I remember the Portugal shootout! That's when the only successful PK for England came from a Canadian who played in Germany.

That's an MLA style guide thing. Same as doing a newspaper in citations, you would say New York Times in italics, without "The" in front of it.

Liverpool fan as well, and it's obvious Johnson is there to add another attacking option, not to hang back and flail uselessly when receiving pressure. Maybe Roy will just tell the other three backs they're to consider themselves all central and that Stevie and Glen will come back to mark up as needed. As will Rooney,…

True story: my son played in a tournament this past weekend, and the semifinal went to PKs. The coach was organizing who would shoot and one of my son's teammates, originally from Newcastle, promptly said "I'm from England. Don't pick me." Sadly, aside from my boy and one or two other kids, the rest of the team had no…

Holland are either too inexperienced or too experienced (if you get my drift). They're going to be at sea up against Spain and Chile. And hell, when one of your best midfielders is a Canadian, it may be time to analyze your youth system and think about four years from now.

You forgot the modifier "fucking."

"That's two Glazers gone from United now.....if you include the one who used to build their trophy cabinets." - Cadged from Twitter today (I wish I could take credit for this, but it's too beautiful to not share).

If the ref is with UKIP he'll actually reward the player for kicking a Pole. Kick a Romanian means the goal counts double, too.

City spent over £300 million from 2008-2010, but didn't win until after that. There were times when their unplayed bench was worth more in transfer fees than the entire team they were playing against. It took some time for someone up top to recognize that just throwing the best and most expensive players you could get…

I see you've met him.

My 15yo son is ridiculous about being on time, like the top of his skull is going to pop off if we don't give ourselves a 20 minute cushion and make sure he's the first one there. What this means is he offers quality suckage to my life, since I'm still the (non-BMW) chauffeur. Shit, we live a block away from his…

I know, right? My wife can't understand it, but anytime I get the urge, out comes George for some grilled cheese goodness. Of course, sometimes I also put sliced pickles on mine, which disappoints her.

"Sometimes?"

First half was full of suckage. Second half was thrilling, in an awful, we-don't-have-a-decent-defense-but-we're-not-worried-because-you-can't-score sort of way. As a neutral it was fun to yell at strikers and mids from both sides for being unable to pot one, and to freak out at both sets of defenders for their abject…

I remember watching Spurs play a game in northern Norway a year or two ago, middle of winter, on an artificial turf (because why would you think about growing grass in a frozen hell where the sun doesn't shine?). Being Canadian, I see that shit all the time, but never at that level.

Don't anybody tell him the World Cup is about to start.

At high performance soccer in some parts of Canada they're no longer going by age, but rather by maturity. My son went out for the provincial squad, knowing full well he wasn't going to get on because he's a February 99 child for a group that's mostly 00s, and his skill level coupled with the fact that he's something…

I was one of two freshmen (that's the right term, I think: we Canadians don't tend to use it) on the senior high school soccer team. Day before a school band trip to a small hick town we had a game, and partway through the 1st half I'm one of 4 to go up for a header. Being the smallest, I lose. I lost, though, because…

It's changing, though. Here in Canada (soccer hotbed that it is), provincial team programs are starting to divide kids according to development, not by age. So my younger son (who tomorrow is off for another weekend of provincial team training) was born in Feb of 99 and will train with those from his age cohort, but…

I shot for a short period of time for the Edmonton Sun, after Gretzky had left Edmonton. The story behind his Habs shot reminds me of one of my fellow shooters, Doug Shanks. After the Oilers won their last cup Doug managed to be on the ice but actually wasn't ON the ice. A fairly little guy, he took all his shots with…