Jon

I think the words "holy [expletive]" are appropriate on that shot. Wow.

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Bears tickets go on sale a week earlier this year on Saturday, July 17.

And now he's losing his $550,000 a year salary as he's out of the job. At least he still has his whorey girlfriend/prostitute.

ESPN decided to celebrate the 4th of July by replaying England's 4-1 defeat to Germany on ESPN2.

Looked like he followed through that chance a bit too fast.

Wow. Had the 2nd attempt also stayed out, I'd say that would've been one of the craziest things of the tournament.

Stupid signal broke up during the replays. Hooooly crap.

Good to see a ref have the balls to call that. But I think this 2nd one was questionable.

Oh my goodness.

Goaltending in other sports has to do with the timing, not what part of the body can be used. Those sports made it illegal to touch the ball at a certain point. No such rule exists in soccer. All the other sports deal with it in very limited circumstances (or again, have strict rules about when you can touch the ball). In soccer, it has the potential to happen all the time on any ball in the box. And has already been stated, there's a fair system already in place to deal with it that doesn't exist in those other sports (ejection, playing with a man down for the remainder of the match, and a high percentage goal opportunity.

Because you can't know for sure if the player was going to catch the ball. As has been said, football *does* award points for scoring plays prevented by unfair acts. Including a field goal about to go through that is knocked away illegally at the last second. A soccer player about to get a breakaway = pass interference. A ball about to go into the net != pass interference There's no realistic way that a player on the field in football can do something that results in an awarded touchdown. The rults are really only relevant if a non-active person does something, which isn't what happened in today's match. Goaltending is another issue, but not one that applies to soccer since defenders are supposed to be there. Not the case in football (when the ball approaches the uprights) or basketball (when the ball is on the way down). And to give the ref the discretion to just award goals is nothing like the power given to officials in football. It's clear what a palpably unfair act is in football. Not so with soccer. Do you award it when there's a flagrant handball a yard from the goal line? Two yards? Five? When the keeper takes someone down? And what about times when the ref thinks it would go in but it might have hit the post or when the ref thinks it might have gone wide but really it would have gone in? The rule as is is really the most fair way of dealing with things. I don't think soccer needs to give the ref the power to award goals on judgment calls.

In football, a defensive back can grab onto a WR breaking away to prevent a touchdown and only get a pass interference penalty, nothing else.

Maradona is like Ozzie Guillen. Only Maradona has done more with his hands than Ozzie has ever done.

It sucks for the soccer fans in Nigeria, but I wouldn't terribly mind FIFA really laying down the law on Nigeria (and hopefully France) if they follow through with this. I'm sure the people of Nigeria would just love the government if they were to be banned from World Cup qualification because of this.

The best part is that the women right next to him had a baseball glove on and did nothing.

The groups and schedules for the 2007 Gold Cup weren't announced until March of 2007. The US, Mexico, and Canada qualify automatically, so nothing will happen regarding the Gold Cup for the US for quite a while. Speaking of the Gold Cup, I'll just have to pray they decide to hold the championship game in Chicago again. The 2007 Gold Cup win over Mexico for the championship is was hooked me for life.

The next big event will be the 2011 Gold Cup next summer. There's no real bidding process for it and I think most people are operating under the assumption that the US will host it once again. The only match currently scheduled right now is a friendly on August 10th against Brazil in NJ.

Not just the players:

In case anyone needs to add to their Steve Stone is a [expletive] crazy and shouldn't allowed near a front office let alone microphone file:

Again Ghana has 24 million we have 305 million, Mr. Optimistic What does that have to do with anything? Ghana's flag only has 1 star while the US flag has 50. Should've been a blowout.

And the few times there was a decent bounce they had no touch. Plenty of decent chances that we couldn't finish. Same theme all tournament, unfortunately, along with the early goal. Kick in the guts particularly since it seemed like they were controlling things so well in the 2nd half. It just fell apart in seconds.

Can't cross, can't pass, bad touches right now.

They're not showing anything right now.