Avoiding the Drop

I know most people hate the movie “Rudy” with a white-hot passion, but watching Blackpool win the Championship Playoff match yesterday, and celebrate like mad men running around Wembley, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a quote from Rudy:

“My job is to basically beat the shit out of you for the next 5 days, and whoever is still standing at the end, maybe we’ll use for our scout teams. You’ll be running the oppositions plays week in and week out. The greatest value to us is we don’t care whether you get hurt. Our first teams are going to pound on you like you’re their worst enemies. Like what you hear so far? Any of you wanna run home to momma? Now’s your chance”

What Blackpool has won is a lot of money, as referenced yesterday, and a chance to go play in some of the palaces around England.  Still, though, for a club of that size what happened yesterday is a truly remarkable achievement.  The playoff concept always makes for some fine theater and yesterday was no exception with a five-goal score fest in the first half and a completely tactical scoreless second half.

Blackpool now joins with Newcastle and West Bromwich Albion in entering the Premier League for 2010-11.  All three have some work to do to be able to stay, to be sure, but remember, it’s not about beating United or Chelsea, it’s about beating West Ham and Wigan for clubs that come up.

In the other match that had all eyes on it, Internazionale Milano used two absolute moments of brilliance to claim what was otherwise a fairly dreadful affair and win their first European trophy since 1965.  I had felt all week that the match would be a tactical struggle that would be claimed by whomever enforced their will, but I anticipated that Munich would eventually be able to do that.

Instead, they played absolutely passively the entire match and didn’t put up a shred of creativity to attempt to break the stifling (and dreadfully boring) Inter midfield and back line.  Make no mistake, Inter were by far the better side yesterday, and not one person can argue with their accomplishments in this tournament.  They defeated the English champions, the Spanish and defending Champions League champions and the German champions on their way to this title.  They earned every accolade they possibly could.

It was just a mind-numbing performance yesterday.  Munich had to know that Inter would attempt to defend and counter, defend and counter, and yet their forwards and attacking players preferred to stay outside the shell and not make any runs or use any movement.  It was so passive by Munich.  I was a bit horrified at a side that had used such flair to get to Madrid to be so incredibly tepid yesterday, while Louis Van Gaal sat observing in the dugout.

Again, though, congratulations to Inter and from what it sounds, good luck to Jose Mourinho as he seems to be off to manage the collection of egos and mismatched talent at Real Madrid.

It’s slim pickings today on television and the internet, but if you like friendlies, get ready to be excited!

1:00 PM – FSC – New York Red Bulls v. Juventus [club friendly]
1:00 PM – Telemundo – Toluca v. Santos [Mexico]
2:00 PM – ESPN 3 – North Korea v. Greece [international friendly]
4:00 PM – Direct Kick – Kansas City Wizards v. Columbus Crew [USA]

Well, look, next weekend has a couple more English playoff matches at Wembley and there are international friendlies in the run up to the World Cup.  Hopefully there will be more on television for all of us to keep up with since we have a few weeks here before things get underway in South Africa.  The USA men’s team has two friendlies this week, Tuesday night against the Czech Republic from East Hartford, Connecticut at 8:00 PM (ESPN), and next Saturday afternoon against Turkey from Philadelphia at 2:00 PM (ESPN2).  I’ll be at the Philadelphia match so you’ll get a match report on Sunday.  Excellent.

We’ll likely be hashing out the Champions League at some point because I think there’s more to say, but for today, I’d like to hear your impressions and thoughts from yesterday and whatever you’d like to talk about today.

Have a good Sunday.