OK, I saw about 80 percent of the United States qualifying match with El Salvador. I had to watch it in the middle of the French night on some streaming video that may have been pirated. Or had to be? I’ll let you know if my machine comes down with a batch of viruses or […]

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This wasn’t how this was supposed to play out for les bleus, as the French team is known. As noted in a couple of posts (below), I went out to Stade de France tonight, just north of Paris, to see France in its Group 7 qualifier against Romania. France has been struggling to score, but […]

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I’m sitting in the last row of press seating at the France vs. Romania match at the Stade de France, home of the 1998 World Cup … and just north of Paris. They’re about to play the national anthems. I don’t remember Romania’s, though I must have heard it at various Olympics. The female gymnasts, […]

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David Beckham is the blogger’s gift that keeps on giving. This is a guy with one goal and one assist in six matches so far this season in Major League Soccer, which he couldn’t be troubled to join until the season was more than halfway over.  He remains the No. 1 draw for the Los […]

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The whole point of having a home game in World Cup qualifying is to play the match at the most favorable venue your federation can imagine. It seems clear that the U.S. Soccer Federation’s imagination is not very good. The United States is playing a critical World Cup qualifier, against El Salvador, at Sandy, Utah, […]

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I’m cranking away on the one-entry-per-day 2010 South Africa Countdown blog. This week, I’m taking closer looks at several of the big qualifying matches coming up this weekend. Also, of late, South American expert Armando Varela contributed his thoughts on the CONMEBOL qualifiers on tap Saturday.  And we did some serious research on the prevalence […]

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I’m glad we went to great lengths to find video of the United States-at-Mexico in a World Cup qualifier, tonight here in Paris. There is something warmly comforting about seeing certain life events unfold just as they always do. Mexico 2, U.S. 1, and ’twas ever thus. First, about the logistics of this thing. Not […]

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You can see it by clicking on the “Countdown to South Africa” link on my blog roll, on the right side of the page. Today, I took a long and loving look at teams I would like to see in the World Cup, as opposed to those who are in it or are headed that […]

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As if I’m not already writing enough stuff I don’t quite get paid for … I have just now launched what will be a daily countdown to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Here is the url: http://countdown-sa2010.blogspot.com/ And here is a link that will take you directly to the site. It is plain […]

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A strike by construction workers in South Africa has people worried about whether that country will be ready for the 2010 World Cup. A legitimate question. Some have worried about South Africa’s ability to pull this off from the moment FIFA awarded its 2010 event to them. South Africa may not be quite as impoverished […]

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