last post

I think that doing this blog has been somewhat beneficial. It allowed us to pick a topic that we were interested in and spend time surfing the web for information that we found interesting. I definitely learned some new things that I may not have discovered otherwise. The only bad part about the blog was that I kept forgetting to make an actual post. I would spend time looking up stuff that I thought was interesting, but then forget to write about it in an actual post.

Anyways, for my last post, I just wanted to mention something about the turmoil the US Soccer Federation is going through in order to find a new coach. Right after this past summer’s World Cup, Jurgen Klinnsman stepped down as the coach of the German team, and just about everyone thought he would be the next US coach. He lived in the US, his wife is American – perfect fit right? Apparently not. The US Soccer president did not seem to agree with Klinnsman’s vision for the team, and their negotions ended with Klinnsman removing his name from the search committee. Granted this past year was Klinnsman’s first year as a coach, he did lead Germany to a surprise 3rd place finish in the World Cup. That’s very impressive, not to mention his numerous titles as a player for Germany and his club teams in the early 90s. He must not know anything about winning.

Now we are stuck with Bob Bradley for the time being. Nothing against Bob, but we all had our hearts set on someone else. Thank you US Soccer for letting us down yet again.

US or Europe?

Why do all the best soccer players from America leave the MLS and go play overseas? Of course, it’s all about the money. When Freddy Adu signed with D.C. United as a 14 year old kid he became the highest paid player in the MLS, with a $500,000 guaranteed contract. Since then Landon Donavon, the proclaimed “Golden Boy” of US Soccer who has become tarnished, signed a deal making him the highest paid player with his $900,000 salary. The lowest base salary happens to be one of Adu’s teammates Andy Metcalfe who makes a measley $11,000 a year. I would be willing to be you could make more than that working at McDonald’s.

In the 2003-2004 season in the English Premier League the average player salary was 900,000 pounds (about $1.7 million). That’s twice as much money as Landon Donovan is making in the US. I guess that he must have his priorities in a different order than most humans to be passing up that kind of money to stay in the US and play in the MLS. But we see most top American players doing what most people would do and chasing the money overseas. It won’t be too long until Freddy Adu is gone and the MLS will have to find a new media target.

Champions League

In my opinion, the UEFA Champions League is one of the best ideas in professional sports. Everyone knows that all of the best professional soccer is played in Europe, whether in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, or numerous other European countries. You can argue that the Premeirship in England is better than La Liga in Spain, but it’s undeniable that both are better than the MLS, Mexican, Brazilian, African, Japanese, or any other country’s league. All the best players go to Europe to play so that they can play with and against the best in the world.

That’s why the Champions League is so good. The competition started in the 1950’s. It consists of the best teams from each country’s domestic league, as well as the runner-up, and possibly more depending on the strength and UEFA ranking of the league. That means that powerhouse leagues like La Liga and the English Premiership will have more teams than the Belgian Jupiler League. Essentially, all the best teams in the world will be able to compete for the Champions League title. The teams that are eligible play 3 qualifying rounds, then proceed to play a group stage. There are 8 groups with four teams in each. Every team will play the other teams in their group in a home and away series. The winners of the group along with the runners up then advance to the knockout round. There is a draw to determine the pairings in the knockout round and they also play home and away matches. This proceeds until there are only two teams left. For the championship game, there is only one match that is played in a neutral site to determine the overall champion.

Basically, they are crowning the best soccer team in the world every year. Last years champion was Liverpool from the English Premiership, who beat Italy’s AC Milan after coming back from 3 goals to none and winning on a penalty shootout. It was really the best game I’ve ever seen. That’s what you expect from the best and that’s usually what you will get.

Racism in Foreign Soccer

There has been a long hard struggle in our nation to get rid of racism, and while it does still exist to some extent we have succeeded pretty well. It is really pretty rare to go to a sporting event in the US and here a crowd yell racial slurs at opposing players. Most likely your own team has several of their own minority players. Most of the top players in each sport are minorities. Tiger Woods, Lebron James or Dwayne Wade, Albert Pujols or David Ortiz or Ryan Howard or just about any other top MLB player, Donovan McNabb or any NFL running back. Take your pick, and there’s a good chance that he is probably African-American or Hispanic.

In Europe, they still have the problem. It would be a common sight to go to a professional game and hear the crowd insulting opposing players either because of the color of their skin or even their nationality. In Spain, one of Barcelona’s star players Eto’o threatened to walk off the field during a game because of the crowd’s insulting racial remarks (Eto’o is from Cameroon). This occurred in February of 2006. It is just one of numerous such occurrences that are occurring across Europe. Do a google search on racial incidents in soccer and you will find plenty of examples.

This past year there has been some work by FIFA and the UEFA governing bodies to try and crack down on fighting racism. Organizations such as “Kick it Out” and “FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe)” are also working to help fix the problem. It’s too bad the US lacks a good enough league that could possibly draw some of these players to play in the US where they could play without the ridicule.

Transfer Market

In European football, a player that is under contract is not allowed to leave that team unless the club terminates the contract. Usually if a player wants to move to another team while under contract, the player’s new team (buying club) must pay a “transfer fee” to the old team (selling club), thus providing some compensation for losing the player. In some cases players would be allowed to transfer without a fee, and sometimes even be loaned to the new club. If a player is loaned, he may play for another team for several weeks or several seasons before he returns to the club he is contracted to.

The highest recorded transfer fee was in 2001 when the now infamous Zinedane Zidane was transferred to Real Madrid (Spain) from Juventus (Italy) for a record 45.62 million British Pounds (an astounding 86.79 million US dollars). That money went to Juventus, and then Real Madrid had to pay Zidane’s salary in addition to that amount. Zidane was the reining FIFA World Footballer of the year, after leading France to the World Cup title in 1998, and the 2000 European Championship.

Up until 1990, there was a transfer fee for players even when their contract had expired. The Bosman ruling now allows players to move freely in the European Union at the end of their contract.

The Value of Soccer

We all know that there is a lot of money to be made in the sports market in the United States. But what about abroad? Soccer is definitely the most popular sport in the world everywhere but the U.S. so it is only reasonable to think that there would be some money out there somewhere. I went to Forbes.com and browsed around and came up with this list of the most valuable sports franchises in the world.

1. Washington Redskins – $1.423 billion
2. Manchester United (England) – $1.373 billion
3. New England Patriots – $1.176 billion
4. Dallas Cowboys – 1.173
5. Houston Texans – 1.043
6. Philadelphia Eagles – 1.024
7. New York Yankees – 1.026
8. Real Madrid – 1.012
9. Denver Broncos – 975 million
10. Cleveland Browns – 970 million
    Tampa Bay Bucs, Baltimore Ravens, Chicago Bears, Carolina Panthers

15. AC Milan – 921 million

I guess this shows that there is tons of money in the NFL, and then a decent amount in foreign soccer. The highest NBA team was valued at $543 million (New York Knicks), while the second highest MLB team is valued at $617 million (Boston Red Sox, almost half what the Yankees are valued at).

I don’t really know what I was trying to prove, but I do realize now that I would rather work in the NFL than the NBA because the league is worth so much more. Unless someone decides to start up a rival football league, the NFL is where the money is at. Although working for Manchester United or Real Madrid would be tops on my list.

Soccer on TV

This past summer we had the opportunity to experience all 64 games of the 2006 Fifa World Cup in stunning High Definition, thanks to ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2. This was definitely a major improvement in terms of broadcasting soccer in the US. Previously, we were usually limited to one MLS “game of the week” and the occasional Champions League game on ESPN or ESPN2. If you are lucky you had access to FOX Sports World, which shows soccer all the time, mainly from the numerous (and better) European leagues.

I came across an article on ESPN that described the new deal (announced August 5) that they have reached with the MLS to have the rights to broadcast their games. They have agreed to broadcast 26 regular season games on Thursday nights on ESPN2 (about as prime time as it gets) as well as the airing the season opener, the All-Star game, and the MLS Cup on ABC. As an added bonus they will also air live coverage of the MLS SuperDraft (which I’ve always wanted to see). This deal marks the first time that any network has paid for the rights to broadcast MLS games.

Something else that I came across on the UEFA website was a short article inviting bids for the broadcast rights for the 2008 UEFA Euro Championships. I found it interesting that they would have to be advertising it like this. I would have thought that there would be plenty of offers.