Footy Filler

In typical Gheorghian fashion, we've waited until the final day of the Barclays Premier League season to bother writing about soccer. We'll make up for it with a mishmash of semi-related footie items.

In Paris yesterday, David Beckham played what will likely be the final match of his storied career, as Paris Saint Germain topped Brest, 3-1. While his international celebrity outpaced his on-pitch performance, Becks will go down as one of England's all-time greats. Very few in the history of the sport can match the accuracy of his service and his ability on set pieces. Check out arguably the most famous goal of his career, the 2002 strike against Greece that sent England to the World Cup and inspired the movie, 'Bend It Like Beckham':


David Beckham goal - England v Greece 2002 by fatv

If you're reading this before 11:00 you've still got time to turn on Fox Soccer Channel to catch Tottenham Hotspur taking on Sunderland in a final bid to overtake Arsenal and snare the BPL's Champions League berth. The Gunners play at Newcastle at the same time, needing a win to ensure the all-important 4th place finish.

Matheson's late goal gave Canada bronze at the 2012 Olympics

Closer to home, the Washington Spirit beat the Seattle Reign, 4-2, earlier in the week to capture the franchise's first-ever National Women's Soccer League win and improve to 1-2-3 on the season (combined with DC United, local professional soccer squads are a dismal 2-11-4 in league play this year). Canadian national team stalwart Diana Matheson scored the Spirit's first goal, her league-leading 4th of the season. Matheson also paces the NWSL with 10 points. More importantly, she's also my daughter's favorite player. We've attended two Spirit games this season, and the 5'1" Matheson was, by far, the smallest woman on the field. Nonetheless, she tallied goals in each of those games, inspiring my little one, who will be lucky if she makes it to 5'1". You can have 'Bend It Like Beckham' - we're Driven Like Diana up in here.

Finally, if you want an entertaining (and far more knowledgeable) take on all things footie, check out FOG:TB John Day's stylings over at Dangerman Futbol. Maybe next season, anyway.

Let's Run It Back

I don't think there's much argument that this year's World Cup has been great fun from a fan's perspective. From the great stories and moments of the Group Stage, like Costa Rica's terrific run, or Tim Cahill's bolt of lightning that served as Australia's highlight, or John Brooks' life-defining chance to the sublime play of the Germans, Tim Howard's magnificence, the gut-wrenching penalty kick shootouts, and the grinding tension of the knockout rounds, it's been a brilliant display on the world's largest stage.

The only thing that would've been better is actually being there.

So next summer, I'm doing something about that. Canada hosts the 2015 Women's World Cup, and I'm packing up the family truckster and headed north. It may lack Brazil's samba sensibility, only 24 teams will participate, and the stage won't be as large as the one Germany and Argentina take this afternoon, for one 10 year-old girl and her Dad, it might as well be.

A few months ago, my daughter got to meet her idol, Washington Spirit and Canadian National Team midfielder Diana Matheson. My shy kid, who'd be perfectly happy not saying another word if she didn't have to, lit up like a Christmas tree, and told the diminutive Matheson that she was attending the Women's World Cup. So I guess we're pot committed.

My wife has accused me in times past of being a poor planner. As in, I don't plan. So let this post serve as a marker. I've gone public with the fact that we're going to Canada, so if it doesn't happen, I've opened myself to mockery. Of an entirely new sort.

The draw for the 2015 Women's World Cup doesn't take place until December, so we're going to have to wait at least a little while to firm up our arrangements. Matches will be played in Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, and Moncton. (One of these is not like the others.) Our only hard and fast guideline is that we need to see at least one match played by Canada and one by the United States. Oh, and apparently I need to buy my daughter a Canada jersey, since Diana Matheson told her she needed one.

I spent eight days in Atlanta attending the 1996 Olympics. It ranks among the top sporting memories of my life. And I saw two matches in RFK when the U.S. hosted the men's World Cup in 1994. Both of those were all about me. This time I get to experience something on the grand sporting stage with my family, and I'm entirely too excited about that. Messi and Mueller and Robben and Rodriguez and Neymar get replaced by Morgan and Wambach and Marta and Sinclair and Sawa. And Matheson.

I think I'm gonna need a travel agent.

Bite Me, Randy Newman: Righting Wrongs

This blog has been in existence for nearly 10 years. We're nearing a million total views of the 2,726 posts we've published. And we owe the world an enormous apology.

HOW IN THE FUCK HAVE WE NEVER CELEBRATED TIM KURKJIAN?!?!?

There are very few people in any walk of life who love what they do more than Kurkjian. His devotion to baseball borders on obsessive - in fact, obsessives border on Kurkjianesque. From 1989 to 2010, he spent 15 minutes every morning clipping box scores from the newpaper and pasting them into notebooks. His giddy, lunatic exaltation ("Wes Littleton got the save!") after Texas' 30-3 win over Baltimore in 2007 is the stuff of legends. I daresay there aren't two dozen more Gheorghey people on the planet.



Kurkjian's passion for his work is enough by itself to make us like him, but he's also among the most self-effacing members of a press corps that's mostly anything but. Can you imagine Chris Berman allowing himself to be subjected to this:



And if that weren't enough, though he's a diminutive fellow, standing a sturdy 5'5", he's noted as a hard-nosed and more than decent basketball player. From 1986 to 1989, Kurkjian was a regular in Cal Ripken's legendarily serious pickup hoops runs. "The reason Cal invites me is that I always pass the ball to the open man," Kurkjian says. "Cal's like that, too. He always wants to get the job done, and he wants it done the correct way."

I'm reminded every time I hear Kurkjian's unique voice how much I enjoy and respect his approach. And more often than not, I'm moved to at least a smile. On Tuesday, I was moved nearly to tears of laughter, when ESPN's Scott Van Pelt dropped his well-honed Baltimore mock-accent on the unsuspecting Kurkjian. Fast forward to the 5:10 mark in this clip. It'll make you happy.

Our sincere, befuddled apologies to both Kurkjian and America for this egregious oversight.

And Bite Me, Randy Newman.

(In other BMRN news, 5'1" Canadian midfielder Diana Matheson of the Washington Spirit - number 9 in your program, number one in my daughter's heart - was named to the inaugural National Womens Soccer League Best XI after tallying 8 goals and 3 assists. I saw her slot a low-angled shot past Hope Solo to give the Spirit a 1-0 win over the latter's Seattle Reign. I think I heard her whisper to Solo, "Bite Me, Randy Newman", as she celebrated the game-winner.)