file this under: shit that makes me cry

[yeats.livejournal.com]

Man Utd juniors to take part in Tournament honoring 1914 Christmas Truce

The heart-warming tale of a football match played on a First World War battlefield during a Christmas truce in 1914 will be honoured by young players from four of Europe's top clubs this week in the Belgian town of Ypres.

The Christmas Truce tournament which starts on Friday and is organised by the Premier League features junior sides from English champions Manchester United, Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund, Genk from Belgium and and France's Lens.
( Read more... )

link. the first world war is my field of study, and it's hard to imagine a more pointless, or destructive, conflict. for those of you who aren't familiar, here's a link to more information about the christmas truce. there's also been a movie produced about it.

[T]he Germans set trees on trench parapets and lit the candles. Then, they began singing carols, and though their language was unfamiliar to their enemies, the tunes were not. After a few trees were shot at, the British became more curious than belligerent and crawled forward to watch and listen. And after a while, they began to sing.

By Christmas morning, the "no man's land" between the trenches was filled with fraternizing soldiers, sharing rations and gifts, singing and (more solemnly) burying their dead between the lines. Soon they were even playing soccer, mostly with improvised balls.

According to the official war diary of the 133rd Saxon Regiment, "Tommy and Fritz" kicked about a real football supplied by a Scot. "This developed into a regulation football match with caps casually laid out as goals. The frozen ground was no great matter... he game ended 3-2 for Fritz."

Ryan Babel Story Time

[noodlecookie.livejournal.com]

...where he teaches us about speaking to strangers with deference.

( Put your mutha helmet on & put the got damn cigarettes off )

Didier Drogba Honoured with Beyond Sport's Humanitarian in Sport Award

[laacrima.livejournal.com]

Didier Drogba, the Chelsea FC and Ivory Coast striker, has been honoured with Beyond Sport's Humanitarian in Sport Award – supported by Virgin Atlantic, following in the footsteps of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Congolese ex-NBA star Dikembe Mutombo and taking receipt of the Award in the week before the Beyond Sport Summit is staged in Africa for the first time.

( shut up he'll never retire  )

ugh this manSource

WPS fights to keep top-flight status

[birdofpray09.livejournal.com]

The top professional soccer league for women, which has only five teams, is in danger of losing sanctioning from US Soccer, the sport’s governing body in the United States.

Women’s Professional Soccer completed its third season last summer on the heels of the Women’s World Cup. Most of the players on the United States team, which lost to Japan in the riveting tournament final, also played in W.P.S. They returned from Germany to acclaim and the league experienced a modest bump in attendance as the Western New York Flash, based in Rochester, won the championship.

The six-team league was reduced to five when league officials terminated the magicJack franchise in South Florida. The team’s owner, Dan Borislow, who invented the device of the same name to make inexpensive telephone calls, subsequently filed a lawsuit suit against W.P.S.

According to US Soccer’s bylaws, all professional leagues are required to have a minimum of eight teams. With only six (all in the eastern part of the country) in 2011, W.P.S. requested and was granted a one-year waiver by the federation’s board of directors. Now with only five teams a certainty for the 2012 season, W.P.S. requested an extension of the waver to take it through a season that will include the London Olympics in the hope of attracting new investors before 2013.

“Our primary goal is to retain our D1 status,” Jennifer O’Sullivan, the league’s commissioner, said Thursday in a telephone interview. “We just came off a phenomenal season in 2011 and it feels like this is our time. We want to grab that and run with it.”

( Rest of article behind cut )

It's a disgrace tbqh. For all the effort US Soccer puts into making the country seem like a real competitor in international soccer, they basically ignore their female teams, despite the fact that they've won more medals than the men's side can hope to in the next 100 years.

There's a petition on Change.org created by NY Flash defender Alex Sahlen gathering signatures to help save the league's D1 status, you can sign it here.

Also, mods, how is there not a 'Sepp Blatter' tag already? For shame.

  Source  

Thursday Gameday!

[melj1213.livejournal.com]

17:00GMT//18:00CET//13:00EST

Group L
Lokomotiv Moscow v Sturm Graz

18:00GMT//19:00CET//14:00EST

Group J
AEK Larnaca v Maccabi Haifa
Schalke v Steaua Bucuresti

Group K
FC Twente Enschede v Fulham
OB Odense v Wisla Krakow

Group L
AEK Athens v Anderlecht

20:05GMT//21:05CET//16:05EST

Group D
FC Vaslui v Lazio
Sporting Lisbon v Zurich

Group E
Maccabi Tel Aviv v Besiktas
Stoke City v Dynamo Kyiv

Group F
Athletic Bilbao v Slovan Bratislava
RB Salzburg v Paris S.G.

streams: firstrowsports rojadirecta atdhe LiveFootballTVs footballstreaming myp2

time zone converter: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/t zc.tzc

FIFA 12 Christmas Ad

[etherealgrace55.livejournal.com]

Rather cute Christmas Ad for FIFA 12, I particularly enjoyed Pique's pronunciation of " I don't want socks"