THE FINAL THIRD

Check this out! Puma have gone all out with their Puma City on South Street Seaport in New York City.

PUMA invites local businessmen to play 3-on-3 soccer in their business suits in a tournament called "Suits and Boots." The tournaments will take place Monday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the soccer pitch (pictured above) at the South Street Seaport

Games broadcasted at RED Bar — Soccer fans can cheer on their favorite teams at RED Bar, the official PUMA Beer Garden. RED Bar will air every soccer game on flat screen TVs and have PUMA-themed prizes available for competitive fans.

A peek inside the PUMA Social Club at PUMA City NY. PUMA Social Club will host ping-pong tournaments, Foosball games, athlete appearances and more throughout the World Cup tournament. Credit Dustin Ross.

PUMA Social Club – The brand’s own event space and the perfect mix of sport and lifestyle. The PUMA Social Club will host ping-pong tournaments, Foosball games, athlete appearances and more. The brand will also host DJ nights every Wednesday from 9:00pm-1:00am for fans to dance and enjoy the music, ping pong, foosball, darts and video games.
Suits and Boots – PUMA invites business executives to challenge co-workers and friends in 30-minute soccer matches at the pop-up soccer field at PUMA City from 12:00pm-2:00pm Mondays through Fridays. Games are free and all are welcome.

The view overlooking PUMA City NY at the South Street Seaport, including the soccer pitch, pop-up retail location and RED Bar, the official PUMA City beer garden. Credit Dustin Ross.

Music Happenings – Cash Money recording artist Jay Sean, presented by Z100 and KTU will make an appearance for a free show on Sunday, June 13th. Dance enthusiasts can look forward to live music from local DJs such as DJ Cassidy, who deejayed Jay-Z and Beyonce’s secret wedding and President Obama’s inaugural ball, and model-turned-DJ Sky Nellor.
Women’s Professional Soccer Clinics and Viewing Parties – Cheer on the WPS Soccer teams on Sunday nights when fans can watch the games on JumboTrons. Local and visiting teams will host clinics for players wishing to brush up on their soccer skills. Soccer superstar Marta will be making an appearance on Monday, June 14th and New Jersey’s very own Sky Blue FC, the reigning WPS Champions, will host a meet-and-greet on Sunday, June 27.

iCycle Bike Day – PUMA has also partnered with Hub Station to offer free bike repairs on Saturday, June 19, and Sunday, June 20.

Wow! That’s a lot going on, so be sure to stop by if you’re in New York City!

Someone has been hitting the gym

Mrs. Frank Lampard, Christin Bleakley, has some serious guns going on. In this recent picture she was doing some flexing for the camera as she raced off with her java. We definitely have some issues with her on the fashion front but you have to respect those arms.  BOOM!!!!

Cheryl looking fantastic!

After numerous cock ups over the last couple of years you start to wonder how dumb some footballers can be. Ashley Cole and one of his Chelsea teammates are among the least intelligent we can think of. That’s for another post though, let’s stick to Ashley for now.

After getting caught sending naked pics of himself to some some skanky lingerie model you start to wonder if this guy is dumb or is he just so miserable at home that he is starving for some love. We all understand that life can get a little dull when you come home to a women that is wearing on your eyes and has nothing going on. If that were the case then I could see a guy like Ashley wanting to delve into some new options.

Let’s take a look at what Ashley was coming home to though.

Let’s put beauty aside, we can safely say that Cheryl Cole is extremely hot. That said Cheryl Cole was paid a whopping half million dollars for a 30-minute performance at a luxury hotel in Cannes.

The ‘Parachute’ hitmaker who recently split from husband, footballer Ashley Cole, saw her fortune soar by 150 per cent last year and she is roping in millions with private performances.

The 26-year-old will also make the brief appearance at a Cannes dinner and party hosted by luxury jewellery firm de Grisogono, reported Daily Mail online.

She is also believed to be receiving jewellery for her effort at the Hotel du Cap, where guests will include fashion figures Naomi Campbell and Margerita Missoni.

It is the latest money-spinning deal the star has secured. She earned $ 2 million for the last series of the TV talent show ‘X-Factor’, a figure that is expected to rise this year.

She has also signed deals worth $ 1 million each with L’Oreal and Coca-Cola Zero, and seen her debut solo album, 3 Words, go to No.1 all of which has helped take her fortune from 8 million to 15 million.

Her wealth has landed her a spot on the Rich List for musicians aged under 30.

On top of all that she tried to look past a few of Ashley’s first couple indiscretions. Yo Ashley wake up man, if it wasn’t for John Terry you would probably win sleeze of the year.

photo via kickette

The Special One is at it again

Well he is at it again and this time he is definitely not holding any punches. Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho says the Champions League is bigger than the World Cup. I know it sounds a bit crazy but he does have a decent point.

Inter plays Bayern Munich in the final in Madrid on Saturday.
“This game is the most important in the world,” Mourinho said on Tuesday. “It is even bigger than the World Cup because the teams in it are at a higher level than national teams, who can’t buy the best players.

“If you hold it to be important, you have to transmit that to the players.”

Mourinho has led Inter to their first European Cup final since 1972, when they lost to Ajax. It is even longer since Inter last held the cup, in 1965.

After being eliminated in the first knockout round in the last two seasons, Inter ousted eventual English champion Chelsea, CSKA Moscow and defending European champion Barcelona to reach this year’s finale.

Following the second leg at Camp Nou, where Barcelona won 1-0, Inter was accused of playing overly negative football that lacked the flair of 2009 champion Barcelona. Mourinho vigorously defended his side.

“I think that this season I haven’t seen a match like the one between Inter and Barcelona at the San Siro,” Mourinho said. “I haven’t seen a team play the way we did.

“We attacked aggressively against the champion of Europe. We scored three goals against the champion of Europe.

“We won the tie in Barcelona, but everyone talks about Barcelona winning and says we parked the bus in front of the goal. We didn’t park the bus, we parked the airplane and we did it for two reasons. One, because we only had 10 men and two, because we beat them 3-1 at San Siro, not by parking the bus, or the boat or the airplane, but by smashing them at the San Siro.

“I haven’t seen anyone play the way we did against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea isn’t a small team, it is the champion of England and no one plays like that at Stamford Bridge. Only we have played two games of the level we did against Chelsea and against Barcelona.”

Inter and Munich will be missing important players. Inter is without midfielder Thiago Motta and Munich will line up without winger Franck Ribery, both of whom were sent off in the semifinals. “Motta’s absence is more important than that of Ribery for Munich,” Mourinho said. “He is a player who has played a Champions League final and would bring that experience with him. He gives our midfield balance and doesn’t give the ball away easily. It is a great shame that he isn’t playing and it only happened because a fellow player did not behave in the correct way.”

Both teams have concerns over flight plans to Spain, with the possibility that further volcanic ash from Iceland will cause havoc with flight schedules in the next few days.

Inter was due to fly to Madrid on Friday, but it may yet leave on Wednesday to avoid any possible ash disruption.

“The team has to travel tomorrow, but I would rather work here and travel the day before the match,” Mourinho said.

Cherif Zein, Mat Davis, Bryan Byrne

Jetski and I hit the town last night to celebrate Brazilian football culture with Nike!

It was a great time for all as the Los Angeles footballing community was brought together for a truly Brazilian football experience. It all started off on the roof of the Ricardo Montelban theatre with drinks, Brazilian music, dancers and some Capoeira. I saw a ton of people that I haven’t seen in years including the “godfather” of Southern California soccer, Cherif Zein.

After the party Marcus, myself, Alex, and Malcolm headed over to Voyear Nightclub on Santa Monica Blvd for a guys night out. After being there for less than 30 minutes Alex made two football sightings that were completely out of the blue. Standing at the bar was none other than Jimmy Bullard of Hull City. If that wasn’t enough about 10 minutes later we were having a few drinks with Jay Demerrit (US & Watford). Two very random sightings to say the least. Jay was cool enough to show me some close up pics of his horrific eye injury that he had on his iPhone and chat a little about football. Jimmy was all about the birds though, hey why not he had a rough season.

Pics courtesy of Cherif Zein More pics and some video in the coming days!

What about our young gladiators ?

Running around on the pitch, training hard for three hours a day (!) and then getting photographed coming out of a club looking bleary eyed with a WAG or two on your arm.

Or not.

Supermodels or just models, flash cars, oversized watches, bling, suits, clothes, shoes – the lot. Easy passage into the most exclusive of hang-outs, the finest restaurants, hanging out with pop stars, the glitterati amid the other victims of the paparazzi.

Is our love not enough for these tearaways ?

The adulation of 40,000 fans week in week out ?

Couldn’t they go to bed with a good book and a protein shake ?

What would we do then ? It is afterall, on these many levels that our gladiators entertain us. We may occasionally feign a little shock or disdain or move the line that should not be crossed, but really we love it all.

The straightforward economics of it suggests that the back few pages of all the British tabloids – The Mirror, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and their Sunday counterparts The News Of The World and The People are handy companion pieces to The Guardian, The Times & The Telegraph. Enjoy a little National Enquirer with your Wall Street Journal ?

And while we can claim a certain class of sports writing exists in the red tops, we can sneak into the tabloid pages for the latest on who’s shagging Danielle Lloyd this week.

We can fuel our moral indignation with Frank Lampard’s shenanigans with a cell phone and we can tut-tut Ledley King for staying out too late, especially when we know he can’t train with the other lads anyway because of bad knees. Spurs seem to have a couple of problem insomniacs – David-smashed-my-car-up-Bentley, Michael-party-man-Dawson, Jermaine-I’ll shag-anything-with-a-pulse-Defoe.

By the same token, one of the most candid footballer interviews was this weekend’s Guardian (sorry !) interview with Benoît Assou-Ekotto – read it -http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/01/benoit-assou-ekotto-tottenham-hotspur and this speaks loudly of Harry Redknapp’s balanced side.

The Guardian periodically runs a column by David James and that’s always insightful, and of the current crop of mature professionals he stands out accordingly. So where is Pat Nevin when you need him ?

I remember thinking him exactly my kind of footballer when I found out that he liked The Fall and Joy Division, listened to John Peel, had a BA from Glasgow Caledonian. While all the others were working on their joined up handwriting listening to Lionel Ritchie. If they weren’t pissing it up somewhere looking for birds.

Or Graeme Le Saux ? Chanted at for being homosexual (even though he wasn’t) as payback for having a degree from Kingston and for coming out as a Guardian reader. The ‘crowd’ doesn’t like gay footballers, even if they are actually gay. Though I am proud of the fact that Justin Fashanu did so superbly well at (my beloved) Torquay United – and Torquay proved themselves to be one of the few clubs that would accept him, especially after he came out in 1990. Justin had star status at Torquay, and was given a break in management – but he was mostly treated as a pariah by his fellow professionals, who argued that a gay man had no place in a team sport. Prior to coming out, Justin was the first ever £1 million black footballer – signed by Brian Clough for Nottingham Forest back in 1981.

Tragic of course, and terribly sad. Justin committed suicide in May 1998, at 37.

Justin Fashanu for Torquay

So it’s not always love you get from the 40,000. Or even the 4,000.

Of course, Pat Nevin and Graeme Le Saux are noteworthy precisely because they are the exception. Most footballers don’t even finish the UK equivalent of High School, and the temptations are so phenomenal for a phenomenon. Think about Wayne Rooney being on a schoolboy contract when he was 10, scoring the matchwinner for Everton against Arsenal when he wasn’t even 17 and making his debut for his country when he wasn’t yet 18. Even as a more sensible role model (don’t you just love that term ?) than most of his colleagues, settled with a wife and a baby son, at 24 he has a net worth north of $100 million and playing wages of over $1 million a month. Football ever was the escape from the working class, though. Remember Rooney is from Croxteth on Merseyside, the North of England equivalent of Watts only with much less homeownership and more knives.

Pat Nevin of Echo and the Bunnymen and Chelsea

Jackie Charlton was a coal miner and his brother Bobby was an electrician before they both became famous footballers, and they were the exception because they were from well established footballing families in the industrial North East of England – the Milburns on their mother’s side, Jackie Milburn was their mother’s cousin. and Jack, Jim, Stan and George Milburn – all professionals – all Jack and Bobby’s uncles. Then, even players who would lift the World Cup for England might well have been dying of silicosis. No pretense of a college education for these lads, no get-a-’degree’-while-you-play-for-the-college easy ride, this is the top flight of football not the NBA. The rules don’t get changed for television, son – it’s straight out of the mine and on to the pitch – and if you can hack it there lad, well there’s a couple of thousand more buggers like you down there. See what happens if you shout.

Stanley Matthews – easily amongst the most famous names in our sport was one of four kids born to boxer Jack Matthews in Hanley near Stoke in the heart of England’s industrial midlands, born in 1915 he was born at entirely the wrong time as the second world war started in the middle of his career. No ducking out of the armed service for ‘The Wizard Of The Dribble’ – he served in the RAF – as a corporal, literally the second rung from the bottom of the ladder, another working class lad who went from a very modest home to represent his country. Actually, he played for England for the longest time period on record. Having debuted in September 1934, he played for England for 23 years until May 1957. His boxer Dad was known as The Fighting Barber of Hanley (‘barber’ doesn’t suggest he had many silver spoons, does it ?) and brought his lad up as a vegetarian and a teetotaler.

Sir Stanley Matthews

Like Wayne Rooney, Stanley Matthews had a boot sponsorship deal. Stanley’s wasn’t with Nike though – it was with the Co-Op (http://www.co-operative.coop/). Matthews was the first player to ask for lighter boots and worked with the Co-Op manufacturers Goliath on Brunswick Street in Heckmondwike, Yorkshire to design boots that though leather (including the sole, with nailed in studs), would come in at 25 ounces (the Nike T90 Laser III FG is a mere 10.2 ounces). For this service to footwear (The Co-Op is believed to have sold over 500,000 Stanley Matthews boots) Stanley earned less than $40 a week. But at least it doubled his playing wages, also $40 a week, players wages being capped in those days. To understand the dramatic shift in players wages, the £20 a week that Matthews earned to play is equivalent to about £520 a week now, so even with his boot sponsorship and a win bonus he’d be lucky to get to £1200. Somewhat short of the £120,000 + Frank Lampard earns today.

As an escape from the working class, even in the late 1940′s it was very effective – most members of the English working class would be delighted to be earning £8 a week then or the equivalent of £200 now – half the weekly wage of Sir Stanley. Of course, Stanley Matthews was the Cristiano Ronaldo of his day, not the Chris Hargreaves (until very recently Torquay’s journeyman footballer Captain) – but maximum wages didn’t start to go away until the early 1960′s when players rightly started to exert player power. Imagine players earning £20 a week playing in front of (standing) crowds of 35,000 +, and it’s not difficult to conclude that players were just as exploited as the electricians and mineworkers of their day, or now for that matter.

So what do we want ? It can be a short career, and though few players in the top 92 clubs in England earn less than £1,000 a week (or just under $80,000 a year) relatively few have a decent education and they’re grabbed from school and put onto the pitch for us to live vicariously through, totems of our individual and collective passion. To go from even £5,000 a week to £50,000 a week is like winning the lottery, to earn in a week what your parents paid for their house, to be able to buy a Mother’s Day gift that was more than the cumulative value of anything your Dad could afford if you added every Christmas and Birthday together.

But yeah, on top of that we want you to put your body on the line at 3:00pm every Saturday (and midweeks, and in Europe), we want you to run your ass off, hit those (fill in name of opponent) bastards hard, get it out of there, clear it, shoot ! We demand you give 150%, represent (insert name of home town/city) and do it all for the shirt and bleed if need be. But we also want you to make the informed choices of post- graduate pastors, mullahs or rabbis. You can go boozing, but only in the off season (unless it’s a World Cup or Euro year), and no smoking ! Shag all the birds you want – of course, but not a team mate’s missus and a bit of ‘roasting’ is OK by us all too (provided you’re not married or have a regular girlfriend). We’ll tut-tut if Mom asks what we think, naturally. We’ll remind her that Georgie Best had a three in the bed romp (per The Sun) though, and he was the best player ever. So did Rodney Marsh, so did Alan Hudson, Charlie George. Wasn’t it ever so ? Our working class masculine avatars. We’re such demanding cripples, really. On so many levels. And so confused and hypocritical, but really – we’re Man United and I’m Bobby Charlton.

More next week.

So I was hard at work at ‘the field of dreams’ in Beverly Hills when I was all of a sudden interrupted by a Nike camera crew with an invite for the Brazil Black Pack launch at the Montalban Theater in Hollywood next week!

I say interrupted… it was more like an awesome surprise to have a Brazilian girl with Carlos Valderama-esque hair invite me to this party. Check out the packaging for the invite:

The Invite

The casing looked like a wine bottle case, with the CBF logo on, and inside the casing was the black pack Brazil jersey (you know, the one that I was bitching about when I couldn’t buy one), and of course the invite… not forgetting some Brazilian candy.

Great job with the packaging, i’ll tell you about the party next week…