Some years ago I was driving down the usual road when all of a sudden a cat darted out in front of me. I had just enough time swerve and miss him. Thing is it had actually been raining that day – raining quite a lot – and the roads were real slick. So next thing I knew I was hydroplaning out of control. Then I spun 180 degrees, slid backwards and smacked into the embankment. When the car finally stopped a single thought came immediately to mind: should have hit that damn cat.

It’s been a long couple of days since the Czech Republic defeated the USA. I’ve had some time to digest it but I keep coming back to the same thought again and again: should have hit the damn cat. That’s the first thing I thought when the whistle blew after 90 minutes. That’s still what I think. Bruce Arena and the USMNT saw that Czech cat dart across the road months ago. They had plenty of time to react. It was natural to react. It was probably the “right” thing to do. You can hardly blame them for reacting. But they did end up turned backwards and smashed up on the side of the road.

We should have hit the damn cat. It still might have been a mess but at least we would have been facing forward at the end of it.

Wow!

More wow at Kenn.com.

Did I say wow?

Hat tip du Nord.

I didn’t think it could get any bigger than the news that Lothar Matthaus might return to New Jersey, this time perhaps as head coach of the New York Red Bulls. But then Alexi Lalas resigned his postion there to become general manager of the Los Angeles Galaxy. Now, I thought, surely it doesn’t get any bigger than that! I was wrong. Bigger yet was news that “New York Cosmos star Giorgio Chinaglia is among the leading candidates” to take over the reigns at the SuperClub. (He’s the only man for the job, he says so himself!) But the biggest news of the evening arrived when I got word that this weekend New York Red Bull will unveil the team’s brand new anthem. And lucky for you, I got my hands on a copy. Now this thing’s not supposed to be public until the players march on the field this weekend, but I went ahead and posted it at the link below. Turn your speakers up and have a listen.

• The Official Anthem of Red Bull New York

Quite fitting, don’t you think?

I am disappointed. I really thought this would be the time that Chivas would finally do it. I really thought, at last, the Galaxy would get what’s coming to them. And until those last few awful moments I had good reason to believe that it was all going to go as I wanted. But I guess you’ve gotta hand it to Landon Donovan. He robbed Chivas of the win they deserved.

… and it’s called The All-American XI.

Sure, it’s a den of infamy run by hacks, but you’d best be bookmarking it.