Turd of the Week (TotW #146)

	2002 A-League Champion
October 5, 2002

Tiny bubbles are in my wine
Makes me happy, makes me feel fine

The new Wembley Stadium (artist's rendering)

Ken Bates's pet project

Brother, can you spare 10 million quid? The leading proponent of executing the Old Lady, toppling Wembley's famed twin towers in favor of McWembley's arches, hotel and strip mall, is Ken Bates. He and another bunch of thieving liars who spend like drunken sailors -- politicians -- have promised Ben & Betsy Briton that honest-to-God, cross out hearts and hope to die, stick needles in our eyes, McWembley won't cost more than what the absolutely final final revised estimate was last week. Yes, that Ken Bates -- try not to be shocked -- has proven utterly incapable of balancing the somewhat more modest budget of his much more modest football team, Chelsea. (Freshly eliminated from the UEFA cup by Norwegian minnows Viking Stavanger.) Chelsea is in such dire financial straits that Bates is trying in essence to take out a second mortgage on the team, "trying to secure another massive loan against future ticket sales" because the club's operating profit of £4.3million is barely sufficient to cover the interest, never mind the principal, on the current loan! To put it in terms the common man -- those less wealthy than Bates -- can understand, Chelsea is financing its gambling debt with high-interest credit cards. Does it get better? Always. Get this: Bates is trying to find football financing in the United States! Maybe Billy Walsh will donate the proceeds from his backyard tourney, since MLS sugar daddy Philip Anschutz has his own problems.

1-on-1 with the keeper, Wolyniec slips missing easy shot. (9th min.)

News of the Wierd: Brazilian side Guarani recently bought forward Creedance Clearwater Cuoto. Yes, that is his name. Couto's father is a big fan of the 60's swamp rockers. Thank God, he wasn't a fan of Strawberry Alarm Clock!

Bobo gets head to corner, sending ball just wide. (25th min.)

Two Years Ago This Week

My next postal delivery: "All of these calls are very close, but if a call or two would have gone our way, it would have been a different story." (MetroStars coach Octavio Zambrano after losing to Chicago) I swear to Christ I am sick and tired of coaches and players wheeling out that lame excuse like a senile grandparent on the 4th of July. Coulda, woulda and shoulda don't mean shit. You know what, Octavio? If a few more calls had gone against you, you would have lost even worse. (TotW #72)

Be afraid, be very afraid: The investor-operator of 62.5% of the teams in MLS, and thus essentially the majority owner of the league, Philip Anschutz, is not having a good financial year. Never mind the stock losses -- he can afford it more than Gramps -- Anschutz has been dealing with a regular barrage of legal and civil charges against him and his holding company, Qwest. The latest bomb to drop is a $1.5 billion suit by the New York state attorney general, against Anschutz and other media and financial insiders. The defendants are accused of "spinning," a practice whereby they spent millions of dollars on allocated shares set aside by Salomon, Smith and Barney, then in turn directed the company they represented to pay Citigroup millions of soft dollars in investment banking fees. MLS apologistas will point out that Uncle Phil is a billionaire, and can absorb serious lossses while continuing to bankroll the league. Perhaps. Neither was King Kong killed by one bullet, but thousands.

A 5-minute flurry of Richmond chances ends with Williams just offside. (32nd min.)

Tim-MAY! Krause
Soccer empresario
/ Financial genius

I Spit on Your Grave: Was the title of a 70's slasher flick about four bucktooth backwoods cretins that attack a young lady, and her revenge on the quartet. (Including the classic scene where one of them is climbing over the back of her boat when she starts the engine.) She figuratively spit on their graves. Tim-MAY! tried to fuck Milwaukee Rampage. TotW spits on his grave. Oh, he's not dead, not literally, but his supposed 'dream' of bringing MLS to Milwaukee (right) grows ever more remote. First, he bought Milwaukee Wave, the top indoor side in America, and one of the few with solid finances. Oops. Past tense. The former owners, Wisconsin Pro Soccer, among whom is then GM Ron Creten, didn't want to sell, but were weaselled out by Krause. In January of this year, only five months after purchasing the Wave, Krause defaulted on a $150,000 bond he posted with MISL (ne' NPSL). A month later, Krause was seriously in arrears with local creditors, including powerhouse law firm Michael Best & Friedrich. (MISL, which claims to be unaware of Krause's latest default, gave Milwaukee the 2003 all-star game after Krause claimed to have straightened out his last default.) In May, Krause fired Creten. Maybe because Creten, being GM, had the inside goods on what a financial mess Krause was creating. Now, barely a year after buying the Wave, Krause is six months in default on his first two payments to the team's former owners! If Krause can't even write a check for $170,000 dollars, how in the name of Odin was he going to pay MLS a $10 million franchise fee, spend $50 million on a stadium, then bankroll $3.8 million, per year, that the average MLS team loses? Okay, the $50 million for Krause's stadium would have come out of Milwaukee taxpayers' pockets. But Krause couldn't manage a piggy bank. No wonder he was trying to get Rampage supporters to make donations to his front organization! All you bootlicking MLS expansionistas owe TotW one hell of a huge apology.

Makumbu and Bobo deny Jeffrey and Henderson. (42nd min.)

Headline of the Week: "Cox sucks!" (Autogolazo starts a soon to be censored BigSoccer thread on another crappy cable company)

Wolyniec beats three Kickers and the keeper to put Rampage up 1:0. (45th min.)

Moron of the Week: Tony Meola. In the 70th minute of KC Wizards rout of LA Galaxy, Preki scored on a freekick for Wizards. Amongst the celebratees was Wizards keeper Meola. While Meola was moseying on back to his goal, his back to the center circle, the referee restarted play. Galaxy midfielder Chris Albright spotted his opportunity, lofting the kickoff 55 yards, over the head of the blissfully unaware Meola, into Wizards goal. Doh. Stay alert, stay alive!

Ferruzzi converts penalty after Bilyk fouls Namoff in the box, 1:1. (59th min.)

Weekly Blotter

Ashburn (Georgia): The Florida Rockets team van collided with a car and a truck on Interstate 75. Most of the Rockets are exchange students from Jamaica or Sweden. 13 casualties, 2 fatalities.
Bucharest (Rumania): Rapid and Dinamo supporters fought each other and riot police prior to the derby. 1,600 police in the stadium prevented major violence, but not the 'petty' stuff like the throwing of 100 seats on the pitch. 3 casualties.
Athens (Greece): Worse yet was the AEK-Panathinaikos derby. When fireman tried to respond to a fire in the stands, they were bombarded with chairs. Police made Panathinaikos supporters sit in the burning sections, while security closed exits to prevent further clashes with AEK supporters. Enjoy the Olympics in 18 months!

Rivillo misses penalty after Luzak fouls Wolyniec in the box. (63rd min.)

They shoot horses, don't they? Ronaldo -- ostensibly a Real Madrid striker, though he has yet to wear white in a match -- was pictured on his web site, posing in front of Madrid's Neptune Fountain. The problem is, that is where Atletico, Real's crosstown rival, celebrates its victories. (Real supporters celebrate at Cibeles Fountain.) "The people who run the page weren't aware of what the Neptune fountain means," Ronaldo's agent dismissed the gaffe. If Ronaldo actually spent some time in training, rather than treatment, he would know better.

5-minute flurry of Rampage activity denied by Pascale. (78th min.)

An undisclosed US military location sucks ... It just fucking sucks!

Stockton gets his marching orders, putting Kickers down a man. (93rd min.)

Dingleberry of the Week

CNNSI.com, whose lead story on Monday morning was a foreign story (the slow death of Wembley), rather than last weekend's most important domestic soccer story, the A-League Final. And not a single link anywhere on that page to any sort of information at all about the Final.
ESPN.com, which likewise managed to completely overlook the A-League Final.
Soccertimes.com, an Esspin "associate", which pays lots of attention to college soccer, and pretty much nothing else: "Top 25: St. John's men reach No. 1 for first time; UNC, Stanford women share top spot." Be still my beating heart.
SportingNews.com, which has lots of stories about overpaid, overweight, utility infielders, and one titled "Teams swap players, picks in largest WUSA trade", but none about the A-League Final.
USAToday.com at least had some mention, though it was only two sentences.
Soccer America, whose daily update had the A-League Final five items down after the MLS quarterfinals -- which features 80% of that league's teams -- and news of American scrubs overseas. (Did you know that David Castellanos did not play for Motagua against Vida in the Honduran 1st Division?) On this one day, at least, the A-League should have been Soccer America's lead story.
Sportserver.com, maybe the worst of the lot, if only due to disappointment because they actually pay alot of attention to soccer around the world, and not just the odd story from England.

The septet's oversight is all the more heinous because even soccer365.com, the US-oriented branch of a foreign web site, football365.com, covered the A-League Final.

Angelovski in for Behncke. (97th min.)

Shot of the Week: Sorry ~~all you Chris Albright fans~~ Mr. & Mrs. Albright, the SotW was not his taking advantage of Fat Tony's nonchalance. The Shot of the Week was John Wolyniec's 45th minute goal in the A-League Final against Richmond. Wolyniec gathered in a long ball from Rivillo on the right side of the box. Alone, facing three defenders and the keeper, Wolyniec worked the ball towards the middle of the box, spun back to his right creating the narrowest of spaces, and fired the ball into left side netting , barely out of the reach of Richmond's sprawling keeper.

Angelovski buries 20-yard volley in right-side netting; Rampage 2:1!!! (106th min.)

Top of the World, ma! Five years ago when Milwaukee Rampage defeated Carolina Dynamo 1:1 (3:0 pk) at Uihlein Soccer Park, it was Milwaukee's first professional sports title in almost 25 years. (Since the Bucks won in basketball.) And I was there. Rampage keeper Carmine Isacco had an inredible game, denying numerous Dynamo chances in overtime, then saving several PKs to secure the title. Five years and 25 miles down the road in Franklin, Isacco's descendant Dan Popik made an incredible diving save at the end of the first overtime period, which was followed two minutes into the second overtime by Sinisa Angelovski's redemption. And I was there.

Your humble TotW editor's personal hightlight came after Luzak fouled Wolyniec in the Richmond box. I was returning from the beer stand, walking past Richmond's goal when the crime occured. As Ferruzzi remonstrated with the referee, I stood 10 feet away, beer in hand, within clear eyesight, giving him the finger. I'd pay money for that videotape.

The A-League Final was everything a soccer supporter could hope for in a final: back-and-forth play, a great goal, cards, penalties, great saves, last gasp defending, an unlikely hero, everything. Although much was made in the media of the keepers and scorers, special mention needs to made of Rampage's defense: Matt Bobo, David Lara, and especially Destin Makumbu who had a monstrous match, his best ever in Milwaukee colors.

I was moved to tears. Okay, not quite. (I'm only moved to tears when my cup is devoid of beer.) But almost.

Milwaukee Rampage: Dan Popik -- Destin Makumbu, David Lara, Matt Bobo
-- Jason Russell, Jeff Bilyk (Dennis Fadeski 105), Steve Bernal, Miguel
Saavedra (Bobby Brennan 70), Angel Rivillo (Craig Capano 99), Matt
Behncke (Sinisia Angelovski 97) -- John Wolyniec.

Richmond Kickers: Ronnie Pascale -- Khary Stockton, Peter Luzak,
Kevin Knight, Chris Fox -- Tony Williams (Mike Burke 65), David Hayes
(Paul Lekics 66), Marco Ferruzzi, Bryan Namoff (Ray Goodlett 104), Josh
Henderson (Ihor Dotsenko 98) -- Kevin Jeffrey.

     1  2  OT  Final
MIL  1  0   1    2   (Wolyniec, 45:00; Angelovski, 107:00)
RIC  0  1   0    0   (Ferruzzi, 59:00)

         MIL   RIC
Shots     17    11
Saves      5     3
Corners    5     9
Fouls     13    25
Cautions   4     3
Sendoffs   0     1 (And to think I actually cheered Stockton before
                    the match, because he was an ex-Rampage player.
                    What a knob.)

Hero of the Week: A team does not lose because of one player, nor does it win because of one player. Therefore the whole Rampage team are Heroes of the Week:

	 1 Popik, Dan (G)
	 2 Bernal, Steve (D)
	 3 Fadeski, Dennis (M)
	 4 Bobo, Matt (D)
	 5 Capano, Craig (M)
	 6 Aldrich, Jeremy (D)
	 7 Bilyk, Jeff (M)
	 8 Rivillo, Angel (M)
	10 Wolyniec, John (F)
	11 Golijanin, Ranko (F)
	12 Takawira, Digital (F)
	14 Sucevic, Sam (M)
	15 Henning, David (D)
	16 Russell, Jason (M)
	17 Angelovski, Sinisa (M)
	18 Radoncic, Bato (M)
	19 Makumbu, Destin (D)
	20 Richey, Jeff (G)
	21 Brennan, Bobby (D)
	22 Caprez, Tim (G)
	23 Saavedra, Miguel (M)
	25 Lara, David (D)
	26 Lauber, Aaron (D)

7th Sign of the impending Apocalypse: It lives! From Costa Rica comes proof that spectacularly failed coaches never have to look long for another high-paying, high-profile job. Apparently not content with a job actually commensurate with his real (and not ego-inflated, self-percieved) abilities -- coaching a U-12 team of fat kids with inch-think glasses in Ojai -- Turd Emeritus Steve Sampson has actually, miraculously, managed to get himself appointed to head a national team. Again. The Costa Rican federation did not renew the contract of Alexandre Guimaraes, a rare class act amongst coaches, who led the team to a fine World Cup run -- an achievement distinctly missing from Sampson's CV.

"After this is done and we're all old, we're going to have scrapbooks, but hopefully the most important thing is the respect of the people you associated yourself with. Steve (Sampson) is going to have to settle for a scrapbook." (Alexi Lalas, 1999)

When asked by the Costa Rican media if the attack-minded team would be roboticized, Sampson responded that his system is "not cold nor mechanical. My teams play with creativity." We are not making that up.

As if aware that his infamous 3-6-1 might not ever be mistaken for the four-forward formation Brazil deployed in the 50's, Sampson cited Brazil's 1994 champions -- widely noted as one of the most dour squads ever to win the World Cup -- as his inspiration: "They had two strikers with a lot of freedom, but behind them was Dunga, who organized the team with a lot of discipline."

Caught showing his true colors, Sampson admitted, "That Brazil team didn't play the sort of football the supporters like, but they won the World Cup and that's what is important."

The Costa Rica federation fired a Brazilian who had the national team playing traditional Brazilian soccer, for a failure who will transform them into a boring squad of hacks that still won't win the World Cup. Whoopee.

Costa Rica Football Federation

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