The Soup

The Soup can be summed up in one word: snarky. Every week host Joel McHale skewers the worst of television and pop culture, targeting the deplorable (such as A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila) the egomaniacal (Tyra Banks, Janice Dickenson) and the incomprehensible (say Willard Scott or the spaghetti-eating cat that mysteriously showed up on the Mike and Juliet Show.)



The humor ranges from the high-brow to the bargain basement and back again. You're as likely to hear them ridicule MTV's pronouncement of The Hills as this generation's A Tale of Two Cities with actual Dickens jokes as you are that the self-professed "Yank Skank" who slept with Alex Rodriguez was called a "Cub Dumpster" when she lived in Chicago.

All in all, this is one of the most consistently funny shows on television. For more information check out The Soup Blog

The USL/MLS overlap

With the fantastic results of Montreal and Puerto Rico in the CONCACAF Champions League and the highly entertaining US Open Cup final involving the Charleston Battery, some would argue that the gap between the USL and MLS is narrowing. This may be due (at least in part) to the influx of former MLS players into USL.

There are a number of players on these three teams with MLS experience, including two players with more than 100 appearances. (There are also a number of players that were drafted by MLS teams, but never played. Those players are not listed below)

Here are those players, listed in order of MLS appearances.

Charleston Battery
Nelson Akwari 78
Stephen Armstrong 77
Lazo Alavanja 58
John Wilson 32
Dusty Hudok 12
Marco Reda 8

Montreal Impact
Matt Jordan 117
Pato Aguilera 19
Felix Brillant 19
David Testo 16
Adam Braz 13
Roberto Brown 13

Puerto Rico Islanders
Petter Villegas 117
Fabrice Noel 18
Bill Gaudette 17
Alberto Delgado 14
Osei Telesford 2

(edit -- I missed Stephen Armstrong in the original list. Thanks for pointing that out Mike!)

CCL Results By Country

Now that the preliminary round is if the CONCACAF Champions League is complete, I thought it would be interesting to see the results broken down by country. Mexico is first, in part by virtue of Cruz Azul's pounding of Hankook Verdes. If you're an American fan... avert your eyes. Ugh.

                  W  L  T  GF  GA   DIF  Win %  PPG
Mexico            3  0  0  15   0    15 100.0%  3.00
Trinidad & Tobago 2  0  0   6   1     5 100.0%  3.00
Puerto Rico       1  0  1   3   2     1  50.0%  2.00
Canada            1  0  1   1   0     1  50.0%  2.00
Panama            2  1  1   8   2     6  50.0%  1.75
Guatemala         1  1  0   1   5    -4  50.0%  1.50
Honduras          0  0  2   4   4     0   0.0%  1.00
Costa Rica        0  1  1   2   3    -1   0.0%  0.50
El Salvador       0  1  1   3   4    -1   0.0%  0.50
Nicaragua         0  1  1   0   1    -1   0.0%  0.50
USA               0  3  1   2   9    -7   0.0%  0.25
Jamaica           0  1  0   0   3    -3   0.0%  0.00
Belize            0  2  0   0  12   -12   0.0%  0.00

Can Donovan Join the 20 Goal Club?

Landon Donovan's brace against New England last weekend brings his goal total to 16 with eight games left on the Galaxy's schedule. If he manages to knock in four more goals, it would make him the ninth player in MLS history to reach the 20-goal plateau.

  Player                    TM    GM   G   Year
1 Roy Lassiter              TB    30   27  1996
2 Stern John                CLB   27   26  1998
  Mamadou Diallo            TB    28   26  2000
3 Carlos Ruiz               LA    26   24  2002
4 Taylor Twellman           NE    28   23  2002
  Raul Diaz Arce            DC    28   23  1996
5 Eduardo Hurtado           LA    26   21  1996
6 Luciano Emilio            DC    29   20  2007

As you can see, no player has ever registered at least 20 goals more than once. When Luciano Emilio did it last season, he was the first to do so in five years. This is Donovan's best goal-scoring year by far with 16 goals in just 18 games played. Can he make it to 20? That's a very interesting question.

Because MLS does not break for international dates, Donovan will likely miss at least two of the Galaxy's remaining eight games while on World Cup qualifying duty. The US plays Cuba on 9/6 and Trinidad and Tobago on 9/10, meaning Donovan will miss the 9/6 game against Salt Lake. The US plays the return legs of those fixtures 10/11 and 10/15, which means he'll likely miss the 10/12 game against Colorado. Factoring in fatigue and injuries from these games, he could also miss 10/18 against Houston and 9/13 against Kansas City.

If he keeps scoring at this rate, he'll finish with 20 goals if he plays at least five more games. Whether he plays that many remains to be seen. If he doesn't, it's yet another in a long line of arguments against MLS playing on FIFA dates.

Schelotto Hunts 20 Assists

Over the weekend the Crew's Guillermo Barros Schelotto notched his fifteenth and sixteenth assists of the year, putting him in prime position to achieve something that has only been done once in the history of Major League Soccer -- tally 20 assists in one season.

Carlos Valderrama set the single-season mark in 2000 with 26 assists in 32 games. How hard is it to get 20 assists? Only two other players have ever reached 19 assists - Marco Etcheverry (who did it twice) and Steve Ralston. In fact if Schelotto's fails to tally another assist, it would already tie him for the fifth best season of all time.

  Player                    TM   GM   A   Year
1 Carlos Valderrama         TB   32   26  2000
2 Marco Etcheverry          DC   26   19  1996
  Carlos Valderrama         TB   20   19  1997
  Marco Etcheverry          DC   29   19  1998
  Steve Ralston             NE   27   19  2002
3 Steve Ralston             TB   32   18  1999
4 Carlos Valderrama         TB   23   17  1996
  Preki                     KC   27   17  1997
  Marco Etcheverry          DC   22   17  1999
  Mauricio Cienfuegos       LA   30   17  1999
  Steve Ralston             TB   30   17  2000
  Preki                     KC   30   17  2003
5 **Schelotto**             CLB  22   16  2008
  Carlos Valderrama         COL  27   16  2002
  Martin Machon             MIA  24   16  2000
  Mauricio Cienfuegos       LA   30   16  1998

How good are Schelotto's chances? If he continue to provide assists at his current rate, he would end with 21 assists. If he tallies a helper every other game, he'll end with 20. It's not a lock, but the chances look pretty good.

Amy Winehouse Decision Tree

Now you too can determine whether or not you should go to rehab.

113 Miiiiillion Dollars...

So what can you purchase for 113 million dollars? If you're the soccer clubs of Manchester, England, you can buy two players. That's right, just two. On the last day of the European transfer window, Manchester United purchased Dimitar Berbatov from Totteham Hotspur. The price? Roughly $55,00,000.

However that wasn't even the largest transfer of the day. Not to be outdone, Manchester City pulled a fast one and plucked Brazilian winger Robinho out from under the noses of Chelsea for a British record $58.5 million bucks. Isn't Roman Abromavich being outbid for a player the third seal?

Somewhere Dr. Evil wishes he had this kind of money.