A two-goal lead is the most dangerous score in soccer.

Don't ask me why, but this has been the prevailing wisdom among coaches since before I started playing futbol all the way back in 1978. Apparently, teams tend to mentally relax and give up soft goals, and it happens often enough that the idea keeps kicking around (yes, pun intended). DC United did a good job of proving this nugget of wisdom this evening in the second game of their home-and-home series against Universidad Católica in the Copa Sudamericana, South America's club tournament. United is the first MLS team ever to participate (but not the first North American team; Mexican League teams have been involved before). United and Catolica tied 1-1 in the first match in DC, and because these series are decided by aggregate scoring, a win tonight would have put DC through to the next round. If they tied, the score needed to be at least 1-1, because goals scored away from home are the first tiebreaker. After 20 minutes of rather shaky soccer, United got off to a dream start, with Christian Gomez (above) scoring two quick goals to give them what seemed to be a comfortable margin. But Catolica pulled one goal back before halftime, and DC spent the entire 2nd half fighting against an erratic referee, hard fouls, injuries, cramps, and a general lack of defensive shape before finally surrendering two late goals that ended their run in the tournament. I'm not making excuses for them, because they deserved to lose this game. The players are probably relieved, because these matches happen to fall right during the MLS playoff push, so the timing couldn't have been much worse. But no matter what the situation, watching the Black and Red give up a lead like that is always painful, especially in a game where they had something to prove.

I bought some new music from the iTunes store tonight, and in both cases donated to charity at the same time. All the proceeds from Coldplay's Fix You EP are being donated to Hurricane Katrina relief funds, and Help: A Day in the Life supports the War Child charity, which works towards improving conditions for children in war-ravaged countries. It's great collections of songs from some of my favorite British artists. Radiohead, Coldplay, Keane, Elbow, Bloc Party, and the Magic Numbers are just a few of the contributors.

Getting Lost again

Damn, that's good television. Clearly, the writers of Lost heard the viewers clamoring for answers, because tonight's season premiere tackled a big one. But by finally showing us what's inside the hatch, they managed to give us several new mysteries and simultaneously set up up the path that Season Two will travel. And that is why this show is genius.

I haven't been much of a TV watcher for the past few years, but after a few years of reality-crap overload, this season seems to be full of interesting (and fully-scripted) programming. Mondays are shaping up to be a busy viewing night. I'm already addicted to Arrested Development, and both Kitchen Confidential and How I Met Your Mother showed some promise. Tuesdays have My Name Is Earl, and most likely Scrubs when it returns mid-season. Lost rules Wednesday, and after taking most of last season off, on Thursday nights I'm going to give Smallville a try again this year, since I hear Clark finally begins to embrace his powers and act like Superman. I'm beginning to appreciate my DVR more and more, since I can set it to record every episode of these shows and watch them on my schedule (damn, could I sound any more like a frickin' commercial?), even if I suddenly decide to have a life and leave the apartment once in a while.

Financial security

Very interesting article from Money magazine about the financial struggles of an MLS player, in this case Real Salt Lake's Andy Williams. Talk about being up, down, and all over the map. In most cases, players don't move around the way Williams has, but it's interesting to see the other side of collective bargaining agreements and incentive-based contracts. Link from Grant Wahl at si.com.

Caught the premiere of My Name is Earl tonight. Interesting idea. My initial thought is that the show is trying a little too hard, and it needs some time to catch its stride, but it's got promise. Jason Lee is the man. And tomorrow night, new Lost. Clear the decks! I am not accepting phone calls.

Dammit, Jim! He's a ham, not an actor!

Let me begin by saying that despite my all my nerdly glory, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Star Trek fan. Sure, I appreciated Wrath of Khan, and I admit to having watched a season’s worth of Next Generation episodes. I can even throw out the occasional pop culture reference when I need a subject line (although I should credit my friend Tony for this one). But mostly, I find the show and all its consecutive movies and spinoffs to be overwrought and campy.

That said, there’s something about William Shatner that I find to be completely awesome. Overwrought and campy describes him perfectly, but in him, I don’t find it offensive. Instead, I find it endearing, mainly because he has such a great sense of humor about himself. He knows better than anyone that he’s coasting on the strength of an almost 40-year-old series, and he embraces his past with open arms. So when I read the list of Emmy winners this morning and saw that Bill had won a Best Supporting Actor statue for his work on Boston Legal, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of satisfaction for the man. Somewhere out there, Trekkies are firing off their phasers in celebratory fashion. Hopefully, they’ve got them set to stun.

I see famous people

OK, B- and C-listers. But they're more famous than you.

Maybe during all the football this weekend, you saw a commercial for ESPN Classic’s new show, Classic Now? Well, I did, and imagine my surprise when I saw that the host, Josh Elliott, is a former co-worker of mine. Nice guy. Just a bit surprising to see him in between beer commericals on ESPN. Strangely enough, when we worked together we were asked several times if we were brothers. Not that I know of, but if we are remotely related, I guess Josh came from the good-looking side of the family. I'm sure as hell not gonna be hosting a TV show anytime soon.

Todd was in Atlanta this weekend and stayed in the same hotel as the Hulkster, who had cameras in tow for his reality show. Dude’s still got some guns.

I actually spent some time yesterday laying (lying? I can't keep that straight) on the grass and watching the clouds. I haven't done that in years. None of them looked anything like famous people.

Batting .500

My trip through the filmography of Terry Gilliam is getting off to a bit of a rough start. I started out with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which was as funny as I remembered, and set the bar rather high for the next movie, Jabberwocky, which I found to be thoroughly unwatchable. I lasted for about 45 minutes, determined to give it a try, but despite Michael Palin’s youthful enthusiasm, the film just couldn’t keep my attention. My only consolation is that I’m very likely not the first person to give up on this film before the end. I hope Time Bandits is able to hold my attention better than the last time I saw it. Otherwise, my Netflix queue is about to get a lot shorter.

Weatherwise, today was the first day of fall here. Cool, grey, and sort of rainy, and it smelled like the seasons are turning. That is, if your nose could get past the smells of rotten garbage and burning rubber that fill downtown Indy from time to time. Anyway, I celebrated autumn’s arrival by shopping at the grand opening of Indy’s first H&M. Needless to say, the arrival of the IKEA of clothing stores drew a large crowd of young women and gay men, but there were a few fellow straight guys browsing alongside me. The men’s section was somewhat smaller than I was hoping, but I still managed to find 1 or 2 (or 6) things to buy. The fact that it’s a block from work doesn’t bode well for my credit card balance.

Mystery Man

As Major League Soccer continues its growth in this, its 10th season, one way I tend to track its progress is through the media coverage. In cities with MLS teams, coverage in the sports page for the home team (and soccer in general) is usually pretty good. Take a look at the paper in a non-MLS city though, and you’re usually lucky to find a standings table on the next-to-last page below the local high school scores. So as an American soccer fan so often does, I turn to the internet to get my fix. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the offical site for MLS are my main sources. Marc Connolly, Grant Wahl, and Jeff Bradley generally provide the bulk of the writing, offering insightful columns and interviews. But the stable of knowledgeable writers is beginning to grow. Ives Galarcep, Jeff Carlisle, Frank Dell'Apa, Jen Chang, Michael Lewis, Jamie Trecker and Robert Wagman also tackle MLS and US Soccer from time to time with varying degrees of quality and criticism. But the sign that the coverage is starting to mature is that there are now humorous columns that bring you MLS news with equal parts smack talk, sarcasm, and self-deprecating humor. Former MLS player Greg Lalas is beginning to find his voice, but much like ESPN.com’s Sports Guy column on Page 2, MLSNet has The Clean Sheet, written by a guy who calls himself Tino Palace. This is most definitely a pseudonym (if you look at his photo on MLSNet, you'll see he’s taken pains to disguise himself), and rumors of his true identity range from Drew Carey (celeb soccer fan) to Jim Rome (card-carrying soccer-basher) to Don Garber (MLS Commissioner). Whoever he is, the man can write. Granted, you’ll need a fair amount of soccer and pop culture knowledge to understand his jokes, but I take it as a good sign that a column like this can find a following. It speaks well for the development of MLS and soccer fandom in this country.

And then there's Heather Mitts. She may have a long way to go as a writer, but after looking at the faces of all these balding, paunchy sportswriters, she gives one heck of a headshot.

Sick day

Thanks to a long doctor appointment involving a lot of drawn blood, I’m convalescing in my freshly painted apartment today. It looks pretty weird in here with all the furniture dragged into the middle of the room, but the splash of color has done a world of good to my humble abode.

The day off has also given me a chance to get caught up on some reading. I finally finished Robert Sobel’s terrific exercise in alternate history, For Want of a Nail. It was an easy and interesting read, and I would have finished it much faster had I stayed in town the past two weekends. Sobel begins at the Revolutionary War and imagines the future of North America had the British won the battle of Saratoga, and not lost as they did in real life. The book gets off to an interesting start as most of the Founding Fathers are taken to Britain and executed for treason, so the destiny of our continent is in the hands of an entirely different group of men. Taking a different tack from a lot of alternate history that I’ve read, Sobel wrote his book almost like a history textbook, following political and economic development more than individual lives. It’s a great study of what we might have been had one American general hesitated rather than acting.

Once I was done with that book, I started E.L. Doctorow's City of God, and have finished about two-thirds of it already. It’s a little less linear than most of what I’ve been reading lately, so I’ve really had to pay attention, but I’m enjoying it. The basic story involves a cross stolen from the top of a Catholic Church in New York that reappears on the roof of a synagogue, but along the way, most of the characters grapple with faith and their personal image of God.

And to keep with the theme, here’s a bit of one of my favorite Fountains of Wayne songs, appropriately titled “Sick Day’.

Claudio Reyna is the most important player in the English Premier League

That's right, all you Euro soccer snobs, an American. And here's the proof. Thanks to Todd for the link.

UPDATE: Apparently they update this list weekly, and Claudio's fallen all the way to 4th. So he's still really important, just not the most important player this week.

Fashionably late

Well, since some f'ing stupid boring-ass baseball game is more important to espn2 than the US-Guatemala World Cup Qualifier, I have some free time to talk about this new band I've discovered. They're called Death Cab for Cutie. They've got this fantastic new CD, Plans, that's really been flying under the radar. I don't think anybody's heard of them... what's that? Major label debut? Five previous full-length albums? On the cover of every major music magazine? Oh. Well, never mind then.

Anyway, consider me firmly ensconced on the DCFC bandwagon. I've always loved Ben Gibbard's side project, The Postal Service, ever since I first heard "The District Sleeps Tonight" back in '03, but I had never really paid much attention to his day job other than the few songs I'd heard here and there. Well, thanks to a fortuitous Target gift card, I decided to take a chance on Plans tonight, and I'm glad I did. I have no frame of reference since I've never listened to any other Death Cab albums, so I can't speak to how this new one compares. But if Plans is any indication of how good Death Cab is, I'll be adding their back catalog to my collection shortly.

MP3s:
"I Will Follow You Into the Dark"
and
"Marching Bands of Manhattan"
from Plans.