Opening a stadium of whoopass

Now, that's more like it.

A packed house (in some sweltering heat) greeted the Philly Union in their opening game at PPL Park in Chester Sunday, and the team responded with the best result of their inaugural season, besting Seattle 3-1.

At halftime, a win didn't feel so imminent as the familiar pattern of Philly outplaying an opponent — only to be trailing on the scoreboard — reemerged. This is all the more annoying when you fail to convert on a number of chances, only for your opponent to make good on their first — in the 44th minute — as was the case for the Sounders today.

But in keeping with their M.O., the Union kept fighting in the second half, and you had to think a goal would be the result at some point. And the goals did indeed materialize.

Philly tied the game when Sebastien Le Toux roofed a penalty kick after Alejandro Moreno was taken down in the box. They soon returned the favor to Seattle, giving up a penalty kick. But goalkeeper Chris Seitz saved a not-so-great shot from Sounders goal scorer Pat Noonan, and the Union had the momentum for the rest of the game.

A Philly corner kick went through about three players in the box before landing at the foot of Fred, who buried it for the go-ahead goal. And Danny Mwanga — despite it not yet being extra time — took a nice pass from Le Toux, then following up an initial shot to easily tap the ball in for a game-finisher.

If this is the kind of play we can expect from the Union at PPL Park — which is reasonable as they've pretty much played this way everywhere, offering consistent offensive pressure along with the occasional defensive lapse — they could actually make some hay in the Eastern Conference as they play at home in 13 of their next 20 matches.

Now with a home to call their own, the Union fans will be behind them.

NOTES:

— The new stadium looked pretty rad on TV, especially with the Delaware River and Commodore Barry Bridge in the background. Were you at the game? What were your impressions?

— Seattle and veteran U.S. international goalkeeper Kasey Keller might have been the game's best player despite surrendering three goals, because it could have been much worse. He made a few super saves. Old dude's still got it.

— I've always liked Seattle's Freddie Ljungberg since his EPL days, but that uneven, thinning-in-areas mohawk is a misstep, homey. What happened to the shaved head? It was good enough in your GQ days, wasn't it?

— Didn't bother with a write-up on the Union's loss away to the Kansas City Wizards in their last outing because, well, it was a mostly terrible game that the Union were completely terrible in. Despite the premier of the Union's all gold uniforms (Wooo!), they gave a lackluster performance (to put it kindly) and were never in it. I should note there's no way a professional league should allow games to be played at that high school facility Kansas City calls a home field. It was ridiculously small. I know they're building a stadium, but if you can't provide a major league facility then you should have to play all road games.

World Cup

I watched the game Ghana and Serbia this morning and was completely entertained. I also folded all my laundry and sorted and wrapped $200.00 in loose change. I can see why soccer is so popular: like baseball, a spectator can easily half follow the action while spending the rest of the time drinking, singing, and socializing with other fans. Well that and the whole low barrier to participation, the whole Pele started playing with grapefruits in the streets of Brazil meme. Anyway in the game I watched, Ghana won because a Serbian defender inexplicably committed a hand ball in the penalty area, and Ghana’s converted the ensuing penalty kick.

While I won’t pretend to know much more about soccer than what my prepubescent self learned while playing the “beautiful game” on South Jersey “pitches” during the early 1980s, I do know how to make knee jerk judgments based mostly on appearance and ethnocentricity. Hence here is a guide to some of the star players who will be appearing the 2010 World Cup- based on Sportales list of ten best soccer players in the world.

Lionel Messi
I know this dude plays for Barcalona and basically jukes defenders out of their jocks. He also has the stereotypical swarmy, long hair, European crybaby footballer look, even though he is from Argentina. While he does indeed have the look, I am sure the guy must be tough because if I was the coach of some low level opponent I’d encourage hard tackles plus the occasional forearm to Messi’s head all match long. I also like to think that this dude has not produced in international competition like he does in club football, but that is probably wishful thinking. Here is Messi rocking out to Pearl Jam and scoring lots of goals

Cristiano Ronaldo
This guy plays for Portugal. Along with being a great soccer player he is famous for being handsome, diving, owning a fashion boutique and 2006 incident involving a Wayne Rooney red card in a Portugal-England game. Negative press form the incident might have been a reason for Ronaldo moving on from Manchester United to Real Madrid. That and 132 million dollars.


Zlatan Ibrahimovic
This guy plays for Sweden and not some Balkan nation. Not sure how he did not end up playing hockey, but a 15 year old Ibrahimovic did chose soccer over working on the docks, which was a great career move. Dude is tall and has some sweet skills and can speak 5 languages. He also trademarked the name Zlatan so don’t go and try and call yourself that when opening a set down at the bar.


Steven Gerrard
This dude is the captain of England (after former Captain John Terry was removed for boning a teammate's wife) and scored in the game versus the United States. He is apparently a diving hypocrite.


Samuel Eto'o
This guy is the captain of Camerroon and scores a million goals. He also doesn’t like it when small boys steal his shoes.


Kaka
This Brazillian midfielder and Armani model loves soccer, but he loves Jesus even more. He is the soccer equivilant of Tim Tebow.


Xavi & Andres Iniesta
These dudes play for Spain. One is the “playmaker” and one is going bald.


Frank Lampard
An English midfielder who is supposed to be very smart, but not smart enough not to have been caught on video engaged in what is termed “roasting”, which is some sort of team building exercise where soccer players have communal sex with women.


Fernando Torres
Spanish Striker, Bjorn Borg look a like and star of a video for the Spanish Three Doors Down. I seem to remember this guy rolling around on the ground a lot during that tournament in South Africa last year.


Wayne Rooney
The English striker did not make list but many people say he is great. Rooney looks more like a typical hooligan than player, which is probably one of the keys to his popularity. Rooney plays club football for Manchester United, who suck for all the same reasons the NY Yankees suck. Here is a great video mashing up British icons Rooney and the Beatles.

Oh well

What the hell was Leighton doing?

Overall though, the first line - Richards, Gagne, and Carter - are the real goats.

Leino, Hartnell, Briere, and Giroux (sorta) seemed to be the only ones to show up.

The Flyers played a brutal first period yet luckily came out tied. They played a less terrible second, even briefly held a lead, but went into the third down one. Then Chicago dumbly went into the shell, the Flyers fought back, got a bounce and a tip by Hartnell, and sent it into overtime.

In overtime not much was really going on. Then there was a Flyers giveaway, then a bad clear, the puck is dumped down to Kane in the circle and he takes a bad angle shot that wins the Cup because Leighton is positioned for the shot like the puck was behind the net.

Sigh. Time to shave the beard.

Burned

The Chicago Fire are not a good team.

The fact that the Union lost to them does not bode well for Philly turning around their luck and marching up the standings after getting into a portion of their schedule heavily weighted with home games.

And yet, there may be hope.

Once again, the Union pretty clearly outplayed an opponent on the road, and yet lost the game, this time 2-1 to Chicago. If they can maintain that level of play at home in the new PPL Park, then maybe their fortunes will turn.

Two bad defensive plays basically cost the Union against the Fire. Defender Cristian Arrieta got too close to the Fire's speedster Patrick Nyarko out wide, and Nyarko went right around him to feed Baggio Husidic for an easy goal in the box early on. In the second half, midfielder Stefani Miglioranzi kicked the ball up the middle of the field instead of just clearing it out of bounds from inside the penalty area, and Chicago's Marco Pappa picked it off in tight quarters and scored.

The good news was Danny Mwanga — for the third straight game — scored in stoppage time, and goal keeper Chris Seitz played a very strong game with some great saves. Seitz looks like he's shoring his game up after a very rocky start to the season.

Terrible game

Chicago built on the momentum of how they finished game 4, dominated the first period, got 3 goals (2 of them the usual Chicago lucky ones) and the Flyers never recovered.

The Flyers finally showed up in the second, twice got to within 2 goals, but Chicago answered each time, once with an assist from the refs on a horrible "hooking" call on Pronger - putting your stick on the hip is not a hook by itself, you actually have to, you know, HOOK. I'll also mention the two high stick calls they missed that if called would have given the Flyers a 5 on 3 in the third when they were back to within 2.

Also killer in this game was Richards doing what he could, but missing an open net (I even think the shot would have gone wide if Niemi didn't save it) and then Leino doing the same all on the same powerplay in the second. If they put those in the Flyers would have pulled to within 1.

If the Flyers have any hope of winning the Cup, the first line has to play a lot better, especially Richards. And The Captain has to buy some non-rubber sticks without holes in the blades. He was brutal in the offensive zone this game. Pronger also struggled, Briere didn't play that great, Coburn was awful in first and mediocre the rest. Leighton was bad, but not entirely at fault and Boucher did not make any "10 bell" saves that made a difference in the game. Only Leino seemed to be playing at a high level.

Need to play a lot better to get it to 7.

Dynamic win

Were you watching the Flyers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and Roy Halladay pitching a perfect game last Saturday? So was I, which is why I had to catch the rerun of the Union taking on the Dynamo in Houston.

And I'm glad it was rebroadcast because it was a damn good game.

Philly opened the scoring with one of the sweetest goals you'll see. Midfielder Shea Salinas outfought a Houston defender for the ball near the right corner, ran parallel to the end line toward the goal and then flicked the ball over the keeper with the outside of his boot — seemingly without looking.

Houston came back to score off two headers from free kicks, and led 2-1 with a half-hour remaining.

But Philly, as has been characteristic of the team all season, kept pushing for goals, and got one to tie the game from striker Sebastien Le Toux, who keeps on scoring for the Union.

Setting up Le Toux's blast from just inside the box was rookie midfielder and this year's first overall draft pick Danny Mwanga, a second half sub for Fred. And Mwanga wasn't done yet, either.

With the final whistle approaching, more than two minutes into extra time, forward Alejandro Moreno made a beautiful pass that sent Le Toux racing toward the penalty area. Nearing the end line to the right of goal, Le Toux cut back a pass toward the center of a congested box where Mwanga was waiting — and made no mistake in slamming the ball into the net. And that was the game.

Mwanga looked like the rookie he is in the team's opener at Seattle, but he now has a goal in his last two games and seems much more comfortable. Physically, the dude is a beast, so I think a lot more play like we saw against the Dynamo can be expected.

Very entertaining game overall and a great win for the Union as they continue their long road tour of the MLS. Some day they will have another home game. Actually, it will be June 27 when the Union hosts Seattle in the first game at brand new PPL Park. Until then it's two more roadies against teams directly ahead of Philly in the standings — at Chicago tonight then at Kansas City.

Flyers play great, fall apart, but hold on and win

I guess I'm supposed to be happy that the Flyers tied the series 2-2, but with the third period collapse they lost any chance of making Chicago doubt themselves, and that pisses me off. If they simply won 3-1 and shut down Chicago in the third, and continued to frustrate them they would have carried momentum into game 5. Instead Chicago gets some confidence from the comeback and now has home ice. Oh well.

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Leighton was really good tonight and inspired confidence. He came through in the first when Chicago was outshooting the Flyers 9-4 and controlled rebounds really well for most of the game. He made some big saves late as well. Chicago's first goal was another lucky deflection off a Flyer, second goal was a 5 on 3, and the third goal was another lucky bounce off 2 Flyers. (How many goals have the Flyers deflected in for Chicago this series?)

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Richard's goal wouldn't have happened if the defenseman was a righty. Giroux's goal happened because Chicago decided to change lines as the Flyers were going into the offensive zone. Good move.

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Coach System did NOT call a masterful timeout this game. Could have used it in the third period.

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Pronger and Carle were really, really good. Carle's goal was reminiscent of the one he scored against the Rangers in the last game of the season. Way to go to the net. Krajicek and Bartulis are always shaky, but Krajicek saved a goal in the third.

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I loved the lucky goal by Leino. About time the Flyers got a bounce off a Blackhawk that goes in. Congratulations on breaking the Flyers rookie playoff scoring record. But I don't get how he is a rookie, he played 13 games in 2008-09 for Detroit.

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I wonder what Hartnell said. Idiot.

Flyers deserve to win and actually do

Since I embody Negadelphia, I felt it was all setting up again for another 1 goal loss and another scrub on Chicago getting the big goal. Just like last game the Flyers completely dominated the third period outshooting Chicago 15 to 4, but only capitalizing once on all their chances so it remained tied, 3-3 going into overtime.

In OT Gagne thought he had it won, but the puck hit the post and traveled right down the center of the goal line. The Flyers had already used up their lucky bounce off the same exact post in the second period on Hartnell's deflection of Pronger's shot. Then about a minute later Flyers came in on a rush started by Briere who passed to Carle who did one of those shot/passes to Giroux who nicely and somewhat luckily deflected the shot past Niemi for the Flyers first win in a Cup finals since 1987.

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The Flyers have been coming at the Blackhawks especially late in these games. The Blackhawks just run out of gas. But Chicago just waits and generates probably 90% of their offense off of Flyers stupid giveaways and mistakes which are usually unforced. And it's how the Flyers managed to blow 2, 1 goal leads this game. Blackhawks first goal was Carter giveaway, second goal was from a bad faceoff and poor save, and third goal was a screw up by the defense giving Kane a breakaway. They didn't score because of extended pressure or dominating play.

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You know who was brutally bad this game? Jeff Carter. He turned it over repeatedly and stupidly in the neutral zone or going into the offensive zone sending Chicago right back the other way on a rush. Carcillo also had a poor game. Coburn was -3, like in game 1.

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Stars of the game for the Flyers include Giroux of course, Leino, Briere, Hartnell, Pronger and Carle. The penalty killing units of the Flyers were also excellent along with the power play. Just clean up the bad giveaways and they can win this thing.