Next Post: FCD as the farm team for the whole damn country of Brazil and Argentina!

1. Juan Toja is going to be out for the next two to four weeks with a high ankle sprain. (Could someone with medical knowledge explain a high ankle versus a low ankle sprain, if there is such a thing.) That means he’s definitely going to miss the upcoming games against the Columbus Crew (tomorrow) and Houston Dynamo (August 19th) and possibly the games against DC United (September 1st) and the Seattle Sounders (US Open Semi-Final September 4th.) With those important matches looming now isn’t the best time of year to lose him, but with Dax McCarty playing better each day the Hoops might be able to make due in his absence.

2. I’ve got a voucher for free tickets to the September 20th FC Dallas/Chicago Fire game at Pizza Hut Park. I won’t be able to make it so I’m holding a contest that has no real rules and no stated means of winning. Either leave a comment or send an email to dallas[at]theoffside[dot]com with a “reason” why you should win and I’ll pick someone from that group. I’ll don’t know how I’m going to choose a winner just yet, but saying “I’ve been a fan for X-amount of years” won’t do.

3. I had planned to keep my discussion of the designated player to just a two part series, but a couple good comments and prodding from my biggest fan will have me extending my analysis to discuss what FC Dallas should do. I briefly touched on this in an earlier post but I’ll go into more depth sometime next week. Also thank you to the guy (maybe it was a girl, I don’t know) who correctly pointed out that I mailed in my reasons for a designated player. It’s been a tough work week out here and that plus the new Simpsons DVD release has eaten up a lot of my time. No excuses though, although I did thoroughly enjoy a critique of my writing, almost as much as I enjoy a critique of my arguments themselves. So I apologize to everyone for that lackluster effort, it won’t happen again and thank you for keeping me honest.

I hope to have big news to announce soon, but this deal I’m trying to put together hasn’t gone as smoothly as I figured. But until them remember that this is Dallas where the FC stands for “fully concentrated.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

2. Still no word from Amber Campisi, Kylah Kim or Parisa Fakhri. When I started this quest to find a celebrity fan I had no clue this would be so hard. It seemed so easy in the beginning, send out a few emails, get a few replies, send out a few scarves and boom. But ugh, this is so much frustrating than I even imagined. I may have to (God forbid) seek celebrities from outside the Dallas area.

3. Here’s an interview with Denìlson (not that one, the other one) where he talks about the possibility of coming to FC Dallas.

4. Yesterday I said my computer died. Well I’ve eliminated the monitor as the problem so that’s a start into either getting it back up and running or deciding to scrape money together for a new one.

Back tommorrow with more, hopefully on the progress of my PC because this is Dallas where the FC stands for “fixed computer.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

1. I’m working on trying to bring an African soccer expert on board to join Brian Kopinski (my resident English soccer expert.) Post some positive comments if you get a chance; maybe that will help sway his opinion to join.

2. No word from Amber Campisi, Kylah Kim or Parisa Fakhri in our search for a celebrity fan. If you remember Amy Acker’s people blew us off before they could even read the email, so she’s out. I’m going to re-send the email tonight and maybe it’ll get through to the right people this time.

3. I’ve been hearing quite a few negative comments about the FC Dallas fan club, the Inferno, on the interwebs recently. Say what you want but watch that line, I dont want to have to get involved. I made this man to back down just off the threat of words alone (if you find him, ask him, he got signed by Carolina) So a couple of weekend warriors masquerading as soccer hooligans should probably think twice.

Back tommorrow with some more indepth analysis, because this is Dallas where the FC stands for “frequently composing.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

1. Congratulations to Juan Toja for being chosen to the MLS All Star squad. He’s had a great season thus far and thoroughly deserves this honor. His 34.139 (that number comes from a lot of math) placed him fifth overall in the voting, but there wasn’t much support from the fans or opposing players (Fans, Media, Players and Coaches/GMs each have an overall 25% vote). Everybody in the Starting XI received more fan and player votes than Juan Toja, he’s basically there on the strength of the media (who like to talk about his hair) and the front office guys who wish he was on their team.

2. If a tree falls in the forest…That’s probably the best way to describe Saturday’s friendly with Mexican First Division club Tigres UANL. The game is not on any US television channel nor is it being followed by any US radio station, couple that with reports that its not being followed by Mexican TV or radio either and you have to ask did the game really happen. It’s understandable yet unfortunate that the game is not carried in any form in the States but to be discounted in Mexico as well, I just don’t get it. Someone could come back tomorrow and say the game ended 4-1 FC Dallas, while someone else could say 3-0 Tigres UANL and all we could do is go “yup.” I don’t like it.

3. Our defense has been kidnapped and replaced by mutant, soccer-playing cyborgs, bent on destroying MLS competition. I know that’s not actually true but it’s the only thing I could come up with, four clean sheets in the past five games?!? This from the same defense that as of June 13th had allowed everyone to score, all I can say is wow. They don’t have to be this good for FC Dallas to be great; especially when Carlos Ruiz comes around (he will come around.)

That’s it for today; real life intercedes especially in Dallas, where the FC stands for “forever cleaning.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

Also, for some reason there were some people who thought that all those women were porn stars, only some were; I thought that was clear but I guess not. But since I want to keep those concerns in mind, the first few people I’m going to ask to be a FC Dallas celebrity fan will be the non-porn stars. Although the question must be asked what do I do with Miss February 2005, Amber Campisi? She might be the most famous of all of them and she’s not a porn star but she did take off her clothes for money. I’m guessing this is a discussion question as well, for the record before someone gets upset that I have another “porn star discussion,” there are two different discussion points from this post because for some reason while this is Dallas, the FC stands for “frequently confused.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

1. I want to do a mailbag-esque thing; basically it keeps me from having to come up with a topic of discussion everyday. Numerical Analysis, adult film and Shakespeare analogies aren’t easy. So send me your questions, I’ll put them all together and we’ll what happens.

2. I just saw a picture of Nelly Furtado in a DC United jersey. We need to counter that. I went through IMDB and searched for celebrity women born in Dallas, TX and I got about 20 possibilities, although a large number seem to be porn stars (Maybe Shelbyville did spike the water?) Any suggestions though?

3. Send me your pictures. I want to see you FC Dallas. I have a great one I want to put up if I can figure out how.

That’s it for now; real life intervenes, but never fear, I’ll be back because this is Dallas where the FC stands for “Feeling Carefree.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

I think I’m going to stick with the title “Free Kicks” for now, the best real submission I got was “Dribbling” from new reader Angela and I kinda like “Free Kicks” …that is unless of course something better comes along.

A couple things, I appreciate the rise in readership but I guess my new readers haven’t gone back and read my previous posts. Understandable this ain’t college, so I can’t expect people to do background research. So let me catch my new readers up on what they missed because I got a couple comments that left me bewildered.

I only decided to follow MLS this season, before then I treated it like global warming, it either didn’t exist or I just ignored it (Ha, pretty clever, I satisfied both sides of the political debate there.) I became an FC Dallas fan after playing the FIFA ’06 video game because Eddie Johnson and Carlos Ruiz seemed too much fun to resist and in retrospect that team was loaded (Simo Valakari, Ronnie O’Brien, Richard Mulrooney, etc.) But I’m learning on the go here, I say that because one of the comments I was recently left asked me about my feelings on the “Brimstone Cup” and I’ll be honest, I had no clue what that even was.

The commenter in question was a Chicago Fire fan and I had no idea how to reply to his question until I thought of an apt analogy, college football (trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.) In college football everyone wants their team to win the conference title and possibly the national one as well, but there are many smaller trophies played between rivals that are contested every year. For instance, my alma mater plays for “the Little Brown Jug.” (+1 if you can guess where I went to school.) Now, no one ever starts the season off and says “I want to win the Little Brown Jug,” but on gameday you don’t want to let that trophy go. It’s because that trophy is a symbol, a symbol of victory, to lose that symbol means you’ve lost a game and no fan wants their team to lose a game. Now I know I’m going to get replies like “it’s a contrived rivalry,” but if they build a mini-mall, we’re going to build a bigger mini-mall and if they make the world’s largest pizza, we’re going to burn down their city hall and if they swear to get even by spiking our water supply, we’ll know they don’t have to guts to go through with it (incredible reference there.) So we’ll celebrate this fabricated derby (or is it darby…I’ve seen it spelled both ways) and next time we’re in Chicago we’ll bring the Brimstone Cup down Lake Shore Drive and back up Michigan Ave so you Chicago fan’s can see it because its headed back to Dallas where the FC stands for “Frustrated completely” (it probably stands for something different but this has been a really hard day.)

HOOPS PRIDE!

Also, I gotta start figuring out how to post pictures in this blog (remember I want to see “Hoops Hotties” from the games…the Scottish and Irish Hoops contingents can send in their “Hoops Hotties” as well…do they call them “Hoops Lasses” over there? But I’m not sure much may come in from the other side of the Atlantic as I think their seasons are both finished.) Anyways, so I’m going to be working on that. But I wanted to put up a few quick things…

• Kyle Beckerman will be doing a chat on ESPN Thursday at 2PM Eastern. I’m going to be submitting questions that tell him how we feel; I suggest you do the same. Here are some of the ones I’m submitting:

1. With the same hair, same game and same bad attitude, why can’t you let Pablo Mastroeni have anything of his own?
2. In episode 9F22 (Cape Feare) why did you spend so much time discussing your master plan when it was simply to board the Simpson’s houseboat and attempt to kill Bart Simpson?
3. Give me back my Swiffer.

• I want to try to get an interview with an FC Dallas player or coach any suggestions on whom?

That’s it for now…hopefully you see a picture at the bottom, that would mean I’m learning and that this is Dallas where the FC stands for “Forever Cultivating” (that was a stretch, I know) but if that picture is not there then unfortunately, I guess its “Failing Continually.”

HOOPS PRIDE!