Both sides have missed some pretty open chances, but I have to agree that I'm surprised Galaxy is hanging in there this well.

And as I type, Beckham's running out, so maybe we'll get to see him.

ALSO: WHERE IS BALLACK? I know he had some surgery a while back but I thought he had played already since, so I don't know why he wouldn't be playing a match that would help prepare for the Premier League..

7/21/2007 10:42:11 PM

i am very surprised chelsea havent scored more goals this game

7/21/2007 10:42:28 PM

of course he sports the long sleeve shirt, the beckham trademark

7/21/2007 10:44:17 PM

^^^ ballack sucks

[Edited on July 21, 2007 at 10:44 PM. Reason : .]

7/21/2007 10:44:18 PM

Yeah, only sucky players can play for the best German team and the (arguably) best English team..

7/21/2007 10:47:19 PM

I think the Galaxy are doing well because the US style of soccer fits the British style of soccer more so than let's say a US team vs. a Spanish/Italian team. That and I think the Galaxy defense are swarming balls like crazy...

7/21/2007 10:50:24 PM

I know he doesn't suck... by sucks, I meant extremely overrated, of course

7/21/2007 10:51:53 PM

well he overratedly knocked the US out of the world cup in 2002...

7/21/2007 10:52:45 PM

+/- an uncalled hand ball off of a corner kick situation

7/21/2007 10:55:17 PM

hahah ^ thanks, beat me to it



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPKdb8pH3C0

[Edited on July 21, 2007 at 10:57 PM. Reason : I was looking for the video to remind everybody]

7/21/2007 10:57:14 PM

+/- we handballed against mexico too in the round before, so...

7/21/2007 10:58:05 PM

eh, that's true. but that could have been the dirtiest game I've ever seen played. So it was bound to be decided in some underHANDed (man that was too funny) way

7/21/2007 10:59:31 PM

yea, man i dont remember that Klose header into the post in that game^^^

7/21/2007 11:00:15 PM

I didn't remember alot of that, especially a couple of those Landycakes chances

7/21/2007 11:01:06 PM

god...thanks for that link, that actually depresses me...cause i do remember we dominated that game

7/21/2007 11:01:27 PM

That 2002 Germany team had a phenomenal goalie, and then a support crew. I'm not knocking what they did, but most of Ballack's goals were against Saudi Arabia if I remember correctly. That was just a very poor World Cup overall.

7/21/2007 11:02:57 PM

All that means is Ballack's hands are good at soccer too..

7/21/2007 11:03:08 PM

how silly would it have been if we won that game

I hate watching stuff like that because I get all excited for the next WC

7/21/2007 11:03:13 PM

yea...USA...World Cup...semifinals all in the same sentence....still mind boggling

7/21/2007 11:04:46 PM

That was the quarterfinals, and it wasn't Ballack it was Frings, now that I recall.

7/21/2007 11:06:44 PM

shame, all in all this game was more about who was there instead of the soccer

7/21/2007 11:06:57 PM

man i can not listen to eric wynalda for very long

7/21/2007 11:07:06 PM

we wouldve been in the semifinals had we won that game(which we shouldve) is what im saying

if youre talking about the handball, no it wasnt ballack on the line, it was a defender im pretty sure...frings maybe sounds right but i dont remember

[Edited on July 21, 2007 at 11:08 PM. Reason : d]

7/21/2007 11:07:18 PM

ha... forgot how blatant that handball was on the line... jesus.

7/21/2007 11:08:07 PM

i lolled at the "beckham cam"

so very lame.

7/21/2007 11:11:24 PM

i don't know, he played it like it was his leg pretty well

7/21/2007 11:14:07 PM

^^^ yes torsten frings i think

7/21/2007 11:14:10 PM

Quote :

"i lolled at the "beckham cam" so very lame. "

well that's what 90% of the populus who tuned in wanted to see. i'd bet you were looking at it when they had the splitscreen shots

7/21/2007 11:26:14 PM

man i'm glad i stumbled in around the 70+ min mark

there's no way i could have endured "she still hasn't taken off her sunglasses!!!" for the previous 70 minutes

as cheesy as it all was, i still probably wouldn't watch a non-World-Cup soccer game if Beckham wasn't playing in it

[Edited on July 21, 2007 at 11:33 PM. Reason : i especially liked how they were like--"ok he got his corner kick...game's over..."]

7/21/2007 11:31:10 PM

Quote :

"man i can not listen to eric wynalda for very long"

he seems like he has a real disdain for mls.

7/22/2007 1:29:03 AM

ballack was the best player in the world at one time

7/22/2007 2:59:57 AM

Tried watching it. After about 9 minutes I realized how much this sport sucks and started watching MTV Cribs.

As a side note though, Jermaine Dye has a pretty awesome house.

It's the Freddy Adu shit all over again.

7/22/2007 3:19:11 AM

mtv cribs

and umm, beckham is proven, and good...freddy adu is neither

7/22/2007 3:25:41 AM

I'm serious man, he's got an awesome place.

Freddy Adu was also supposed to be the person to make soccer relevant in the United States, and ESPN went on a multi-month long campaign to talk about how awesome he and soccer were. They hyped his first game like there was no tomorrow and he wound up playing 2 minutes or something.

So you'll have to excuse me if this entire thing is a little "been there, done that".

7/22/2007 3:59:46 AM

Freddy Adu wasn't supposed to become the king of American soccer when he first started. He's still a kid, and they're trying to harvest talent so we can compete internationally in the long run. And anyone who says he can't compete against international is a fool: see U-20 World Cup. Three goals isn't nothing.

7/22/2007 5:38:28 AM

Adu is pretty good and is maturing into a much better player than I gave him credit for. He's 18, though, and was only 14 when he started. You've got to consider that no 14 year old in the world is going to come into a league with grown-ass men and tear shit up.

7/22/2007 12:56:22 PM

Soccer's going to get really big soon. I think people are getting sick of the absolute thugs that have entered into the NBA and NFL. You don't see any US soccer players getting in trouble for drugs or prostitutes or ... dogfighting.

7/22/2007 1:02:20 PM

^^ The issue isn't so much that he wasn't amazing to start with. It's that for god knows how many months ESPN promoted him as the savior of soccer, made this big deal about how he was going to drum up interest in soccer in America, how this is his first professional game, and then...

He gets like 2 minutes.

Imagine if, after all the LeBron James hype he barely played in his first game. Do you think people would be lining up at the door for the next game? This is twice now soccer has had a great stage to try and take off, only to shoot itself in the foot.

[Edited on July 22, 2007 at 1:06 PM. Reason : .]

7/22/2007 1:05:52 PM

well, the difference this time is Frank Yallop has to play Beckham, or he'll lose his job.


there's also the fact that Becks is proven, while Adu wasn't.

7/22/2007 1:57:59 PM

Again, that doesn't change the ESPN circlejerk in an attempt to make the sport viable for an American audience. Same shit, different day.

The backpedaling was hilarious last night though. All of a sudden it wasn't a major deal whether Beckham played or not because it was just an exhibition game.

7/22/2007 3:00:55 PM

^ especially when he tripped over that defender and was holding his ankle...then the tone suddenly switched to "OMG get him out of there we do NOT NEED THIS"

7/22/2007 3:03:29 PM

from what i heard leading up to the game i didnt expect him to play at all
i think the only reason he played was cause so many stars showed up.

7/22/2007 3:08:41 PM

Quote :

"Soccer's going to get really big soon. I think people are getting sick of the absolute thugs that have entered into the NBA and NFL. You don't see any US soccer players getting in trouble for drugs or prostitutes or ... dogfighting."

If having a clean record outside of work made you worth watching youre arguement would be valid. I watched some of the soccer game and it was very very boring. It was slightly worse than the hopkins fight which was also bad.

7/22/2007 3:15:03 PM

Quote :

"don't see any US soccer players getting in trouble for drugs or prostitutes or ... dogfighting."

Lets be honest though, who would care if they did? It'd shock me if it would make national news.

7/22/2007 3:17:56 PM

its so retarded to say "I watched 10 minutes of soccer and it was boring"

first of all examine yourself, you probably have a very short attention span
and aside from some extreme sports, getting into a new sport in 10 minutes would be an impossiblity for you
it took me years and years to get into american football, so dont be ignorant and think that soccer is boring because you didnt get into it

7/22/2007 3:55:35 PM

i like soccer, but the point is this:

you shouldn't have to try anything special to give it a shot

it's the sport's responsibility to attract fans, not the fans' responsibility to try to like it

7/22/2007 4:31:29 PM

yeah but the counterpoint that for some sports, you have to watch more than 10 minutes to fully appreciate/understand the game

I'm not saying if everybody watched a couple of full soccer games, they'd be instant fans... it's definitely not for everybody. But, if somebody who had never watched baseball watched a half inning and nothing else, they probably wouldn't be fans either.

7/22/2007 5:16:14 PM

Yeah guys, lets act as though I've never watched a full soccer game after I talk about having watched one before.

The reason I stopped watching after 10 minutes had less to do with the fact that it was soccer and more due to these "professionals" pretty much sucked.

Here's a soccer pro-tip that I learned back in grade school: You have a better chance taking an uncontested 10-15 foot shot at a massive net than you do dribbling in as close to the goalie as possible then trying to get it past him. Somehow no one on Chelsea seemed to really grasp that concept when I was watching and if I'm going to watch shitty play they could at least call it "amateur" and not have been hyping it for months.

I'll watch the World Cup where it actually seems like people have some talent, but that game last night was atrocious.

[Edited on July 22, 2007 at 5:25 PM. Reason : .]

7/22/2007 5:24:09 PM

it was just a friendly

7/22/2007 6:38:50 PM

man that was way overhyped...very cheesy how they covered it like it was a movie premiere or something. but it was an entertaining game, and beckham's star power will definitely be good for american soccer.

[Edited on July 22, 2007 at 7:41 PM. Reason : e]

7/22/2007 7:40:17 PM