I would have been first!

milan looked good. they actually didn't look old like for most of the season..inter did the united thing and took the day off..

for a second, I thought you were talking about the USA's upcoming friendlies, but then I realized you typed "Italy" and not "England".

either way, the England, Spain then Argentina line-up or opponents for Bradley's team looks to be some very good matches (and preparation for the Barbados H/A series).

Given the way Gallardo played on Sunday, I wonder if he's more disappointed about DC United's loss or River Plate's.

@Hope Solo

Time to do a Tonya Harding on Scurry (if ya know what I mean?). For the good of the colony.

Ironically, I had just posted...

As much as I dislike Real Madrid, that was a fenomenal win, on the road, in the rain, a man down. On their first goal, they were down to 9 due to injury. Two minutes later, Higuaín in the 89th minute blasted an absolute rocket to win La Liga. And they got back from Pamplona and partied at Cibeles all night long...toda la madrugada...

Real Madrid. Bayern Munich. Man Utd or Chelsea. Inter Milan. Lyon. Another banner year for the big boys in the domestic title races. Money talks louder than ever these days.

What would it take for UEFA to enforce a salary cap and a more equitable distribution of resources among all clubs and nations? A major miracle, I guess.

What are the realistic expectations of Team USA's 3 games with England, Spain and Argentina??? I say tie with England in Wembley 1-1, loss to Spain 2-0 and tie with Argentina 2-2.

@£eague Champion$

Hmmm - not too much. Money does talk - but these leagues, UEFA, etc won't see a salary cap because the teams cross nations and I'm sure it's more of a labor issue than anything else and would be subject to stuff from governments rather than governing bodies.

@£eague Champion$

Hmmm - not too much. Money does talk - but these leagues, UEFA, etc won't see a salary cap because the teams cross nations and I'm sure it's more of a labor issue than anything else and would be subject to stuff from governments rather than governing bodies.

Salary cap? Is that you, Sepp?

Paul Gascoigne in a hospital after reportedly trying to kill himself in a hotel...

Great Paul Gascoigne Time line here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1929036/Paul-Gascoigne,-'Gazza',-hospitalised-after-hotel-incident.html

VBB - I would hope that UEFA could work with the European Union on these issues, rather than individual nations. For example, a salary cap enforced by the EU would prevent the big clubs in the big nations from using foreign competitors to justify the lack of salary caps in individual nations. I don't know if the EU has proper jurisdiction over this issue, but it might, especially since it already enforces the Bosman rules for freedom of contract and lack of restrictions on the number of EU players on any one team.

I know a salary cap sounds like one of Sepp Blatter's awful ideas. But I think something should be done to prevent the same dozen teams from dominating the Champions League and the big domestic leagues most of the time.

"What are the realistic expectations of Team USA's 3 games with England, Spain and Argentina??? I say tie with England in Wembley 1-1, loss to Spain 2-0 and tie with Argentina 2-2."

Holy pessimism.

Thus proving again US Soccer fans are american soccer's worst enemy.

@Hope Solo

Time to do a Tonya Harding on Scurry (if ya know what I mean?). For the good of the colony.

Posted by: Kosh | May 5, 2008 10:39 AM

Scurry looked horrid in goal on Saturday. As to the rest of the match, it was an exciting one to say the least. If any of you were watching it and saw two guys wearing American flag capes then hi, you saw me on TV.

@£eague Champion$

True - but football in Europe may be the greatest examples of globalism and capitalism ever. These teams are where they are because of the investments they've made over the past decades of the sport and because the owners backing them really care about winning.

A salary cap wouldn't hold a lot of water because there are only a relative handful of teams that would be governed by it and while they wouldn't be able to go over that cap, they'd be able to still generate the revenues and find compensation packages around it (signing bonuses or some other vehicle that wouldn't be part of the rules). Also, your Real Betis', Sampdoria's, Fulham's, Portsmouth's, Aberdeen's, etc aren't going to get a bigger share of revenue to spend on players UP TO the cap without a revenue sharing agreement and that's going to never pass the associations because of the implications at the lower levels. If everyone in the EPL, SPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, etc all shared their top flight domestic revenues as equally as some leagues here do - then promoted teams have next to NO chance of surviving their ascension and your drop to a lower division might be the death of your club.

If you want to win, you're either going to have to find a great coach who can find the talent and production where its needed or find a big pocketed owner, or at least one who has the ability to build the club w/o getting lost in the heat of competition while he's developing the revenue sources and talent from within.

I feel your issues when you see some of these teams win multiple championships in a decade, but I don't think you're likely to see a salary cap to promote competition and parity there like you do here.

I sure hope Kasper and Payne enjoyed themselves while we had to endure thru DC's crap performance.

dont forget 2 champions were crowned in brazil this weekend as well -

how is brazilian league not shown on TV anymore? what a tragedy

"Holy pessimism.

Thus proving again US Soccer fans are american soccer's worst enemy."

Would you expect anything different? In all seriousness; USA loses to England 2-1, 3-0 to Spain and repeats its Copa America performance against Argentina, falling 4-1. None of these results are anything to cry about. England at Wembley will be a tough crowd and game. Spain could quite possibly win the EURO and a full Argentina squad will kill Bradley's boys.

The brazilian league is not shown on tv anymore, because is not relevant.

Goff, on that announcement, do you mean tuesday May 6, or wednesday or thursday morning.