In Praise of the EPL Review Show, Part One

Hello readers. You'll note that this weekend's column comes to you too late for you to size up Saturday's Fox Soccer Channel games. Fear not, dear hearts; this weekend is reserved for some particularly unsexy FA Cup Fourth Round matches. So unless you're a big fan of Spurs of Blackburn, which you aren't, and desired to see them easily dispatch lower-league competition, today's respective thumpings were eminently missable.

Another reason we're a day late is I've started a job this week, an actual job at an actual workplace that requires my actual continued resence. Jarring to the old schedule, that.

But the main reason why the actual day of release for this column is immaterial is that this week we won't be talking about this week; we'll be talking about last week, or rather, about the highlights of last week as they were so deftly delivered on FSC's "EPL Review Show."

I've recommended the show before in this blog, but always in an offhanded manner, and it's such a perfect highlights program that it deserves to be called to your collective attention more explicitly.

The format is simple but exceedinly effective. Each of the weekend's games is shown in miniature. You see every single goal of the weekend, every bit of argy bargy, every note-worthy incident. You generally then hear each manager give his post-match comments; sometimes their commentary is cliche-ridden and lame, occasionally they throw some salt around but at the very least the accents are consistently fascinating.

The game clips themselves are what makes it great, of course. They don't come at you in the rapid-fire manner we have come to expect from American shows. They come in extended form; you don't just see the goal, you see the passes that led up to it. You don't just see the red card, you see the incident from ten minutes earlier that started the slow burn in the first place. You don't hear a studio host offering wise-cracks and catchphrases, you hear the original breathless British commentary coming from the guy who is actually at the game. It exposes all of the bloated excess of SportsCenter, making you wish that all highlights were delivered this way.

(For the record, I wonder if the trend towards this style of highlights is already underway; with the way that games are being replayed abbreviated-style on the NFL Network, or the long-play summaries you can get on iTunes, it is possible that we have reached the saturation point on SportsCenter-style rat-a-tat. I'm alowing myself some hope that we are reverting to letting the games speak for themselves.)

This is not FSC's idea, of course; first of all the show is a production of the Premier League and is sent around the world. Secondly, British television has been doing it this way for decades; a show called "Match of the Day" has been as big a Saturday night television institution there as "Saturday Night Live" has here.

It should be noted that "MotD" distinguishes itself from the "EPL Review Show" with a commentary panel of experts, including the magnificent Scottish curmudgeon Alan Hansen; but while that panel is generally excellent I must say I don't miss it.

Last week's show was a particularly good one. It started off strong, with the highlights of the Liverpool-Chelsea and Arsneal-Man U matches. As I said here last week, if Liverpool and Arsenal were to each win, the title race would get a lot more interesting. Sure enough, they did. And how.

Liverpool beat Chelsea 2-0 with two goals in the first twenty minutes, including a stunner from Jermaine Pennant. Chelsea are officially reeling, by the way, but we'll get to them in a second.

The Arsenal match topped that one for drama. Still down 1-0 in the 83rd minute, the Gunners came back to win with two great goals. First an 83rd minute goal by Robin van Persie, which you can enjoy in English or through the Arabic Andres Cantor.

Then Arsenal did what Man U usually do; they scored in the next-to-last minute of stoppage time to win. The goal by Thierry Henry is notable for two things: the first being that Henry rarely scores from headers, the second that the exquisite cross came from a 22 year-old Englishman named Justin Hoyte. An Englishman on Arsenal can be as hard to find as a Turk on the Kansas City Royals. So good for him for taking his chance.

(But really. You gotta hear the Arabic version.)

That's a pretty great chunk of highlights. On SportsCenter, both games awould have been taken care of in three minutes total. On the EPL Review Show, it took a quarter of an hour. They don't just show you images; they tell you each game, as though it were a story.

Alas, I have to run to that there job I was talking about. We'll finish this later, as there's more to come, including fighting coaches and a fleeting moment of audacity by Clint Dempsey in his Premeriship debut. Until then, let's preview tomorrow's game.

Chelsea-Nottingham Forest, FA Cup Fourth Round, 9am ET

The real game of the day would be Arsenal vs. Bolton, who knocked the Guners out at this stage last year. But FSC gives us this. Eh.

Chelsea are riven by controversy and locker room strife at the moment. Their big signing from last summer was the Ukrainain striker Andriy Schevchenko. He is a living legend, one of the most lethal forwards of his generation. Until he came to London. Where he has thoroughly sucked. The scuttlebutt is that Chelsea's Russian owner is friends with Schevchenko and wants coach Jose Mourinho to coddle him. Mourinho has been making veiled threats in the papers that he will leave if he is not allowed to do things his way and two players have come out this week saying that this schism is one of the reasons Chelsea are struggling of late. (A more salient reason is their injury problems at centre-back, but I still love the gossip, me.)

Still, they'll make a punching bag of Forest. If the game were in Nottingham, there might have been an upset. This sounds like one of those games were the smaller team starts strong, fights hard, holds on for a long time and then tragically caves in at the end. This one'll be for Chelsea fans only.

Watchability: Two stars (out of 4)
Yank Watch: None, though Chelsea are rumored to be in talks to get Onguchi Onyewu.

-Brendan Hunt

You can almost smell it....

25 - 13 CHI over DAL (1st Q, but hey... best quarter of ball I've seen the Bulls play this year..)

Ben has his hair blown out and many a teardrop is falling for BG... You go on and get a T Ben...

Dear God... No way Pax deals for Gasol... no way... this crew is hungry and wicked... just the way I like my NBA squads...

I don't even care if they lose tonight... that 1st Q is worth it.

Time Out.

To our three readers,

Due to some computer problems, and an increase in my activities that take me away from blogging, I will be posting far less for awhile.

Thanks for reading, we will try to get back on track soon.

Go Bears!!

Phil

Sports On T.V. Today.

National Games.

• College men's basketball:
• Connecticut vs. Louisville (ESPN, 7 p.m.)
• Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State (ESPN, 9 p.m.)
• Gonzaga vs. Portland (ESPN, midnight)

• College women's basketball: Duke at Tennessee (ESPN2, 7 p.m.)

• Tennis: Australian Open, at Melbourne, fourth round (ESPN2, 3 p.m., same-day tape); quarterfinals (ESPN2, 9 p.m., live; and ESPN, 3:30 a.m., live)

Local Games.

• NBA: Chicago vs. Indiana (CSNCHI, 6 p.m.)

Super Bowl!!

The NFC Title Game.
1/21/07
Bears 39, Saints 14.

Sports On T.V. today.

NFL: NFC Championship Game, New Orleans vs. Chicago, (Fox, 3 p.m)

That is all.

National Games.

• English Premeire League Soccer:
• Newcastle United vs. West Ham United, (FSC, 10 a.m.)
• Manchester City vs. Blackburn Rovers, (FSC, noon)
• Portsmouth vs. Charlton Athletic, (FSC, 2:15 p.m.)

• Boxing: Junior welterweights, IBF champion Juan Urango vs. Ricky Hatton; welterweights, Jose Luis Castillo vs. Herman Ngoudjo, at Las Vegas, (HBO, 9:45 p.m.)

• College football: Dell East-West All-Star Shrine Game, at Houston, (ESPN2, 7 p.m.)

• College men's basketball:
• Louisville vs. DePaul, (ESPN, noon)
• Wisconsin vs. Illinois, (ESPN, 2 p.m.)
• Duke vs. North Carolina State, (ABC, 3:30 p.m.)
• Kansas vs. Texas Tech, (ESPN, 4 p.m.)
• Arizona vs. UCLA, (FSN, 4 p.m.)
• San Diego State vs. Air Force, (VERSUS, 5 p.m.)
• Washington vs. Washington State, (FSN, 6 p.m.)
• Georgia Tech vs. North Carolina, (ESPN, 9 p.m.

• College men's basketball regional coverage:
• Indiana vs. Connecticut or LSU at Arkansas, (CBS, 3:45 p.m.)
• Texas vs. Villanova or Georgia at Alabama,(CBS, 1:30 p.m.)
  

• College women's basketball:
• Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma State, (FSN, noon)
• Kansas State vs. Baylor, (FSN, 2 p.m.)
• UCLA vs. Arizona, (FSN, 2 a.m.) (delayed tape)

• Golf:
• PGA European Tour, Abu Dhabi Championship, third round, (The Golf Channel, 9:30 a.m.) (same-day tape)
• LPGA, Women's World Cup of Golf, second round, (The Golf Channel, 1 p.m.) (same-day tape)
• PGA Tour, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, fourth round, (The Golf Channel, 4 p.m.)
• Champions Tour, MasterCard Championship at Hualalai, second round, (The Golf Channel, 7:30 p.m.)

• NBA: Utah vs. Chicago, (WGN, 8:30 p.m.)

• Rodeo: Professional Bull Riders Built Ford Tough Series, Sacramento Classic, (VERSUS, 9 p.m.)

• Soccer: Men's national team, USA vs. Denmark, at Carson, Calif., (ESPN2, 4:50 p.m.)

• Tennis: Australian Open, early rounds, (ESPN2, noon( (same-day tape); (ESPN2, 10 p.m.); (ESPN, 3:30 a.m.)

Hatton-Urango

Ricky Hatton weighed in at 139lbs, as did Juan Urango. Tomorrow night both will be closer to 160lbs. Fighters try and put on as much weight before a fight as they can. The heavier you are, the harder you can hit.
The bout is for Urango's 140lb I.B.F. Junior welter weight title. However Hatton is favored to win. Both fighters are pressure fighters. Neither like to take a step back. This should be an exciting fight. I encourage all to watch it. It might just turn you into a boxing fan.
My prediction is Hatton KO's Urango by the 8th round. Urango has a solid chance for the upset, though so it is an exciting fight.

National Games.

• Boxing:
• Light welterweights, champion Randall Bailey vs. Michael Warrick, for IBA championship, at Key West, Fla. (ESPN2, 8 p.m.)
• Junior featherweights, Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Cuauhtemoc Vargas; welterweights, Victor Ortiz vs. Marvin Cordova, at Phoenix, (Showtime, 11 p.m.)

• Golf:
• PGA European Tour, Abu Dhabi Championship, second round, at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, (The Golf Channel, 9:30 a.m.) (same-day tape)
• LPGA, Women's World Cup of Golf, first round, at Sun City, South Africa, (The Golf Channel, 12:30 p.m.) (same-day tape)
• PGA Tour, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, third round, at La Quinta and Bermuda Dunes, Calif., (The Golf Channel, 3 p.m.)
• Champions Tour, MasterCard Championship at Hualalai, first round, at Kailua Kona, Hawaii, (The Golf Channel, 6:30 p.m.)

• NBA:
• Detroit at Minnesota, (ESPN, 8 p.m.)
• Cleveland at Denver, (ESPN, 10:30 p.m.)

• Tennis: Australian Open, early rounds, at Melbourne, (ESPN2, 3 p.m.) (same-day tape); (ESPN2, 10 p.m.; ESPN, 3:30 a.m.)

Requiem For A Jag-Off

So it seems that a year spent sunning one's self in the Caribbean can make offers that used to be "insulting" look that much better. Slammin' Sammy is getting back to his roots... The Big D. It really isn't all that surprising that Hicks is the one to give this fucker a shot. After all, he bucked up for A-Rod, backed the truck up for Chan-Ho, and hired Bucky Showalter. Rudy Jarmillo says he can still hit. Awesome.

What? Rueben Sierra wasn't available? No Rob Deer?

I have had an extreme case of Love/Hate with Sammy. A Sosa jersey hangs in the back, WAY back, of my closet. (It was a gift by the way.. I wanted a Grace jersey.) A Sammy Sosa ornament USED to hang on my xmas tree. (Since replaced by a KICKASS Spiderman one..) Sam gave Cub fans a tremendous amount of joy while he was man-ing... or... if I may... mang-ing the 9 for the beloved Coo.. he was there in '03 when the Cubs yoke-kicked me....

We have all seen the horrific sideshow this man has become. I wish that he'd go away. Yes, MLB owes Sosa and The Worlds' Largest Irishman a debt of gratitude, but he embarrassed everyone who loved and supported him in Chicago. I'm not even talking about the hellish steroid shitstorm... HE CORKED HIS BAT! WHAT THE FUCK?!? ARE YOU KIDDING?!?

In the end, after all of the joy and goodwill, the man became a pariah. His jukebox was smashed in his own clubhouse and many a punchline involve his name.

Good luck Rangers.....

PS -- I'd like to thank Solomon Torres for providing the pic up top when he earholed Jerky... I remember him saying it wasn't on purpose.. yeah... OK....

If I Could Be Like Mike. Oh, wait, I don't wanna be like Mike this way.

This comes by way of Deadspin.

We've all had that crazy, ex-whatever to deal with. You know the one, they overemphasize everything in the relationship. ("Today is our four month, and three weeks, anniversary.") They assume the minutia of the relationship is fascinating to everyone. (Yesterday was our four month, and three week, anniversary.) They dwell on the most mundane shit within the relationship. ("I remember the first time we ate tuna salad for lunch together.")

They are crazy.

They blog about you after you have broken up. What? No Ex has ever blogged about you? Oh you wait, it's coming.

Meet Michael Jordan's Mistress.

Sports On T.V. today.

National Games.

• College men's basketball:
• Massachusetts vs. Xavier (ESPN, 7 p.m.)
• Wake Forest vs. Duke (ESPN2, 7 p.m.)

• Golf:
• PGA European Tour, Abu Dhabi Championship, first round, at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (The Golf Channel, 9:30 a.m.)
• PGA Tour, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, first round, at La Quinta and Bermuda Dunes, Calif. (The Golf Channel, 3 p.m.)

• High school boys basketball: Oak Hill Academy (Va.) vs. Simeon (Ill.), at Chicago (ESPN, 9 p.m.).

• NBA:
• Indiana vs. Miami (TNT, 7:15 p.m.)
• L.A. Lakers vs. Dallas (TNT, 9:30 p.m.)

• Tennis: Australian Open, at Melbourne, (ESPN2, 3 p.m., same-day tape; ESPN2, 9 p.m., live; and ESPN, 3:30 a.m. Thurs., live)

Local Games.

• College women's basketball: Minnesota vs. Illinois (CSNCHI, 7 p.m.)

Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton

Ricky Hatton will try to regain his IBF 140lb title on Saturday night on HBO. This after winning his last fight at 147, and winning the WBA title. He is undefeated and a lot of fun to watch fight. He has a pressure style of fighting with lots of body attacks. I encourage everyone to watch him this weekend.

Sports On T.V. Today.

National Games.

• College men's basketball:
• North Carolina at Clemson (ESPN, 7 p.m.)
• Illinois at Minnesota (ESPN2, 7 p.m.)

• Golf: PGA Tour, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, first round, at La Quinta and Bermuda Dunes, Calif. (The Golf Channel, 3 p.m.)

• NBA: L.A. Lakers at San Antonio (ESPN, 9 p.m.)

• Tennis: Australian Open, at Melbourne, (ESPN2, 3 p.m., same-day tape; ESPN2, 9 p.m., live; and ESPN, 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, live)

• English Premeire League Soccer:
• 3rd Round Replay, Newcastle United vs. Birmingham City (FSC, 3 p.m.)

Bear Down!!

I haven't written to much about the Bears play-off run so far. Mainly this is because I am far to emotionally involved to write well about it. I'm to excited; can't think straight.

I'm also a Chicago sports fan.

I only have a limited knowledge of other cities relationship with their teams, but in Chicago, the negativity and expectation of failure is distracting, if not hurtful to the enjoyment of sports. We are always waiting to have our hopes to be crushed. I'm alittle sick of it.

I can be as guilty of this as anyone. When the Cubs were making their run in 2003, I was living in L.A. My attention, and the Cubs success, became contagious amongst my friends there that had no team. My normal reaction to their excitement was, "I'll believe it when I see it." When they had their collapse, I felt like the guy who never enjoyed life for of fear of life. I never really enjoyed the ride, and that's no way to watch sports. Not for me.

Last Sunday, I watched the Bears win a close game, drunk on Bloody Mary's, with many a friend. They won. We were happy. NFC Championship game was coming to Chicago. The last time the Bears hosted an NFC championship game Ronald Reagan was still in office, for fucks sake. The Bears were pounded back in '89 by a superior 49er's team, and never recovered.

So, I'm gonna go back to that bar this Sunday, get drunks with my friends again, and enjoy the game. I might be fifty the next time they make it.