By @pvo78

As a 36-year-old (almost 37) guy who’s lived in the 716 my entire life, minus one year in the dorms at the University of Virginia, I don’t need to tell you how many disappointing sports moments I’ve seen. I know of no other fan base that has put up with as many gut-wrenching moments then we have. I’m not going to rehash them here. You’ve all heard about them or lived them, and the only thing relevant to my point is that I have, and always will continue to support the Bills and Sabres no matter what. As Red Redding said in The Shawshank Redemption, hope is a dangerous thing, but it is also a very beautiful thing to have.

Unfortunately, my “Buffaloness,” for lack of a better term, has carried over into my soccer fandom. I was introduced to the game at a young age, and became interested in the professional game when the USMNT finally qualified for the 1990 World Cup following a 40-year absence, and the subsequent 1994 World Cup held in the U.S. When satellite television and the Internet made it much easier to follow leagues overseas, I felt obligated to pick a team. English football was the optimal league for me, as I fell for the much-marketed “best league in the world” gimmick. I tried the EPL for a bit, but quickly lost interest when it became a race to sign the world’s best players for huge transfer fees. As a Buffalo fan, I couldn’t get behind that. I may be a Yankees fan, but I’ve also criticized them for overspending on free agents (i.e. Kevin Brown, Carlos Beltran, et al.).

Therefore, I tried my luck with the Championship, the second level of English football some time ago and loved it. Every team had more of a chance to win it, and the lack of huge transfer budgets made it a much more pure game to me. The next step was, of course, to pick a side. While reading up on the different teams, one immediately stuck out at me, Millwall. There were several reasons for this. First, Kasey Keller and Bruce Murray, two of my favorite USMNTers of all-time, played there in the 1990s. When I began to follow them closely, American John Berylson had already taken over as chairman, and fellow American Zak Whitbred was on the roster. Secondly, the fans of Millwall share many similarities with Buffalo’s, and I felt a kinship with them. As I’m sure you all know, we Buffalonians have an “us vs. them” attitude when it comes to sports. We may be uncouth, to say the least, at times, but no one can fault us for not being passionate. We care. A lot. It means the world to us. Just as we can be heard cheering on our boys at the Ralph or the FNC, Millwall fans can be heard singing “no one likes us, we don’t care” at The Den as well. It means the world to them too. We know they’re going to lose as much as they win, if not more so, but we can’t help ourselves. Those who have played for the Bills, Sabres, or Millwall, even if only for a short while, always rave about the passion and dedication of the fans. I can take solace in that. No one can call us fair-weather fans. And thus my journey as a Millwall fan began.

As I write these words, Millwall is, unfortunately, going in the seemingly opposite direction of the Bills and Sabres. While the Bills and Sabres have hopefully entered a new era under Terry Pegula with his passion and deep pockets, Millwall has just officially been relegated to League One, the third tier of English football. The seeds of this relegation were planted several years back. It was a slow, steady process, like watching a snake slowly devour a mouse right before your very eyes. Millwall used to be managed by a fine man named Kenny Jackett, appointed in 2007 after having seen nine men precede him during the two previous years. Millwall were in League One at the time of his appointment, but quickly turned it around under his leadership. In the 2008-2009 season, they finished fourth in League One, but suffered a heartbreaking loss in the playoff final to earn promotion to the Championship at the hands of Scunthorpe United. Lesser teams may have folded, but after missing out on automatic promotion by one point on the final day to Leeds United, Millwall won the playoffs via a 1-0 win over Swindon Town to earn promotion. Things were good then. Jackett had total control over the team and the roster, and did a phenomenal job. It was like June 30, 2007 in Buffalo Sabres history, and the fall was just as slow and gutting.

Millwall did finish ninth in the Championship table the next season, but slipped to just barely survive relegation in each of the next two seasons. An FA Cup semifinal appearance in 2013 was exciting, but also merely papered over the cracks temporarily. Jackett left after that season for greener pastures and disagreements with the board.

As fans, we knew hiring the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho was out of the question, but we did want a manager with Championship experience. What did we get? Steve Lomas, former captain of Millwall’s greatest rival, West Ham United. For me, it was like hearing that Zdeno Chara was going to coach the Sabres, or Bryan Cox was going to coach the Bills. WTF?!?!? Needless to say, things didn’t go well, and Lomas was sacked after winning just 6 of 24 games. Eventually, Jackett recommended his good friend Ian Holloway to manage. Holloway did manage to narrowly escape relegation again last season, and had a hot start to this season. But the signs were there. The board had made the mistake of thinking both Lomas and Holloway were capable of running the squad from top to bottom, which they were not. So it’s now back to League One.

Though it’s certainly depressing, Millwall does have some bright spots to talk about. After a brutal stretch when the team lacked commitment as well as talent, Holloway was finally let go. Youth team manager and former player Neil Harris was given the interim job, and immediately put his stamp on the team. Players on loan were left out of the side, and several younger players were given a chance to play. As a former player, Harris knows what Millwall means to the fans, and instilled this attitude in the players. They were much better during the last spell of the season, but still lacked the talent to stay up following years of mismanagement and poor transfer decisions. While being relegated is never fun, I hope Harris is given the job full-time (and have no reason to believe he won’t at this point given the squad’s improvement). He has much talked about having a young side that is hungry to win next season and the seeds of that have already been seen at the end of this season. Also, the board appeared to have learned its lesson, and are now seeking to help Harris out by appointing a director of recruitment so he can just concentrate on managing as he’s still young and relatively inexperienced. So here we are. Like the Sabres, and Bills it’s a fresh start with new players and a new coach. I’m excited for the future despite Millwall’s relegation and the utter horror that was the last two seasons of Buffalo Sabres hockey.

You see, while hope can inevitably lead to disappointment, it can also lead to sheer euphoria when things go well. Having something to be proud of means more when you’ve witnessed the valleys that came before the peaks. I was tickled to death while listening to the Achtung Millwall! podcast the other day and hearing that fans “expect the worst and hope for the best.” That sums up being both a Millwall fan and Buffalo sports fans up perfectly for me. We brace ourselves for the inevitable disappointment, but are always there to support our team. No matter what happens next season for the Bills, Sabres, and Millwall, I’ll be there cheering every step of the way. And until next season, go Red Bulls!

The Barrister


I have a lot of feelings after what went down these past couple weeks, and past couple years, and past couple decades. I am unabashedly and undeniably in fucking love with U.S. soccer. I cherish it.... the team and the players and the games and tournaments and fans. It all just does it for me. I love singing the songs and chanting the chants and gearing up for gameday. It's part of my identity and, with my miniscule contribution to it, I am a very small part of its. 

With no small amount of regret, I'm not in as deep as many others are. I haven't traveled to see the team, though I should. I didn't go to the World Cup, though I might have under a different set of financial and familial circumstances. I'm not a sterling example of the ideal U.S. soccer fan, but just a guy who played some as a kid, got into the game progressively through the 90s, latched onto an English club team in 2002 and has progressively grown into a massive fondness for the sport and for the men and women who play the sport wearing the Stars and Stripes. I screamed and cheered in '99 when Chastain won it in PKs. I laughed with uncontrollable emotion in 2002 when McBride put the US up 3-0 to Portugal.  I wept with joy when Liverpool's mighty Reds shook their fists at fate and won the Champions League in 2005. I sat, stunned and sullen, on the floor of Nag's Head in Hoboken last Sunday when Christiano ruined our night, only to smile as he repaid the debt days later when with his winner against Ghana. 

Sports. They are individual, yet communal. They happen to us and with us and with those we are lucky (or unlucky) enough to be surrounded by as we watch.  

With predictable regularity, the World Cup cycle gives me immense joy and excitement, coupled with the equally regular insistence of various onlookers that soccer, and particularly soccer for Americans, is something to be defined in certain, concrete terms. Is it arriving? Has it arrived already? Are the fans getting better or worse or are they destined to be a group subject to hearty and deserved derision? 

So we get, even from people who feign "not to care," various bullet-pointed lists of the things that make the sport wrong for America, only to be countered by lists proclaiming the various reasons that it is superior to every other option available on the country's sports landscape.  We get anger and defensiveness and writers scrambling for page views (not unlike myself, perhaps) and fans of all sports standing up to tell each other why their chosen sports pastime sucks and, while they're at it, to clarify to those other fans that it's entirely possible they suck.

It's a bigger conversation this year because so many people have chosen to care about the sport in America - not just fans but, perhaps even more so, detractors.  Lost in the conversation, however, is an appropriate recognition that, despite the varied attempts to define the sport and its fans in America, what we've seen over the past weeks and years and decades is overwhelmingly un-definable.  The AO movement has started something great, one could say, but that "something" wasn't created out of nothing; it existed before anyone was an Outlaw. Sure, America is experiencing a rising tide of new fans, but not all are new fans of the sport, and not all will continue. Some have been watching games for years and find themselves more able and more eager to let the excitement wash over them because, well, we have a critical mass.  Some have finally been convinced of the sport's beauty and likability, and some just like to yell USA!

Some fans are dicks to new fans and some of those dicks might only be dicks on the days that they happen to be in a sour mood or didn't eat lunch or whatever and now whoever is sitting next to them at the bar thinks all soccer fans are the pits. Some fans are entirely lovely and sometimes that's because they hate the idea of soccer hipsters and want to counter it, and sometimes it's because they're just fucking great people.  

Some fans grew into their love of the American national team through their love of the more-developed game in Europe, such that their idea of being a fan is that of being a supporter and wearing scarves and using the same terms that they hear announcers use when calling a Tottenham game. 

Maybe it's easy to forget that sports culture is far from homogeneous since America's professional sports and the way in which most people digest those sports has become so packaged.  After all, it's way easier to have an accessible product for consumption when that product is predictable and easily defined and consumer friendly. So, when Keith Olbermann and others state that they want soccer to be more American, they fail to realize that there's no such thing. Football isn't American because it has any intrinsic quality that makes it so; football is American because it's been around long enough and been popular enough that the idea of "American" has grown to include football as its own.  Football and baseball and basketball and hockey are American because they've all been on American TV every week, sometimes every night, with such regularity that to call them un-American is altogether foolish.  Our culture has expanded to accept the sports beloved of our people, as it should, but the idea of making soccer a quintessentially American sport is far too vague a concept to be a guidepost.

People are coming to soccer and to their support of the U.S. national teams in very different ways, with a variety of different perspectives on the sport and what it means to be a fan, such that it surely seems to many to be an altogether foreign enterprise.  Supporters of soccer in America and of the national teams bring their cultural baggage and assets and songs and passions, and their different ideas on what the sport should be in this country.  We didn't invent the sport and we surely didn't get in on the ground floor, so we're putting the product and our experience together with the pieces of soccer culture that we have available and that we enjoy.  And onlookers are left trying to make sense of what soccer will be for sports fans in this country. Is this genuine? Or are we all just trying to latch onto other countries' sporting exports? 

How about we, maybe, don't try to define this, though? How about we enjoy the fact that the sport and its American cultural niche are hard to pin down in any way other than by simply stating that it's all tremendous fun? 

We've got plenty to be proud of without having to worry about whether this sport, this passion of ours, will succeed in our country; whether it will ever be accepted as an unquestioned part of national life without a thousand writers and hacks telling us why it - and by extension, we - are incompatible with the pre-existing sporting cultural identity of the Unites States. We don't need to worry about finding a discernible American identity for our national team and its supporters. In fact, with the cacophony of cultural influences on our sport and our support, it all may just be American enough.

The Barrister

Hey y'all, the word of the day is "TWELVE"

12 straight wins.

Yeah this should have gone up yesterday, but fuck you I was working/trolling fools in the Buffalo News comments for sport. get on my level.

Yesterday was a good day. Fans on both sides will temper the boisterous joy with which some are looking at the USMNT's win in Sarajevo yesterday - it was their B team when the US put up those goals, the first half was all that mattered, it's a friendly so who cares - and I totally accept that. 

BUT ALL THAT DOESN'T MATTER. This is goddamn awesome.

Things to consider:

• Bosnia-Herzegovina was/is ranked 13th in the world by FIFA, and 9th by the Soccer Power Index. US is ranked 19th by FIFA and the SPI (which seemed ambitious, and suddenly doesn't).
• Bosnia hadn't lost at home since 2010. That string included a scoreless draw to now-ranked 7th Portugal in Euro Qualifiers, a 2-1 Friendly win over now-ranked 9th Brazil, and a 3-1 win over Greece in World Cup Qualifying. Eight wins and three ties over that home undefeated run.
• On the field for the whole game was Edin Džeko, a dude who has 30 goals in 54 appearances for his national team, which plays in the most competitive Continental Football Association on the planet. In his club career, he's scored 152 goals, including 19 for Man City during their title run. He is legit.
• JOZY ALTIDORE MAKES ME WET.
• This streak is only three wins shy of tying Spain's record of 15. Only six national teams, including Spain, have done better. 
• Since the last World Cup, the US have beat Italy, Mexico and Bosnia-Herzegovina away, and beat Germany at home. What more do these guys have to prove before they're considered legit?

Ok, that's it. If you're not watching this US team these days, I don't know what to say. Get yourself right and ready for Brazil.

The Barrister


Another weekend in the books, another slate of games where my squads shit the bed and give me more reasons to wonder whether the universe delights in pissing all over my face. Perhaps, written in my DNA somewhere, is some sign that I love Golden Showers, and the universe is simply following instructions... it would certainly explain a lot. 

As for the other, more American sports you all come here to read up on, someone will be on here later this week to talk Bills, I'm sure, but in the meantime the hot takes will be soccer-centric. Bear with me, I promise many inappropriate moments to make it worth your while.

I watched a few games early in the week, including portions of a couple of Champions League matches that kind of put me to sleep, and a Liverpool Europa match that kind of made me shit in hats, but we'll start with the New York Fucking Red Bulls. 


Exhibit A: Getting Smoked Off Your Own Pitch

With only three games left on the schedule, the Red Bulls hosted the Chicago Fire. The Chicago FIRE. As an aside, if you want to pretend the Deeg is somehow unreasonably inappropriate when it comes to our sports takes, don't forget the plethora of absurd and offensive team names scattered across the world, take the stick out of your ass, and laugh with the rest of us. It's fun.

As for the Fire, there are a dozen or so really dumb jokes or puns I could make, but suffice it to say that I think naming a sports team after a local tragedy is tasteless and crass and par for the course for the early days of the MLS. Just as Kansas City abandoned the dishearteningly lame "Wizards," and NY abandoned the Metro Stars and any reference to the state of New Jersey (smart move, that), it's probably time for Chicago to rebrand with something that doesn't tip it's hat to the deaths of hundreds of Chicagoishians. Because, you know, death is not. cool.

Or, you know, they could keep it since they sure brought the fire on Saturday night, right guys? /ducks

The game was saddeningly typical of Red Bulls efforts of late -- patient but uninspired possession play, with the chances few and far between and, more to the point, unsuccessful. Not that the Fire were much better, though they - via Sherjill McDonald's two goals - made the most of their opportunities, even when seeing very little of the ball.

The Barrister & The Scizz

It was a rainy, misty, shitty day in New York City on Thursday. The perfect setting for our second installment of Infinite Sadness, one of the peripheral cogs in the Deeg Podcast Industries. Scizz, still sitting in the solitude of his sobriety, and I, still sitting in my own sweat and overworked misery, got together via Skype to discuss some of the more recent sports news that makes us infinitely sad.

While the arc of our conversation is often tangential, we touch on the NHL playoffs and how it's been to watch hockey suddenly get big in the big market of NYC, and then have a reflective discussion on how unsurprised we are to see that the Buffalo Sabres have not invited us and our stockpile of dick jokes to attend next month's Blogger Summit. Hint: It's Scizz's fault. Second Hint: It's also Alex Sulzer's fault.

This was a ton of fun to make, as always, and includes musical interludes from Incubus, Ben Folds Five and Biggie Smalls. Enjoy by streaming or downloading below. 

Cheers.

The Barrister

As frustrated as I've been about the prospects of a successful Liverpool Football Club, and as skeptical I've been of the seemingly "hanging by a wire" success of the New York Metropolitans, it's probably a little absurd that I've been as quiet as I have about the legit - and I mean LEGIT - success of the New York Red Bulls this year. Having purchased a pair of seats for tonight's match against Chivas USA, getting me out to Red Bull Arena for one last look at the team before MLS breaks for the Euros, my attention has certainly piqued.

When Thierry Henry went down with a hamstring injury last month, things looked plenty bleak for the club. They were coming off a stinging 4-1 loss down in D.C., and it didn't help to lose their (and the MLS's) leading goal scorer. The five match winning streak that followed, which they take into the match tonight, was certainly unexpected and has left them sitting atop the Eastern Conference standings with games in hand over the teams nipping at their heels. Henry has not been the only missing starter during this streak, either. Rafa Marquez, one of the key componets of the Red Bulls' back four, has missed significant time due to a three game ban (for breaking the collar bone of another player!!) and more recent Achilles tendon soreness that kept him off the pitch for this past weekend's game in Monreal. Wilman Conde, another starter in the back four, had missed time due to his own injury problems, found his return to the lineup further delayed by an arrest for aggravated assault on a police officer. Yikes.

But none of this has appeared to matter all that much to the players who've taken the field over the last five fixtures. Starting with three straight shutouts following that DC game, the defense has shown itself to be more than capable of carrying the load while the supposed stars of the back four deal with their off-the-field bullshit. Key message for the kiddies: Even if you're hot shit on the pitch, if you break another player's collar bone, or perhaps assault a cop, you risk being challenged for your starting spot. Even in the MLS.

Flippancy aside, there's no denying the surprising play of the defense. Goalkeeper Ryan Meara, recent call-up to Ireland's U-21 roster, has been at the center of this - his rookie campaign has included 3 clean sheets (all during this last streak), a 1.41 GAA and 48 saves (which, over 12 games, is a pretty decent clip in soccer, if you can believe it). Awful haircut notwithstanding, he's been perhaps the biggest reason why the team is still afloat, not to mention leading the East. Added to this, the Red Bulls similarly youthful defense, including Connor Lade, Tyler Ruthven and Brandon Barklage, have locked it down while awaiting the return of NYRB's top flight fullback talent. 

This context makes tonight's match an interesting one - Conde and Marquez will both be available, and it is suspected that Marquez will start. Assuming he does, and that Heath Pearce - recently acquired in the trade that saw Juan Agudelo head to Chivas USA - starts at fullback against his former club, this will leave both Lade and Ruthven on the bench. It's anyone's guess whether the defensive quality that we've seen over the past month will continue or whether there will be a settling in period for the new mixture of players at fullback.

Up top, assuming Henry starts or at least play some, I expect that the Red Bulls will only get better. Kenny Cooper, who now leads the team with 10 goals on the year, has been a force this year and is much of the reason why the team was so willing to part with Agudelo last week. His striking partnership with Henry was stupid good before Henry went down last month, and I imagine that any issues on the back end may be covered up a bit if the offense can pick it up a little bit with Henry's return.

Of course, if I was an actual expert on the team, I'd mention something about the midfield at this point. But, let's be honest - I've already worked well past this "lunch break" of mine and you've already toughed it out through enough of my world class analysis. 

As for the Deeg-related angle of tonight's festivities, I'll be hitting Red Bull Arena with aspiring soccer enthusiast, The Apologist. Sure, Aps is really more of a typical hockey, football, baseball, basketball guy, but he really wants to like soccer. He really does. I think this is Aps' second trip to RBA, having made the trip last year for the USMNT friendly vs Ecuador. And I think he really enjoyed it last time, especially when the Ecuadorian fan base started singing those songs about Darwin and extraordinarily niched finches. ♪♫ O, pinzones hermosos! Su adaptabilidad es asombrosa! ♪♫

Since this is the first time Apologist have gotten together to watch a proper sporting event since the end of the hockey season, we'll be dusting off our iPhones to record another episode of the Legal Limit. Since we'll be at least three or four beers deep for that adventure, you'll want to check back here later this week when the episode is posted so you can revel in our asshattery. You know you love it.

Updated 5/24/2012: Apologist and I were not nearly as successful with our Red Bull Arena podcasting as we had hoped. A combination of exhaustion and, for Aps, relative apathy kept things pretty difficult. The game ended pretty well, a 1-1 draw, including Kenny Cooper's 11th of the year. Our attempt an post-game analysis, however, was forced, at best, and we shant be posting it later this week. You're welcome.

The Barrister

I've been reluctant to dive into the fray on Liverpool since the FA Cup Final. That result, as I predicted, basically ruined the campaign for Reds, leaving the club with only a paltry Carling Cup victory upon which to hang its hat. Sure, that was the same Carling Cup that I reveled in a couple months ago. The same Cup that I wanted to believe meant something substantial enough to make up for a poor as fuck league record, especially when combined with the prospect of an FA Cup victory on the horizon. While I would have punched someone squarely in the face for calling me on it at the time, it's pretty obvious that my optimism surrounding the Carling Cup was little else than face-saving by a fan desperate for something to cheer for. Pathetic as it may be, this is how I roll.  It's called a coping mechanism, asshole.  

In any event, it's all behind us now, and I'm certainly done with taking on a positive outlook through which I might salvage a little bit of pride and optimism. None of this is made any easier, of course, by the absolutely inexplicable events at Anfield that have transpired since that FA Cup loss to Chelsea and since the Reds closed out their season with a wimper against Swansea.
 
Even considerably attentive soccer fans may have paid little notice to the firing of LFC's manager Kenny Dalglish last week. After the incredible end to the Premier League season (Man City taking the crown by way of two late, desperation goals in stoppage time) and the even more incredible end to the Champions League (Chelea victorious at the "neutral" site in Munich, defeating the de facto home side in penalty kicks after a 120 minute 1-1 draw), King Kenny being let go by Fenway Sports Group is of little moment to most fans of the game. On paper, it was nothing more than a middling club firing its manager who, while achieving some recent success, could not get it done on the pitch from week to week. 

Fans of Liverpool, however, know that the firing was much more significant than that. They know that there is a reason we all feel like a not insignifcant part of our collective soul has been ripped out. Kenny wasn't just a manager, he is an institution. As a player, he appeared in 355 league matches for LFC, scoring 118 goals along the way. This is the same guy who played striker for the club at the time of it's most consistent dominance that the numbers involved sound like they must be wrong - league champions 7 out of his 14 seasons as a player, for starters, as well as multiple Cups along the way. Not to mention his two Manager of the Year honors after he took on the role of Player-Manager in 1986 - a five year reign that saw the Club get three League Championships (finishing second in the other two years) and two FA Cups.
 
This is a guy who, as a player and manager and, in essence, the best example of the greatness that can be Liverpool football, deserves the utmost respect from LFC fans and, more importantly, LFC ownership.  A week removed, with the Club reeling and having apprently lost its bearings, his firing is nothing short of a slap in the face.

To put it in perspective - as Scizz often requests when I'm going on and on about the Beautiful Game - imagine if Gilbert Perreault (you know, a player who was actually good... *cough* *Lindy sucks* *cough*) was the coach of the Buffalo Sabres, or if Jim Kelly were coaching the Bills. Also, imagine that either of them had, as a player, actually brought a championship or two (or SEVEN!!) to Buffalo, as opposed to just years of hard work and marginal success. And, finally, imagine that they were fired after only one season as coach, with absolutely no plan for a successor in place.

I know, right? FUCKED UP BULLSHIT. We would go goddammned berzerk. Which, as it happens, is exaclty what has happened with Liverpool fans this past week.  And if the reports are to be believed - that the Club is reaching out to any and all viable candidates for interviews and that many top talents have already bowed out with a "thanks but no thanks" refusal - this mess is not getting better any time soon.

I'll be the first to admit that, when news of the firing broke last week, I was sitting on the "I don't love it, but can accept this" side of the fence. I love Kenny, and would have loved more than anything to see him at the helm for a continued revival of the club - his infectious smile beaming from the sidelines, celebrating with players and fans whom he clearly adores, bringing the club into an era of dominance to rival those magical years in the 80's. But, I can also accept that the team did not perfom well at crucial moments this year, when three points were needed and expected - a fact I noted in CrapTastiCast 29 last week - and that there was a clear need for some change to be made if there was going to be a realistic hope of Champions League play in the next few years. After all, as Yachter noted during the cast, Kenny brought a ton of expensive and apparent dead weight to the roster with his summer signings last year, so - even if we all love the guy - you can't say that he's been the model of success in this second stint as manager.

That said, as a fan of this Club - a club that we're told is an example of the rich tradition of English football and that has far-reaching influence globally - the situation post-Dalglish is simply untenable. No successor in place? Not even a clear vision of what kind of manager is being sought? So, instead of Dalglish - a manager who, at the very least, can still instill a sense of pride in the "Liverpool Way" and who motivated his squad to two Cup finals - Liverpool's American ownership has left the club in the lurch, lacking in any clear sense of direction, leadership and, sadly, prospects for the future.

As of now, the only leadership at the Club comes in the form of Ian Ayre, who was hand picked by former American owners Gillett and Hicks. Forgive me if references from some of the worst sports owners in recent history don't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Going up the ladder, the situation doesn't get much better. Sure, FSG brought championships to Boston fans who had been pining for them since 1918, but they're also the same guys who let Theo Epstein go and who have allowed the storied Red Sox franchise to devolve into the tire fire it most certainly is.

(Which begs the question, as an aside -- WHY DOES THE FA ALLOW AMERICANS TO BUY EPL TEAMS?? Maybe they just like watching us fuck it all up as some sort of cathartic exercise in Britain's post-imperialist age. I think I may be on to something there.)

It wouldn't be hard to draw not-so-subtle comparisons between Fenway and Anfield to bolster my fears of the future of LFC, but that's a depressing task for another depressing day when I actually care to research the inner workings of a baseball team I utterly despise. It's probably enough to say that the greater universe of Liverpool fans are, with very good reason, feeling a dreadful sense that the Club is spiraling out of control and that we may yet be in for another half decade of depressing underachievement.

In a week's time, or so we're told, there should be a short list of managerial candidates, and maybe then I'll hop back on here to talk about how good or bad or wretched each of them makes me feel. Until then, I'll just sit with the realization that Liverpool, the supposed bright spot in my sports world, may be sinking to the shitshow status of my Bills and Sabres, and that it may be a while until I start to be optimistic about them again.

The Barrister

While we at the Deeg are steadily getting ourselves ready to #OccupyNassau next weekend, and are trying our darndest to keep motivated to give a shit about our Buffalo Sabres as the All-Star break rolls on, it's probably no big surprise to most of you that I would choose to check in with a joyful, exclamatory post about my Liverpool Reds. This blog may be aimed at wallowing in self-pity over the woes of our beloved franchises and sports heroes, but it also has to be about taking a moment - even when there is a healthy fear of the other shoe dropping, with force - to grin from ear to ear when we're lucky enough to be reminded of what sports can, on perfect days, be all about.

On the heels of a wretched 3-1 away defeat at bottom-feeding Bolton last week (this before Bolton finished their acquisition of American defender Tim Ream), it was truly difficult to have too much faith in Liverpool as they approached this week's League Cup match against EPL-leading Manchester City. Even though it was apparent, after the first leg of the semifinal in Manchester, that the Sky Blues were not going all in for a second-straight League Cup - likely due to absences from some of their key players - there was still a lingering feeling that Liverpool's 1-0 lead on aggregate might fall apart right before the eyes of the Kop. 

That fear, in the end, proved unfounded on Wednesday. Liverpool played up to their competition once again, and pressed offensively much more than their opposition. The result - a 2-2 home draw that gave them the win on aggregate - was exactly what fans had hoped for. Down 2-1 late in the game, and struggling to beat the riddle that is Man City keeper Joe Hart, Liverpool deserved a breakthrough and ultimately found it off the boot of Craig Bellamy, former Man City  cast-off. (my apologies if copyright laws take this video down in the future... Bellamy's goal is at the end of this highlightapalooza that tracks his many moments of impact on Wednesday)

How good is Craig Bellamy? Signed for NOTHING, as far a transfer fee, and basically left for dead by most football managers, the 39 year old striker has found a place during his return to Liverpool. He's basically shouldered much of the offensive loss the team felt when Suarez started his eight match ban, and his deciding goal on Wednesday was yet another example of how valuable he has become to the team. That he did it against a former team who basically shat on him, and did it to take Liverpool back to the League Cup final against another former (and hometown) team, is something pretty special.

That said, this Welshman-induced joygasm has slightly subsided in the nearly 48 hours since that match, and it is time to take a minute to calm down with some deep breaths. We talked a little about this, Yachtsman and I, in Episode 22 of the CrapTastiCast (which should drop sometime this weekend), and he mused as to how I was way more willing to praise this team who has still yet to win a GD thing. Fair enough.

So, they've made it back to Wembley. Now what?

In the short term, the "now what?" is tomorrow's FA Cup 4th Round matchup against Manchester United at Anfield. Man U, unburdened by the missing pieces that were the undoing of their cross-town counterparts this week, are coming into Anfield with high expectations. Where Man City may have found solace in their all-but-assured success in the League table this year, Man U has to be looking at the FA Cup as its best chance of silverware for the campaign.  In other words, it could be seriouusly messy for the home town squad, and will certainly not be the kind of comparitively relaxed opposing side that Liverpool faced earlier this week. Throw in the ongoing tensions between the clubs following the Suarez/Evra incident, and there are plenty of reasons to watch this game tomorrow. Even if you don't even love the sport like some of us do.

Looking further ahead, assuming Liverpool doesn't survive this weekend of FA Cup play, the importance of the League Cup spikes considerably since Liverpool seems intent on blowing their chances to make a Top 4 finish and qualify for Champions League this year. Of course, a league cup title is probably worth much less to the team than a Champions League birth, but it is also something that the team has much more control over. Their finals opponent, Cardiff City, is a team that Liverpool should beat, and if Champions League ends up being too far out of reach due to the ongoing success of teams above LFC, it is a team that Liverpool must beat. The League Cup may be the sole remaining way for the Reds to put a positive stamp on this season and avoid another depressing summer of nothing but regret. A loss to Cardiff, a side playing in the lower-tier Championship, would be an embarassment and would only amplify the feelings of fans who have already seen plenty of missed opportunities this season.

In the end, as happy as I am about the win this week - and the way that they won - I'm still knee-deep in apprehension and anxiety as we approach the Man U match tomorrow, as well as the League Cup final later this month. At least I got those brief moments of joy to hold on to, and to remind me yet again why it is that I watch.