Football and Music

These days you don’t have the time to listen to the pundits on the radio, but you don’t need to tune in anymore to get your kicks on 606 (*groans*), thanks to the interweb you can get your occasional, weekly or if you are really addicted, daily fix with some football podcasts.

A guide to what is available online:

The best of the best is the Guardian Football Weekly with James Richardson.
He of the old Football Italia on Channel 4 and now on Sentanta Sport, complete with his puns can be heard every Monday - and now every Thursday too.*
*An exception for this week - the Football Weekly Extra will be posted on Wednesday to cover the Champions League.

Have a listen to today’s (Mon 27th Aug) edition below:

(Click on James’ bonce to go to the website)

- Next up is The Times Online, who last season had Danny Kelly (previously of that late night telly version of a sports/footie phone-in on Channel 4) but have dropped him for this new season in favour of Gab Marcotti (Talksport and Sky Sports) with Guillem Balague (Spanish sports writer, a big pal of Rafa’s.) They don’t seem to have a regular weekly schedule sorted as of yet. Last posted pod was on August 17th. Click the banner below to go to the site and to listen to the last one:

- Another occasional one, not updated for a week or so is a footie fan website, which does as it says on the box - FanBanta. They have comedians and big footie fans Kevin Day and Mark Webster have a banter about the game and in the one linked to the left - talk to Peter Shilton about England’s problems between the sticks.

If you really luv yer footie and want a daily dose…

There is a quick and dirty summary/update of the day’s action via the Radio 5 Live and their 5Live Football Daily. Click on the image/link below:

- Or if you want a longer pod (2 hours) and a different view on things, try this one from a couple of ex-pats now living in the the USA.
World Soccer Daily is a radio show that can be heard on Sirus Satellite radio. Broadcast every day between 10-12 Pacific Time (8 hours behind the UK). Since they are in the same place these two big gobbed presenters talk about Derek and the LA Galaxy, plus the MLS, the Premier League and everything else so..ccer. They take calls from other Brit Expats and any US Americans and like such as… interested in the game. Click the image to the right to go to the site.

They don’t have a link to their mp3 on the site, you have to either:
-> Subscribe via ITunes (Not recommended, that ITunes stuff is a scam. You can only download and listen on their sofware/hardware, can’t transfer and listen on any other mp3 player)

–> Subscribe to their RSS Feed. * (Recommended. You don’t have to download any software, can listen anywhere. - Grab their RSS Feed and then go to Netvibes.com and enter in the link there. Once you’ve done that you can then click to listen to or to download the file.)

So despite Derek flying himself ragged to play in last Thursday’s game for LA Galaxy, they still lost the match and lost it badly.

I know one man doesn’t make a team, but it would be good for the Galaxy to actually have a decent team to play with that one man.

So far since DB23’s arrival they have only won once - and that was thanks to a certain Englishman’s ability to bend one in.

LA Galaxy have to show that they have bought in this one player not just to put bums on seats/sell lots of replica shirts, but to be the ones that help raise awareness for footie in the USA and to do that they have to sack the 2nd Division standard coach.

Get someone in that as well as the Becks, will also raise the form level and will show the rest of the world that the septics are serious about this soccerball game.

Frank Yallop was an average player in his old 1st Division playing days (expecting an email from mickmills to discuss this any second now…) and in my opin, is an average soccerkickball coach too.
Alright he managed the Canadian national side, but that was the Canadian national side, not exactly a high in the FIFA rankings team.

There are (using the American spelling) rumors though, that the LA Galaxy’s Technical Advisor might be moving over to another position in the franchise.
From MLS Rumors:

As the search for a replacement for Frank Yallop proceeds, MLSR sources report that Jurgen Klinsmann has formally been offered the job of LA Galaxy coach/manager.Sources say Klinsmann has been seen touring the Home Depot Center facilities. Jurgen Klinsmann does not live far from Carson, CA and would a natural choice for a high level coach with international experience.

Update: An article in the Times online about the same

Yes I know that California Klinsmann hasn’t exactly got a long coaching history behind him either, but he has played at the highest level and managed the German national team in the World Cup where they were only 1 match away from the Final.
As the quote above says he doesn’t live that far from the ground and I think he would be intrigued by this new and different sort of challenge…

Last Wednesday wobbly Wobinson gifted dem Germans with a goal, the next day Calamity defended him (Trying to get some brownie points/catch the eye of McSven) But yesterday James dropped another clanger by letting a Lampard effort slip under him. So isn’t it time to give Scott Carson a shot ? Not now with the qualifiers coming up obviously, but if England do get through then maybe blood him in time for next summer.

[Aug 24th] Sign him up Pt 2: A horse that can play football. (van Nistelrooy…?) | James “Crikey” Richardson and podbuds look at the weekend fixtures in the Guard’s Football Weekly Extra podcast.

One word to sum up Wednesday’s England performance. Rusty. I have to question though - why this friendly was arranged for now ? The new season has just started and I felt that this match was put on too soon. As we saw in the game superOwen has just his first run out with the barcodes and not sharp enough yet, but at least he knows which direction the goal is and got them on target. The beanCrouch came on 2nd half but again rusty. Hasn’t been picked for Lidipool, 3rd choice striker now. As for Robinson… I never thought that Calamity James would look like a better prospect !