Palin on the Galaxy

This was a joke posted in another blog but I figured it was funny enough to repost here. Plus it's MLS related and I'm trying to use MLS as much as possible on my way to the Boot Room Title. That reminds me, is there a golden boot or some other trophy that I'm going to win?

- Boondock Saints Management

The VP debate: Soccer moms are a barometer
Courtesy Sarah Palin:
Asked about the economy, Palin suggested talking to a parent at a soccer game. "I'll betcha you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice," she said. Asked who was to blame for the subprime lending crisis, she said, "Darn right it was the predator lenders."
But Palin was totally at sea when she was asked why the LA Galaxy despite having Beckham and Donovan are struggling to make the play offs. When pressed on the reasons, she punted, “I’ll try to find you some, and I’ll bring ‘em to ya.”
Well, its hard for a hockey mom in five weeks to bone up on why the Galaxy suck. But she did manage a wink and a nod.

Top 4

I'm sure this has been discussed to death in the UK press and blogs and what not. But it kind of hit me in the last few months so i thought I'd bring it up here... why do football fans put up with the "top 4" as if it's a divine right? I mention this becuase I found myself extremely excited about the prospect of Villa breaking into the top 4 (or man city, or pretty much any team). Then something else occurred to me... as bad as it in for most american sports, and as much as we talk about dynasties and what not, I can't think of another sport where at the beginning of each season it's pretty much understood and 1st, 2nd 3rd and 4th place are locked up and everybody else is fighting for the UEFA cup spots or the Carling cup trophy (and fulham is trying not to get relegated).

So I guess the question is this - do you guys over in the UK feel the same way? Is it impressive that these top 4 teams stay on top? Are people excited about other teams breaking in? Do you all want to see Man U drop to 5th the same way baseball fans want to see the yankees miss the playoffs?

Again, it's probably an old topic but indulge a new football fan if you will.

- Tom "Boondock Saints" Lorusso
(aka: Imperialist American Sitting Atop the Table)

League table 29th September

I hate to blog-block excellent posts by CT and Tom (see below), but I'm duty bound to update you all with the league table. I'm not duty bound to point out again that the Miracle of Istanbul continues its inexorable rise up the table, but I'm going to do it anyway, so: Hey! Did you notice that my team, the Miracle of Istanbul, has continued its INEXORABLE RISE up the table? Good.

In case you're bored of football/debates

Reverse Imperialism?

I've been reading through the posts and I love all the screenshots of the leaderboard, mostly because I sit at the top. So the question for todays post is... how does it feel to have an American invade your league and take over? I first thought of this as "reverse imperialism" and then realized that right now in the world, America invading things is just "imperialism". Either way, I'm excited to be in the leauge and I'm doing my best to stay at the top. So far my most serious competition can't even form sentences. And his son isn't doing too badly either.

My only other hope is that I didn't completely jinx everton by 1)publicly picking them to support and 2) getting all their players on my fantasy team. In my NFL leagues, I'm well known for directly causing people to get injured. If you look up jeremy shockey, you'll see he's out for a few weeks or even months. With some further research you'll also see it wasn't a practice or a bad hit or a car accident that took him out - it was me trading a young WR for him in my fantasy league. At the moment, Tim Howard is "leaking goals" (great UK soccer term) at an alarming rate. Now that i dropped him from the team, he'll probably post shut outs for the rest of the year. Rich, I'm happy to pick up players on Liverpool or Man U for a small fee.

Best of luck to everybody this week! And be on the look out for the MLS fantasy league invite next year when the Seattle Sounders kick off their initial season.

- Tom "the boondock saints" lorusso

Lest you think my talent is confined to one code...

Subtitle: A Very Large Boast That Would Have Been Better If You Had Checked The Standings on Sunday Morning and Seen ME In Third Place.

In my in-box this morning:
Hi The Stubbies,
Time for Round 9 . The latest Round of the Air New Zealand Cup and AA Rewards Heartland Championship gave us 13 exciting matches and another great Round of Virtual Rugby.
Out of more than 88 thousand players, you're ranked number 1097 this week. Will you improve your rank next week? Make sure all your mates know in advance.

Al, please let Joe know that I'm watching him and his J League. And he should be very afraid. Also, I don't want to hear excuses about Joe's inability to read or his lack of mastery of 'fine motor control', I'm personally disappointed that he's not taking this fantasy league seriously. He should be posting.

We're here!

Hi guys! Just wanted to let you know that Joe and I are reading the blog. Thought you might start to feel like your trash talk was falling on deaf ears...

I've used all of my wit and good humour on Facebook for the week, so I'll just sign off by saying that I really like that Onion article.

League table 22nd September

Current standings

Here's the league as of this morning (Sep 20).


Here's a friendly warning to those currently atop the table: The Miracle of Istanbul is about to kick ass. Your ass. I've just transferred out the dead wood in my team -- the cloggers, broken-legged, and semi-retired who were holding me back for the last couple of weeks -- and my team is ready for business.

The Boot Room gets political.

May your fantasy picks be as thoroughly considered as John McCain's ...

It's not just football ...

To distract us from England's rubbish football team, here's some stuff:
Number One: A funny Onion article.
Number Two: A funny human beatbox. Who doesn't love human beatboxes???
Hey, and don't forget that there are some Premier league games this weekend, so if you were planning to make transfers ...

Vote early, vote often.

Hey look, it's a poll! Just over there -------------------------------->
It's not very interesting, but it's a start. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Ha ha! Mid table domination is mine

After a few tactical maneuvers mid-week (transferring out at least a few of the players who still hadn't managed to score any points (Aside: don't you think the league is giving them away this year? Discuss for 10 marks)). Suffice to say, it appears that mid-table domination is safely mine. Watch out Joe Belfield, the gloves are off!

Videos of the day!

In case you haven't seen this fantastic interview with Steve the Clown, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Astonishing stuff!



Meanwhile, here's a nice compilation from today's Guardian website:



Enjoy!

Welcome to The Boot Room!

More to the point, welcome to the painstakingly renovated Boot Room blog, home of the PREDICTIONS CUP (TM).

It's here on the blog that the real work gets done. You see, anyone can click on a fantasy football website to choose players that will collect more points each week than I can even dream of. But it takes a real man (or lady) to make snide comments about those successful people on a quiet, rarely visited blog. I'm that kind of man (or lady), and I know that many others in our league are too. So let's get started!!!

A particularly warm welcome to the new players this season. For the new folk, please feel free to introduce yourselves here. To kick things off, here's a brief guide to some of the league's veteran players:

Name: CT
Hometown: Oxford via Wellington, NZ
Characteristics: A plucky little fighter, CT had a rough season last time out. But she's fully rested and has ambitious plans to take her Stubbies to the very top!
Typical blog post: YouTube clips unrelated to football

Name: Geoff Goodwin
Hometown: Philadelphia PA via Brisbane
Characteristics: Last year's winner, Guus Bumps is making a triumphant return, but many astute observers believe that this year's campaign may be fatally undermined by complacency.
Typical blog post: Losing PREDICTIONs

Name: Simon Petrie a.k.a. Derin Town
Hometown: London
Characteristics: Actually a new player rather than a veteran, Simon is my soon-to-be-brother-in-law. Despite his hubris is naming his team after himself, and himself after his team, Petrie promises much in his debut season.
Typical blog post: ?

Name: Jason Riis
Hometown: Boston MA
Characteristics: Significantly taller than Geoff Goodwin, Riis took a break last season while he had better things to do (in New York???). But now he's moved to a small town in upstate New England, and he's remembered who his friends are!!
Typical blog post: I'm just expecting lots of 'em, now he has all this time on his hands.

Right, that's it for now -- it's my bedtime. I'll continue with the introductions shortly, unless I'm beaten to the punch. Looking forward to the season!!!

Anyone still there?

Been a bit quiet around here lately. What's going on in the league these days?

The Onion says it best ...

The classic Onion headline read "Holy Fucking Shit", and never has that phrase been more appropriate. With Aston Villa up 4-1 with 21 minutes to play, Spurs, and Alison, seemed dead and buried. But Spurs, it seems, have some cojones after all, and Alison has ... well, let's just say she has gumption.

The result, then, is that Doc is gone, once again, in the first round, while Alison moves on to the SEMIfinals of the world's greatest CUP competition!!! Here is the box score:

Here goes!

The phony war of words is over. Now it's time for ACTION. Here are this week's PREDICTIONs, courtesy of Doc Goodwin and Downers Grove's AMcD:
Birmingham v Man Utd, G: 0-1, A: 0-2
Chelsea v Fulham, G: 2-1, A: 1-1
Derby v Bolton, G: 1-1, A: 1-1
Man City v Newcastle, G: 2-1, A: 2-1
Portsmouth v Reading , G: 2-0, A:0-0
Sunderland v Blackburn,G: 0-0, A: 1-0
West Ham v Arsenal, G: 1-3, A: 2-2
Wigan v Liverpool, G: 0-2, A: 0-3
Everton v Middlesbrough, G: 1-0, A: 2-0
Tottenham v Aston Villa, G: 0-2, A: 2-2

Amazingly, neither of them predicted the 7-4 result from Fratton Park yesterday. Perhaps even more amazingly, and certainly even more EXCITINGLY, this round will be decided by Monday's game between Spurs and Villa. Hang on to your hats, cos this PREDICTION CUP is about to blow!!!

No WAY Jose

It appears that the blog is LANGUISHING due to lack of enthusiasm of the BOOTROOM stalwarts. I would like to table the motion that we, as a group, pay more attention to the bootroom, and in particular the PREDICTION cup, which did, in fact, fail to kick off this week due to a lack of challengers. I for one would like to step up and challenge Geoff this week to a prediction CLASH OF THE TITANS this week.

All those in favour of the motion?!

PREDICTION CUP -- PREDICTION EXPLOSION!!!

You've signaled your PREDICTION readiness on the poll. But are you all mouse clicks and no PREDICTIONS? It's time to stand up and be counted.

There are 8 of us this year, a nice round number for a knockout -- in every sense of the word -- competition. (Yes, that's right, you're already in the quarterfinals.) So who's up for some early-doors, first-round action??? Who'll be fighting it out on opening weekend? Post here to sign up, then send me email with you predictions for the following games:
Birmingham v Bolton
Chelsea v Blackburn
Everton v Man Utd
Portsmouth v Liverpool
Sunderland v Reading
Tottenham v Arsenal
West Ham v Middlesbrough
Wigan v Fulham
Man City v Aston Villa
Derby v Newcastle

PREDICTION EXPLOSION!!!