Only Time Will Tell

From Baby Faced Assassin to title winning manager

2012-05-26T15:51:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been rumored to make a return to England to manage Aston Villa but that appears to have fallen apart. In one year in his native Norway Solskjaer has brought his home town team a title and become one Fergie's fledgling. Of all of Fergie's former players Ole might have the brightest future as a manger and could one day find himself in the Old Trafford hot seat.

Eden Hazard = Lebron James

2012-05-22T07:43:00.001-05:00

For the last couple of week Eden Hazard has keep the soccer world waiting. Everyone wants to know where he is going to be playing next season, is it going to be Manchester City, Manchester United or Chelsea. Hazard has drug this out over the last couple of weeks and there seems to be no end in sight. Hazard is turning into Lebron of soccer world, all that is missing is the "Decision Special."

EURO 2012 Here We Come

2012-05-20T07:56:00.000-05:00

With the European Club season ending, its time for soccer fans to shift their attention to Euro 2102. Here are some of the great promos that are running around the world.

Nike's "My Time is Now" ad

ITV (England) has a great ad campaign asking people to dream

ESPN's promo for Euro 2012

Random promo I found on YouTube and its great

Another great promo I found on YouTube, this one takes a look at some of the tournaments great moments

Keep Calm, Win Titles

2012-05-17T10:07:00.000-05:00

As the soccer worlds celebrates the new kings of Manchester, just remember this is not the first time that people have questions the future of Manchester United.

When Sir Alex took over in 1986, he said that the club would surpass Liverpool when it came to league titles. People laughed at him and people said it would never be done, fast forward to today and Sir Alex has seen off Liverpool.

Next up people said that Arsenal was passing Sir Alex by after the Invincibles in 2003-2004, that was not the case, Sir Alex saw off their challenge and pushed them aside.

Fast foward to 2003 and people said Fergie and United could not compete with The Special One and Roman's billions at Chelsea. After a couple of years, Sir Alex saw off that challenge and chased a number of managers out of the Premier League.

Today its Manchester City and their billions. Sure Sunday hurt, but lets be honest this United team was not classic and we came with 90 seconds of a title. Just remember Sir Alex has taken on all comers and he is usually the last one standing, which is exactly what is going to happen.

Cover Story: A Blue Moon Kind of Feeling

2012-05-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

As a Manchester United fan yesterday was tough, I thought we had the title in our hands, but in the end Manchester City took it with the last kick of the season. Congrats to the Citizens on their title and I look forward to wars of the next decade. Here are some of the outstanding front pages from around England detail the drama of the seasons final day.

Shearer hanging with the Amish

2012-04-12T08:11:00.000-05:00

While visiting the Strasburg Rail Road on Tuesday I noticed something that I did not expect to see in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. There was a guy wearing an old school Newcastle United Alan Shearer jersey complete with Barclaycard Premier League patch, yes Barclaycard. Good to see a Gordie fan hanging out with Amish.

Money does not equal trophies

2012-04-09T15:40:00.000-05:00

For three high profile clubs around Europe, having a ton of money does not mean success or trophies. The Independent takes a looking at what happen. Money does not equal happiness for Manchester City, PSG, Malaga.

Great football tattoos

2012-04-06T07:21:00.000-05:00

Here is a list of footballers who love the ink. Raul Meireles joins Daniel Agger, Djibril Cisse and co in tattoo hall.

Fun Atmosphere, Terrible Football

2012-03-27T20:25:00.002-05:00

On Sunday, I decided to watch the Old Firm Derby on Fox Soccer. I wanted to take the in the passion of the game. Sure the passion and atmosphere were fantastic but one that was lacking was quality of play.

The quality of play might have been equal to a Major League Soccer game. Terribly weighted passes, terrible shots and not to mention terrible miss timed challenges. Nothing says a quality soccer match like three red cards.

The highlight of the match was the call by the announcer when Sone Aluko scored for Rangers earlier in the first half, "A goal for Aluko, A goal for the fans, A goal for the cause.'' Perfectly said.

I understand the history of the two clubs but if you changed the names of the clubs people would be complaining about how terrible a match it was and not praising it for the terrific atmosphere.

These kids are valuable

2012-03-23T13:17:00.001-05:00

An interesting list of the 30 best young players in the world of soccer, put together by Futebol Finance. Very interesting to see the value of some of the players.

Same type of Culture LFC & PSU

2012-02-15T21:31:00.000-05:00

During the last couple of months, the culture at Penn State has been questioned. The Penn State culture is very simple. They are a tight knit community where everyone is from there and outsiders are usually not brought in. In that culture things are kept quite and they try not to let it out. For years, incidents at Penn State where handled in house and anyone who suggested they were handling things wrong were shunned.

Across the pond, there is a similar culture at Liverpool Football Club and that showed this weekend when manager Kenny Dalgish stood up for Luis Suarez not shaking Patrice Evra's hand before the United Liverpool game. During the course of the last two months, Suarez and Dalgish have been fighting with everyone over racism claims against Suarez.

Liverpool is a lot like Penn State, people in the club believe they know what is right for everything and how dare you question them. I'm not comparing the Suarez racism mess to the PSU Jerry Sandusky sex abuse allegations, but rather how they handled things. Anything that happens involving Liverpool is always someone else's fault, they also think that they can handle everything their way and sometimes it blows up in their face, like their handling of the situation this weekend.

Lets hope the Suarez situations makes Liverpool Football Club look in the mirror and re-examine the culture of the club and what they stand for.

Look out when Aaron Ramsey scores

2012-02-13T21:36:00.000-05:00

Aaron Ramsey is in the process of being a good player at Arsenal. Over the last couple of years he has scored some important goals. But some are questioning the timing of his goals. Ramsey in goal link to Whitney death, according to The Sun. Every time he scores a world renounced personality dies.

A bad day for Chelsea all around

2012-02-05T14:05:00.001-05:00

If you think throwing away a three goal lead is a bad day at the office, it got worst for Chelsea Sunday morning. Chelsea spelled their own website URL wrong, on their advertising boards during their game against Manchester United, according to 101 Great Goals. Now that is a bad day at the office and it only happened with a billion people watching.

Fox will continue to grow the game

2012-02-02T13:05:00.001-05:00

In September, I wrote how Fox Sports choice to show Barclay's Premier League games on tape delay was a brilliant idea. Two weekends ago, Fox took it the next level by showing Manchester United vs. Arsenal live as a lead into the NFL Conference Championship Games. Sure the rating where not great. According to ESPN, the match was seen by 1.3 million views.

This week Fox is at it again as they show Manchester United vs. Chelsea on Super Bowl Sunday at 11 a.m. I personally expect the numbers to increase and this to be more of a rating success. I would not be surprised if there was a couple of more Premier League games show on Fox before the end of the year.

Fox has to stay committed to showing top flight soccer over the next couple of years. In October, Fox won the English-language U.S. television rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, outbidding incumbent ESPN and NBC for soccer's showpiece tournament. Fox agreed to pay around $425 million for the two-tournament package, a person familiar with the bidding told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the figure was not made public. It also secured English-language radio rights. If they are going to make these tournaments work they are going to have to continue to show soccer to gain the respect of fans.

Fox should have learned a lesson from doing the BCS Bowl games a couple of years ago. During that time, Fox just did the bowl games and did not do any regular season games. During the BCS games Fox had people who had no real college experience doing the games and it made for a terrible TV product. They have to stay connected to soccer before these events to ensure fans that they are committed to doing things right.

Nothing beats dancing with a Mascot

2012-01-30T21:26:00.000-05:00

Nothing beats knocking a Premier League side out of the FA Cup when you are a lower league side. Brighton did that by knocking out Newcastle 1-0 over the weekend. The fun of the Cup was shown by Brighton's Adam El-Abd as he dances with an FA Cup mascot after the win. This is my favorite moment of the weekend.

Super Sunday EPL Style

2012-01-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

Super Sunday EPL Style

The defining Sunday of the Season

2012-01-19T21:37:00.000-05:00

Fox Soccer has been promoting this Sunday Premier League games as "Epic Sunday,'' for once this is not over hype. The doubleheader of Manchester City vs. Spurs and Manchester United vs. Arsenal will go a long way toward telling us who will be lifting the trophy in May.

A City win in the early game and a Arsenal win in the late game could all but end the title race. If that happens, City would have a 6 point lead over United and an 8 point lead of Spurs. If Spurs and United both win the title race could still have a long way to go, then United would be level with City on points and Spurs would be two points back of the top two.

I can't remember a day of games that has the potential to impact the Premier League title race like this one can. This is shaping up to be a classic day. At the end of the season, we will look back on Jan. 22 as either the day the title race ended or the day it was blown wide open.

President Cantona has a nice ring to it

2012-01-09T22:09:00.001-05:00

Wow this could be epic. Eric Cantona wants to be French president. Could you imagine him meeting with Obama, we need this to happen.

Start Spending Like Crazy

2012-01-01T09:01:00.002-05:00

A list put together by BBC Sport on the top 50 players from around the world that could be on the move during the month ahead.

OTWT Starting 11 for 2011

2011-12-31T09:27:00.000-05:00

Everyone is doing it, so I thought we would too. Here is the OTWT starting 11 for 2011

Goalkeeper: Joe Hart, Manchester City
Left Back: Ashley Cole, Chelsea
Center back: Vincent Kompany, Manchester City
Center back: Nemanja Vidic, Manchester United
Right Back: Gregory van der Wiel, Ajax
Left side: Eden Hazard, Lille
Central Midfielder: Javier Mascherano, Barcelona
Central Midfielder: Xavi, Barcelona
Right side:Mario Goetze, Borussia Dortmund
Striker: Ronaldo, Real Madrid
Striker: Lionel Messi, Barcelona

I know everyone does not agree with my starting 11, so let the trashing begin.

A year in Tailgating: Video Edition

2011-12-26T15:17:00.000-05:00

Its been a long year for the OTWT Tailgating crew. There have been trips to Buffalo to see the Eagles, to Harrisburg for a minor league baseball game and to Washington DC to see Manchester United. Here are some of my favorite videos from our 25 events that we attended.

Nats super prospect Bryce Harper comes to Lakewood
Manchester United take the field in Washington DC vs Barcelona

Rutgers Eric LeGrand leads his team out before the West Virginia game
Philly fans turn on Andy Reid during the Eagles Patriots game

Merry Christmas from Only Time Will Tell

2011-12-25T05:27:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to all from our family at Only Time Will Tell.

Andy Carroll makes money for doing nothing

2011-12-15T09:00:00.001-05:00

Last January Liverpool paid 35 million pounds to Newcastle for striker Andy Carroll and 13 starts later that its not looking like the greatest purchase ever. Despite his struggles Carroll is set pocket £150k bonus from Liverpool, according to the Daily Mail. Not bad for a guy who has only scored four times for the reds.

Its so bad that Bieber is going replace Torres at Chelsea

2011-12-13T08:46:00.001-05:00

If life at Chelsea can not get any worst for Fernando Torres at Chelsea, now the blues are looking a signing a replacement him, Justin Bieber. Bieber trained at Chelsea with Frank Lampard and Fernando Torres and some people said he does not miss sitters like Torres does.

Mover over West Ham: Southampton Academy is now on top

2011-11-13T14:32:00.001-05:00

For years West Ham United was considered to have the best academy in England but that appears to be changing. Southampton is looking to change that. After Walcott, Bale and Oxlade-Chamberlain, Southampton are aiming to create a new golden generation for Enlgand: