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Before the start of the game, I wasn’t sure who to support. The 3 big galaxians (Arena, Beckham, and Donvan) have all won loads already. Plus, Becks is a bit of a muppet with an awful haircut. RSL is the 8 seed, a plucky side with a white, neo-Rastafarian captain, an ex-Galaxian forward, and a young manager. However, as a USMNT fan looking forward to the World Cup, it has become clear that Landon Donovan is the best US player, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him do something fantastic to win it.

As soon as I started to think that I didn’t like the neutral site, the fans began a deafening “Sound-ers” chant. It made it feel slightly less sterile than a Super Bowl. While the Seattle fans are great, they don’t have a true rooting interest. Home and home has to be a better option if MLS fans will not travel for the Cup final.

The other major problem with the game being held in Seattle is the field turf. It is an awful surface for soccer. Players were falling, the ball acted more like a ping pong ball, and both teams passing was off.

The game started pretty sloppy with neither team looking like they had trained on the artificial surface. Other than Clint Mathis coming on for the injured (and crying) Javier Morales, there wasn’t much to report until the Galaxy’s fantastic first goal. Beckham led Donovan well, and Landon played an inch perfect pass to Magee to tap in on the left side of the goal.

Salt Lake had to put Ned Gravaboy (best name in MLS) on for Will Johnson to begin the second half. Both sides got their sea legs in the second half, and the play on the field increased significantly. Robbie Findley got clear on the right and came in hard as Donovan Ricketts came out to challenge him. The two came together in a collision that initially appeared to hurt both players equally. However, it became apparent that Ricketts’ right hand got the worst of it. Minutes after play restarted, Findley slotted home Real’s equalizer.

Ricketts had to go to ground once before Findley’s goal, and it appeared that he had a hard time using his right hand to help himself back up. He also didn’t fully extend his arm in his attempt to save Findley’s shot, and wisely pulled himself off after giving up the game tying goal.

For as much as the first half was relatively bad to watch, the second half offered a great deal of excitement for the American soccer fan. It wasn’t a particularly well played half, but between the collision, injuries, and the game tying goal, there was enough drama for even a non-devotee.

Each team had a few chances at the end of regular time, but neither could convert. As the extra 30 minutes went on, it was clear that these players were not in shape to run as much as they had earlier. The field turf had to play a part in their fatigue.

When the match went to penalties, Real was the favorite. While L.A. had fantastic attacking players in Beckham, Donovan and Buddle, Salt Lake had Nick Rimando. One week ago, Rimando’s work in penalties in Chicago got RSL to the MLS Cup final.

Each team began by converting their first two penalties. Then each side missed their next attempt before Landon Donovan Roberto Baggio’d his shot over the crossbar, to leave Salt Lake with the advantage. They would lose it shortly thereafter when Andrew Williams’ meek attempt fell right to Josh Saunders. In the seventh round Edson Buddle’s shot was saved by Rimando, and Robbie Russell converted to give Real their first MLS Cup.

The current international break may hit Arsenal the hardest. With Chelsea about to face the loss of all of their African players, ManU not in sync, and Liverpool playing laughable football, Arsenal looked to be the favorite for the premiership this league. Robin Van Persie going down early in the friendly versus Italy has to knock the Gunners back a bit. That’s a shame, considering how entertaining they have been this season.

Luckily, some woman’s placenta will not be eaten, or buried in the yard, or needlessly thrown away, but rather, used to massage the Royal Dutch ankle. I hope Kate Gosselin and octomom aren’t paying attention to this new therapeutic technique.

I am really curious about the Livorno players’ high jersey numbers.  They started with only Nico Pulzetti sporting a single digit number.  It reminded me of a spring training baseball team loaded with minor leaguers trying to make the big squad.  The game featured lots of end to end action in this game, and the teams were relatively evenly matched, save for two players: Gianlugi Buffon and Mauro Camoranesi.  Without these two, this game surely ends in a draw or Livorno win.

Buffon’s value to Juventus cannot be understated.  A la Cech and Van der Sar, he has the stereotypical, tall, lanky keeper’s body.  His imposing frame is matched by his ability to always get into the right position, and his quickness to react.  My game notes show 6 different times where I made a point to write down that he made an excellent save.  The thing that kills me about him is he seems so cool about everything as well.  It really must drive opposition strikers mad.  Livorno played well throughout the match, but when their own finishing didn’t fail them, Buffon was always there to protect his goal.

The scoring began when Juve struck first in the 8^th minute when Vincenzo Iaquinta neatly headed home Camoranesi’s cross from outside the box.  The bianconeri added a second goal in the 30^th minute when Claudio Marchisio chipped a shot over Alfonso de Lucia.  Mauro Camoranesi assisted both goals and was all over the pitch all night.  He tracked back to strip Livorno players of the ball.  He pressed forward to feed his own strikers.  His work rate was excellent.  His positioning reminded me a bit of Andrea Pirlo, but with perhaps a little bit more ambition forward.   Last week I wrote that I thought that perhaps Mauro was a bit overconfident.  This week his play supported all of his self-assurance.

On a night when stars Fabio Cannavaro and Alessandro del Piero were unavailable due to injury, both Buffon and Camoranesi imposed their will on the game to ensure a Juve win.

Fox Soccer’s coverage of the Champions League games is something to behold. No longer are we tied to ESPN’s choice of which game we are allowed to watch. 10 of this week’s 16 matches are available either live or on a delay. That is unbelievable, and a massive step forward.

It poured rain throughout the game in Marseille on Tuesday, and Milan’s white Champions League kits do not have a sponsor. It’s a good thing this isn’t the women’s champions league. Or maybe it isn’t. Pato, Pirlo and Flamini all play an attractive style of football and I was excited to see what they could do against Marseille. Early on, the cameras caught Ronaldinho chewing gum on the bench. That certainly won’t help him in his losing battle to appear less ugly.

The two man announcing booth did a good job calling the game. They were never overbearing, but they added comments and descriptions when needed. The Marseille crowd was consistently into the game, singing in full voice throughout the downpour. Milan is an excellent passing team. If they only had the youth to take advantage of such gilded opportunities, they could be a force in both the scudetto race and Europe. Clarence Seedorf had a nice dribble towards goal, then set up Pipo Inzaghi for his 67th European goal in the 28th minute. Marco Storari had a massive save in added time on a shot from Cheyrou.

Gabriel Heinze leveled the home side in the 49th minute with a nice header off a free kick that ultimately nutmegged the keeper. The crowd remained fully involved after the goal. Champions league group stage crowds are great. Manuel Flamini earned a yellow in the 61st minute for a two footed tackle that probably should have been a straight red. Marseille had more gas in the tank at this point in the gam, but their inability to advance offensively ultimately let them down. Seedorf fed Inzaghi again in the 74th minute for Milan’s second goal.

Even though the rain never let up, the pitch stayed in perfect condition. nice work groundskeepers. Milan has to be happy with the away win against a plucky Marseille side. Marseille’s problem after this game is that they’re one match down against their main rivals to finish second in Group C behind Real Madrid.

Besiktas/Manchester United – CL Matchday 1

The lineups were introduced and Besiktas’ consisted of a bunch of guys I’ve never heard of with a lot of accent marks and umlauts in their name.  Man U started with Neville, Vidic, Evans and Evra in the back, two English speakers playing center midfield (Scholes and Carrick), two Portuguese speakers on the wings (Anderson and Nani), and Rooney and Valencia up front.  New man, Antonio Valencia ended up playing a little behind and a little wider than Rooney, but 4-4-2 it is.

FSC’s coverage was not so good.  Only one man in the booth?  No crowd noise?  C’mon Fox, you’re better than that.  While they fixed the lack of crowd noise problem around 10 minutes into the match, they never get around to fixing the announcer problem.  Tim White grew more frustrating as the game went on, announcing all of the scores for the other CL games being played.  I understand that the game was not aired on television in the states until 10 pm EDT, but I imagine lots of viewers recorded a few of the Matchday 1 games and planned to watch them on delay.  If you spent all day avoiding updates, it’s no good to have the announcer ruin it for you.  Also, at one point in the second half he referred to Besiktas as “Fenerbahce”.

United controlled the play during the first half, but had nothing to show for their efforts.  Valencia, while talented, seemed just a bit off throughout the opening half.

The Red Devils came out of halftime buzzing around the pitch, looking even more dangerous than before.  Patrice Evra continued to make bombing raids down the left side.  He really has quite a motor.  Besiktas were dangerous in spurts, but both the defense and keeper Ben Foster continued to deny them a goal.  Sir Alex removed Carrick for Berbatov in the 63^rd minute, and shortly thereafter he called off Rooney for Owen.  Rooney was none too happy to be replaced, shaking his head the whole way off the pitch.  The camera caught Wayne gesturing to the crowd just above the visitor’s bench, and throwing his boots down in disgust.

United finally got their well deserved goal in the 77^th minute after a nice set up by Nani and Valencia led to a Scholes header into the upper right corner.  The Ginger Ninja was left without a marker, and buried the chance.  Park came on for Valencia in the 84^th, and helped close out the 1-0 win.

Denizli’s men will certainly rue losing at home, especially after keeping the game scoreless for over an hour.  However, United proved to be too much last night, and the Turkish club’s Champions League chances are bleak considering Wolfsburg’s thrashing of the Muscovites.

Looking at the Serie A table going into last weekend, the Lazio/Juventus matchup presented the most promise.  Each team had won its first two games.  Would this game produce beautiful, flowing football that might serve to entice a Serie A neophyte?  In a word, no.

The first half was almost completely forgettable.  Other than Aleksandar Kolarov’s exceptional run past two Juve defenders, which ultimately led to a fine save by Buffon, there was little to keep a mind from wandering until Lazio had a goal disallowed in stoppage time.  Referee Andrea Gervasoni made the correct call to disallow the goal as Julio Cruz clearly impeded a Juve man in the box to free up room for Sebastiani Siviglia’s shot.  Maybe the players were distracted by the magenta kits worn by the referees.  Words cannot describe their hideousness, and I cannot find a picture anywhere on the intertubes.  You’ll have to take my word for it.  Speaking of uniforms, Lazio appears to be following Man U and Everton in their attempt to be outfitted as ugly as possible this year.  When you have such a great blue as your color, why would you screw it up by adding a vee-neck stripe thingy?

Watching Serie A on FSC is perplexing.  The match announcer added almost nothing to my experience.  When watching sports, I don’t normally appreciate a color man in the booth.  However, in a game where I know very little about either team’s backstory, it would have been helpful.  As it was, the announcer was Captain Obvious, adding nothing helpful to any viewer with two working eyes.

The game started to finally pick up as each team began to get stuck in around the 64^th minute.  Juve had an excellent display of passing, and began to look threatening, only for David Trezeguet to meekly roll the ball towards Fernando Muslera.  Tiago replaced Mauro Camaronesi in the 69^th minute.  I can’t determine what I think of the Oriundi.  He certainly has talent, but I get the feeling he thinks he is better than he truly is.  That overconfidence leads to him wasting opportunities.

Juve new boy Martin Caceres opened the scoresheet in his first game for the bianconeri in the 72^nd minute, pouncing on a ball in the box and slotting his shot past the Lazio keeper.  As Lazio pressed for the tying goal, Juve got their second goal in the 4^th minute of added time as David Trezeguet scored his first goal of the campaign.

The teams were pretty evenly matched on the day, but Juventus finished where Lazio could not.  As it were, Juve completed the “away to Rome” double by week three.

Group stages begin shortly.  Matchday 1 for groups A-D brings us the following matches:

Atlético  APOEL
Be?ikta?  Man. United
Chelsea          Porto
Juventus  Bordeaux
Maccabi Haifa  Bayern
Marseille  Milan
Wolfsburg  CSKA Moskva
Zürich          Real Madrid

followed tomorrow by groups E-H

Dynamo Kyiv  Rubin
Internazionale  Barcelona
Liverpool  Debrecen
Lyon          Fiorentina
Olympiacos  AZ
Sevilla          Unirea Urziceni
Standard  Arsenal
Stuttgart  Rangers

The Besiktas/Manchester and Marseille/Milan fixtures are already scheduled to the DVR for today.  Inter/Barca is can’t miss football for tomorrow.

OK, so the transfer window is not during the month of March. Nonetheless, there was very little activity at the deadline.

Maybe there was no one left after Real Madrid purchased Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema, Xabi Alonso, my mom, your mom, and Andrew Shue.

Maybe the down economy left most clubs with no money left to spend.

Maybe team owners around the world all agreed to sit tight, knowing someone would post this awesome picture of a lamb.

Whatever the reason, this was a boring end to the transfer window.

Derby Della Madonnina

Milan vs. Inter

Could the Derby della Madonnina, the first big derby of the 09-10 season in any European league, live up to the hype?  Inter came into the game favorites to win the scudetto after mostly adding to the squad that has won the Serie A four years running.  AC Milan did not add much in the offseason, and suffered the huge losses of Carlo Ancelotti, Paolo Maldini and Kaka.

Milan got off to an expected start last week, winning at mid-table Siena.  Inter were held to a tie at home by newly promoted Bari.  On Saturday, Milan was the better side throughout the first half hour, and Inter looked out of sorts for a large portion of the beginning of the game.  That would not last.  Early on, Pato and Flamini seemed to have possession for a great deal of time and play off each other well in Milan’s attack.  Flamini even came in to protect his teammate shortly after Lucio’s hard, clean tackle took down Pato, and brought down the Inter captain, earning a yellow card in the process.

Things were looking up for the rossoneri until Gattuso picked up an injury to his ankle about 20 minutes into the game.  The nerrazurri started to take control of possession and impose their will on the game, and had an almost “Argentina v Serbia in the ‘06 World Cup”-like goal, stringing together eleven passes in a row before Thiago Motta placed a well taken shot past Storari for Inter’s first goal.

Whatever knock Gattuso picked up sapped him of some of his pace, and in the 34th minute he lost Eto’o down the wing and resorted to bringing him down in the box to give Inter a penalty which Milito promptly buried for Inter’s second goal.

Gattuso began to demand his way off the pitch in the 37th minute, and before Leonardo could make his move, Gattuso earned his second yellow with a harsh tackle on Wesley Sneijder.  On his way off the pitch, Gattuso was yelling at someone on the sideline, and if it was Leonardo, it would be hard to blame him.  It took entirely too long to get him off the pitch.

At the end of the first half Maicon and Milito had a nice give and go to set up Maicon for Inter’s 3rd goal.

The second half began with Milan taking off Boriello and Flamini for Seedorf and Ambrosini.  They would not be enough to salvage the game for a team playing a man down.  There is not much else to say about this game.  Watching the second half was almost a complete waste of time.  Sure, Inter scored another goal on Stankovic’s rocket shot, but could we really learn any more about these teams after a 3-0 first half where the losing team lost a vital cog to their midfield?

While Milan came out strong early in the match, they lost their legs early on giving way to the onslaught that is Inter.  Overall, Maicon, Eto’o, Lucio, and especially Wesley Sneijder impressed for the black and blues.