Pitch Talk Thursday Presents: Chapter Four-Guy Fawkes and Sir Alex

So many stories to get to, so much wasted time.

First, we start with big ups to the Dean of all Professional Managers in any sport in any time zone, Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex celebrated 20 years at the helm of Manchester United, quite possibly the highest pressure job in all of sport, outsidethe guy who has to sell Kansas City Royals season tickets. Doing any job for 20 years is fairly impressive, let alone doing well enough to be knighted. To put this into some perspective, think about your favorite professional teams in 1986 and who was running the ship? My list: Tom Landry-deceased, Davey Johnson-selling white walls in Topeka and the Dr. Jack Ramsey-selling mismatched sport coats to blind people. Here’s to Sir Alex and the Country of Scotland who not only created the game, but gave the Devils reason to be pompous pricks for the last quarter of a century.

Second piece of news this week comes out of Madrid and LA where apparently Alexi Lalas has gone on record and professed his gigantic man-crush for Becks and his desire to see him in a yellow LA Galaxy uniform and nothing else next season. The hilarious part is how the MLS has actually structured it’s league-wide financial payroll to actually dissuade clubs from attracting big names that would help to promote the game domestically, and eventually generate higher revenue. The Mariner Front Office must share an office with MLS execs..

Seriously though, I think this is a good time to bring up this discussion on the benefits of a Beckham moving to MLS, which has about a 75-80% potential at this point with his current role with Madrid and the difficulty he would have in returning to British football. Is there downside to a move like this, could this he be the tool that bumps the TV money up, which therefore expands the fan base, which equals Seattle finally getting a squad? I think America loves the superstar, regardless of the sport and if it helps to grow the MLS and Futbol domestically I’m all for it. Even if it means tabloid rumors of Lalas and Becks together.

In a reverse story, it appears that 17 going on 30 DC United Forward Freddy Adu will train with ManU later this month following the end of the MLS season. It appears that this will be the last year for Freddy to play in the states as he makes the leap over the pond next year. The Lodge sees this as nothing but a positive and hopefully English football will toughen him up and help him develop into the attacking midfielder that I believe he is destined for. It’s just too bad he wouldn’t be able to play with the Devils in their Carling Cup run because:

Carling Cup Results:
*Unfortunately the defending champions from Manchester have ended their run for back-to-back Cups with a 1-0 defeat to the hands of, bottom of the Championship Table, Club Southend and Forward Freddy Eastwood (great f’n name). I still haven’t decided whether this loss comes as a blessing or could potentially through the season into a tailspin. I’m going with the former, with the amount of matches left to play, it’s always good to give the lads a few days to get their legs back. However, winning is still winning and congrats to the Southend Boys.

*not a whole lot of other surprises from mid-week Carling Cup action as The Blues won 4-0 with goals being spread out to four different players and a sign that Frankly Overrated Lampard might be gaining back his 2005-06 form

*Arsenal and the Reds both move on along with North London club Tottenham Hotspur who coincidently are the highlight of this week’s column:

The team formed in 1882 as Hotspur Football Club named after Sir Henry Percy (Sir Harry Hotspur). After several years of moving around North London, in 1899 they finally moved to a ground near High Road in Tottenham and calling their field White Hart Lane.

A successful and extremely popular club during the 1950’s and 60’s, “Spurs” as they are referred to have seen a dip recently after renovations to their grounds, but still maintain the 8th highest attendance in Europe.

Spurs has many notable players come through White Hart Lane, such as: Jürgen Klinsmann, Teddy Sheringham, Sol Campbell, Paul Gascoigne and recently the widely underrated/overpaid MF Michael Carrick.

They are managed by the Dutchie Martin Jol and have a ton of quality players included currently England GK Paul Robinson and a Train and other Dutchie favorite, the dreaded, glass wearing Edgar Davids. Their biggest rival is fellow North London club Arsenal, which makes me a fan, but the reason that I’m profiling Spurs today is because for 19 years Spurs have been unable to beat a certain West London Club that has dominated the Premiership for the past two seasons…but following Sunday’s match…Spurs fans will always be able to sing out….

REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER!!!...that’s right V fans, on Guy Fawkes Day in England Chelsea invaded White Hart Lane and faced an inspired Spurs side in what has been the match of the season so far in the Premiership.

Early on in the 15th minute we saw a classic video game move by ageless Frenchman Claude Makélélé as he worked a deflected shot from about 30 yards out to put the Blues up 1-0 in what looked to be another Chelsea walk. Oh how the middle of the pack rise up when facing the defending champs, much talked about and rising star Michael Dawsongave Spurs the equalizer in the 25th minute on a textbook header into the upper left of the onion bag. The frustration level soon crept for Chelsea as they saw three yellow cards issued before the break continuing a trend of vulgarity and general crimes against humanity.

After the break we see the future England star Aaron Lennon weave his way into the penalty box on the left side and strike a beautiful ball to the right corner of the net as North London exploded like Parliament had Mr. Fawkes been able to accomplish his task.

For the final half hour, the game is contested back and forth as the Blues scrape for offense and attempt several close equalizers before seeing English Captain and one of the few players Jimbo would like to see on another team John Terry (captain) booked with his second yellow and dismissed in the 73rd. At this moment the blood is in the water and José Mourinho is already working on his post game excuses.

A beautiful night for Spurs fans and Football fans in general as Aaron Lennon made sure that we would always remember the 5th of November.