Steven Ireland?

So Man City isn't taking over the top 4, and Ireland might be replaced by some 20 million pound player they buy in january. But for now, he's tearing it up and helping to keep the Boondock Saints at the top. I think he had a goal and 2 assits in the drubbing of Hull City. Plus the stud of my team, Arteta, had a goal and a few assists too. Plus I've officially decided that Everton is the sister team to the Seattle Sounders FC, so Arteta's scoring could help get them near the top 4 (not in it of course, but near enough to keep me happy).

Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night.

- Tom

Merry Christmas!

Two little treats ... this one is football related and this one ain't.

League update -- 22nd December

I'm on your trail, Tom. I believe in miracles!!!

League update -- 15th December

As you were ...

League update -- 8th December

Relevant to Tom's post below ...

I was just about to add this when I saw Tom's post -- maybe a decision that'd be reversed on appeal?

Technology - friend or foe?

I've been hearing a lot of talk about adding a 4th official or an all seeing eye, especially to help with offsides calls. Personally, I think it's a good idea. If there's a big play that results in a goal, take 5 seconds to review it up on the booth. Not sure what to do if the ref stops the play but it should have been let go.

So what does everybody think? Just a few seconds to get the call right, or the next phase moving us closer to "Big brother"?

Discuss.

- Tom "Have I really led this leage from day 1" Lorusso

League update -- 2nd December

League update -- 24th November

That's more like it!

We've all scored goals like this one ...

League update -- 17th November

Gah! I continue my slide into mid-table obscurity, despite what I thought was a fool-proof strategy of sticking with a rag-tag army of injured and suspended players. Maybe it's time for a rethink ...

League update -- 10th November

Slipping down the table ... gah.

Very important election news...

Fox news at its best

League update -- 27th October

Sucker punched! While I was busy kicking a man while he was down, establishing an insurmountable 4-point lead over Guus Bumps, Dena's Corner Kicks have quietly surged past me into 3rd place. What an exciting league this is! (Except for Tom's continued dominance at the top.)

League update -- 20th October.

Too hot for Guus Bumps in the Boot Room!

Video of the day (new link)

From Scotland vs. Norway at the weekend -- what a miss!!!

Yes folks, it's time!

Time to put on your PREDICTing hat and roll up your PREDICTing sleeves, cos it's the PREDICTION CUP!!!

The rules are simple: Each week 2 players FACE OFF in a gladitorial PREDICTION gore-fest. Both make score PREDICTIONs for each premiership game that weekend. Points are scored for predicting the correct outcome (home win, away win, draw), with a bonus for spot-on score predictions. Points are lost for every wrongly predicted goal. Then, by some Excel miracle, a winner is declared, who moves onto the next round of PREDICTION GLORY!!!

Alright, so who wants a piece of tasty PREDICTION PIE???

Here are the games to PREDICT this week:

Arsenal v Everton
Aston Villa v Portsmouth
Bolton v Blackburn
Fulham v Sunderland
Liverpool v Wigan Athletic
Man Utd v West Brom
Middlesbrough v Chelsea
Hull v West Ham
Stoke City v Tottenham

When men were men and hairdressers were busy

The title of this article is worth posting alone. And it goes nicely with the post on crazy outfits from the other day.

http://blogs.reuters.com/soccer/2008/09/25/when-men-were-men-and-hairdressers-were-busy/

When men were men and hairdressers were busy
Post a comment (7)
Posted by: Kevin Fylan
Tags: Reuters Soccer Blog, Bundesliga, haircuts, mullets, Panini, stickers

This one is too good to miss: Bild newspaper in Germany takes an affectionate look at the best Panini Bundersliga stickers down the years, and they’ve even translated the page into English.

Friday afternoon fun

Sportswear we can all love

Numbers 14 and 17 are particularly worth a look.

As you were.

Liverpool / Man City

Wow. That was a game. Rich must have been through the roof. Man City goes up 2-0 and they come back with 3 goals? Who has Torres in our league? He had a couple of beauties. I dream about headers like that.

League update

Up to 4th. I'm not kidding around here. Watch out Guus Bumps, you're in my sights.

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!!!