Footballs Are Round!

The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup heats up this week, with mucho matches, including a compelling match between my very own FC Dallas and USL upstarts, Charleston Battery. Not much by way of televised matches, but the Battery offer a one-off PPV webcast for only five bucks. Check it out at charlestonbattery.com

It’s actually a little humiliating for the FC Dallas franchise that a 2nd division team is outdoing them in Cup coverage.

If you’re not hip to the whole Open Cup concept, there’s a good overview at Wikipedia, and a really good thread over at BigSoccer about favorite USOC memories (the original post was written by one of the great men in American Soccer, Peter Wilt).

It bugs me every year that this great old tournament doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. But things are slowly but surely getting better. Fox Soccer Channel has signed on to show the final, and press coverage is growing. My hope is that in my lifetime it will be an important American sporting event on par with the U.S. Open (tennis and golf versions).

Get on board, and bug your local team and your local media outlets to get on board as well.

A little snippet from today’s New York Times:

In another development, the Red Bulls are expected to announce the signing of midfielder Dema Kovalenko today.

If you don’t know the name, just know that in his career, Dema Kovalenko ended the career of Brandon Pollard by breaking his leg with a dirty tackle, and nearly did the same to Ronnie O’Brien. If the man wasn’t a professional athlete, he’d no doubt be in jail somewhere. He’s a psycho of the first order. He loses control of his better self on the field, and is a danger to those around him.

I never had any reason to hate the New York MLS franchise, under either of there names, but this move makes it official. I have no choice but to hate any team that is willing to employ this freak. He’s a menace, and a thug, and he should’ve been banned years ago.

I’m not sure what Bruce Arena was thinking with this move, but my great respect for the man has gone down a couple notches, to be sure.