Look Alive
As a guy, whenever you watch an action move no matter how cheesy or awesome the movie is you always leave the theater a little giddy. It’s a sort of giddy that you can’t show other people because they’ll know you’re a loser, but I promise you every guy feels it. We get some sort of high off of watching the most awesome scenes in a movie and we always think “I could do that.” The best part of it is when the girl/friends/city/civilians are held in peril because the hero was late/off training/recovering/fighting his own demons — so he comes in late. And as you watch the villain tear the city apart and the hero pops up, in all his glory, all you can think is… “yeah…”
This is exactly like that, except you couldn’t do it. Because no one is paying you $150,000 A WEEK to kick a ball. And if you are getting paid that much, I’m really excited that you read our blog. The English Premier League is the big one that starts this weekend. As I stated here, this season should be pretty entertaining. Nevertheless, starting off on the right foot is where everyone wants to be. No one wants to worry about chemistry, injuries, or rowdy fans to start the season, but the clubs and cities in England are experiencing all of those with a couple of major stars sitting as want-a-ways that could potentially wreck some seasons or be just the thing some clubs are looking for to clear the air. A breath of fresh air is needed for some clubs, and other clubs are shoving their best jewelry deep within their closets.
Manchester United will win the EPL this season. Manchester City is the only real contender to that in my book.
Luis Suarez will win player of the year. Barring major injury to himself, with the way he flourished last season with almost a week to week change at forward and most of the midfield, he was still nearly unstoppable.
The worst summer transfer (so far — 20 days left) is not giving Alberto Aquilani even the mindset that he could play for Liverpool. He has been the hottest player this summer and he and Suarez opposite each other on the pitch would give Liverpool more confidence and flair than their 34 center midfielders.
The EPL is going to start off with flying colors and with enough games to bounce back from a few heartaches it’ll be great to see how excited I am when Arsenal blows it. But for now, I’m giddy as ever because I have hope.
Wolfe Wednesday: The EPL 20 Man Draft Challenge
Charles N'Zogbia Looks Confused
My name is Hunter Wolfe and I have the privilege of guest posting for Black and Blue. You will see me contribute occasionally and comment on Tim and Joseph’s posts, especially if it involves Everton or fantasy basketball. I like sports as much as the next guy, maybe even a little more, and that’s why my thoughts matter.
There have been some discussions about the top players in the world of soccer. There has also been talks of a dream eleven and why your constructed team would be unbeatable on FIFA. I like these types of discussions. With that in mind, I offer you this challenge. If you could take one player from each team in the Premier League to make a 20 man roster, who would those players be. What makes this interesting is by taking Rooney, you pass on Vidic, Evra, Giggs, Van Der Sar, etc. Do you focus on defense or do you focus on offense with the top teams? Do you really think Zat Knight is capable of defending someone else’s line up of Rooney, Tevez, and Fabregas or do you take a lesser known striker from Wigan to try to score against the best defenders in the Prem?
Here are the standards for this draft challenge. You must select 3 Goalkeepers, 6 Defenders (minimum of two outside), 7 Midfielders (minimum of two outside), and 4 Strikers as this gives sufficient coverage in case of injuries for teams that play traditional formations. Only four strikers! I hear you complain. Well, of the teams in the Premier League this season, only one played with three strikers fairly frequently and that was Chelsea. The other caveat is that if a player is on loan, for example John Carew is on loan to Stoke from Aston Villa, he is available as a Stoke player, not an Aston Villa player. Got it? Good. Last rule, if a player plays in multiple positions, then you can pick either. For example, Tim Cahill plays attacking midfield, but also plays forward. He can be either in this challenge. You cannot however say that because Tim Howard got red carded and Phil Jagielka played keeper for the last 18 minutes of a game that he counts as a keeper. Continue reading →
EPL Superlatives!
The name says it all. I’m going to going award the best of the best and the worst of the worst, with extremely arbitrary awards, that’ll never mean anything to the people who receive them.
Best Team: Manchester United – It’s hard to argue the team that has done nothing but win, except to Wolves…
Best Player: Scott Parker – I’m not sure I could convince non-soccer fans that the best player plays on the worst team, but it is as I say. Continue reading →
Soccer: People Love Lists!
I’ve been planning to do this for a while. But I haven’t really had the time, nor the insight to really complete the list. Over the next few days, expect to see some lists from me that award the top 5 per position. This is sort of confusing so I’ll give it a shot. The soccer standard is a 4-4-2. Since there is 1 goalie, I’ve selected 5. Since there are four defenders, I’ve selected 20. Today’s feature is the top ten forwards/strikers in the world. These are in no particular order, after all, if you switched Messi to Bremen, would he still have 40 goals on the season? To clarify, these aren’t always the best goal scorers, these are guys that make their teams better, which is an important part of playing soccer. So it may be guys with 10 goals and 15 assists or guys that just have a knack for finding the net.
Lionel Messi – It’s hard to leave off Fifa World Player of the Year.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic – I read today where he’s won 8 straight titles with 5 different teams… impressive. Continue reading →
My Dream Football/Soccer 11
This is one of my favorite topics to discuss amongst friends and soccer fans alike. Obviously, as you can tell, I’m a huge sports fanatic, but I’m also a huge video game zealot. One of the first games I remember playing was Blades of Steel on the NES. I’ve always been enthralled with sports games, whether it’s my fandom or a subconscious God complex.
Well when I play sports games I love playing the franchise mode or manager mode. When I start I almost always do a fantasy draft to build my team. I just love the sort of freedom you have in building a team. I don’t want to have James Posey on the Pacers and I definitely don’t want Clint Barmes on the Astros. I want to be able to start from scratch in a sense.
Well unfortunately the only professional sports game that doesn’t allow this is the FIFA series. With that though, it doesn’t stop me from trying during the transfer windows.(usually not too successful though) I’ve always liked to keep a running tab with Joseph Champey about who we would choose if we could choose our 11 to build a fantasy soccer side.
So without further ado, I give you my squad:
Goalkeeper: Jose “Pepe” Reina
RB: Sergio Ramos
RCB: Gary Cahill
LCB: Daniel Agger
LB: Philipp Lahm
RM/RW: Milos Krasic
CM: Steven Gerrard
CM: Esteban Cambiasso
LM/LW: Juan Mata
CF: Luis Suarez
ST: Raul Gonzalez Blanco
Who is your team? Think your team could hang with mine?
Make sure to provide a response in the comment section below! We wanna hear it!
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