FA Cup 5th round Sunday

Blades fire blanks at Bramall Lane.Kevin Blackwell took the reigns at Sheffield United this week and his reward was a run out with visiting Middlesbrough. Not necessarily how you want to start a new job. The Blades responded by leaving it all out on the pitch as they gave Boro all they could handle. Middlesbrough came to play too, although they started out the lesser enthusiastic of the two. James Beattie gave the home supporters some excitement in first half stoppage time as he rattled the post. Middlesbrough fans got their excitement in the second half by way of a Mido overhead strike that brought out the best in United keeper Paddy Kenny and Emmanuel Pogatetz’s header was cleared off of the Blades line in the waning moments of the match.

These two will meet up again February 26th at the Riverside in the replay. Sheffield United 0-0 Middlesbrough.

      

                        

 Pomey weather Lilywhite storm at Deepdale. David James can be brilliant at times and today was one of those times. Preston were not very hospitable to their visitors as they kept Pompey working throughout the match. James made great saves on Simon Whaley’s penalty and Neil Mellor’s curler from ouside the box. Darren Carter scored a beautiful point blank goal in the dying moments to send Portsmouth into the quarter-finals. He plays for Preston (do the math). Sometimes you don’t get what you deserve. Sadly for Preston they won’t get another shot at the next round. Preston North End 0-1 Portsmouth.

         

         

Beckham’s field of dreams

A little Beckham drama cropped up this week and I don’t know if Planet Football has heard about this. T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times (who has absolutely no love for football) wrote an article you might find interesting:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-simers12feb12,1,5344395.column

                                

I never bought into the hype when King David joined the LA Galaxy last season. How could ‘the powers that be’ in the MLS believe that one player was going to take them to the next level? Beckham didn’t move to Los Angeles to save the league, he moved there to live in Hollywood and hang out with movie stars. He went there to give his wife a chance to be a movie star (yeah, that’s going to happen). The MLS and the LA Galaxy are fooling themselves if they think that their interests are his main concern.

I was listening to World Soccer Daily the other day and they were talking about their encounter with Alexi Lalas on their television show Fox Football Fone In. Apparently the Anschutz Entertainment Group mouthpiece stated on the air that the reason that the club hasn’t sent Beckham to interview with them is two fold. First, the club doesn’t make those decisions for him. Apparently a half a billion dollar deal to play in the US doesn’t give a club the right to have him actually promote the club with the media. Second, WSD is just not big enough for the great David Beckham. Hey, Alexi – can you see your prostate from that angle?! For those that aren’t familiar with WSD, it is the biggest football dedicated radio show in the US, a nation of several hundred million. Not big enough?

                               

The whole thing has been a media debacle from the start. Many American sports reporters hate football and would love to see it fail in the US. Yet the league still doesn’t deploy their biggest asset strategically.

Hey, David – I like Snoop too, but if you truly love the sport that gave you everything you have, reach out to those who cough up the dosh to see you play. Treat them with the respect they deserve.