Saturday, December 16, 2006

Corners Kicks: a look around Europe Dec. 16


EPL

Italy



Friday, December 15, 2006

Hey that English league is that not bad

One look at the Champions League draw, that was done on Friday morning, and you see a growing trend. It’s only a matter of time before clubs in the English Premier League rule Europe. Over the course of the last couple of years foreign investors like the oil man at Chelski and the Glazers at the United have brought more money in the league and allowed these already powerful clubs to spend a ton of money on the world's top players. This is shown in the Champions league where all four of the teams that were the league won the group. All four of the teams that made it through the last 16 of the event could go on to Athens and lift the oversized trophy. Look at the other teams leagues that sent two or more teams through the knock out phase: Italy, Spain, and France. All of expect Barca and Lyon are teams that you fear.

To see how dominating the league has become look at the different rankings of club teams on the Internet, some have two English clubs in the top four, while other have three in the top nine.

The success in Europe is a far cry from the late 80s when there was no EPL and the English teams were banned from Europe following the Heysel Disaster and hooliganism was growing out of control. Following the creation of the EPL, clubs in the premier league where swimming in money from TV deals and sponsorship deals. According to reports, the EPL is most lucrative soccer league in the world. This is one of the reasons that EPL teams are going to rule Europe for the next decade.

Things you may have missed, while waiting for AI to get a new home

Soccer

College Football

NBA

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Its a bird its a plane its D-Mat

Over the course of the last couple of days, Daisuke Matsuzaka has held up in California with everyone friend and super agent Scott Boras. At one point Boras said that he would not allow Matsuzaka to leave the left coast until a deal with the Boston Red Sox was done.
Then around 11:35 a.m. Dec. 13 the fun started on the Associated Press wire, Red Sox officials leave California, no idea if Matsuzaka is on the plane, two seconds later a wire update comes along that states that he was on the plane bound for Boston.

All day reports kept coming in; he is now over Kansas, Oklahoma, it was like tracking Payne Stewarts plane about a decade ago. Red Sox fans around the country were glued to the Internet watching the plane cross the country.
At one time you thought that OJ was traveling to Boston in a white bronco with Al Cowlings in the back with a D-Mat wearing a hoody and the world was watching.
For weeks Boras has been talking about how, D-Mat should be treated like a free agent. But there is one small problem with that, he never was. Under the current posting system that is in place, any Japanese’s player that wants to come over, that is under contract goes up for bid with the largest bidder getting the right to talk about a contract with the player and if that does not happen with in the 25 days then the team does not receive the bid and the player goes back to the Japanese team. For Boras to this was never about D-Mat and getting him the best deal, this was always about the him trying the break the current system that exist between Major League Baseball and Japanese Baseball. If this happens, it would open the door for Boras to head into Japan and bring out as many players that he wants.

Things you may have missed, while watching Marvin Williams make his first NBA poster

NBA

Soccer

College Football

NFL

Tuesday, December 12, 2006