Fantasy Football

A quiet week here on the blog as I’m on a short break with she who must be obeyed down in Kerry. Enjoying it I must say, even if I am still gutted by Michael Schumacher’s decision not to return to Formula 1. Badoer is no seven-time world champion, that’s for sure.

Break or no break, I’m aware that there are sporting events just around the corner, not least the long-awaited return of the Premier League.

If you play fantasy football ,it’s likely that you play it on http://fantasy.premierleague.com as it’s the official one...and free. If you do sign up for it, then be sure to join the league set up by us here at The Almost Daily Sports Blog. There will be a prize for the highest scorer at the end of the season. The code to join is 1007205-238235. I look forward to seeing you all there.

NASCAR Name Mayhem

I love NASCAR, I really do. Made a few pound off Denny Hamlin on Monday. For all bar two races of the year the cars run around in an oval but not this weekend where the NASCAR circus has rolled into Watkins Glen in New York, for one of my favourite rounds of the year., even if it has one of the most ridiculous names of any sporting event, ever. This Sunday's race is the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen... I kid you not.

It's still very good though. Here's what happened two years ago.



Tune in, do!

2nd Tier to get underway.

The Football league kicks off this weekend across the water with the first game taking place on Friday night. Much will be expected of the three clubs relegated from the Barclays Premier League when the new Coca-Cola Championship season kicks off.

All eyes will be on Newcastle after a miserable season of turmoil on and off the pitch but of the three teams relegated in 2007-08, only Birmingham managed to secure promotion last season.
The previous season Charlton, Sheffield United and Watford all failed to regain their places in the top flight.

Middlesboro take on Sheffield Utd in the first game on Friday night. Gareth Southgate's men will hope to be challenging for promotion come May. They have, at present, hung on to many of their 'star' players like Alfonso Alves & Tuncay, so they will be difficult to beat.

My club Watford will, I hope & pray, be up near the top half battling for the playoffs, but I have this nagging feeling in my gut that a season of struggle and hardship may be in store. Last season we had a very strong finish, under Brendan Rodgers, but he upped ship and climbed aboard the Reading yacht leaving the Hornets in the lurch a bit.

Roy Keane's Ipswich will be another side of interest this seaon, he worked well in this league with Sunderland, lets see how he gets on this time round.

My Prediction:

1st - Ipswich

2nd- Middlesboro

Playoff - Newcastle, Reading, West Brom, and what the hell - WATFORD!

Relegation - Scunthrope, Plymouth, Blackpool

Altidore Heads To Hull

Not much made of this move today but I'm going to highlight it because I'm a fan of the player involved. Jozy Altidore has joined Hull on a season-long deal loan from Villarreal. Though ineffective in his time in Spain, Altidore is a promising player. He's scored seven goals from his 16 appearances with the American national team, not bad for a 19 year old.

Here he is against Spain in the Confederations Cup semi-final:



This is a great move for Hull because I believe he's a player with great potential. I think he could be a bargain at £6.5m at the end of the season. One to keep an eye out for, and maybe a potential fantasy football sleeper.

Mucho Excitismo!

OK, so my Spanish isn't all that, but I'm quite excited today after learning that my friend Laura wasn't taking the mick when she told me that Muhammad Ali, yes, THE Muhammad Ali, is on his way to Ireland. And not just to Ireland but to Clare, his ancestry home, which is within half an hour of where I live.. The first of September is marked off in my calendar already. Anyone wanna come with?

Woods Breaks Wind!

Tiger Woods, it seemed, took the chance to relieve some tension during the final round of last weekend’s Buick Open. This video has cropped up on Youtube and it appears to show Eldrick, arguably the finest sportsman on the planet, farting. Yes, farting. Check it out.



Sounds fake, right? I thought so too, I won’t lie. Yet here’s another video, taken from a news broadcast the next day, which shows the same thing.



EDIT: It seems that our old friend David Feherty, CBS golf analyst, is to blame.

The Beckham Experiment

"If someone's paying you more than anybody in the league, more than double anybody in the league, the least we expect is that you show up to every game, whether you are suspended or not. Show up and train hard, show up and play hard."

"I don't think that's too much for us to expect.”


They’re the words of one Landon Donovan, speaking, of course, about his L.A. Galaxy teammate David Beckham. Donovan has joined in a chorus of boos and jeers levelled at Goldenballs, a chorus that’s got even louder in recent weeks now that Beckham has actually returned to Los Angeles to play in the MLS.

The fans have turned against the man who proclaimed that he wanted to "take soccer in the US to another level” and “make a difference with the kids." Yet those words now sound hollow, especially after Beckham returned to Europe and A.C. Milan in a move that seemingly was aimed at maintaining his England career. That’s certainly the view of the fans who’ve been involved in two incidents with Beckham and certainly seem to wish that he would return to Italy full-time.



So, where did it all go wrong? That’s the question asked by Grant Wahl in his book, The Beckham Experiment. Wahl is the right man to write this book. As the chief soccer writer for Sports Illustrated magazine, he has been covering the Galaxy, Beckham and MLS throughout recent times and is able to give the fan a neutral, unbiased account of what happened, why, and who to blame. It’s from this book that Donovan’s quotes about Beckham hail. These quotes that are at least part of the reason that the American soccer public have turned against the Englishman and, surprisingly, they’re not even the best part of this book.

It truly is a fascinating read. Wahl details, in an in-depth fashion, where exactly the Galaxy/Beckham saga went wrong and it also explains why. Incompetence on the part of management is revealed, as is the true extent of the influence held by Beckham and his people. It is a book which is fair, if a bit anti-Beckham, but it as good a sporting exposé as I’ve read in a long, long time. And given the unfolding nature of the story, and how the fans are turning against Beckham, Wahl has given us a valuable document that explains what is happening to one of the most famous athletes in the world, and why he’s no longer the golden child of American soccer.

***

The Beckham Experiment is available to buy on Amazon, in all good bookshops and in some pretty lousy ones too.

Kingdom of Heaven.

It might not have stirred Gav's sporting passions, but Kerry's destruction of Dublin in Croke Park earlier today further underlines the fact that Kerry is the Kingdom of Footballing heaven. A truly breathtaking display saw them triumph by 1-24 to 1-07.
Kerry's spectacular return to form sent the Dubs crashing out of the race for Sam Maguire at Croke Park. Dublin were simply demolished in front of a crowd of 81,890 by a Kingdom outfit bursting with energy, style and substance. Some brilliant performances from the likes of Declan O'Sullivan, Darren O'Sullivan, Colm Cooper and on and on and on. The strength in depth of the Kerry squad is unmatched by any other County in Ireland & Kieran Donaghy is out through injury!

I watched all of this weekend's 3 quarter finals. Anyone thats knows me will know that I have ties to Counties playing in each of the games. Cork's hammering of Donegal was a bitter blow. I know I was poking fun at the Donegal boys in an earlier post, but they were torn apart by a very strong Cork side.

In the other quarter final, the best of the bunch, All-Ireland champions Tyrone had to dig deep to survive Kildare's gutsy challenge at Croke Park, before squeezing through to the All-Ireland SFC semi-finals. The beaten Leinster finalists produced a heroic display at Croke Park, before going down by just two points in agonising fashion.

What I don't understand about some RTÉ panelists, is that when a team like Dublin, win their Provincial Title easily, then have a break for a few weeks, then come against a Kerry team battle hardened from their run in Qualifiers one member will say "We should take a look at the system, they haven't played at the level of intensity for a number of weeks, it was a factor today". Yet when Cork, a team that, like Dublin, haven't played in a few weeks, hammer Donegal, it gets flipped - Donegal are "Weary from their heroics in the Qualifiers, the system needs to be looked at." Seems a bit daft to me, make up your mind, when it suits it favours those coming through the Qualifiers, then Cork win easliy & the Qualifiers are to blame for a poor Donegal display. Methinks there is an apparent lack of insight from the panel when they spout inconsistent tripe like that. Then again what would I know.

Mayo & Meath meet to fight for the final remaining Semi-Final place. On the evidence of this weekend though, both teams will struggle to reach the level of Cork, Kerry & Tyrone. But, then again, what would I know.

All's Quiet On The Western Front

It’s a really quiet day in work today (the August Bank Holiday weekend is traditionally the slowest time of the year for news) and it’s also a relatively quiet time of the year for sport. Sure, Kerry are taking on Dublin in an All-Ireland Quarter Final today but since it’s a contest that’s as one-sided as a hippy missing his left-leg, it’s not coming close to stirring my sporting passions. Baseball is ongoing, but that has fleeting moments of greatness (Note to self: must post one I saw recently) and, sure, NASCAR is on today, but it’s Pocono. Don’t start me on the Ashes.

So not the most exciting couple of weeks but at the same time, there’s stuff on the horizon to whet our appetites. The Premier League will return in no time. The World Athletics Championships are only just around the corner. It won’t be long until Michael Schumacher returns.

All that’s exciting, but it’s not going to arrive for a little while yet. In the meantime, relax, enjoy something else like the football if that’s your shtick, and maybe spend time with your family and loved ones. Your favourite sports stars will be waiting for you to return in no time at all.

Morning All

Welcome to August.

Here's an August 1st treat for you all: it is, after all, Stephen Hunt's birthday. So there!

Saw this game, Jane Thomson's Marathon, and said I'd share it with you all. There's a prize to the first person to send me a screengrab of the game's completion screen.