Soccer!!

  • Soccer: Relegation Postscript

    Well Fulham won their final game of the season to complete a pretty remarkable escape from relegation. Reading and Birmingham were not so lucky and will be playing in the minors next year. On the more inspiring side of the coin, perennial yo-yo club West Bromwich Albion won the league below the Premiership and…

  • Soccer: Relegation is Fantastic

    The Premiership side with by far the most American players is in the process of possibly completing a monumental dodge of relegation. After a 2-0 win against Birmingham, Fulham finds themselves out of the bottom three relegation spots for the first time since the very beginning of the season. They still have one more…

  • Soccer: On Player Evaluation

    I wrote a post on Big Soccer about the challenges that we face in individual player analysis in soccer as compared to baseball. I guess if I were to suggest a course of action for the statistical community, a soccer version of Bill James “win shares” might be the best idea. This is interesting…

  • Soccer: The Other Opening Day

    Baseball’s true opening day is on Monday, but the domestic soccer season gets underway in an hour as MLS begins its 13 season of existence. I guess it’s just a personal preference, but when a baseball fan who also likes soccer learns that I’m a bit of a soccer guy myself, that fan often…

  • Soccer: Olympic Qualifying Circus Grand Finale

    Well this bizarre version of Olympic qualifying reaches it’s conclusion tonight as two teams will earn their tickets to China and two teams will come up one step short. In the opener, Honduras will face Guatemala and the second game will pit the U.S. and Canada against one another. I don’t like winner take…

  • This is the Weirdest Soccer Tournament I’ve Ever Seen

    This is becoming truly bizarre. First a female streaker interrupts the U.S. vs. Honduras match last night (the U.S. won 1-0 to win their group). But that’s nothing compared to the shenanigans going on today. In the early game in the other group, Canada earned a very interesting 5-0 win over group leaders Guatemala.…

  • Soccer: Chaos Strikes Olympic Qualifying

    With the U.S. ready to face Honduras today at 7pm ET (4pm VST) with first place in their group on the line, Olympic qualifying is in utter chaos. First, seven players defected from the Cuban National Team, leaving that squad completely crippled. Then, in a remarkable turn of events, Haiti defeated favored Canada 2-1…

  • Soccer: Disappointing Act for US; Disappearing Act for Cuba

    The U.S. U-23 National Team came away with a very disappointing 1-1 draw versus Cuba last night in Tampa in Olympic-Qualifying. The U.S. team still has two more games in the group stage, the top two in the group move on to the semi-finals. The winners of the semi-final matches head to China later…

  • Soccer: Big Game Tonight!

    This is really the first time I’ve ever tried to be Voros McCracken Baseball Guy and Voros McCracken Soccer guy at the same time in public, so you’ll excuse me while I work out the kinks. Tonight the US National Team plays arguably its first really meaningful game since the 2006 World Cup. Head…

  • Eddie Gaven

    Well one thing my career at Baseball Digest Daily will allow me to do is digress into non-baseball stuff. I used to blog about soccer and I miss it so I suppose you’ll see the occasional soccer post on here from time to time. Piotr Nowak has named the team he’s bringing into Olympic…