Goose's Gabs

This was the key moment of last Monday's Manchester United-Manchester City match. Find out what happened – and how the Banshee Pub crowd reacted – at DigBoston.com

I knew after having so much fun at Real Madrid-Barcelona that I’d be covering more soccer for DigBoston. I also knew the EPL season was winding down, so I had to act fast before a league even more popular than Spain’s La Liga went away for the year.

Manchester United and Manchester City played each other last Monday for first place in the EPL. Couldn’t have asked for a better setting for 52 Games.

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The two best soccer teams in the world played each other Saturday afternoon. Find out who won at DigBoston.com!

I’ve always thought that better competition might actually give soccer a chance in America. Plenty of people play it as kids, so there’s a similar nostalgia to it as there is in baseball. And plenty of Americans come from soccer-loving cultures, so money could definitely be made off a higher-quality product.

But because MLS soccer is only marginally better than D-III college soccer, no one’s ever seen the sport the way it ought to be played.

I got my first taste of real soccer a few years ago when I saw the EPL’s Chelsea play in England. Ever since I’ve wanted to witness a Real Madrid-Barcelona game. Well, they played Saturday afternoon, and I covered it for 52 Games.

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El Salvador's victory over the U.S. ended the team's Olympic hopes, and the media barely covered it. But who cares?

The past week certainly hasn’t lacked for sports stories: Tim Tebow’s move to the Jets, the rise of this year’s Final Four, the ongoing “investigation” of the murder of Trayvon Martin, even the return of Tiger’s wood (the golf club, pervert).

Adding the country’s inexorable march (in March, no less) back into baseball season, and it’s no wonder U.S. Soccer’s failure to qualify for the Olympics barely made a dent in the headlines.

And why would it? Who’d care? Not too many Americans watch soccer at all, and most of those who do save their patriotism for the World Cup.

Soccer is a four-year sport in this country, like volleyball, swimming or track: we care about it when an international competition comes around every four years, and that’s it. Volleyball and swimming, however, only have the Olympics. Soccer has two major-caliber international competitions, and they’re on offset four-year schedules.

Americans don’t care enough about to soccer to root for it every two years, so we make a choice: watch the World Cup, save the Olympics for more deserving sports.

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Curt Schilling getting into video games is easily my favorite post-retirement career move by a professional athlete. (bleacherreport.com/articles/520766-25-most-bizarre-jobs-after-sports)

Every professional athlete, both great and not-so-great, retires. Some exit after just a year, injured or unable to transition to the professional level. Many make it into their 30s. Some stay in the majors until their mid or even late 40s. But the career always ends, usually with half a lifetime left.

Athletes exit able to do just about anything they want, and that means some of them do some pretty weird stuff. How weird? Here are my 10 favorite post-athletic careers.

10) Mookie Wilson, center fielder. Post-baseball career: truck driver. Wilson hit the ball that went under Bill Buckner’s glove to end Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. That paved the way for a Game 7 Mets victory – their last World Series title – and 18 more years of Red Sox misery. Now, he drives a truck. Seems kinda anti-climactic.

9) Johnnie Morton, wide receiver. Post-football career: MMA fighter. Morton played in the NFL for 11 years before retiring. He fought Bernard Ackah in his first MMA fight and was knocked out in 38 seconds. Then he refused to take a post-fight drug test and was banned indefinitely. I think the only possibly shorter career would be “nuclear bomb catcher.”

8) Gerald Ford, center/linebacker. Post-football career: 38th and 40th President of the United States. This is my catch-all tribute to athletes who go on to politics. On the football field, Ford helped the Michigan Wolverines win two undefeated national championships. As president, he pardoned Richard Nixon, and that was kinda it (discounting two assassination attempts). This is probably the most extreme example of good athletes becoming bad politicians (see also: Jim Bunning, Heath Shuler).

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The Somerville Highlanders had 27 GBL All-Stars for the Fall 2011 season.

(written for Somerville Patch)

Somerville Patch congratulates the Somerville Highlander athletics program for its 27 Greater Boston League All-Stars. Leading the way: the GBL-champion and MIAA Sportsmanship Award-winning boys’ soccer team, with four players named first-team All-Stars and three named second-team.

Sophomore Thayrone Miranda and junior Matheus Reis – both whom the Eastern Mass Soccer Coaches Association also named All-Stars – earned first-team status, as did senior Edgardo Perez Vasques for the second time. Junior Andre Rolim joined the trio on the first team.

Sophomore Francisco Neto and seniors Charlemers “Junior” Pierre-Louis and Richard Rodriguez earned second-team honors.

To become an All-Star, a player must be nominated by a GBL coach, though not necessarily his or her own. All of the coaches then discuss and debate the merits of the various nominations.

Somerville athletic director Nicole Viele says whichever team wins the GBL in a particularly sport typically sets the maximum number of All-Stars in that sport, which is usually around four. After that, there’s a trickle-down effect to the other teams.

“I think the GBL in general tries really hard,” says Viele. “I think we try to limit who our all-stars are and try to have an overall representation of the league.”

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The Somerville Highlanders' cross-country, girls' soccer and golf teams went a combined 6-28-1 in 2011.

(written for Somerville Patch)

Final notes and quotes from the less-covered Somerville Highlander teams.

The Somerville High boys' soccer team won the Greater Boston League and reached the North Division 1 quarter finals of the MIAA state tournament.

(written for Somerville Patch)

The Somerville Highlander boys’ soccer team finished their season with a 13-3-4 record and a Greater Boston League championship. The season may have ended prematurely and tearfully at Chelsea two weeks ago, but coach George Scarpelli said his team’s roster of untested seniors and still-raw underclassmen performed above and beyond expectations.

“These kids, while we’re losing them, they really brought our program to a whole new level,” Scarpelli said. “You can see kids on the J.V. and the freshmen team now look at them and say, ‘hey, I can make an impact like they did.’”

The Highlander senior class developed through the program with a hard-working, nose-to-the-grindstone attitude, improving each year until they were playing their best soccer in their final year. No one exemplified that like goalkeeper Richard Rodriguez, who started his final year without a single meaningful varsity game under his belt.

Rodriguez responded with multiple shutouts, including a 1-0 postseason victory over Brookline.

Scarpelli said that Rodriguez so prepared himself in the offseason before his senior year that he will graduate as “probably the best goalie Somerville High School has seen in a long time.”

“Richie is being offered a chance to play at the university and the college level,” Scarpelli said. “That, to me, is probably our biggest success story.”

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(written, shot and edited for Somerville Patch)

Chelsea senior Carlos Martinez scored with two minutes left in the first overtime of Wednesday’s MIAA North Division 1 Quarter Finals, giving the Red Devils a 3-2 overtime victory over the Somerville Highlanders. Chelsea advanced to Friday’s divisional semi-finals against Billerica. Greater Boston League-champion Somerville’s amazing season has finally ended.

Somerville’s strong midfielders – in particular Francisco Fernandes Neto, the unflappable sophomore center-mid – kept the ball on Chelsea’s side throughout the game. Because of this, Somerville had far more opportunities to score, but they just couldn’t put the ball away enough.

“We just made them focus on moving the ball to the outside,” Highlander coach George Scarpelli said. “Move the ball to the outside, good things happen. Unfortunately, you don’t capitalize on your chances, and that’s what happens.”

Chelsea, meanwhile, seemed content to pick their moments, then explode out of the midfield before Somerville’s defense could react. This forced several Somerville defensive miscues early in the game.

One such miscue forced goalie Richard Rodrigues out of the goal to try to angle off Chelsea’s Hugo Erazo’s after Erazo got past the defense. Erazo missed his shot, but collected his own rebound and nailed the second just five minutes into the game.

The Highlanders did not panic, however, maintaining the attack-first strategy until sophomore Thayrone Miranda – who had missed earlier on a header near Red Devil goalie Jimmy Funes – broke through the defensive line, faking out his mark before depositing the ball in the net to tie the game 1-1 with 15 minutes left in the half.

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(written, shot and edited for Somerville Patch)

In a game that could very well be repeated when the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association state soccer tournament begins on Nov. 5, the Somerville Highlanders and Madison Park (Roxbury) Cardinals played to a 3-3 draw Friday afternoon at Dilboy Stadium.

The Cardinals played with the same aggression, precision and speed the Highlanders have played with all season, and in the opening minutes they surprised the Highlander defense, forcing a turnover right outside the goal.

Madison Park sophomore Jairo Ortiz grabbed it, slipped behind the Somerville defense and fired a shot past goalie Richard Rodrigues for a 1-0 lead less than five minutes into the game.

Somerville striker Charlemers “Junior” Pierre-Louis had clanged an open shot off the Cardinal goalpost earlier in the game, so he was itching for another chance. That chance came three minutes after Ortiz’s goal, when strong Highlander offensive pressure earned them a corner kick.

Sophomore Franscisco Fernandes Neto kicked the ball towards the center of the field, and Madison Park goalie Joao Rosa came out to play it. Rosa could only deflect the ball, however, and the ball rolled out to Matheus Augusto Reis. Reis played the ball up to Pierre-Louis, who quickly turned and fired past Rosa to tie the game at 7:09.

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(written, shot and edited for Somerville Patch)

The Somerville Highlanders scored in the first minute of Monday’s game at Dilboy Stadium and never looked back, beating the one-win Boston Latin Wolfpack, 3-0.

The Highlanders surged towards the Wolfpack goal to begin the game, showing off the speed and finesse-passing that has led to eight wins in their first 10 games. The Highlanders capped the drive with a centering pass from sophomore striker Thayrone Miranda to senior Edgardo Perez Vasquez, who buried the ball the in the back of the net. The Highlanders led 1-0 and the game had barely begun.

“We started off really strong,” Somerville coach George Scarpelli said. “I think that we really focused on working the ball to the outside, keeping the ball on the ground. That’s our style of game.”

The goal exemplified the Highlanders’ aggressive play in the early minutes of the game, which led to several shots on net. Miranda fired off a tight-angle shot that Boston Latin keeper Isaac Buck stopped, then midfielder Francisco Fernandes Neto aimed a 20-yarder at the left corner that Buck had to dive to keep out of the net.

Miranda also set up a heading opportunity that went over the Wolfpack goal, then clanged a breakaway shot off the near goalpost. All this happened in the first 10 minutes of play.

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