey balls).

-Perry Kitchen and Marcelo Saragosa, neither of whom has any fucking business going forward, except in a slow buildup (as opposed to the kind of quick transition that you should aim for when you're parking the fucking bus).

-Nick DeLeon, who is a fucking stud, but is such an awesomely good kid, such an awesome motor (reminiscent of the beloved Josh Gros), such a plugger, that he's too stuck in to get forward in a quick transition from deep defense.

And these five guys, too slow, too deeply involved in defending the last citadel, too slow on the uptake to get forward quickly, lag behind at an alarmingly slow tempo while Pajoy turns over the ball, or dribbles it weakly into the goalkeeper's arms, or blasts it 20 feet wide of the frame.

Who are the other two guys? Maicon Santos, who is strong, but stupid, and Hamdi Salihi, The Albanian Shithammer, who is, for reasons we don't understand, way out of favor.

This slow transition shit (which also leads to the fucking eternal backpassing of which you've heard me complain incessantly) has made me completely fucking insane all season, and never more so than tonight.

The transition problems, coupled with a missed penalty (that Pontius should've considered letting Boskovic take, though it was certainly Pontius' right to take it), did United in tonight.

Let's review some notes for my fellow United fans:

-Yes, Najar's foul on the absolutely repugnant Joel Lindpere was a deserved yellow card (push from behind with both hands), and his conduct afterward deserved straight red. This isn't close. I wouldn't argue if Najar got suspended an additional game, or heavily fined. His behavior was that loathsome, irresponsible, and selfish. The kid needs to calm the fuck down a whole lot. It is a rare game when I don't look at Andy Najar, along about the 55th minute, and say, "Damn, that boy's getting a yellow card before this is over." I'm right about 75 percent of the time. Unfuckingacceptable.

-Yes, the illegal backpass from (I think) Holgersson to Robles should've been called; it would've resulted in an indirect kick from inside the box. Who the fuck knows?

-Yes, Marrufo's failure to call a foul, followed by giving us a throw-in after we clearly touched the ball last, was a huge error in our favor.

-Yes, Pontius should've been booked for his egregious dive while carrying against the despicable midget Connor Lade, or in the alternative, should've been booked for bitching derisively at Marrufo in the dive's aftermath. Dood, Marrufo was 10 feet away looking right at it, and even *I* could tell from the stands that it was a fucking dive. Another error, but not a huge one, in our favor.

-No, Holgersson didn't foul Hamid on the NYRB goal, which was definitely, clearly, no shit, no question, well over the fucking line. 

-Yeah, Heath Pearce probably fouled Pajoy on the play where Robles got hurt, and it probably should've been a penalty. C'est la guerre.

-Seriously, this was a filthy game, and while the Red Bulls are filthy (I'm looking at you, Ginger Midget, and you, Sebastian Fucking LeToux, and you, Rafa Marquez, and you, Connor Lade, you despicable midget half the size of Dax Fucking McCarty)...I'm sorry, kids, so are we. Jakovic? Knife artist. Saragosa? Angry Brazilian. Kitchen? Cardassian warlord. Korb? Well, he's just a run-of-the-mill short guy and jersey-tugger, but he's pretty goddam filthy.

-Stop booing Thierry Henry, you fucking idiots. Yeah, he's an asshole. Yeah, he's a Frog. Yeah, he's the captain of the motherfucking Red Bulls. Yeah, you're fucking shanty Irish and came over in the potato famine in the year Henry's handball goal kept Ireland out of the fucking World Cup. What the fuck ever. He's Thierry Fucking Henry, people. If you don't fear and especially respect him, you're too fucking stupid to be watching this game. I was keeping a close eye on him tonight. He really is a class act out on the pitch. Unlike the other most highly paid European DP in the league, who is a fucking crackerass punk-thug from Manchester.

Good stuff: McDonald had a good game, though I'm not sure I agree that he was MotM (for my money, DeLeon).  Saragosa was good in defense, and was good a couple of times when he went upfield, but he's consistently the last guy on the team to get the memo about lazy passing. With the exception of putting a PK in exactly the place that a numpty like Luis Robles would expect a right-footed guy to place it (and low enough so that a standard diving keeper could get to it), Pontius was feeling it. So was Najar, right up until the moment he imploded. Hamid was outstanding, though his reflexive tendency to try to punch is a bit alarming.

The last is, as always, uncomfortable for me, because he's a fucking saint. Benny Olsen is a terrible fucking man manager, just absolutely fuckawful. The team fielded 10 men for almost 25 minutes. Benny had two subs left. He didn't use them. Kitchen was clearly gassed; Pajoy made it clear in the first half that he was ineffective; after subbing in Neal for Branko a few minutes before the red card, Benny felt compelled to move Neal to left back and switch Korb right, leaving two holders, one gassed, in his 4-4-1 (I don't object to the part about moving Neal back; I do object to failing to sub for either Kitchen or Saragosa, though I suspect that by that point, Ben was in an immovably defensive mindset and was likely concerned about breaking the defensive chemistry). It's real clear that using the subs would've been beneficial, could've been so in varying permutations (Russell for Kitchen, leaving Neal, who can attack while being responsible defensively, free to go back to the middle; Salihi for Pajoy; Dudar for someone, pushing Kitchen or McDonald or Jakovic out wide; this Agusto kid, WTF is up with him?).

There's some thought to be had about the voices in Benny's head: Bruce Arena (can't be, not really; Bruce wouldn't leave two subs on the bench after being booked down to ten men); Tommy Soehn (backpass!); Piotr Nowak (who the fuck knows, the screaming would be unintelligible even if it weren't in Polish). What the fuck are these guys telling Saint Benny Olsen inside his unusually large head? It beats the fucking fuck out of me. But I'm despairing of a result on Wednesday, with no Najar, with New York playing in front of its own (saints preserve us) storm-ravaged fans, with NBC hyping the tragedy of New York, and with, I dunno, Alex Fucking Prus as the fucking whistleman? Not feeling it, but as always, Vamos United.

Addendum: Holy shit, I just read my post about the last home game. Backpassing? Check. Failure in transition? Check. Benny's man management sucks? Check. Pajoy worst human being ever? Check. Talk about stolid and unimaginative. Sorry.

DCU 3-2 FC Yellow

Hey! Did you know the land grant university of the state of Maryland has a football team? It's true! And because their coach is a third-rate bully and a rinky-dink moron who isn't qualified to coach in Pop Warner, it lost its homecoming game today to the same school that never beat us when Phil Rivers was its 4-year starting quarterback!

Hey! Did you know the land grant university of the state of Maryland has a futbol team? It's true! And they've won a whole shitload of games, including one against the land grant university of two states south, last night! In fact, they're ranked number one, and they're undefeated so far!

Hey! Did you know I'm a fucking moron? That's because I deleted two hours of sequential texts to BFF, sent during the course of the game, in effect live blogging the agony and the ecstasy, and I can't recover them!

Which is a shame, because there would be a lot to say if I could remember any of it, but I can't. Here's what I remember:

Edwin Jurisevic is a referee for MLS. He is a dope. One might not infer this from the card count; I think Columbus (FC Yellow) had four, and we had none. All of FCY's cards, and at least two more, were deserved, as would have been two DCU penalty kicks (one when Pontius was tripped at the 18 while carrying the ball, early--the first act of a game-long theme of Pontius getting mugged, unavenged; another when Neal was thugged down near the bottom left side of the box while carrying the ball, sometime in the range of the 80th minute). The fuckface Jairo Arrieta should've gotten a second yellow for mugging Pontius sometime between the 75th and 85th minutes. On the other side, and not to the dope's credit, he missed two clear opportunities to book DCU players, and one of them could, in some universes, have been a red to Andy Najar, who is a compact little sack of sporadically directed aggression and teen angst.

But enough about that, because what almost caused the stoppage-time loss that I documentably predicted in the 85th or 86th minute was DCU's persistent failure to make anything of possession. The box score says Columbus won possession 52.9%-47.1%. I find that really, really hard to believe. I said to Ilse on the drive home that I swore it was close to 60-40 in DCU's favor. It seemed like we were in possession a lot, with the usual concomitant missed shots, easy giveaways, and resulting stupid fouls. And the backpassing remains insane.

Backpassing makes sense under two circumstances, one of them involving immediate danger of a turnover. The other is when, as you advance the ball, the defense is too packed in for you to sensibly continue the advance. You backpass and hold enough to draw the defense out to apply pressure. Then, you break, and attack--quickly. It's that last bit that has eluded DCU teams, dozens of times a game, for the last 5 seasons. It makes no sense to backpass and then restart the advance at a pace that lets the other team catch up and repack the defense (and let's not even discuss the countless episodes of inept backpassing followed by stupid turnovers and goooooollllls). None. I screamed at Tommy Soehn about it, I screamed at Curt Onalfo about it, and it's only fair that I say this: Goddammit, Saint Benny, you stupid motherfucker, stop fucking coaching them to backpass and then build slow. What the fucking fuck is wrong with you, other than that you learned this fucking repulsive horseshit from Soehn and Onalfo? Didn't Saint Piotr learn you better? Can't you fucking stand there, far closer to this abomination in the sight of the futbol gods than I am, and fucking learn from this? Wake the fucking fuck up, dood. I really, really want to believe that you're not still, after two fucking seasons, in way the fuck over your incredibly short head. I really do. Do please provide countering evidence. Soon.

While I'm ranting at Saint Benny: learn to fucking man manage, you fucking twerp. It was sheer bloody luck that two of your three subs were involved in the spectacular and surprising winning goal and reversed my aforementioned prediction. And why you're stuck on the chickenhearted and immobile Lionardo Pajoy utterly eludes me. But fairness demands a respectful concession, too. While you started bringing subs way later than you should have, and the only reason I can think that you would've subbed out Chris Pontius is that he was getting mugged and the whistle guy wasn't doing anything about it, placing Branko up top turned out real well. I'm not gonna say it was genius, because there's no way in hell you anticipated that a late breakaway would be composed of Louis Fucking Neal and Branko Fucking Boskovic. No. Way. In. Hell. But it turned out real well, so thanks. As it happens, it's the only reason why I'm keeping my religion and referring to you in the proper form, your sainthood, Sir.

But Jeebus, Pajoy is shite. He far more often than not shies away from challenges, he has no idea how to move off-ball, and his footwork isn't as dazzling as he and his mom think it is. Santos has returned from whatever pre-injury vacation he took to the land of relatively smart soccer players, and Saint Benny's fucking fixation on two holding midfielders is beyond comprehension. As he lets two designated players sit on the fucking bench. Jesus H Wobbly Crutched Titty Fucking Christ, that's fucking stupid.

The win puts DC in a playoff spot for the first time in 5 years. Thanks, boys. I can't say well done; it wasn't. It was sloppy, and you were very, very lucky that Warzycha and FC Yellow got cocky and took a chance they shouldn't have taken. Your possession is shite, your finishing is fuckawful, and you let Will Hesmer Andy Gruenebaum look like Tim Fucking Howard. But thank you very kindly, and it's about fucking time. Tradition!

Update/correction:  I'd have sworn they announced Hesmer as the starting keeper for FCY, but Ilse points out that the MLS site says that Andy Gruenebaum. So thanks Ilse, and fuck both FCY keepers anyway.

Another update:  16 minutes of texts rescued by Himself, here. It should go without saying that my favorite is:

91:00 HOLYSHIT BRANKO BREAKAWAY LOB TO NEAL GOOOOOOOLLLLLLL 3-2.

The aforementioned prediction of doom ("reeks of losing in stoppage") was, in fact, in the 86th minute. I started bitching about Saint Benny in the 77th. I was clearly pretty despondent from the time DCU equalized, up to the winning goal.

DCU 1-1 Phunions

I tweeted in response to Goff's question ("On a scale of 1 to 10, Geiger deserves a...") that Geiger deserved a bullet and an invoice, the reputed sentence for condemned Chinese under the current regime.

Geiger being Mark Geiger, MLS (and, it appears, at least according to Kevin Payne and various YFWP commenters, FIFA and Olympic) referee. Let's not mince words. He was fucking inept. He lost control of the game early and often, and he did not fairly assess punishments--that is, he consistently called DCU for milder fouls than he did the Phunions, and in the end, he wrongly deprived DCU of at least one goal.

But let's back the fuck up, because while Mark Geiger should never referee another game for money, DCU cost itself plenty tonight, before Geiger even had a chance to fuck it up.

Yes, let's back it up to the first fucking half, when DCU gave up an 8th-minute goal to Brian Carroll off of a free kick by some Phunion shithead (turns out, on review, that it was Freddy Adu, and the play was inexcusably chaotic), and spent the rest of the half alternating between not attacking and having to rely on Bill Hamid to make remarkable plays because it wasn't defending.

Oh. Do I need to remind that I hate the motherfucking Phunions? Here, I'll say something nice about them, for balance: they got rid of Sebastien Fucking LeToux.

Anyway, United pissed this away before 45 minutes were gone. I believe that 10 minutes of possession consisted of a triangle of Perry Kitchen passing the ball back to Emiliano Dudar and the appallingly incompetent Brandon McDonald, playing catch until high pressure forced some measure of creativity. Sadlly, this creativity usually resulted in a long ball upfield to a Phunion. I was grateful each time it didn't result in a backpass past Hamid and into the goal. Two Phunion breakaways were thwarted by Hamid, and United were lucky not to be down 0-3 at the half.

Which brings us to the second half. In the 64th minute, some lovely play between Boskovic and the geriatric and exhausted Dwayne Derosario led to a chance. Phunion goalie The Traitor Zac MacMath* couldn't get the handle on the ball; Gabriel Farfan cleared it away to Nick DeLeon, who buried it. Unfortunately, in a bit of byplay not related to the goal, Hamdi Salihi tripped over the prone traitor MacMath (who was out of the play whether Salihi went flying over him or not). Mark Geiger's Philly eye for the game spotted that as a foul. On Salihi. No goal. This was stone robbery.

United equalized minutes later. Then, near the end of regulation Pontius won a penalty kick on what I initially thought was a dive, but what was actually a legit call. DeRosario banged home the spot kick, but McDonald encroached (into the arc--a technically correct, but bush league call by a ref determined to call stuff). DeRosario skied the retake (in stoppage time).

But there was a scuffle in between the kick and the retake. One of the fucking Farfans jumped on Boskovic's back as he tried to retrieve the ball; Boskovic took a swing at him. The fucking Farfan, who instigated the fight, got a yellow card; Boskovic, who missed, got a red. Jeebus.

On the next possession, Dudar fouled some Phunion, getting mostly ball and making little contact, though the tackle was from behind; Geiger wasted no time red-carding him, after having allowed violent criminal Phunion Michael LaHoud no fewer than four yellow-card fouls through the course of the game, two of them arguably red cardable (including his first, and second-most-deliberate foul, a raised foot to Chris Pontius' chest while Pontius was in possession of the ball, and a lengthy, 4-second jersey tug against...I forget, but there were like two feet of jersey stretched out behind the fouled United player). In the closing minutes of stoppage, Geiger completed his rampage by red-carding Phunion Sheanon Williams for a book-definition yellow-card foul against Pontius (professional foul, neither last man nor DOGSO). Sure, it felt good. But this, too, was Geiger's fault.

The game, though? Blame DeRosario. Blame Kitchen. Blame McDonald. Blame Olsen, who didn't replace a totally gassed Nick DeLeon after the Salihi goal, and whose last sub, in fucking stoppage time after the red cards, was the situationally useless Marcelo Saragosa, and who coached these stupid fuckers into being afraid to fucking attack.

What a stupid, fucked-up loss of two points against a key divisional opponent. The team should be fucking ashamed of themselves, and Olsen should start the fucking reserves against Chicago on Wednesday.

Oh, right. We don't have any fucking reserves.


*Discommendated Terp.

United 1-2 KC: This Ain't Hard

Shatzer and others correctly tag the critical meme here: high pressure (and secondarily, inability to suss out a 4-3-3). DCU can't cope, and never has. Shatzer and others completely fuck up the impact of missing players; no, Korb and Chabala is not a dropoff from Russell and Woolard, except to the extent that Chabala had joined the team only three days before. Look, if you can't understand that the team has managed to tactically correct for Woolard's incredible slowness, and incredible fucking stupidity, to the point where you believe that Daniel Woolard is a credible starting left back for any team that doesn't have some bar's name blazoned across its shirts, I can't fucking help you.

I'm not convinced that the blame should lie entirely with Olsen, who has coached the team to shorter passing, single touches, good ball movement. There was none of that in evidence last night, and I'm hard-pressed to believe that Olsen came out before the game and told the team, "Hey, let's languidly drop long balls back into KC's laps, and stand around on defense, and apply no pressure at all, except for you, PartyBoy and LongTanJohnson."

Not that I don't have questions for Saint Benny. For instance, why is PartyBoy marking fucking Teal Bunbury on corners? And even bigger philosophically (though not in practice--Bunbury's goal was on Pontius, he knew it, and he thumped his own chest in acceptance in the afterglow), why the fucking fuck is a goddam moron like Brandon McDonald marking that giant Aurelien Collin, instead of the taller, smarter Dudar? Why, when Branko came up with a kneebummy, did you fucking put in another D-mid instead of, say, Stephen King, who once in a while shines in center attack (unlike Saragosa, who was not in any way cut out for the job he was asked to do last night)?

On to my critique of BFF's analysis, which is what prompted this post in the first place:

Worrisome if not distressing.

Take a Valium. It's one game. The outcome and the methodology were predictable--as, I concede, you're about to admit in a few sentences.

Minus DeRossario, minus Woolard (replaced by some journeyman with two workouts with the club) 

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Last night showed what DeRosario brings: bullying the rest of the team into running. Now, that's nontrivial, I'll admit. But we also left behind DeRosario blaming the rest of the team for him being 34 years old. As to Woolard, no. Just no.

And beloved, I'm not sure how you so easily spouted the most myopic, ill-informed, and goopingly unironic description of Mike Chabala that you possibly could, but...wow.

I wonder how much of it is United's lack of athleticism versus Kansas City's. Man for man, Kansas City was bigger, stronger, faster.

I long for the day when Japanese movie monsters run wild in the streets of Kensington, just so I can watch you flap your arms for a few seconds before I myself am consumed.

It's easy to look bigger, stronger, and faster than someone who's not moving. Athleticism...I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.

They swarmed because they could. United panicked on the ball because they had too.

They swarmed because United didn't move, and didn't move the ball. United panicked on the ball because no one moved off-ball. That's part of the tactical deficiency Shatzer's talking about. Again, being too fucking lazy to do your job isn't a failure of athleticism, it's a failure of getting your deadwood road-gaming ass to move for some portion of 90 minutes.

Someone is going to take out Kitchen. He's dirty...

 Woot! I get to throw a bone!

Yes. Yes, he is.

He's also United's best player, but he's dirty.

Holy crap. Can you make just one point and move on before you completely fuck it up, beloved? No, he's not. Pontius is a better player. Hamid may be a better player. Boskovic may be a better player, but we'll never know because he's such a terrible fit for the club. Salihi may be a better player, but we'll never know because...

Long Tan sucks. Sucks. 

Well...only sort of, so far. Unlike anyone between Hamid and the front line (with the exception of Andy Najar, for 20-second stretches, and Danny Cruz, who came in far too late to have an impact), he worked for a living last night. He has the same problem everyone else on the team has--he can't volley, and I really wish that Saint Benny, who could volley, would fucking do some fucking drills on hitting balls on the half-volley, because the need to settle the fucking ball and make love to it before directing it goalward has gotten pretty fucking stale.

By which I do not mean to exclude the very real possibility that LongTanJohnson sucks.

Saragosa sucks. Sucks unto suck.

I disagree. Saragosa was--stunningly, I know--misused. Last night was, and I admit that there were challenges but still, a frightfully instructive example of how not to manage a formation with the players available. He was a terrible choice to plug in when Branko went down, without some adjustment of roles and relationships and positions.

Part of the thing here, and it's a part we're loathe to admit, is that Benny is a really, really fuckawful in-game coach, and a poor tactical manager. Can this improve? Maybe. Given time, he'll improve more in a year or two than Tommy Soehn or Curt Onalfo will for the rest of their lives.Will he get time? Will he deserve it? Beats the fuck out of me.

This is why this team is at least a year away - they would have lost this game with starters. Their second-stringers suck, and in MLS, you need good second-stringers. United doesn't have any.

That's where you're totally steering the boat onto the reef, beloved. You just said the second-stringers were all hurt. The bench was the third-stringers. Some of the regular starters are second-stringers, and the team has managed to correct for that enough of the time.

I disagree that they would've lost the game with starters--the only one not in was DeRosario. Might his arrogance and sheer dislikability have made the difference? I actually think it might've been the difference between a loss and a draw, but who the fuck knows? Would his presence have kept Benny from making the defensive adjustments that cost the game--or caused him to make different ones that worked? Not putting Dudar on Collin after the very first corner kick was a huge tactical error. Chabala's unfamiliarity with the system, which drew him so far into the middle that he lost his mark on the back post as the Traitor Graham Zusi charged in, certainly didn't help. Pontius in a crucial role in defense on another set piece (but wait! it worked with Tino Quaranta!) was sub-optimal, too.

I do seriously doubt that physical differences were the key here, given the stunning errors in judgment (didn't you hear me, half a county away, screaming about putting Dudar on Collin?) that both Saint Benny and the team laid out there last night. The really disturbing thing to me is that I knew we'd lose when we turned on the game. If, thousands of miles away, I knew that (and so, clearly, did BFF), what the fuck is going on with the team that they can project it so unerringly?

Harkes sucks.

Wynalda's wife doesn't think so. Boo-ya!

I miss The Bow-Tie, and The Bow-Tie sucked.

No, he didn't. He was the glue that kept us all together. He was goooood.

Fine Canadian Wine

So yesterday the US Womens National Team beat the Canadians in an Olympic semifinal game, 4-3, in extra time, to advance to the gold medal game. It was wacky in a number of ways, and the Canadians are feeling unjustifiably aggrieved about the whole thing. Let's discuss this, and let's not bother to do it kindly, because the Canadians are collectively way the fuck off their stereotypically polite nut about this whole thing.

It started with the Canadian coach, a Kiwi asshole named John Herdman, trying to work the referees in the presser the day before the game. I foolishly misread Herdman's performance (I mean other than the part about him being an asshole); I thought it portended a lot of Canadian diving. I was wrong, as Canadian forward Melissa Tancredi showed immediately by committing two brutal, bookable fouls within the first minute of the game. By our count, Tancredi was responsible for 9 of the 19 fouls called on the Canadians (USWNT was called for 20, all legit in reality and many of them questionable in light of what the Canadians were getting away with), which alone should've gotten her red-carded for persistence; she committed another dozen or so that went uncalled.

So the despicable fuckface John Herdman's strategy, then, was to try to neutralize the officials when he planned to turn the game into a rugby match. I don't have a problem with this, in and of itself. The Canadians have spent 11 years showing that they can't beat the US team at soccer. It's perfectly understandable that they'd want to try something else.

And it was working. The Canadian's persistent chippy fouls and outright brutality got their star player, Christine Sinclair, into prime attacking position three times--and she closed the deal on each, fueled by the Canadians' dislike of the US team coupled with her own personal rivalry with Abby Wambach, USWNT's (and, until yesterday, the world's) leading scorer. Good on her. In addition to three very well-played goals, I'll credit Sinclair (who I've never liked, but I have to acknowledge that she can score) with not personally participating in the brutality.

With the US down 3-2, Erin McLeod decided to deliberately delay the game by holding the ball; apparently, she'd been warned about that (she admitted as much, though it was a whiny, so-what sort of admission). The referee called her on it and awarded an indirect free kick inside the box--which bounced off of the arms of two Canadians. One arm was tucked. The other wasn't. Wambach converted the ensuing penalty to equalize, and the game was settled in the closing moments of extra time by an Alex Morgan header as USWNT fans collapsed in exhaustion and confusion.

This has unleashed a torrent of whining from Canadians who apparently didn't understand their team's strategy of fouling early, often, and hard, which had to that point been quite successful. They're wrong. The McLeod call was legitimate; no, it's not called often. Teams also don't often pursue a strategy of deliberately cheating, and get away with that even less often. To be offended at being called on it at a critical moment--with an admittedly dire result--is pretty poor. The handball wasn't deliberate, but Eve-Marie Nault's arm was well away from her body. She was making no effort to tuck it. The call is discretionary, but completely legit.

In short? Shut the fuck up, Canada. You rolled. You lost. I'll freely admit that your hypocritical whining in the aftermath makes me all the more happy to taste your bitter tears, but really? That's your doing.

Updated:

FIFA is investigating comments that Herdman and the Canadian players made in the wake of their failure.

In the same story, Abby Wambach admits that she lobbied for the McLeod call by counting out loud while McLeod was holding the ball and pretending to look for a play.

Video: NBC captures the utterly innocent and blameless Melissa Tancredi deliberately stomping on Carli Lloyd's head.

YFWP: Christine Sinclair whines.

AP (from YFWP): The delay call, discussed.

I repeat: shut the fuck up, Canada. And anything nice I said about Christine Sinclair? Fuck that. What a classless piece of shit. I hope FIFA disciplines her and her coach for explicitly accusing the referee of fixing the match.

Also updated:

Bronze medal game, 8 AM Eastern time on Thursday. Go France, not that the Canadians' utterly reprehensible behavior has altered that--the only time I'm not pulling for the French women is when they're playing the US.

More updating:

From the FIFA Laws of the Game (Law 12):

An indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside his own penalty area, commits any of the following four offences:

• controls the ball with his hands for more than six seconds before releasing it from his possession

In short: seriously, Canada. Shut the fuck up.

High Holy Day

68th anniversary of D-Day? Or just William Wallace's birthday? Happy birthday, Bromance. He swears that the reason he's got my back is not that I've got a cute ass, and I tend to believe him; his cute ass is by no means the only reason I've got his.

It's a day so holy you have to go back to June 6, 2009 to find me saying anything substantive about it. But that's also because William Wallace has a cute ass.

Doody calls, though: BFF tells of last evening's DCU humbling by the aforementioned Chester club. Yeah, yeah. Another stupid one-goal loss in earlyish USOC going. This is like Harry Potter 6, you know what's coming. Sure, Benny's pissed, and it was a shabby effort. The club is neither as good as its record nor as bad as Beloved thinks it is on a bad night. It's been 10 days since they played, everyone's rusty, and they spent significant time at practice on penalty kicks--they fucking expected a close game of no particular repute. There's nothing to pore-bleed about here. It's just ordinary, annual self-fulfilling prophecy.

Which also describes the MNPPCC police presence. You can watch the (second) video in his linked post for the start of the story. Soon enough after the events of that video, Officer Weissmann, who steps into the picture at about 0:30 of the video, shows why she's not a county cop by trying to extinguish a burning flare with a half a bottle of Aquafina. That's a flare burning on aluminum bleachers. Non-flammable aluminum bleachers. You're a one-woman brain trust, Officer Weissmann (and I apologize if I've improperly spelled your last name).

Shortly thereafter, the po-po descended with a vengeance, with Officer Weissmann leading the charge in rifling through stray jackets laying on the bleachers. Officer Weissmann, who appears to be unaware of the Fourth Amendment and the concept of probable cause (which is unsurprising, given that she's a grim fascist twit who's probably been victimized by institutional misogyny in addition to her own feeble intellect), was soon rewarded with two (!) more unignited flares in some dumbass's jacket. Hilarity ensued. My phone takes crappy pics, but Planet got some good ones, because she's artsy and stuff.

The po-po dragged out the flag guy in the video, and some other dumbass. They stood the dangerous ruffians up along the perimeter fence and yammered at them for...well, until there were about four minutes left in extra time. Terrorist criminals punished by deprivation of the thing they paid to cheer. Justice done. Way to go, police state.

The scene was distracting, and the game mostly boring; during one of the many delays while some player or another lay upon the ground, nursing a thug-inflicted owie (the referee was incompetent and nowhere near in control of the game), I turned to the guy on the rail behind me and chatted quietly and calmly about the incompetence and jackbootedness of the MNPPCC cops, while looking in the direction of that clusterfuck. From 75 yards away, Officer Opie decided I was eyeballing him and calling him a fucktard (I was, by association, but not personally), and came over with a big shit-eating grin and his hand on his Sam Browne, asking if I was talking to him.

BFF is right that I was loud about the jackbootery, though it wasn't when Officer Opie decided I was nostrilling him, or what the fuckever. I do admit that I was shouting about the Fourth Amendment as Officer Weissmann and her little fascist companions drug out the supposed (but apparently not) criminals. Loudly. Repeatedly. They could not possibly not have heard me. I also took the trouble to toss my car keys to Ilse before I went over to about 40 feet away from the circle jerk of interrogationism to exercise my constitutional right to take some pictures of MNCPPC doing some undoubtedly fine police work.

So there you have it. Bloggy holiday, a birthday, one graf about a game, and five grafs about the stupid fucking MNCPPC po-po. Bout average for a USOC post, right?

Some of the Ways in Which Chester, Pennsylvania Is A Giant Shithole

We set out to have a nice weekend, and I suppose that, overall, we did, thanks in part to the wonderful city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is not, as some might suppose, a giant shithole. We had some very nice food, and some very accommodating folk in a pub near our hotel were kind enough to dedicate a television to the USMNT friendly against Scotland (friend Goth: "...I kept finding Waldo."). Actually, the parenthetical deserves emphasis. Here you go:

It almost looks better on the women. Almost.

The numbers don't contrast well enough with the background to be seen, either live or on television, in addition to the disturbingly French Navy lilt to the shirt's overall...idiom. And yes, the women wear exactly the same shirt.

Which brings us to the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. Once upon a time, some Phunions fans serenaded us as we entered the Soccerplex, which is in every sense the home field of the Landru family, singing "Baltimore United." They shut the fuck up a whole lot when I yelled, "You live in Chester." They mostly shut the fuck up because they were laughing their asses off, having no other reasonable response. Because Chester is, in every single respect, a giant festering shithole.

We went to Chester earlier this evening because the U.S. Womens were playing the Chicoms at Phunions Park. And it was a lovely game, just lovely. The Womens gave up a goal pretty early, like in the 18th minute or so, and it was a pretty dumb fucking goal to give up, and it was pretty much all Amy LePeilbet's fault, except it wasn't, because Pia Sundhage, who I have previously admitted makes a shitload of money as a U.S. national team coach, while I don't, was playing LePeilbet at right back, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever, because LePeilbet is a fucking center back who suffered through an entire World Cup last year at left back, but is now apparently our best option at right back, which I find really fucking hard to believe. But like I said, Pia makes a shitload of money to know better than me, and frankly, the woman got the team to a fucking World Cup final, so I should probably just shut the fuck up a whole lot about that, except I can't, because that makes the stupid goal Amy LePeilbet's fault for getting turned inside out, and I don't find that to be a satisfactory conclusion, so I'm not getting to epistemic closure on this shit anytime soon.

After that, it was all cake and Alex Morgan, though Abby Wambach was inexplicably named WotM for a 1-goal performance, even though Morgan (best sign in the crowd: "Alex Morgan Used To Like Me") had two goals and an assist. The Chicoms are a speedy lot, and pretty well-drilled, though not so much as the hated North Koreans, but they're just plain fucking tiny, and well-fed, longshanked American womanhood just pretty much beat the little Commies down into the hole they deserved to be in.

And that's the last nice thing I have to say about the game. Phunions Park is a fucking shitmoat. It's on the Delaware River, right underneath the Commodore Barry Bridge, in Chester, Pennsylvania. It's a badly designed firetrap, with poorly placed concessions, ridiculously arranged seating sections and concourses, a fucking totalitarian staff, and scandalously inadequate parking and traffic access. And oh yeah, it's located in Chester, Pennsylvania. One phylum of the animal kingdom finds the location out-fucking-standing, and that's insects, because the place is built in a fucking swamp on the shores of the Delaware River. Everything else living? Not so much, because it's also built in a heavily industrial section of Chester, which description doesn't really do much to distinguish its level of shittiness from the shittiness that is the non-industrial sections of Chester, one of America's least appealling cities to begin with.

Which is, as I may have mentioned, a giant shithole. It literally smells like fucking Calcutta. There is nothing charming or useful about the city. There is an abundance of nothing around the park, except for a giant Pennsylvania Power and Light facility (appropos of which the stadium is officially named PP&L Park, which is okay, sort of, because my family has a long history of involvement with PP&L, including painting its electrical towers and making some money, back in the day, off of its stock--thanks, Grandpa) and some really foul-smelling industrial stuff. And a whole lot of urban blight.

We should've clued early; as we came down off of the highway, many less-than-scrupulous persons tried to flag us into unofficial "approved" parking areas formed from abandoned lots marked by ramshackle abandoned buildings. We were a little squeamish about that, because we had luggage in the car from our trip, so we made for the official lots. They refused to let us into the one closest to the Park, even though it was clearly marked as a cash lot, and they were collecting cash. They sent us another half mile down the road to a lot surrounding the aforementioned PP&L facility.

Let me describe the geography. The Park sits on a more-or-less east-west road that runs by the river. There are two north-south streets that lead up to a single east-west road (PA 291) that feeds back into the highway that leads to New Jersey or I-95. We got sent well to the west of the park. Fine. Whatever.

Here's where we get to the part about the fucking ineptitude of the PP&L Park staff, and most especially the inexcusable incompetence of the fat, stupid, mongoloid, hydroencephalic retards who populate the Police Department of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania. When we exited the far lot, we got sent west, to the westernmost access to the north-south street that leads up a few blocks to PA 291. We had to go east on PA 291 to get back to the highway. We spent 55 minutes tracking back to the highway access.

Why, you ask? Because the fucking dumb shits who constitute the Chester PD were blocking one lane of two-lane PA 291 to let out all of the traffic from the easternmost stadium lots, leading to a 55-minute backup for anyone forced to go the way that the PP&L Park staff and the Chester PD told them to go.

I suggest doing crimes in Chester, Pennsylvania, because the fucking Chester PD is too fucking stupid to solve the mystery of how traffic works.

In conclusion, I have a number of people to insult:

Fuck you, Mayor John Linder of Chester, Pennsylvania, you fucking inept, lying hack. Mayor Linder, on the city's Web site: "Chester is a regional transportation hub with direct access to major roadways..."

Not when your retarded Yankeecracker police force blocks that access, you dumb shit. Fuck you.

Fuck you, Police Commissioner John Bail, of the Chester Pennsylvania Police Department, you fucking inept, lying hack. Commissioner Bail, on the city's Web site: "We are members of an elite and highly trained profession: law enforcement."

Yeah. You're the least elite and most untrained members of the profession, but yeah, sure, technically you're members of that profession. Let me make this clear for you, Commissioner Bail:  Your officers are fat, stupid, inattentive, and poorly trained at traffic management, a pretty basic police function in an urban environment. They couldn't stick their fingers up their fat asses and pull them away smelling of shit. I got a clue as to how fucking clueless you are when I found, on your Web page on the city's site, numerous mentions of places you've travelled in becoming an anti-terrorism expert, many of which, like Mumbai, India, have absolutely no traffic control whatsoever.

But wait, there's more, you fat hack: it's great that you're actually a fucking legacy commissioner, you're fucking Flounder. And you've chosen to build your career, in fucking Chester, Pennsylvania, on antiterrorism expertise? What a fucking maroon. Terrorists aren't going to touch Chester; it's already fucking wasted.


Fuck You, Chester, Pennsylvania, and Fuck You, PP&L Park. It'll be fucking cold day in Hell when I spend money in your city, or your stadium, ever again.

How I Confused My Literate Blogfriend. Or Not.

I have some. Literate blogfriends, I mean. Jim is way the fuck smarter than me, at least in his oeuvre and some nontrivial number of others, so I mostly just look at his pictures and skim over the stuff with the alphabets because it just gives me sads.

I discovered this thing today called the Flesch-Kinkaid Readability Index. It's pretty cool and utterly fucking meaningless. It calculates, in theory, the grade level at which you write, and the ease of readability of a given passage of text. I found it in some story about how congresscritters speak, on average, at a 10th-grade level, which was meant to be an insult. I shoved some work-related writing samples into this online calculator thing and discovered that I write at a 12th-grade level with a readability index of 41 (the lower the index, the more dense and incomprehensible the writing). A sample of recent Minions posts yielded scores of 10/50 (the Moog post), 12/47 (the hockey coaching post), 12/45 (the Mothers Day rant) and, stunningly, 10/54 (the Bam-Bam post, which earned me a cookie from Jim, and thanks for that, Jim). Jim's most recent prose post (other recent work has consisted of pictures and quotations), about Mittens' gay-hatin' garnered a 14/32. This makes Jim measurably smarter than me, so STFU, QED.

Yeah, it's a toy, and a pretty stupid one, at that. A Slate article I read about it called it "reductionist," and that's pretty spot on. Actually, I think it was a Weigel piece, so it probably couldn't decide whether it scored an infinity/infinity or a 6/smartass. But I had fun reductionizing myself.

So anyway, I lit into Himself, lovingly and a little bit, because the day had reached the point where I was no longer fit to do the things people pay me to do, and the peasants would've thought ill of me if I'd had the sedan chair brought around as early as 4:45. A little cruise led me to a brief mention of DCU midfielder Branko Boskovic, beloved by Himself because he's from one of those Balkan places, and Himself is also a 'Vic/'Vich, great-grandma from Buda and great-grandpa from Pest, or some such trifle, and he's all prejumidiced and suchlike. He claimed it's because he likes tens.

And I ranted, in the comments therein, about Tennism. You can poke over there for the rant, if you care, or not. Jim did, and I'm suspecting he regrets it, which is a shame because he's never done anything bad to me.

A ten is an center attacking midfielder, a playmaker who can also score. We're talking about footy here, by the way. Famous tens include Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane, and others I'm too lazy to remember, but knock yourselves out in the comments. Less famous tens--who are pretty significant here because they significantly contributed to BFF's and my conversion to Tennism (by playing for DC United), would be Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez (first tour of duty, pre-obesity). Less famous tens who made us wish for Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez, mostly because they weren't tens or were sucky or washed-up tens, would be Marcello Gallardo, the Ginger Fucking Midget (who may well have been shorter than Gallardo, who was nicknamed El Muneco--The Doll), Freddy Adu, Matias Donnet, Rod Dyachenko, Justin Mapp, Justin Moose, Santino Quaranta, Jamil Walker, Rodney Wallace, and Christian Gomez II (The Fattening). Some of those guys had value as footy players, but they all sure sucked balls as center attacking midfielders.

We really, really want Branko to be a ten. That's because he could be, although he prefers to play out left, because his right foot sucks every bit as much as the noodle dangling from the end of the late and lamented Marc Burch's right leg. And even though he's slower than Databoy trying to eat asparagus, and not a whole lot more enthusiastic about the team's preferred pace (to Branko's credit, he's shown more energy in the last two games, which he has started). It's also because we really like Dwayne DeRosario, who is probably more of a natural ten, and Hamdi Salihi, who is also probably something of a natural ten, up top.

Of course, in BFF's case, he also wants Branko to be a ten because of the fucking Balkan connection. But that's neither here nor there.

By the way, the other half of his ancestry is German, so he's not all bad. And he can't help that wrong side of Pennsylvania thing, so it's unfair to mock him for it, even though it is pretty tragifunny.

A point, a point, there was a point...right, how I confused Jim. I didn't. That was a lie. He pretended to be confused, and placed his cultural origins in...uhm...well, exactly the same generational spot as me and BFF, which really isn't very surprising at all, now, is it?

But the whole thing left me troubled and vaguely confused, and not because of Jim, because of the demons in my own shadows. Leaving only one place to turn:

These bunnies stripped Mary Ann and left her in the creek.

This bunny is enjoying itself just a little too much.

You can't fool me. This bunny is a motherfucking space alien.

 

These bunnies are creeping me the fuck out, but I'm guessing Sasha digs them.

Okay, I was wrong. These bunnies are creeping me the fuck out.

 Fucking rubes. You fall for the bunny trick every fucking time.
 

DCU 0-0 Vancouver

Quick hits, it's late:

-Much, much better in the second half, best movement and control of the short season so far. Too bad Joe Cannon shits golden horseshoes.

-I'm deeply concerned about Saint Benny's squad selection and man management. Benching Boskovic is deeply questionable. Benching Pontius is inept. Subbing out Salihi for Josh Wolff is beyond questionable, especially since Salihi just seemed to be getting going, and United seemed to be settling into attacking control at that point.

-Kevin Stott gave us a short vacation from him being an asshole when we first let Saint Jaime trundle off into that good night. It was before Saint Benny was our coach. Stott's back, and he's a rancid turd. There are so many awful MLS referees that I'm not even sure Stott's in the top five any more, but he is truly violently inconsistent. At least he no longer manifests a demonstrable hatred of the Black and Red--his ineptitude was reasonably well spread out.

-Awesome. Sebastien Fucking LeToux is a Whitecap. Shitbird.

-Eric Hassli is 76 inches and 240 pounds of whining, diving trash.

-I get the impression that Martin Rennie is the concentrated essence of every person you've ever wanted to punch.

-Marcelo Saragosa and Danny Cruz are punkass bitches. It will take me a while to settle into the notion that they are punkass bitches in Black and Red.

-Maicon Santos is fucking useless.

-John Harkes--who is inscribed on United's Wall of Fame, or whatever the fuck we call it--is a completely fucking inept commentator. I lost count of the number of times he spewed some nonsense, then directly contradicted it three minutes later. Tony Limarzi is a pleasant non-entity (in English--I don't understand him in Spanish on the radio, but the game sounds more exciting in Spanish anyway). Davey Johnson can't return fast enough. Sadly, we're done with The Bowtie, who is off coaching the national team of Fiji or some such shit.

-Also, I keep getting it wrong--Harkes fucked Wynalda's wife, not the other way around. It takes a pretty shitty human to make Eric Wynalda look good.

Words Fail

Buildings tumble. The ground opens wide.

Alas, poor Burchie. I knew him well. Others, not so much.

Burchie and Blanco, at the Plex. Never forget. Never forget 4ever.

Last straw. Me and Saint Benny, we gonna have words. I could not possibly have imagined, when I wrote that last linked post, how utterly fucking inept that protected list was. Cry all you want that none of the exposed were drafted; what'd Clyde's spot on the list, or Davies' spot, buy? Not even shit.

It's true that the experience transcends the result, which makes the upcoming deadline for season ticket payment less of a big deal than it ought to be, under the circumstances (we don't know where we're playing and we have about four players on our roster). That the outcome of the transaction isn't in doubt does nothing to make paying for this any less galling.

Special for BFF: I tried to get over it. No dice.

It's Like This

Lazy stream-of-consciousness blogging on a few issues of the day:

Work: I've mentioned my work before, and I won't do so with any level of specificity right now, but here's the essence: I am a mid-level tyrant for a government contractor, holding sway over several petty fiefdoms, one of which is concerned with making a Federal agency's Web site go. Once upon a time, in the course of discussing something else, I wrote this about part of what I do:

One of my adorable little gifts--or not, depending on your perspective and the given value of "adorable" and "gifts"--is that I speak fluent Web, understand how things should work, know something about the place of the Web in communications strategies, sort through hours of technical blahrg from actual Webheads, and then distill the whole mess into something that actual Webheads can run with, rather than getting endlessly trapped inside their engineer-like minds.

The other part of that is that I'm really very good--and I sincerely don't mean to be immodest here--at helping nontechnical peeps to understand what technology can and can't do.

This is why it's pretty fucking galling when the buttheads don't even fucking bother to ask. Or worse, when they try to tell me what technology should do. Y'know what? I don't fucking tell you how to cure cancer or prevent heart attacks or whatever the fuck it is you do or research. Don't fucking tell me how to do with the Web what you just told me you wanted the fucking Web to do for you.

#Occupy: I'm terribly sorry you got arrested. I'm really, really glad that BFF didn't. In return for this overwhelming show of empathy, don't fucking tell me you weren't trying to get arrested when you did a fucking barn-raising in McPherson Square. For my part, I won't piss on your leg and tell you it's raining.

Tino: Santino Quaranta retires. Aiyee. Well, I've certainly had plenty to say about old Tino over the years, much of it unkind. To his eternal credit, Tino hasn't sought me out in 232 and beat the shit out of me. Hell, he even had a chance to finish me off in a Popeyes on I-95 one night, and didn't do it. That's gotta be worth something.

It's unfortunate that the competitive fires in Tino didn't drive more than anger, tightness, and 100-mph shots into the mezzanine. He managed moments of beauty during his time here, and I certainly wasn't unhappy to see him on the field this season, especially given the sheer loathsomeness of the options, but I don't want to damn him now with that kind of faint praise. Since his return to the team, he's been as black and red as anyone, and we will miss his energy.

Some selected Tino quotes:

(4/25/2011): Santino Quaranta I already dealt with. He's just a big sack of testosterone and anger. Heart is no longer a problem for him, but he doesn't seem to have any remaining talent to go with it, or at least the intelligence to harness his talent (and experience--it's incredible how long he's been in the league, for his age) in a useful direction. Props to him for getting his ass back on defense, and congratulations to him for being no worse than my fourth or fifth most hated player on my own fucking club.

No one loves like I do.

(3/17/2011) I myself am excited about Tino Quaranta, now that management has seen fit to pick up and retain players equally or more loathsome.

I do love a deathmask retrospective, don't you?

(8/15/2010) Here's what Goff doesn't tell you in his hack: about 90 seconds earlier, Dallas broke free on exactly the same play. They failed to score because Santino Quaranta--hailed as a hero by many in the commenting community, though I'm not sure why--grabbed the ball carrier's (I think it was Ferreira) jersey, dragging him back to prevent the 2-on-1 breakaway. It was a straight red-card professional foul that very clearly and very obviously prevented a goal. Abbey Okulaja ignored it (bless him).

I vividly remember this game and this sequence, which is unusual for me. It's a perfect example of why I'm loathe to kick Tino's slumped body. Well, that and the shabby treatment he got from the team on his way out.

(4/11/2010) The other item: you should never listen to me again, because it's true. I was 10 fucking feet from the unforgiven, but no longer discommodated, Santino Quaranta, and all I did was thank him for a nice goal and speak pleasantly, and briefly. No ranting. No attempt to disembowel him with my greasy Popeye's spork. Just politeness and smiles and thank yous. And that, beloved minions, is the only kind of self-complicity one should waste time whining about.

The aforementioned Popeyes incident, also covered recently by BFF.

(6/14/2008) Tino's discommodation is, of course reversed, with apologies (but not with forgiveness, because Minions has a pretty definite policy on that, too).

I mean, it took his courageous admission of a Vicodin addiction to spur that, but whatever, I manned up.

And the best for last:

(5/24/2008) You see, tonight's Man of the Match, in my book, would be none other than Tino. It was Tino who, through the glory of embellishment that he could only have learned while lapping hungrily at Landon Donovan's pussy, turned a very nice run into a well-earned penalty (in truth, there were two earlier occasions when DCU could easily have been awarded penalties; in this case, there was contact, and Tino was definitely going down, he just made it look better than it was). Minutes later, his run into space with the ball, coupled with a very nice feed to someone (I forgot who), set up the one moment this season when the ball has richocheted onto The New Mister Em's foot in the six-box.

And that last? That's your third problem. Things just haven't been falling for the offense. It doesn't much matter why Emilio isn't the same guy he was last season. Part of it is that some nontrivial number of his goals last season were poached, and he's been so innately lazy about getting into the box this season that his poaching opportunities have dwindled.

So, Tino for MOTM? Sure enough. Apparently Moreno won the text message voting, because he was the guy they flashed on the board at the end of the game. And Peralta had a really fun equalizer, stretching himself out to head a ball two feet off the ground into the net (bDr correctly noted that Peralta might could have just foot-tapped it, but it was a lot more fun the way it happened). Fred moved reasonably well off-ball, and Gallardo's touch and control (as long as he's not kicking a set piece) are a marvel. But Tino ran his ass off and earned it.

No, he did not earn my forgiveness. bDr's brother asked me a pertinent question when he wondered if, should Tino break Jay Heaps in half, spit on the body, and wipe his ass on a Duke t-shirt in front of 25,000 fans, I'd get around to forgiving. Actually, he phrased the question a lot less violently and my answer wasn't terribly affirming. Only when I embellished the violence and emphasis could I get to a place where the possibility of any sort of Tino-warmth could be forthcoming.

Emphasis added.

It's pretty clear that I've had a real complex relationship with Santino Quaranta, at least in my head, for a real long time now. Tino's name and number will never be up on the wall (though he could hardly shame it any worse than fucking Harkes does), but it'll be an oddly painful and incredibly strange thing to see a number 25 on someone else's United kit someday.

Best wishes for a happy and successful retirement, Tino.

Remind Me

Why I support this futbol team. Our protected list for the upcoming expansion draft, says Goff:

Charlie Davies
Dwayne DeRosario
Dejan Jakovic
Perry Kitchen
Chris Korb
Brandon McDonald
Chris Pontius
Clyde Simms
Joe Willis
Josh Wolff
Daniel Woolard

This imparts some information we needed to know. Foremost, that this team is managed by complete fucking mongoloids. We protected the useless diving pussy Charlie Davies instead of daring the brand-new Froggyfucks to take him? Holy shit, that's utterly bereft of intelligence or character. Chris Korb, the latest in a series of useless midgets? Slow, stupid, Daniel Fucking Woolard, a reject of the fucking Chicago Fire? This what Kevin Payne and Benny Olsen think is the right and left sides of your future defense, wherever it may play.

After the decision to protect Davies, the most mindboggling choice for protection is Clyde Simms. It is very clear to anyone who set foot in RFK Stadium this season, save perhaps Clyde himself, that Clyde's toast. This is sad. Clyde's been an anchor for us. But he's done done done, a perfect example of a player who needs to be exposed to the draft.

It's excusable that the club left Boskovic unprotected. His salary and knee combine to make his selection very unlikely. But we're going to lose either Brettschneider or Quaranta, both of whom are far more useful than tiny ineffectual Chris Korb or slow, stupid Daniel Fucking Woolard, who shines as the worst free agent acquisition by this club since...uhm, Joseph Ngwenya. Here's the thing; Ngwenya doesn't play. Saint Benny seems convinced that Woolard is a starting left back (or, when injuries and malice overtake us, a starting center back).

Are there valid criticisms of Brettschneider and Quaranta? Of course there are. You know I despise Quaranta, and despise that he's so rooted in our club's culture. Brettschneider's no great huge hairy deal--he's young and probably a little too aggressive for his own good, but he's a lot more promising than that diving poisonous punk Charlie Davies.

Fucking disgrace.

Update: Fullback agrees, which is totally expected since he started the discussion a couple of weeks ago and essentially steered me to my position (though I'd never have backed protecting Davies, Korb, or Woolard independent of other intellectual influences, since my feelings about all three are pretty visceral).

Dancing a Fuck-Me Jig While Tripping Balls Because It Doesn't Look Like He's Going To Dance It For Any Other Reason, Now, Does It?

Let's leave the reporting to the whore Goff, since he usually manages to get the fact-like bits more or less straight. In short, MLS grand poohbah Don "Anschutz Sounds Like Anschluss and That's Good Enough for Me" Garber has thrown down a gauntlet, or pissed in a circle, or some such twaddle, in an effort to bring United's stadium situation to a head. He thinks we've seen our last game on Loud Side, at least in the place that has always been our home. Speculation is rampant about whether this means we're going to the Capital One Boomer Esiason Memorial Helmetball Field at Five Guys Curly Byrd Stadium at Comcast Lot One of the Verizon University of Maryland at M&T College Park, or whether we're gonna demolish a piece of MLK Boulevard up in Bawlmer.

I'm not arguing that DC should give United a stadium. Neither is anyone else, and DC doesn't seem to fucking get that. They never have gotten it, and after the city willingly submitted to the Lerners bending them over and assraping them for Nationals Park, it's decided that "stadium" equals "assrape." DC has a pretty simple choice: single-event-based revenue for RFK, which is large and rusty and raccoon-infested, or that revenue stream plus reasonable lease terms for 18-20 additional scheduled events there each year. Thus far, DC has chosen the obviously retarded route of trying to rape blood from a rock.

No more, it seems. I've done my best over the years to suppress BFF's panicky whimpering over the larger issues here (though he has always been philosophically correct in his pessimism about it, and that's neither new nor changed by Anschluss Don's statement in the State of the League address), but it's no longer fair to call it "panicked." I think the chance of DC agreeing to reasonable lease terms is near nil, because it's a dysfunctional city run by complete fucking retards, and RFK is operated for the city by a contractor that doesn't particularly give a shit. Where that leaves us, geographically, is still equally likely to be okay or horrible. And where that leaves our seats is, as BFF has always argued, in a fucking end zone, unless we end up in Byrd, where there will be a reasonable chance of a Loud Side (at a venue policed by UMD criminal justice grads--yay!).

Or maybe I'm just tripping balls. Again.

Yeah. Remember the good times.