Beckham Blogging

I'm watching him being interviewed at the half of the MLS All-Stars v. Celtic FC exhibition. Dude is slick. He's wearing a cummerbund with an open-collar shirt, black jacket, and a lotta cuff.

And he's got his talking points together. He calls it "soccer," talks about building up the sport in the U.S., calls himself an "Ambassador for MLS," talks about "soccer moms" and calls Posh one with a smile. Dude should run for office.

He's already sold 250k jerseys in the past month or so. That's the most in MLS history, by far. The L.A. Galaxy say that jersey sales and advance ticket sales have already paid for his entire contract. And he hasn't even played a game yet. Amazing what a Posh marriage and having a Kiera Knightley movie named after him has done for the guy.

(alright... I guess he's had an okay career.)

Soccer Blogging

Nobody here cares, but the U.S. men's U-20 World Cup team is through to quarter-finals after a contentious match with Uruguay. The first 2/3 of the match was sloppily-played by the U.S., as the back surrendered too many free kicks and corners. The loss of Altidore to injury at the start of the 2nd half left the U.S. attack impotent for much of the game. Uruguay had a 1-0 lead until Freddy Adu's corner set up an Uruguayan own goal (although it surely would've been put in by Akpan if Cardaccio had let it go) in the 87th minute. In extra time, Michael Bradley, who had been mostly non-existent offensively to that point, finished another Adu corner service in the 107th minute for the winner.

It's the U-20s, not the true World Cup, but it's still impressive that the U.S. has dominated Poland, stunned and eliminated Brazil, and now defeated Uruguay to make their way to the quarter-finals.

Next up is Austria on the 14th, a game that the U.S. can win.