Soccer birthdays:
Fabrizio Ravanelli turns 44 on Tuesday. The Italian striker, capped 22 times by his country, spent the best part of his career at Juventus from 1992 to 1996, but in the English-language world, he is known for the year-plus he spent at Middlesbrough after leaving Turin.
Lured to northeast England by a £7 million transfer fee from Bobby Robson, Ravenelli went on to score 16 goals in 33 league games including a debut hat trick against Liverpool. Despite leading the team to two cup finals (losing both), Ravenelli couldn’t help keep the team in the Premier League, moving on to Marseille after Boro was relegated.
Big Important Stories of the Day:
Though we have mid-week action in England and France, Tuesday looks like slow news day. Keep your ears open for anything regarding a Rafa Marquez move. Andy Najar’s situation could be clarified, or we could be more re-signings ahead of Friday’s Stage 2 of the Re-Entry Draft (like LA Galaxy’s new deal with goalkeeper Brian Perk, confirmed Monday).
RASNoD (Random American Soccer Name of the Day):
Steve Shak
Twitter daps:
What you should watch on TV today:
Now trailing by five points in Ligue 1, Paris Saint-Germain has already dug themselves a small hole in France. Today, they visit upstart Valenciennes (fifth place) hoping to make it three wins in four. With Lyon hosting Nancy on Wednesday, PSG can expect to lose ground if they can’t take full points. Check your local listings for the 1:00 p.m. Eastern kickoff.
Background noise while blogging:
It’s been too long since we’ve had a new episode of Community. Thankfully, the first three seasons are archived on Hulu, allowing me to go back and figure out how Jeff ended up kissing Annie at the end of Season 1 after Britta and Slater professed their love for him. Two years later, it still doesn’t make sense.
We’ll leave you with this:
We’ve been keeping tabs on it on the blog, but it doesn’t look like the Club World Cup has gotten any more traction this time around.
People always spitball ideas on how to make this tournament relevant, but it’s difficult to get many people excited about a tournament that has so few teams and games. It would have been interesting to see how 2001’s FIFA World Club Championship would have worked with 12 teams, but that competition never took place.
I can’t help but wonder if a similar structure, with more countries represented, would help grow the popularity (and significance) of the tournament.