SimonOnSports

If you are looking for the best sports betting online - look no further -join now the most secure online sportsbook with best bonuses and promotions! The World Cup begins today and I'm wondering just how Patriotic you feel today. The US enters the tournament with 95:1 odds meaning the gambling community essentially feels that the US has zero shot of pulling of the massive World Cup upset and truly why would they. Soccer is not one of the prime sports in this country and we have never had any major success in this tournament. If the US were to somehow come home with World Cup trophy in hand it would be one of the more historical sports upsets. The Americans may be ranked #14 overall in the FIFA World Rankings as well as SI's World Cup Power Rankings but they aren't truly in the class of the European and South American powerhouses. The Americans do not have any players getting regular playing time on any of the European club giants. Meanwhile, a team like Spai...

The predictions will be quick, to the point, and in bracket format... I'm going with the favorites of Spain and a whole lot of chalk. I think there's a definitive difference between the #1 and #2s of the groups and lamely picked no upsets in the round of 16. I think France and Portugal will be the lone European powerhouses to not make the Quarters. I also feel that the African squads will have a horrible showing in the their first world cup on home soil. The golden boot will likely go to Messi despite me thinking they get knocked off in the semis, and the player of the tournament will be his Barca teammate Xavi.

In 2010 Chelsea F.C. had a landmark season. While they still could not break through with great Champions League success they did bring home a domestic double which included the Premiership and FA Cup trophies. Due to the grind of playing so many meaningful games it appears as if the Chelsea players are suffering injuries left and right that are serious damaging the chances of their home countries. Michael Essien, Ghana: Essien is likely the best African midfielders and was lost for Chelsea in December and despite what was supposed to be a rehab which would have him ready in ample time for the World Cup, due to complications Ghana is without their best player. John Mikel Obi, Nigeria: John Mikel Obi is a defensive focused midfielder who started 35 times this season for Chelsea up until his injury in late April. Unfortunately for him and Nigeria he could not recoup in time for the first ever African World Cup. Michael Ballack, German Captain: Ballack was the aging captain of t...

Lionel Messi is quite arguably the greatest soccer play in the world right now and at just 22 years of age he has already amassed a ridiculous 101 goals for Barcelona. When I was 22 the only thing I was doing was looking for a job and slugging back Milwaukee's Best Light while not really looking forward to college graduation. Any-who, Barca TV put together a video tribute which includes every single gaol throughout his young, but already prolific career. The 2nd video of the remaining goals is after the jump.

Good ole Crazy man goal keeper Jens Lehmann's bladder had enough yesterday. He wasn't going to wait through the rest of the half to get to the locker room and piss. Nope, he found a perfect spot to go in the middle of the game. I bet he was all kinds of refreshed afterwards and led Stuttgart to a 3-1 victory. H/T Dirty Tackle

This particular Bicycle Kick was scored by Eliran Atar and is one of the ten goals up for FIFA 2009 Goal of the Year. Even with my fondness of Bicycle Kicks I have to admit that it has nothing on this goal from Grafite for Wolfsburg vs. Bayern Muncih. Check out The Offside which has each of the 10 Best Goals of 2009.

Josh McDaniels certainly had a bad Sunday. His Broncos scored just 3 points after he apparently told a few Chargers " We own you ." At the opposite end of the spectrum is Jermain Defoe. Defoe a striker for the north London Tottenham Hotspur scored 5 goals in one game. That's two goals more than the Broncos scored points. Ouch.

Ireland was defeated by France yesterday in the final stages of World Cup Qualifying thanks to a blatant handball by French striker / pansyman Thierre Henry. How blatant of a handball was it? Take it away Thierre: "It was a handball, but I'm not the ref,'' he said on BBC Radio Five Live. ''The ball hit my arm, fell in front of me and I played it. The ref allowed it. That's a question you should ask him." [ ESPN ] Now see for yourself: I think it's time we can finally agree that god damn Bud Selig needs to institute replay in Football and that plays like this could easily be corrected if we just allowed replay. How long would it take for an official to go up in the booth and correct the call? We all know it was the wrong call. On behalf of all of Ireland, all of the Irish descendants in America and all of those who hate France, here's a giant F You to Bud Selig for hating replay.

If she was a Jet she probably would have waited til their was 1 second left on the clock and walked the ball into the goal for a loss. Regardless, I bet she gets a trophy for excellence cause everyone gets a trophy for excellence. H/T Deadspin

Who knew that women's college soccer is the place to find random acts of violence? My question is how the hell did she not get a card on the flying challenge right before the hair pull? That had to be something the refs saw right? Courtesy of TBL

One last reference to the fact I was in Manchester last weekend, here's what you get when you have two non-athletic fat men announce a game together. They neither seemed drunk enough nor willing to stab each other, makes me wonder if they are actually British Football fans or not. Courtesy of With Leather

Again I was in Manchester last week for the actual job but unfortunately was not there for the Derby between Manchester United and Manchester City. This would have been tremendously entertaining with a pub seat and a few cask ales in me mostly because of the 4-3 thrilling result but in part because of this beautifully Craig Bellamy slap. I could imagine the polite conversations going on between United and City fans after that.

I'm in Manchester and the Champions League starts today, thus you get a brief Champions League Preview with limited knowledge. Group A 1. Juventus 2. Bayern Munich 3. Bordeaux 4. Maccabi Haifa Well I can't stand the French and can't identify which country Maccabi is from, so they are both out. Juventus gets the edge over Bayern based on their slow but steady return to power following their Group B 1. Manchester United 2. Besiktas 3. CSKA Moscow 4. Vfl Wolfsburg Manchester United wins this group with incredible ease. The 2nd spot is up for grabs, we're going with the Turkish squad simply due to the past success of other squads from Istanbul. Group C 1. Real Madrid 2. AC Milan 3. Marseille 4. FC Zurich Will the French side Marseille break up the Milan Madrid party? Nope. Group D 1. Chelsea 2. Atletico Madrid 3. FC Porto 4. Apoel Nicosia Porto and Atletico should push Chelsea some in the Group stage and force them to sweat out a position. In the end Chelsea should still wi...

The real job is actually doing something cool as I'm headed to Manchester England for the week leaving, well now (Yay RedEye!). Unfortunately I'm leaving Friday, the day before one of 2 annual derbies between ManU and ManCity so I won't be in town for kicks like the one seen below. I do hope to see a few fist fights and maybe a shiv or two outside of pubs between opposing fans. In my absence the posts will likely be scarce.

If his leg was made up of all metal, than he certainly could have withstood this ferocious hit. Instead he has weak bones and doesn't drink enough milk and snap goes the little twig. Courtesty of Goal.com

I've seen some messed up celebrations in my time, from any of Ocho Cinco's ludicrous acts to the Sharpie to a Soccer Player Pretending to Snort Coke. But nothing will ever be as messed up as La Liga's Getafe's 2009 celebration will be .

Do you like buttox? Do you enjoy streakers? Than You'll like this. [NSFW]

So how exactly does that statement makie sense? Meet the case of Giuseppe Rossi. Giuseppe was born in Teaneck New Jersey and raised in nearby Clifton. His parents were teachers in Clifton up until the time Giuseppe showed promise in the game of soccer and was reruited by the Italian club Parma. At age 13 Rossi and his father moved to Italy to help groom him as a soccer player. At some point in time during his life in Italy, Rossi decided that he would rather play for the Italian National team than the US Team, and so he has. Rossi has played for the Italian U-16, U-21, Olympic and now senior squad. And this brings us to yesterday, which he said he was extremely excited about. "That's the country where I was born, and that's the country where I have my family and friends," Rossi said of the U.S. "It's going to be a great game to watch, and for me to play against them is always something special." ESPN And play he did. As a second half substitute, Ro...

For those unaware, I am a fan of Chelsea. Over the past few years my fandom has grown from a "Hey I'm in London, I should pick a team to like" in 2002 to watching the majority of the Champions League matches and the occasional Premiership match on Fox Soccer Channel. Well yesterday was a day of pain for my relatively small but growing fanhood. Chelsea in the Champions League semi-final scored an early goal over Barca to put them ahead on aggregate. They held this lead throughout the game and had the better chances but couldn't find a way to get the second goal. Then with time dying down, one mistake on a clearance from the box was all Barca needed to score their lone goal and advance to the Champions League finals. Losing in the closing seconds is a rough way to be defeated in any game but even tougher when the official is horrendous. Below is a recounting of the 4 different opportunities the official had to call a penalty kick in favor of Chelsea. Let's just...

Don't know if I've ever seen a guy chip it up to himself and then bury the bicycle kick. H/T 101 Great Goals