Posts by David J Warner at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

So much for that whole "He's big, he's red, his feet stick out the bed!" chant.

England striker Peter Crouch is leaving Liverpool and will join FA Cup champions Portsmouth on Monday for a reported transfer fee of £10 million. Pompey apparently outbid Tottenham Hotspur for the 6'7" forward, who had fallen out of favor with Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez last season.

The transfers of Crouch and (eventually) midfielder Xabi Alonso are expected to pay for the acquisition of Aston Villa captain Gareth Barry, though the drama surrounding Barry's transfer is getting ridiculous. Villa rejected a £15 million offer from Liverpool for Barry, who was disciplined by manager Martin O'Neill after his recent outburst over wanting to move to Anfield. The asking price for Barry is reportedly £18 million.

As for Crouch, he'll be having his nachos with a pretty solid strike force that includes Nwankwo Kanu, Jermain Defoe, John Utaka and David Nugent. That should serve Pompey pretty well for its first ever season playing in the UEFA Cup. All that's left is for the supporters to find a second line to follow, "He's big, he's blue..."

So Argentina recently announced the roster for its Olympic soccer team. It's overage players are Boca Juniors midfielder Juan Roman Riquelme, Liverpool midfielder Javier Mascherano and Inter Milan center-back Nicolas Burdisso. That's in addition to Lionel Messi from Barcelona, Fernando Gago from Real Madrid and Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid, who are all under 23.

The rest of the field suddenly looks quite doomed, doesn't it? With Ivory Coast, Australia and Serbia in Group A with them, Argentina looks like a lock to go through as the group winner.

That's really bad news for the USA, which is in group B with Japan, the Netherlands and Nigeria. The Group A winner plays the Group B runner-up in the quarterfinals. If the USA wants any hope of a medal in men's soccer, it must win Group B. Finishing second likely means a quarterfinal tie against Argentina. Yes, the senior team held Argentina to a 0-0 draw a month ago, but that wasn't a competitive match at a neutral site. Plus, most of that USA backline won't be in Beijing.

U.S. Soccer has yet to announce its roster for the Olympics, though Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley and Freddy Adu are expected to be on it.

Of course, that's akin to saying, "Andy Gray is somewhat opinionated."


Manchester police recently released this CCTV footage of thuggish Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton pounding the crap out of some random guy on the street. Barton is serving six months in the pokey for this assault. He also got a four-month suspended sentence for his attack on teammate Ousmane Dabo while he was at Manchester City. Dabo. who's now with Serie A club Lazio, called Barton a "coward" and told reporters that Newcastle "does not care about the law and it shocks me."

I say we lock Barton and Rannord Jones in the same room for a day and see which one of them makes it out. Who's with me?

(H/T: 101 Great Goals)

What is it about Brazilian soccer superstars and their inability to control their appetites as they push 30?

First, Ronaldo got a million choruses of "Who Ate All the Pies" shouted at him. Now Ronaldinho, at the ripe old age of 28, puts on an oversized red T-shirt and ... well, around the midsection, that's pretty much how I would look in an oversized red T-shirt, and I sit in front of a computer all day. What isn't this man eating?

Amazingly, photos like this (and like this) somehow haven't deterred some Premier League clubs from their pursuit of Big Ronnie. The cynic in me looks at Manchester City's £19 million signing of Brazilian striker Jo from CSKA Moscow and wonders if owner Thaksin Shinawatra specifically targeted Jo to try and land Ronaldinho. Sure, Jo's 30 goals in 53 appearances for CSKA speak for themselves, but two Brazilians and a Benjani up front? Wouldn't Mark Hughes love that?

Chelsea is also in the running, in no small part because Luiz Felipe Scolari coached Ronaldinho to a World Cup with Brazil in 2002. Judging from this photo, though, whoever gets Big Ronnie will have a pretty tall task whipping him back into playing shape. If he gets any bigger, EA Sports will have no choice but to plump up his Mii.

Do you kind of miss EURO 2008 this week? You're not alone. After three weeks of memorable games, fantastic goals and surprisingly awesome coverage from ESPN -- not to mention the wall-to-wall dominance of the Spaniards -- it's hard not to look at the clock and think, "Man, I can't wait to see who's playing at 2:45 today." Even one-time soccer haters are sad that it's over.

Alas, it is over, and we have nothing but MLS, SuperLiga and the silly season to tide us over for the next six weeks. So before we close the book on EURO 2008, let's take one more look at some of the great goal highlights it left behind. It'll be a while before we get Samba De Janeiro out of our heads. Let's hope we can get half as good a show from the FIFA Confederations Cup next summer.

Chelsea might have a reputation among Premier League clubs for buying stars on the transfer market rather than developing them within the club -- they've already opened the silly season by signing Deco from Barcelona for £8 million -- but that doesn't mean the club's academy is lying dormant. In fact, the big London club is using its youth development program to reach out to America. Chelsea has struck up a partnership with Capital Area Soccer League, a large youth soccer club in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is already sending coaches to work with CASL youth players.

Since this is happening in my neck of the woods, I went to Raleigh to chat with some folks about this partnership.

Crystal Palace supporters still suffering from the loss of that Premier League promotion playoff last May might be taking a little solace in their American counterparts today.

USL Second Division side Crystal Palace Baltimore upset an uninspired New York Red Bulls side, 2-0, last night in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup. The win prompted many sports fans in Baltimore to say, "Wait, we have a soccer team here?"

Indeed, the club was founded in 2006, 101 years after Crystal Palace FC was founded in London, and it serves as a player development wing for the Coca-Cola Championship club. Clearly, player development is going pretty well there, though as Ives Galarcep notes, too many Red Bulls just didn't come to play last night.

Two other USL clubs pulled off upsets, as USL-1 leaders the Charleston Battery defeated MLS Cup holders the Houston Dynamo on penalty kicks, while the Seattle Sounders topped Chivas USA, 2-0. Other USL clubs didn't get away so easily. The Kansas City Wizards came back from a 2-0 deficit to topple the Carolina Railhawks, 4-2, in extra time, and FC Dallas scored a 2-1 comeback win against Miami FC. D.C. United, the Chicago Fire and the New England Revolution also cruised to victory over USL clubs.

The U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals are scheduled for next Tuesday.

I feel Luciano Emilio's Gonzalo Martinez's pain, man. When I was 13, I ran up to block a corner kick and took a shot right to the crotch -- just like the D.C. United striker did here as he attempted to block David Beckham's cross into the box yesterday in D.C.'s 4-1 home thrashing of the L.A. Galaxy. But did anyone think to squirt water down my shorts? No. We didn't have any magic spray back then, either. Horrible.

Y'know, if there had been some Australians in the announcer's booth, they would have had more fun with this.

(H/T: Awful Announcing)

The 3rd round of the U.S. Open Cup kicks off tomorrow, and if you're looking for the MLS clubs that are taking this tournament seriously this year, just look for which clubs are playing at home.

Unlike England's FA Cup, where the home team is determined by random draw, MLS and USL clubs place bids with the U.S. Soccer Federation to host games, and the highest bidder plays at home. If you look at the schedule for tomorrow's games, you'll notice that the New England Revolution, the Chicago Fire, D.C. United and FC Dallas are all playing at home.

By contrast, the Houston Dynamo travel to South Carolina to face USL-1 leaders the Charleston Battery, and the New York Red Bulls head to Maryland to face USL-2 side Crystal Palace Baltimore. Perhaps Houston and New York aren't quite as interested in the CONCACAF Champions League bid that comes with winning the Open Cup.

D.C. United, however, suddenly seems much more interested in the Open Cup than they were last year.

Memo to erotic film festival organizers: Next time you schedule your big shindig, don't count on your home country's soccer team to bottle it in a major tournament that only comes around once every four years.

All the strippers and porn stars at the Barcelona Erotic Film Festival found this out the hard way. Attendance for the film festival dropped 70% from last year, in no small part because the event opened on Thursday, the same day as the EURO 2008 semifinal between Spain and Russia, and closed on Sunday, when Spain won the EURO 2008 Final. So all the boys stayed home. After all, you can see strippers any time you want, but a European Championship only comes around once every 44 years.

Besides, there were probably a lot more naked women dancing in the streets of Madrid and Barcelona after Spain won on Sunday. Why pay for nudity when you can get it for free?

(H/T: Deadspin)