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My friends at VoucherCodes alerted me to a 1/2 price deal on tickets for the Fulham v. Burnley match at Craven Cottage on February 9th.  Looks like a winner.

£15 for an adult ticket and juniors under 16 get in for only £5.

It's about time.  Admittedly I am a fan of the game, but what better entertainment could you get for the money?

We use these kind of deals to pack the stadium here in San Jose, the crowd always seems to enjoy themselves immensely, and the team gets an advantage with more of their fans to cheer them on.  £20 to take your lad to a football match?  Here's hoping this catches on all over.  Packed stadiums make the heart sing.

Click on this link for the 1/2 price deal on tickets for the Fulham v. Burnley match at Craven Cottage on February 9th Get your order in by February 3rd to get the deal.  The seats are at the Putney End, best seats to the earliest fans to respond.

If someone can comp me a couple of plane tickets, we'll be there with you in the Putney End!

It's not too soon to start psyching up for the World Cup. This video should stoke your competitive fires - from the build up to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2003...

The look of the player on the pitch, a skilled & fiery workhorse, captures the fan's imagination, but what follows?

Few goals, lots of whining, a desire to quit.

If this was said about Carlos Tevez in relation to Manchester United you might take pause to consider if he was done wrong and has a grevience.  But now Tevez talks of retiring altogether.

The story seems too familiar.  Tevez lost favor with his coach for not scoring goals and is no longer in the starting line-up.  This time the team is Argentina and the coach is Maradona.

At only 24 years old, he can have no idea whether he has reached his peak, unless of course he has given up on improving.

All the greats encounter roadblocks.  It might even be said that finding one's way around a road block is what makes one great.

Perhaps young Tevez believes he knows all the possibilities.  Yet while his physical prowess may be near its peak, an open, thoughtful mind, learning from experience, could take him to new heights.  The starting 11 of great clubs throughout the world are full of players well past their physical peak who dominate by soccer wit.

If Tevez does retire, I will applaud him, but only briefly.

Carlos seems the bold and noble bull who, charging his way into dead end alleys, rams his head into the wall until he is spent and gives up.  It's a shame.

A coach & friend told me that, growing up, soccer was his church. I knew what he meant, though I suspect he might get in a bit of hot water repeating that to his priest.

Imagine, though, aside from a church, if you did not even have a home as is the case for too many people. There are one billion homeless people living in our world today.

The Homeless World Cup would like to end that sad state of affairs and help the homeless pull themselves up by their bootstraps using soccer as a catalyst.  They bring homeless soccer players together in an annual, international football tournament, the Homeless World Cup (HWC).

Eric Cantona, Didier Drogba, Rio Ferdinand, UEFA, Nike, UN, Manchester United, and Real Madrid are big supporters of the HWC, are you?  I am a big fan of this as well, and I will be sporting my awesome HWC t-shirt proudly around the pitch.  You should get one.

And you might want to know how your country did in the competition.

For the people involved this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their country and change their lives.

Grass roots football projects in over 60 nations leverage the soccer passion behind this program to help over 25,000 homeless and excluded people work to recover their lives.  73% of the players involved change their lives for the better by such postive change as coming off drugs and alcohol, moving into jobs, education, homes, training, reuniting with families and even going on to become players and coaches for pro or semi-pro football teams.

Good stuff!

Teams competing in Milan 2009 Homeless World Cup

Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Cambodia Canada Chile Costa Rica Croatia Czech Republic Denmark England Finland France Germany Ghana Greece Hong Kong Hungary India Ireland Italy Ivory Coast Japan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Lithuania Luxembourg Malawi Mexico Namibia Netherlands Nigeria Norway Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Scotland South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Ukraine USA Wales

As of today Wayne Rooney has 4 goals in 4 league games for his club  this season , and 10 goals for 9 games including cup play and international games.  That's a fantastic scoring rate which one would not expect Rooney to maintain, historically speaking.

Is this just a lucky run for Rooney, or is something very special going on?

If you have read the football pundits about Wayne Rooney in any of the last several years, it will have been hard to avoid glowing characterisations of his football.  His temper is acknowledged, but always with equal space given to his talent on the pitch.

Yet Rooney's stats, as a striker, have been something short of the very best.   Cristiano Ronaldo, for instance, scored more for Manchester United playing on the wing than Rooney did from his more opportune position dead in front of goal.  While Rooney's play always looks good and he does get goals, he was not a player on Real Madrid's short list.  Rooney is never top of the league scoring charts.

That's not to suggest Rooney has any shortage of talent or drive.  Wayne's touch, thunderous shot, vision and pace are remarkable, and his passion to win is palpable, even through the TV.

To be fair, over the last couple years Manchester United could win championships without Rooney showing world class form season long.  When you have an amazing player like Ronaldo coming to the rescue, with goals in abundance, it takes a little pressure off.  Now Manchester United are looking for those 40 or so goals they would have hoped to get from Cristiano.  Without someone stepping up to supply goals in quantity, the unthinkable will happen: United will be unable to win any silverware this season.

Yet there is more at stake than club, much more.

Much of England's hopes in the 2010 World Cup lie with the solid striker delivering in the biggest games he'll ever play.  He's gone missing in some other big games, like the UEFA Champions League finals, but for Capello's resurgent England side to deliver on their country's dreams, Rooney will have to play that larger than life role he looks made for.

History might not give you great odds on this happening, but great athletes make their mark by peaking at just the right time and for the right occasion, and surprising the world with their brilliance.

Will Rooney find the other worldly performance level required this year?

Wayne Rooney - Goals Per Game Start

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[caption id="attachment_1296" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Estadio Azteca, Mexico - Thin, smoggy air, and an intimidating venue for away teams"][/caption]

Soccer fans and pundits have analyzed the CONCACAF qualifying performances to near death, but have we all missed the point?

Of the eighteen Round 4 World Cup qualifying matches in CONCACAF (so far), how many matches have home teams lost?

Only 1

In fact, home teams have lost just once and drawn an additional 3 times. Fourteen of the eighteen matches have been won by the home team, whomever that team happened to be.

If that's the case, is your national team really better than the other national teams who have also won their home games? How superior is your play if you haven't won away?

Still given that 3 teams will qualify directly into the World Cup, and an additional team will have the opportunity to win a spot, it gives us insight on who will, and won't get knocked out.

But all it will take to change the order of things and upset your expectations is to lose at home.

Games where the home team didn't win

In this view of qualifying, the USA's shocking performance in El Salvador stands out as a high note (the US drew away).

[caption id="attachment_1295" align="alignright" width="300" caption="T&T Hasely Crawford Stadium is a fine place for visiting teams to play a match"][/caption]

Trinidad and Tobago, at the bottom of thte table, was part of the 3 other home advantage aberrations.  Perhaps T&T is a better team than their record, but doesn't have a strong home field advantage.   Hasely Crawford Stadium, at sea level and with steel drums playing in the background, is perhaps not the challenge for an away team that Estadio Azteca with it's thin air and huge hostile crowd is.

Trinidad & Tobago and the United States both drew El Salvador 2-2 in El Salvador.

Costa Rica, on the other hand, is the only team to win an away game, so far; and it was at T&T's expense.

As the standings were shaken up today, you might wonder if some of the nations fighting for a World Cup Qualifying spot in CONCACAF are taking things a bit too much for granted.  They shouldn't.

In today's 6th round of matches,  all the home teams won. Now only 3 points separate the top 4 teams.  The bottom two teams, for their part, are only 4 points from the 4th place spot.  All teams still have a solid hope of qualifying and no nation can be sure of qualifying for at least a couple more rounds.

Consider that table topping Costa Rica, who beat the US 3-1 at home, was just schooled by Honduras 4-0 away.  El Salvador previously drew the US 2-2 and table bottom Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) at home, but T&T beat El Salvador today 1-0 in the land of steel drums.

There is no clearly dominate team in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying so far; instead it seems the home field advantage is much the deciding factor.

Here are today's results

And here are the current standings

Any Lionel Messi fans out there?

Here's Messi juggling the ball atop the Space Needle today, more than 500 feet above Seattle.

[caption id="attachment_1251" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Lionel Messi, FC Barcleona, juggling atop the Seattle Space Needle - Click for full size picture - Courtesy: FCB/Sounders FC/SUM"][/caption]

FC Barcelona will face MLS’s Seattle Sounders in a sold-out match at Qwest Field Wednesday, August 5. FC Barcelona beat the LA Galaxy 2-1 in front of 93,000 fans at the Rose Bowl. That is the most fans to attend a soccer game in the US since the 1994 FIFA World Cup, but frankly, what venue would hold more fans?

When people say that the USA doesn't care about soccer, apparently that does not include FC Barcelona and Messi, who is arguably the best soccer player in the world.

FC Barcelona will face CD Guadalajara on Saturday, August 8 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco as part of a double header after the San Jose Earthquakes take on the Columbus Crew. It's unquestionably the soccer event of the season in Northern California.

Oh, I think the US does love soccer, though we try not to show it!