High School is upon us

Since everyone that writes or has written on this blog has gotten out of high school as of now. I look back at High School soccer. I think of HS soccer today because tomorrow I take the field once again, as my name would say the ref. The players on the field could be only a year younger than myself. While some find this as a setback I am willing to embrace it. Its like that parent that trys to be too hip or something, at least that was my idea when a referee would try to drop a line from the latest rap song in his pre-game instructions. The thing about it is that he would only think that it was the latest rap song yet it would have come out 3 months ago. I like talking to the players and reasoning with them. No matter what happens I know that I am right in the end, I have the final say. And for the most part there arent 37 different camera angles and wire-reporters at the game waiting to pounce on my mistakes, that is if I make any. I am looking forward to this upcoming fall season, and sharing it with all 2 common readers of this blog...

The Diving Team has a new member

    I can honestly say I used to be a fan.  Even though he was on the opposing team and seemed to crush my beloved Chelsea, in any game that had a peice of hardware on the line, I did not care.  He is a good player and can crush a ball from 40 yards out.  His goal in last year's FA Cup final to put it into extra-time was unbelievable.  But I think that was the last honest moment in his body.
    Since then Stephen Gerrard has sunk down to the lowest levels.  In the run up to the World Cup he was shown to have dove at the slightest touch to win England a Penalty.  He then dove in the World Cup adding his name to the list with C. Ronaldo, who has been on the list for a while, or the rest of the Portugese team.  But Now he has brought it to the EPL.  Liverpool down one-nil against new-boys Sheffield United were lucky to come away with a point after Stevie G. fell to the ground in the penalty area.
    Now this is not a complaint against the referee, or any referee, cause who can really keep up that quickly with the ball that is played from behind midfield up to lightening fast player.  The center referee sees Gerrard lifts his leg as if he is clipped and assumes it is so, cause hey its Stevie G and he dont dive.  The assistant referee is on the side the player slide in from, so the back of the defender is what the AR is seeing.
    But in the end this is what we get.  A world class player sinking to new lows.  We can only hope that at the end of the year we see him on his ass:

Gameweek 1 - The English League

With the new season upon us and the champions, Chelsea, having a record 220 million pound payroll. Who will fight and scrap for those precious points? Who will be the surprise teams? Will the newly promoted be able to escape the drop? Will Graham Poll give more than 3 yellow cards to a single player?
The questions will be answered starting in the morning, with THE CHANNEL (TC) showing: Magpies v Wigan, Bolton v THFC, and Reading v Boro (tape delay). Side note, The Ref will be calling Fox Soccer Channel by the name of The Channel or TC for short, thus no reference will be made to the Fox Network from this point on by The Ref, thank you. So Paul Jewell will take on the no-longer-interim Roeder. We have a look at a team trying to crack into the top 4 with THFC. And we get to see two Americans start the journey of keeping a team in the top Flight with Reading (Convey and Hahnemann).
Chelsea start their title defense for the 2nd year running against Man City. The new signing, Ballack, is in doubt do to hip injury. Joe Cole is out as well, along with Makalele, Geremi, Cech, and Huth. So the payroll might be worth it for the month of August and hopefully the fitness talked about in the two blogs below will have been pushed into the back of the mind as an after-thought.

So now I must force myself to sleep with only 8 hours and 20 minutes til the first kickoff of the 06/07 season.

My rebuttle (rebuttal):

to meanbald guy below:
Liverpool's first game was on July 15th, only 6 days after the world cup final. With their first team starters reporting and ready for action on August 1st. Liverpool lost on August 1st 2-nil to Grasshopper Club Zurich. Not that big of a name. Their following game was against FSV Mainz which was a 5-nil loss. Their first competitive game against Haifa, which was due to take place in Israel but due to some chicken-@$$ rafa, the game was moved to a neutral, meaning pro-liverpool site. Haifa was up 1-nil before liverpool came back for the win. Hardly a great start but they did pull off the 2-1 win over my beloved Chelsea.
Chelsea's arguement: 3 games against 3 competitive teams of fit players. First against the very in form MLS Allstars, Chelsea had control of much of the game however the fitness of the MLS players in the end brought them the victory. A win against Feyenoord away and then a 1-1 draw with Celtic at home (Celtic had started their preseason in Mid-July as well in the USA against DC United).

So my thought process is such. I am not worried about the loss to Liverpool cause they are a team that has had more games however I am worried about Chelsea fitness. Yes Lamps had a poor world cup but once he gets one goal in the prem he will be back in form. Cudicini knows that goal was his fault and I am sure he is still pissed at himself about that but hey CECH is in goal. SWP wont start in place of Robben, and although you say he was poor in the CS he was unbelievable against the MLS all-stars. Sheva proved his worth with his goal, and hopefully Ballack will be fully fit for the season opener.

but hey atleast adidas makes chelsea look good, liverpool's collar is stupid.

chelsea looks unimpressive

after watching the community shield twice this week, i have come to two conclusions. one, liverpool looks very good. two, and my focus here, chelsea looks very questionable. yes, i know that it was an exhibition and yes, i know that ballack etc didnt play, but the point of this superteam is to have interchangeable parts and i don't see it. if cech goes down, cudicini certainly doesnt look like he can step in. if they don't get ashley cole, it's hard to see wayne bridge (what was he doing on the crouch goal?) getting it done. swp is a shell of the player he was at man city and kalou looks horrible. lampard's dreadful (to say the least- everyone criticizes becks but lampard was the most disapointing player on england- and maybe in the tournament- by far) world cup seeems like it is leaving a hangove on him at this point. without joe cole for who knows how long and with mourinho's bad haircut, it could be a long year for jordan gray, steven cohen and the rest of the chelsea mob.

what are you doing August 19th?

i will be on my couch watching the EPL. having post WC withdrawal. need it bad.