Soccer Saturday Night

Well if last night's live blog wasn't enough action for me, I decided to spend almost my entire day watching soccer, between trying to pretend that I have a life. I had some sort of built-in alarm clock that woke me up at precisely 7:41 AM, just in time to see the Premier League debut on ESPN2 with Hull City @ Chelsea, and I'm finishing it up with an MLS doubleheader. Here now your weekly dose of ramblings about the beautiful game from the American Arsene Wenger.

-Did Arsenal manager, the real Arsene Wenger (above) see that I picked his Gunners 7th in the EPL table? They beat Everton from pillar to post today in a 6-1 thrashing. What an unreal performance, as seemingly nobody in the red and white, even Nicklas Bendtner, could do wrong. I don't think either team is as strong/weak as what we saw today, but Arsenal made a statement to the doubters (including me!) today, big time.

-Chelsea escaped with a 2-1 win at home to Hull thanks to Didier Drogba's stoppage time goal. Audacious chip or misplaced cross? You decide, I'm sure only Drogba truly knows. Good effort from Hull, and especially new winger Stephen Hunt. Ancelotti breathes a big sigh of relief to withstand the pressure on his job, for a week at least. He's hoping to at least last longer than Grant, Hiddink, or Scolari. That would be stability for Chelsea.

-Shocker of the day saw Wigan beat Villa 2-0 at Villa! Goal of the week from Hugo Rodallega as well. Villa could be in big trouble this season, they were totally outplayed from start to finish, credit to Wigan.

-Man City only struggled to a 2-0 at Blackburn. A win is a win, but I was a little underwhelmed. Shaun Wright-Phillips and Gareth Barry impressed for the nouveau riche. All the other results in the EPL were pretty much no surprise, Wolves & Burnley suffering defeat in their first games after promotion.

-In Germany, perennial favs Bayern have opened the season with 2 draws after tieing Werder Bremen today 1-1. The pressure will really mount on Bayern if they get off to a slow start this season after failing to win the Bundesliga last year. Will they give in and sell Ribery? I say no, but it will be interesting to see what panic buttons are hit by the end of the transfer window. I can see a Wolfsburg repeat in Germany, what a shock that would be.

-Can't envision too many dramatic last minute signings with the transfer window shutting in a few weeks. Maybe Liverpool brings in a CB? Maybe some of the bottom EPL teams bring in reinforcements? Nothing major shaping up though. Then again, you never know when Real Madrid or Man City might come along and bid $50 Million for Nicklas Bendtner after today's game!

-Stateside, the hometown Crew beat FC Dallas 2-0. Good to see reigning MVP Schelotto come back on the field for the last minute as well. The Crew are absolutely on fire (in Marv Albert voice) winning 5 straight and taking the lead in the race for the Eastern Conference and the Supporter's Shield. Columbus, and the other top MLS teams start play in the CONCACAF Champions League this week as well. It'll be interesting to see how much importance the teams put on that competition with MLS' poor performances lately. Domestically, it looks like it is shaping up for a Crew/Dynamo MLS Cup showdown, which would be awesome.

-Speaking of the Dynamo, they're tied at the half against RSL. A drab first half and a sending off for the Dynamo means we'll probably see them pack it in for the 2nd half and look to counter with Holden and the quality they have up front. Houston will have to battle it out with Seattle and a surging LA Galaxy (with Becks behaving himself) to win the West, but they have the quality to do it with 3 guys who appeared for the US against Mexico.

-Speaking of the US game against Mexico, (brilliant segues Mr. Yoder I is what you're thinking at home I know!) Landon Donovan's largely crappy performance has been explained by a case of the swine flu. And before all of the ethnic jokes begin, he caught it in the US, not Mexico. Guess that explains why he got blown by on that last Mexican goal. (Insert any combo of either Mexico/Donovan/Beckham/Swine flu joke here).

That'll do it for the SSN Update. We'll be back to the beautiful game early next week with our results from the Week 1 pick 'em, our Week 2 picks, anything we might have missed, and a CONCACAF CL preview. Whew! Maybe by tomorrow Y2 will be back to give me a much needed blow. I feel like I've pitched a Harvey Haddix this weekend. (If you don't know who that is do yourself a favor and look it up!) We'll be back with a PGA recap, and a special announcement about a cool thing we're doing here at RSS over the course of the rest of the year very soon. In the words of Arsene, au revoir and bonne nuit.