And the injury train rolls on...

For once though it is an opponent of the United States sweating it out over a star player. Wayne Rooney turned an ankle in added time of Manchester United's defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champion's League.

Rooney to miss a month

Leaves Munich on crutches

The injury occurred just prior to a superb individual effort by Bayern's Ivica Olic resulted in the go ahead goal as the German team will take a 2-1 lead into the second leg at Old Trafford.

I never want to see players get hurt, but the US chances will only improve if Rooney is less than 100% when they face off against England on June 11th. While Jermaine Defoe, Peter Crouch, and company would all instantly slot into a starting role for the Stars and Stripes, none of them are at Rooney's level. Which, quite frankly has been terrifying me for months as he has been in the form of his life.

The worst soccer fan in America…

Well for the moment anyway it’s me. The MLS launched its season this past weekend and I managed a whole 20 minutes live and a handful of highlights on Fox Soccer Report last night. I do have a replay of the LA-NE game running in the background today but when you already know the outcome it’s a little tougher to pay attention as a fan.

I am a big proponent of MLS. It is a huge part of the soccer landscape in our country, is a key to developing the game in the States (even with its challenges), and in my opinion American soccer fans owe it to the MLS to at least pay attention. So I felt like a bit of a hypocrite after realizing I had just missed “opening weekend” of the 2010 season.

That said, is it really, really smart to start your season during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? The small amount of live action I did watch over the weekend was from the Seattle-Philly game on Thursday night. I flipped over to watch, but kept flipping back to watch Butler knock of Syracuse and an epic battle between Kansas State and Xavier.

As a sports fan this was really no contest, even as a die-hard soccer fan. The opening game of the MLS season where half the teams are going to make the play-offs and it really only matters how well you are playing in October (case in point – Real Salt Lake last year)? Or the romance of the underdog taking the big, bad power conference school to the buzzer in the NCAA tourney?

Soccer is and will always be my number one sport. I’ll watch the MLS play-offs over a mid-season Packers or Steelers game every time. But putting the opening weekend of your season up against the 2nd biggest sporting event in America after the Super Bowl is going to be a tough, tough sell for me.

Maybe I am not as die-hard as I like to think I am or maybe it's just that for this one moment in time I am the worst soccer fan in America.

So, sorry Don Garber. Sorry new look Chicago Fire (I still love you guys). Sorry MLS. You are not going to win when you take on “One Shining Moment”.

Dynamite Dempsey

Clint Dempsey struck an unbelievable goal last night to cap a Fulham victory over one of the true giants of international club football, Juventus.

After two months out of action with a knee injury it was a superb way to announce his return. He'll get plenty of games in the run-in with Fulham still alive in two cup competitions and should be in top shape by June. Here's hoping that Davies and Onyewu also recover in time to play a part for the US in South Africa.

If you haven't seen the goal or just want to see it again, Ives has a video on his site.

This goal is just really, really sick. After receiving the ball he never looks at the goal or the keeper once, yet still manages to pick it out perfectly. Donovan may be the "best" player the US has ever produced, but Dempsey is certainly has the best combination of skill, tenacity, and sheer audaciousness.

Come on Fulham!

Streaming this one live today and so far what a fight back by Fulham, down 4-1 on aggregate after 2 minutes, they have fought back to tie at 4-4 (helped by a fairly harsh red on Cannavaro, though his challenge was extremely clumsy and lazy).

Fulham v Juventus

I can't tell for the life of me what the announcers are saying as it is in Spanish. So I'm catching pelota, gol, player names, and varying levels of excitement and tone in the announcers voices.

Don't know much about Slovenia and Algeria?

Well, Franco Panzio over at "Soccer by Ives" is your man. He is tracking performances of the USA's World Cup opponents in leagues across Europe.

Algerians/Slovenians Abroad: Weekend Rewind

The Special One vs Chelsea - thank you Tim Howard

This week's Champions League action sees high drama with the return of one Jose Mourniho to Stamford Bridge as Chelsea attempt to overturn a first leg 2-1 defeat at the hand's of Inter Milan.

Drama of course because of Mourinho's self proclaimed status as "The Special One" and his two premier league titles at the helm of Chelsea. And in case you were wondering Chelsea have not lifted the trophy since he left (as I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you all about).

Mourinho is great entertainment at all times as he works the press and exudes ultimate confidence. This week's game will be the latest episode of the theatre that follows his every move. I love it!

Watching the 2-2 draw between Birmingham City and Everton over the weekend it occurred to me that we may just have Everton keeper Tim Howard to thank for this particular spectacle.

You may not be asking yourself why, however I'm going to pretend you did. Rewind a bit to March 9, 2004, the venue Old Trafford, the players Mourinho's FC Porto and Manchester United.

There were a host of reasons that United bowed out to Porto, including poor marking, poor finishing, and a red card for Roy Keane. However the lasting image will be Howard, in goal for United, palming Benni McCarthy's stoppage-time free kick directly to Costinha who slotted home the winner.

Cue Mourinho dancing down the Old Trafford touchline, FC Porto marching to the Champions League title, and finally "The Special One" moving to the Premier League as Chelsea manager.

Yes, Mourinho would have eventually forced his way into the international consciousness sooner or later, even if Porto had lost at Old Trafford. And whether Howard deserved full blame for the loss is certainly debatable. Either way, Tim's last minute error on that March evening in 2004 started a chain of events that culminate this week in London and have, at least for my money, provided one of the best soccer story lines in recent memory.

Wisconsin to play tourney debutante Wofford

The Badgers got seeded right about where they should be at the #4 slot in the East bracket. They will face off against first time tourney participant Wofford from the Southern Conference.

Wofford anxiously waits to see where it lands in bracket

They are a nice story but let's hope the coach's prediction of making the Final Four is wrong and they bow out against Bucky.

Wisconsin vs Wofford

On Wisconsin!

(and yes, I realize this has nothing to do with soccer, but it's that time of year...)

When you can't watch

What to do when the game isn't televised? Well the options are limited but they do exist.

For "important" games I have been able to track down on-line feeds of international broadcasts and sat huddled in front of the computer screen, headphones plugged in, following the action as best I can. The downsides of this avenue are games may get pulled partway if the rights holder polices things well, the feeds are often not of great quality, and you will likely get "buffering" lags even if you are running a high speed connection. One other watch-out is the headphones kind of tethers you to one spot, the leaping out of your chair when Conor Casey emerges from nowhere to lead the USA past Honduras and seal a World Cup spot for the sixth consecutive tournament? Not the best plan.

This option isn't always the realistic one either, with the family tearing around and my attention required elsewhere I often will pull up BBC Sport's "Live Football" feature and track games that way. The site is definitely UK-centric so you will often get only cursory mentions of teams outside of the "Home Nations". However, for those teams and all games in the EPL, the host essentially runs a live blog/twitter style commentary covering the action in various games.

Maybe it's a British thing or maybe because it is on the web, but the fun part for me is that the commentators are able to "tell it like it is" and will often take a humorous slant or call out extremely poor play. The other highlight is reader texts often moaning about the performance of a particular player or team. These are great as the average Brit fan has this great self-depreciating defeatist vibe when things aren't going there way balanced with unbridled insane hope that they will prevail and their texts deliver on the promise of that combo.

The only Americans that come close to this (in my experience) are Minnesota Vikings fans, they just, absolutely know that they are going to blow it and are just waiting for the hammer to fall, but there is this one little glimmer of hope that maybe this time they won't miss the field goal (Gary Anderson) or throw that pick (Farve! hee, hee!) or give up two touchdowns in the last minute of the last game of the season to those (at the time) perennial cellar dwellers, the Arizona Cardinals.

Why the Champions League has me worried about June 12, 2010

What a week in the UEFA Champions League with sixteen goals scored in four games, two of which were blow-outs, but two of which were back and forth with the final goal sending first Bayern and then Lyon through to the quarterfinal. This was fun, fun viewing and a great advertisement for the beautiful game.

With apologies to Arsenal's hat-trick hero Nicklas Bendtner, the performance of the week came from United's Wayne Rooney who knocked in two sublime goals to continue his destruction of all comers. His tally now stands at 30 goals in all competitions this season and his manager is pushing him to hit 43 and break Ronaldo's total from a few year's back. A lofty goal, not completely unrealistic though.

The scariest part of course is that, barring injury, Rooney will be leading the attack against the USA on June 12th in the red, white, and blue's opening World Cup match against England. Conventional wisdom says the opening group game is the most important and for the USA to get any points against England they will have to figure out how to shut down the in-form forward who seems to be scoring at will with both foot and head.

Everton 5-1 Hull City

If this is truly the end for Landon Donovan and he returns to the Galaxy for the 2010 season then it was an inauspicious beginning to the day. Donovan was on the bench at the start of the Toffees’ home match against Hull City. For the visitors Jozy Altidore also had to settle for a place on the bench. It was with slight disappointment that I started to watch the match.

Speaking of which, props to both Fox and ESPN for showing so many of Everton’s games the last two months. I wasn’t counting but I estimate having seen 4-6 of them this winter.

Back to the game, a total domination by Everton even with the score knotted at 1-1 early on. Both Donovan and Altidore did make appearances, the former’s being more impressive as he notched a goal and an assist. My thoughts…

Arteta was incredible.

The penalty was about as weak a call as you’ll see. Justice was served with the miss.

Donovan was lively even if you take out the goal, moving well, passing well, involved - basically the opposite of the Holland game.

Altidore had some decent hold up play - by this point I wasn't paying 100% attention as the boys were rambunctious and we were busy getting lunch on the table (leftover pulled pork sandwiches, mmm-mmm).

Netherlands 2-1 United States

Managed to get through the first half live and watched the rest about an hour later.

Disappointed but not unduly surprised. I’ll leave it to other sources to break down the game and just give you a few thoughts on a few players who likely improved or solidified their chances of making the final World Cup roster.

Jay DeMerit and Maurice Edu – both players for me showed why they were consistently a part of the national team prior to injuries last year.

Sconnie native DeMerit was solid throughout in central defense picking up right where he left off during his fine run last summer in the Confederations Cup and qualifying. Jay is one of the top three center backs right now in Bradley’s eyes.

Edu solidified the defense in the second half slipping in to the defensive midfield role. He consistently popped up in exactly the right spot to cut off Dutch passes and showed excellent poise on the ball and in distribution. I think as long as he stays healthy he has to be on the plane to South Africa as well.

DeMarcus Beasley – of course we know that he fell off the map last year following the Brazil debacle and the injury bug. Tonight he wasn’t brilliant or even consistent but he showed flashes of the talent he hasn’t brought to the team in a few years. I have a feeling that he may make the roster after all. Bradley knows exactly what he gets from Beasley and as long as he is healthy it may be a case of going with the devil you know.

A few quick hits...

Another example that the team goes as Donovan goes, if the best player on the squad is not involved they have a steep hill to climb to win games against top teams.

I wish Jonathan Bornstein didn’t have a tendency to make boneheaded plays in key situations.

Jozy Altidore had a few nice plays, the back heel was sweet, splitting the defenders for the final shot was slick – needs to be more consistent (I know Harkes, he’s young, blah, blah, blah).

The DVR is your friend

The digital video recorder is arguably an American soccer fan’s best friend that is not an actual living, breathing human being (sorry Keely, you are cute and all, but I don’t have to carry poop bags around after the DVR).

Games are on at crazy times, while you are at work, middle of the night, when you are at swim lessons for the four-year old. Catching games live just isn’t always realistic once family and life start intruding on your post-bachelor world. Today’s game between USA and Netherlands? I will be home, but so will our oldest who will invariably get his turn in front of the TV (it is only a friendly after all) and a chance to ride around the neighborhood on his new bike. With the magic of the DVR I will get to watch the game, albeit in multiple sittings and finishing long after the game itself.

These days, if a game is televised, you can watch it.

Gone are the days of sitting in the dark at 2 A.M. with two guys from my soccer team who did not have cable, watching the US National Team put in a punchers’ performance at the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan. No more watching four or five EPL games a weekend or picking and choosing which weekday afternoons to take off to catch key Champion's League or World Cup matches.

These days I browse the channel guide and decide which game to record on Saturday or Sunday, usually watching one, maybe two games if I am lucky. I am lucky enough and my wife is understanding enough of my obsession that I still manage to see almost all of the US men’s games. For the big events? Tape 'em all and sort it out later. I obviously won't watch every minute of every World Cup game this summer, but they will all get taped.

The downside of all that is of course avoiding the results until after you’ve seen the game. Case in point I climbed in my car to drive home from work last summer after having taped the USA-Spain Confederation’s Cup game having managed to stay off the Web all afternoon and with no knowledge of the result. On comes the radio and the local sports talk guys, who to my knowledge have never once before or since spoken about soccer. The first thing I hear is “Go USA! 2-0 over Spain!”. I have never been so happy and pissed off at the same time in my life.

What have we learned?

1. Own a DVR.

2. Avoid the Internet.

3. Even if your local sports talk guys have spent the last three months talking about nothing but Brett Farve and will he or won’t he, don’t turn on the radio on the drive home from work.

Why a blog?

Do we really need another blog about soccer? Maybe not. The better question might be do we really need another blog of any kind? Likely not.

That said, I am starting this one to grace the internet with my somewhat random thoughts on the beautiful game, life, what it means to be a soccer fan in the States, and pretty much anything else that comes to mind.

I used to sneak these thoughts onto my wife’s blog, inserted between pictures of the kids, updates on the family, and the occasional pop culture musings. This provided amusement to a handful of my fellow soccer geeks participating in our EPL Fantasy Soccer league, but more confusion to family and friends looking for pictures of cute baby and toddler pictures.

So that is why. And leading off….