The Ryan Martin Show: 2/25/13

If you missed yesterday's show, here's your chance to listen to it today. Landon Donovan, Swansea, Champions League, and the title races around Europe were amongst the talking points.

The Ryan Martin Show: 2/18/13

Today's topics included Robbie Rogers, Landon Donovan, the FA Cup, and the championship races around Europe. It was a busy show that required me to be rather long-winded at times!

Honduras 2, US 1: Troubled waters ahead

The voyage down to Honduras, much like any other venture into Central America, was never going to be easy or go according to the most favorable of scripts--only the bravest or most naive of US fans would have expected that. Still, even with the travails of playing away to Honduras in mind, we wouldn't have been wrong to expect a decent, solid effort from Klinsmann's men, even if that effort might have only resulted in a draw or a tough, heartbreaking loss.

What we got was anything but that, as for much of the first half we were left to wonder if there was actually another end to the field, given that Honduras founds themselves playing mostly within the Americans' half while the US were barely able to string more than a couple of passes together to mount any serious challenges of their own. Yes, Dempsey's clinical volley to put the US up 1-0 in the 36th gave us reason to think that it might be possible to snatch a valuable result on the road, but that would ultimately prove to be little more than fool's gold. Juan Garcia's highlight reel goal but four minutes later would rightfully put the game back on even terms, and the worst, fully evidenced by the defensive lapse conspired upon by Cameron, Gonzalez and Howard, was still yet to come in the second half.

It would be a luxury to merely write this game off as a loss in a tough CONCACAF road game, but there were certainly enough concerning things on display, both tactically and in performance, to leave us thinking that this road to the World Cup will be much more perilous than anything we've experience in previous campaigns.

Transfer deadline day: a retrospective

For fans of teams at either end of the table, transfer deadline day is nothing short of an exhausting, trying affair. The madness of the day has only been exacerbated in recent years thanks to the advent of social media, which on days such as January 31st, can be nothing short of a cornucopia of rumors of players being sighted going in for medicals and moves theoretically in the works. The 2013 edition of transfer deadline lived up to every expectation one would have of it, and certain scenes at Loftus Road even offered us a bit of the downright peculiar to bear witness to.