No one has started the season hotter than Javier Hernandez If you’re a striker whose national team has historically had trouble finding the net, and you are on an absolute white-hot tear, life is pretty good for you. The fact that it is happening right before a world cup is monumental. Javier Hernández, you could…
Author: THEJOHNANTONIOBLOG
Haitian Football Federation Headquarters Destroyed
In the wake of the crisis in Haiti, CONCACAF President Jack Warner sent the CFU's "Captain" Burrell of Jamaica to Port-au-Prince, where he was met by a heavily bandaged HFF chief Yves Jean Bar. Bar reports that the HFF was meeting at the time of the first earthquake and that thirty Haitian soccer officials, coaches…
CONCACAF Player of the Year 2009 – nominations
Well, it's time to consider nominations for CONCACAF Player of the Year again. I was reminded of this courtesy of Nick Green's coverage of the FIFA Women's Player of the Year finalists. In a nutshell, FIFA blew it. Three of FIFA's nominees would technically be eligible for my award – Marta, Kelly Smith, and Cristiane….
Draft Beer, Not Players
J.R. Eskilson can see the future. How can he possibly know this? We're talking about a draft so deep, so rich in talent, that Bruce Arena thought Clint Mathis is a better choice than at least fifty of them. MLS teams don't build around the draft anymore, if they ever did. It was five years…
War of Words
Not too long ago I had a hearty chuckle at Major League Soccer Players Union boss Bob Foose, whose dire warnings about how FIFA would throw the US out of the World Cup if MLS didn't cave in to the players was met with derision far and wide. As I said at the time, I'm…
Aldo de Nigris Could be the Difference in the Final
De Nigris has 3 of Monterrey's 5 liguilla goals If you ask any Monterrey fan who they would like to beat to win the Mexican Primera, the answer is not surprising: Tigres, their cross-town rivals. But a close second would be any team from the hated chilangolandia. And if Monterrey lifts the trophy this Sunday…
Mexico’s Big Four: Myth and Reality
Memo Ochoa hopes to lead Club America to a title Mexico’s Clausura (this season named Torneo Bicentenario, in celebration of Mexico’s Bicentennial) kicked off last weekend, and something strange happened. Something that hadn’t happened since matchday 6 of the 2007 Apertura. The Big four (America, Cruz Azul, Guadalajara and Pumas) all won. Just the fact…
Report: Jack Warner Kited World Cup Tix Through Black Market Dealer
According to a report from Dagbladet, a daily newspaper in Norway, CONCACAF and Caribbean Football Union President and FIFA Vice President Jack Warner SOLD LARGE QUANTITIES OF WORLD CUP 2010 MATCH TICKETS to what is being described as "one of the worlds' biggest black market companies". The report (for which I am indebted to BigSoccer…
And the World Cup winner is….
The 2010 FIFA World Cup winner is? Spain (or maybe the Netherlands). /www.bigsoccer.com/forum/images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]>/www.bigsoccer.com/forum/images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]> At least that’s what Paul the Octopus, the World Cup’s unlikeliest star, has predicted today. For those of you who don’t know who Paul is, he’s an Octopus in Oberhausen’s Sea Life Aquarium in Germany, and has so far successfully ‘predicted’ the…
If You Have a Structured Settlement But You Need Cash Now
I wish someone would explain to me why David Beckham is so determined to go someplace on loan – at the moment it appears he's HEADED TO SPURS – for the next couple of months? (The Brits are calling this a "shock" move, as if there's one damned thing the man or his wife could…