Soccer Stuff in SI

Hmmm ... Phillies blew another one and my neighbor just signed with the Caps after four years with the Flyers. So what's good in sports today?

Since this is a soccer blog afterall, what's good is that Sports Illustrated this week has not one, but two good soccer stories, both by Grant Wahl. In my book Wahl is one of the top three soccer writers in the country, the other two being Jere Longman and George Vecsey, both of the New York Times.

In the Inside Soccer column Wahl analyzes the U.S. loss to Brazil and notes that three of four red cards in the Confederation Cup were shown to American players.

On p. 48 is an excerpt from Wahl's book, The Beckham Experiment, about the relationship between the English superstar, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Landon Donovan. The second sentence of the article gives one a hint of the gist of the entire piece: "...he failed as a leader, foundered on the field and alienated his most important teammate." It's an interetsing and well-written article and I'll probably buy the book.