Thanks to 3rd Degree for discovering the following...

The chap above there is Rivers Cuomo (what a great name). He’s the lead singer of Weezer, who some of you will remember for that fantastic video. – More about that coming up.

As the above linked 3rd Degree website found out (via The Offside Rules blog) Rivers is a big soccer footie follower. He’s an LA Galaxy fan and regularly watches the Premier League.

Snippet via his Wikipedia entry:

Cuomo is a big fan of soccer. He can be seen playing in the “Photograph” video and even planned his band’s 2002 “World Cup Tour” around World Cup games. In 2006 he reportedly wrote a song titled “Our Time Will Come” in tribute to the U.S. men’s soccer team.[see below] He claims his favourite player is Landon Donovan, enjoys watching the Premier League and is both a Los Angeles Galaxy and New England Revolution fan. In early 2008 he played in the Mia (Hamm) & Nomar Celebrity Soccer Challenge and scored a goal in the game. His video for “Lover in the Snow” from his Alone album [again see below ] dealt with this game and his love of soccer.

In 2007 he released an album of home demo’s called Alone: The Home Recordings Of Rivers Cuomo and then a year later a “sequel” which included the (slightly) renamed track about the US Soccer team:

[See post to listen to audio] » Rivers Cuomo – My Day Is Coming

Excellent tune. I love this. Anybody who manages to get “Carlos Bocanegra” into a song is all right by me.

- As mentioned by 3rd Degree.net is this track (Lover In The Snow) from the first album in which Rivers gives us the back story and why he loves soccer so much:

» Link to video

Extra Time: Another one from his 1st CD and the demo version of a familiar song…

[See post to listen to audio]
» Rivers Cuomo – Buddy Holly

Another great one, never get sick of this track.

So best of luck to the USMNT with their match against Brazil.
And hey… you never know. It’s – as many, including me, have said before – football.

Fifa will stage memorial for Foe

Football’s world governing body Fifa will commemorate the death of Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe at the Confederations Cup final on Sunday.

Foe collapsed on the field and lost consciousness during a Confederations Cup semi-final in France in 2003 and died soon after arriving in hospital.

He was later found to have suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart-related disease. He was 28.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said it was a “very sad and tragic event”.
Blatter added: “Just before the kick-off when the teams are assembled in the middle of the field, we will have a message to the world about what happened…”

» Full article

Marc-Vivien Foé scored the final goal at Maine Road.

I remember back now how much it was a shock to everyone when we heard the news. Don’t need me to say much more about it, going to c&p what Wikipedia has:

…”Foé’s death caused a profound shock. Numerous tributes to the man’s joyous personality and infectious humour were expressed in the media. Also Thierry Henry and other players pointed to the sky in tribute to Foé after Henry had opened the scoring against Turkey in France’s Confederations Cup semi-final that evening.   Many suggestions for ways to honour the life of Marc-Vivien Foé were made after his death: it was suggested that the Confederations Cup and the Stade Gerland could have been renamed after him, and former Manchester City manager Kevin Keegan announced that the club would no longer use the number 23 shirt Foé wore during his successful season there. At Manchester City’s ground; the City of Manchester Stadium there is a small memorial to him in the stadium’s memorial garden, and on the walls of the players’ tunnel are plaques paid for by supporters, with their names, dubbed the Walk of Pride. The first plaque on the wall is for Marc and reads “Marc Vivien Foé – 1975 – 2003″

The Dandelion Clocks are a band from Manchester who are all Citeh all the time. In fact they’ve released a good few songs about the Moonies.

I’ll do some more of their City stuff down the line, for now I want to highlight the song they did in tribute:

[See post to listen to audio] » The Dandelion Clocks – Friend of Foe (Tribute to Marc Vivien Foe)

» This next one was done by another City fan – Colin Rudd, who posts his music output on YouTube.
Colin is an acoustic musician and he post this in 2006:

[See post to listen to audio] » Colin Rudd – Marc-Vivien Foe » Click for the Video - Link to video

I like Colin’s stuff. Will do more for him at a later date.

I used the title to give myself a (very poor) excuse to post a demo of The Skids – Circus Games: [See post to listen to audio]
(which you can find more demos and live here, plus some Peel Sessions here)

Plus it is (again, a very very poor) pun which enables me to mention the current and upcoming summer footie tournaments which, if you were like me last week when I looked at the upcoming fixtures and saw that there wasn’t one match kicking off on Saturday… *takes breath*… and after a howl of despair at this realisation. Then a day of pottering about not knowing what to do, you gathered yourself together and searched for anything that involved the beautiful game. Before finally breathing a huge sigh of relief on discovering the following three events:

Confederations Cup:

What is it ? It’s a dress rehearsal for next year. Where and when is it ? South Africa: From June 14th -28th. Who’s taking part ? The winners of each confederation’s cup competitions, such as UEFA and the European Cup, FIFA and the World Cup, CAF and the African Cup of Nations, etc..etc. It’s a bit of an unbalanced competition really, the three of the top 5 FIFA ranked teams are up against (and knocking quite a few goals past) some teams including a couple of former Colonies (USA & New Zealand). But it’s worth a look for the later rounds because of a potential mouthwatering match up between Spain and Italy, then further on – Brazil versus one of those two. » Further Info

European Under-21 Football Championship:

What is it ? Does as it says on the title. Where and when is it ? Sweden: From June 15th -29th. Who’s taking part ? The England kids – including as everyone knows, Walcott. Plus there’s Sweden (as hosts) and Italy. The Under 21′s have been drawn in a group of death which also includes Spain and Germany. Can we get through with a win, draw and loss...? England, despite themselves (Mancienne was sent off) scraped a win in the first game against Finland and are playing Spain (who drew nil-nil with Germany) as I write this. Worth keeping an eye on because of England obviously, but because nearly all the Premier League scouts will also be watching with their eyes on snapping up some future stars. » Further Info

EXTRA INFO:

There’s an official song for the tournament, but it’s a bit like the Enrique Iglesias effort for Euro 2008 in the fact that the song, like his, has bugger all to do with footie and doesn’t even try to tie itself in. UEFA themselves don’t give it much of a fanfare:

[See post to listen to audio] » Keren DeBerg – Get Up And Go

CONCACAF Gold Cup:

What is it ? It is a Central/North American cup competition. Where and when is it ? In the U.S.A : From July 3rd -26th. Who’s taking part ? The USA (obviously), plus Mexico and Costa Rica. (Basically some teams from the Americas except the decent ones further south because the septics have to win something or otherwise they’ll throw a tantrum and invade another country) After having their asses handed to them on a plate taking part in the above Confederations Cup the Americans then go home to play this competition AND they have to play Mexico (in Mexico) on August 12th in a World Cup Qualifier, which they are currently in 2nd place in their group behind… Costa Rica. Mexico have it worse though – they are in 4th place and need to win that one to remain in contention for qualifying. » Further Info