Yanks fans! You may be wondering, “Where the hell has Raf been?” Things were going along smoothly in the Yanks home office when one day, I caught this nasty stomach bug. That fucker knocked me out for 36 hours, but I arose victorious and like Connor, the original Highlander, after his epic battle with the Kurgan, I was ready to kick ass again as I screamed “There can be only one” after my fever broke. Sadly, I fell behind at work because of it, and… Read more
As you probably already know, Clint Dempsey recently spoke on the Yanks World Cup group consisting of England, Algeria, and Slovenia. He came to the not-so-groundbreaking conclusion that a third or fourth place finish in group play and no trip to the knockout rounds would be a failure for the team. In the realm of quotes to the press, this represented a Captain Obvious-esque performance. But even so, in a U.S. National Soccer team world rife with Coach Bob… Read more
Praise the Lord, the MLS is back. On an eventful season opening weekend, soccer fans enjoyed exciting clashes three nights in a row, including two nationally televised matches courtesy of ESPN. On the other hand, MLS’ Match Center remains unavailable, but they deserve a little leeway regarding the whole CBA debacle resolving itself little more than a week ago. So, all in all, I was only able to catch two games this past weekend: the Philadelphia Union… Read more
This is the sixth in a weekly series of World Cup history lessons brought to you by our very own “Professor” Guy Bailey. He is not actually a professor; the only professor on staff is Jamie Clary. Well, sort of. The 1958 World Cup The venue of the 1958 World Cup was Sweden which infuriated the South Americans who expected it to revert back to them after Switzerland four years ago but they buried their hostility enough to be represented by Argentina,… Read more
West Ham Utd v. Wolverhampton Wanderers (3-23-10) Jonathan Spector came on at the half in the 3-1 loss. It was the first time that Spector did not start since February 10th. Spector is from the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, which also happens to be the birthplace of Brian McBride and the city where Ted Nugent went to high school. Aston Villa v. Sunderland (3-24-10) Brad Friedel made a pair of saves in this 1-1 draw in front of 37,473… Read more
With the Portsmouth FC saga going from tragedy to farce this week when it was revealed that every player was going to be sold or released and that next season’s team would be recruited primarily through free transfers, garage sales, charitable donations and open casting, like managing a lower level club in Worldwide Soccer Manager, my thoughts inevitably turn to how the situation would be handled in the US. Not that any club would be allowed by the league to… Read more
The World Cup gives players a chance to represent their country, but not everyone represents the country they were born in. Sometimes through parentage, other times through naturalization, there are plenty of players who don’t play for their birth nation. Here are some of the players who might play in the World Cup for their adopted nations, and the three general categories most ex-patriot players fall into. The Immigrant The immigrants are players who born… Read more
With the players and owners in agreement and the 15th MLS season upon us, complacency is coming at soccer fans like an unskilled, college defender. Let us remember that we have not always had this level of soccer in the U.S., and it wasn’t easy getting here. There were some extremely dark days. The lights went out on March 28, 1985. The last NASL teams, Toronto and Minnesota, had watched Tampa Bay drop from the league and the Cosmos miss financial… Read more
Since prior to the inception of the most important blog of our time the USMNT has relied on a dynamic duo of center mids. This duo consists of Michael Bradley, a.k.a. MB90 a.k.a. Junior, and “your face here.” While the revolving door at “the other” CMF spot is sometimes glossed over by Yanks fans and critics alike, the cohesion of the two center midfielders should take partial credit and/or blame for the team’s performance at any given point. The… Read more
I just came across this fun little interview CNN conducted a few days back with Tim Howard. Not only do the questions touch upon soccer, but also seek to reveal a bit of Tim’s personality. You’ll probably find funny what Howard misses most about America… On a side note, I was recently interviewed by an online Australian soccer magazine to give them some perspective on the USMNT and the World Cup. Some of their writers are especially talented and have… Read more
This is the fifth in a weekly series of World Cup history lessons brought to you by our very own “Professor” Guy Bailey. He is not actually a professor; the only professor on staff is Jamie Clary. Well, sort of. The 1954 World Cup The 1954 World Cup saw the competition return to Europe and as it was the 50th anniversary of FIFA, they thought it fitting to hold the competition in their backyard – Switzerland. The competition format was a familiar one… Read more
Over the past few months I’ve been bombarded with emails from different websites and companies hawking their products and hotels. I usually do them the solid of at least checking out what they are trying to sell me and thank them for the opportunity, but kindly decline. Simply put, most of these emails are for pure crap. Enter Lalibela Game Reservation. Gail Davis sent me an email asking me if it was OK for her to send me some information about the… Read more
While the content here at The Yanks Are Coming is nothing short of top-notch, we want you to know it’s OK to venture elsewhere in the blogosphere. To spare you from reading hours and hours of worthless crap, we present you five of the best stories of the week from other sources. Excuse us while we pat ourselves on the back. The Rundown (Somewhat MLS Edition) 5. WVHooligan: MLS Expansion: Atlanta Back In The Mix Starting off The Rundown, hopes of the… Read more
