The joke that is Barry Bonds

Poor poor Barry. In his own little steriod blurred world I'm sure he's the good guy. He's never cheated (or at least done anything that everyone else wasn't doing). His latest is a classic though. Just three years after saying he'd erase Babe Ruth from all Baseball legend, Bonds has found that not everyone has the same short term memory loss he suffers from. So keep on shooting up Barry. I'm sure in a few years everyone will forget how you cheated your way into the record books. Nobody will remember all those accusations of steriod use and creams and needles. We'll all remember the good old days when you were a much smaller version of your current self. And say what a player. Yeah right.

A Proud Poppa

Out of lack of anything else to post today I'm putting up a pic of Natalie.

UEFA Championship

ESPN2

FC Barcelona vs. Arsenal FC
Wed., May. 17 at 2:30 pm ET

This game has serious deja vu. Its eerilly similar to last year. The underdog English squad versus the powerhouse from the european mainland that is supposed to clean their clock. This game features probably my two favorite players. Thierry Henry for Arsenal and Ronaldinho for Barcelona. Ronaldinho is hands down the best player in the world. His dribbling is just amazing, and he can do things with the ball that are just mind boggling. However, the more I watch Henry the more I like him. He's just a hard nosed player with so much talent. In Arsenals semi final match vs Villareal he basically had a poor game, but did what few stars, especially forwards, ever do. He tracked back on D. He even made a couple of key stops to slow down the Villa attack. In the day of me first egos and ESPN highlights. There just aren't many athletes in any sport who do the little things. I'm personally looking forward to this match. Its the Aresnal D, which hasn't conceded a goal the entire tournament vs the star power of Barcelona. It should be an awesome game.

No Twellman?

The US World Cup Roster was released this week. In my opinion there was only one real surprise. No Taylor Twellman. I just don't understand how Arena chose Brian Ching over Twellman. I've seen Ching play several times on TV and once live, and have never been impressed. He seems to lack a finishing touch and never seems to able to find the back of the net, which for a forward is basically job 1. Like somone says in that article if Ching does well nobody will question Arena. If he struggles people will wonder why the choice was made. Of course its probably a moot point since McBride is starting and either Landon Donnovan or Eddie Johnson will be the other forward. I'd imagine Ching will only get playing time if the US is winning their group or if somebody gets hurt.

Revenge of the Techies

While they aren't orange nothing gets under my skin more than a bunch of tech fans running off at the mouth. There's nothing greater than a program with a winning tradition slightly greater than Vanderbilt talking about how great they almost were. I know a few weeks back there was a lot of talk about the movie "We Are Marshall" being shot here in Atlanta. I was a little surprised to find out about this from CNN instead of the AJC, because surely a movie about nerds in college would have to have auditions for parts from the Nerd Factory on North Avenue.




One of North Avenue's Finest

Bruce Arena the Vince Lombardi of US Soccer?

Grant Wahl of CNNSI has a great article about Bruce Arena. Its mostly excerpts from his article in SI this week, but its good read about what makes Arena such a great coach. While I don't really see the US team being able to turn any heads this year, the schedule probably means an early exit, I think in the next 4-6 years the US is going to score a major upset of the kind that will stand the soccer world on it's head, and Bruce Arena is going to be a major reason why. I'm not sure if it will come in the form of the US making the semis at a World Cup or if it will come with a signifigant win over one of the top teams. I think there will always be a little bit of a second citizen status for US Soccer, until they get that win. The rest of the world views the US the same way they view Nigeria, Korea, and even Mexico. Sure they have some good players and win a few games here and there, but they aren't on the same level as the elite teams of the world.