DISQUS

Whoops! Sorry about that. It's fixed now. Not sure how I missed that, considering I actually watched that game...

What was your reaction to Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes, and do you follow AFC Wimbledon at all now?

Is James Andrews available?

We've already tried that model. The L.A. Galaxy have missed the playoffs the last two years with it. It doesn't work, Frank. Sorry. But hey, I liked your cameo in the movie version of "Everybody's All-American."

It's true. I got a phone call from Fab 5 Freddy back in '95, when we were all still trying to figure this internet thing out.

I thought it was cool, anyway.

Wait, I get it! It only works if you blow on it! Ha ha! You should make a harmonica that looks like my ex-girlfriend!

Meanwhile, the Sex Cannon(tm) is wrestling with 13 ballerinas in a vat of vanilla pudding.

If the Gateway Arch were a goal, Scotland's Chris Iwelumo might manage to hit the post.

Didn't Portland submit a bid? Or have they resigned themselves to stealing Chivas USA from Los Angeles, Clay Bennett-style?

Y'know, if the Premier League pulled its teams out of the Carling Cup and the FA killed the League Trophy, this might actually be a compelling way to start the season.

Dude, America has leagues full of clubs with no strikers. Why would we need to see Spurs over here, too?

You think that's bad? Try going all-in, getting called, figuring out you're an 80% favorite to win the hand... and losing on the river. Twice in a row. Both times getting knocked out of a tournament.

And I haven't stabbed one single person today. These kids have no self-control...

Las Vegas has the same appreciation for most of its best customers.

We're only up to Part 645 of "People Are Stupid?" Seems we should be well past that by now.

How many of those kids will actually end up playing for Arsenal in the long term? Most of them will probably be sold at top dollar over the next 2-4 years so that the club can finish paying off its Emirates Stadium financing.

That's not as bad as the FSC ad with the two dudes getting turned away from the frat party because they were wearing NFL jerseys instead of soccer jerseys. I like both. Am I suddenly not welcome to join the party?

US Soccer should bring back those kits. The current home kit looks like something any Georgetown douchebag would wear on a Saturday night bar crawl.

According to English astrophysicist Martin Rees -- who, by the way, wrote a book called "Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?" -- the odds on this Large Hadron Collider creating a black hole that swallows the earth are about 50 million to one.

I would lay a fiver on that bet, but I'm not sure how much time I'd have to celebrate it if I won...

If it means seeing less of those horrifically annoying new ads for O2 Maximum Performance -- "Wow! I feel a burst of energy!" -- then I'm all for it. Those commercials are bad for your brain.

I'm not sure I like the big green advertisement. That color makes this feel too much like a "Seattle Toffees" kit.

Other than that, though, it's not bad.

He got real fat on burgers and fries.
Now he sits on the bench and cries.
He's BAKER. VIN BAKER.

Ummmmm... you mean Steven Cohen, right? Or is that a joke I'm not getting?

Of course, this deal would never, ever spark a wave of "You know how I know soccer's gay?" jokes.

Tottenham’s rebuild to be heavily financed by the sale of Berbatov?

Fixed.

Re: Comment 43 -- UEFA Cup qualifiers change more often than Champions League qualifiers. Yes, Everton and Tottenham get there often, but Bolton, Middlesbrough and Newcastle have been there recently as well. So I don't really buy the argument that you need more than 4 teams competing for the final Champions League spot. You want to reward success, not mediocrity.

Plus, you want to create something that both fans and clubs can accept. A 4-thru-7 playoff is much easier to swallow than a full-on playoff, because there are promotion playoffs just like that all throughout the lower English leagues. However, these playoffs don't decide the league champion, only the final promotion spot. Likewise, a 4-thru-7 playoff for the final Champions League spot wouldn't discredit regular-season success. The league champ is still the champ, and the top three still go directly to the CL group stage.

There's also the fact that an MLS Cup-style playoffs in the Premier League would add a month to an already long schedule. Maybe you could get away with that if you pulled the Premier League out of the Football League Cup and just let the fizzy drink divisions play for that, but it's still too big a jump for most fans to swallow.

As a lifelong fan of American sports, I have to say that I actually like the fact that the Premier League doesn't have end-of-season playoffs to determine the champion. Yes, it results in a lot of meaningless games at the end of the season, but guess what? There are plenty of meaningless games at the end of the NFL regular season, too. Creating playoffs won't necessarily change that.

However, I would propose my own playoff idea here: Put the 4th-place through 7th-place teams into a playoff to determine the who gets the final Champions League spot.

As of next season, the top three PL clubs go directly to the group stage, while the 4th-place club enters the qualifying rounds. I would suggest 4th-place isn't good enough to get an automatic bid, even to the qualifying rounds. Make that club earn the prize. This would be similar to the promotion playoffs in the lower leagues, and I think fans could accept this more readily than an American-style playoff system.

I suggest this because it's plainly obvious that the FA will never give a Champions League bid to the FA Cup winner, even if it would help that tournament seem much more important than it is now.