Belgium 4, USA 2: More Growing Pains

Maybe United States fans are becoming rather accustomed to the roller coaster of performances and related emotions during Jürgen Klinmann's time in charge. Previous wins in Italy and Mexico during Klinsmann's tenure, along with a recent four point haul from games against Costa Rica and at Mexico, have given Americans every reason to think that the national team was progressing quite nicely. In stark contrast, more abject performances on the road in World Cup qualifying against Jamaica, Honduras and even Antigua and Barbuda have accordingly led to more question than sufficient answers about the direction of the team in advance of next year's World Cup.

Given the undeniable fact that Belgium is in the midst of a golden generation of players that the country has honestly never seen before and that could very possibly see Belgium as a fashionable pick for glory next year, there would have been no shame at all in losing to a Belgian side that was as near to full strength as one could want. What is most troubling, however, is that yet another uninspiring performance all but rolled out the red carpet for what would be a rather elementary Belgium win.

Bayern Munich wins UEFA Champions League: just the beginning

It was only fitting that an unprecedented season of dominance for Bayern Munich, both domestically in the Bundesliga and in Europe, would culminate in a glorious night at Wembley that will live on in the memories of many. Indeed, it was an event that showcased both the best team on the continent and the very best that Germany had to offer in both Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, the two-time defending Bundesliga champions before Bayern Munich's juggernaut status this season. 

Yet despite the dizzying heights and gaudy numbers achieved by Bayern Munich over the last nine months, Saturday night's late victory was never going to come easily, whether due to the ghosts of Champions League finals past or the oh so familiar opponents who lined up across the way. For all of the confidence instilled by Bayern Munich's plethora of resounding performances, a side as blessed with attacking acumen as Borussia Dortmund was as capable as any of making everything go horribly wrong for Bayern Munich on Europe's biggest stage, just as had happened against Chelsea last season, Inter Milan in 2010, and, however famously, Manchester United in 1999.

With Borussia Dortmund clearly the better side for the opening third of the game, it began to look as if Bayern Munich's nightmares of seasons past in Europe were manifesting themselves once again. Ultimately this opening salvo was one that Bayern Munich would weather, and Arjen Robben's late winner confirm Bayern's place at the top of the European heap.

Bayern Munich, having exorcised the demons of Europe, now have one last bit of silverware, the Deutcher Pokal, to wrap up this weekend on their way to a magnificent treble this season. However, even with a final moment of glory awaiting Bayern Munich before this term is officially brought to a close, it is hardly too soon to wonder if this season is merely a sign of things to come for the German giants.

Manchester City and the Yankees enter the MLS fray

Finally, after much speculation and conjecture, the news of a second MLS club coming to New York City was confirmed this week amidst much fanfare. With Manchester City and the New York Yankees providing the financial backing for the club, the initial ingredient for the club's health and success, money, will hardly be in short supply.

However, even with this financial clout on offer, their success, both on and off the field, is hardly something to be assumed. Though the club will not take the field until 2015, a myriad of questions exist, though we may not readily know the answers to these inquiries for quite some time.

Winds of change at Napoli?

It was but nine years ago that Napoli faced one of the darkest, if not the darkest, times in their storied history. The club, which had been spiraling into a financial abyss for years, finally went bankrupt, ultimately found itself in Serie C1, and looked to be as far removed from its glory days as possible.

More recent years have seen Napoli climb back up to the more familiar heights of the sharp end of the Serie A table, and their trajectory has only continued on this upward ascent since the October 2009 appointment of Walter Mazzarri. With Mazzarri bringing in Edinson Cavani and allowing the likes of Gökhan İnler and Marek Hamšík to pull the strings in his preferred 3-4-3 system, Napoli has enjoyed the just rewards of finishing second in Serie A this season behind the all-conquering Juventus and causing plenty of noise in Europe in recent years.

However, with Mazzarri's surprise announcement of his resignation following Napoli's final game of the season, yet another massive question will need to be answered in what could be a crucial summer yet.

Deeper meanings of Chelsea's Europa League triumph

However unfairly at times, many fans, and especially those of bigger clubs, have a bit of a flippant attitude towards the Europa League and its place as a continental competition. Many view it as a worthless trophy for also-rans, and more have suggested that it should be scrapped completely in favor of an expanded Champions League.

Thankfully for Chelsea fans, the club hardly dared to view the competition as a nuisance as Harry Redknapp did while at Tottenham (evidenced by his squad selections). Rather, despite the obvious disappointment of being dumped out of the Champions League after the group stage and being denied the chance to defend their Champions League title, Chelsea pushed on, took the Europa League and its collection of good opponents very seriously, and were ultimately rewarded with a second successive European trophy at the end of a second successive tumultuous season.

That Chelsea became the first club to wins Europe's two competitions in consecutive years is nothing short of remarkable, but perhaps there is more for us to marvel at in the aftermath of their late, dramatic victory over Benfica in Amsterdam.

Reflecting on Roberto Mancini

Wasn't it only in very recent times that Manchester City were known for the trophy drought and breaking the hearts of their fans on a regular basis? Yes, only the youngest or most myopic of fans could forget this era that we were once so accustomed to. Never mind trophies and championship campaigns; City fans aren't too far removed from simply being happy with ending up on the right side of the relegation places.

But, as we know all too well in the modern game, money changes everything, and oh how it has changed life in the blue half of Manchester. Gone are the days of Manchester City being something of a lovable underdog when compared to their all-conquering rivals, and those days of yore have been wholly replaced by City's relatively new ambitions of being one of the very best clubs in Europe.

The Ryan Martin Show: 5/13/13

The Northwest of England garnered a lot of attention in today's show, with Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, David Moyes' appointment, and Wigan's monumental FA Cup winning taking the spotlight. Action from MLS and the races for the final Champions League spots around Europe were also featured in today's conversation. Enjoy!

Wigan win the FA Cup

In a soccer world that is becoming increasing dominated by the biggest of clubs throwing gaudy amounts of money around on their way to trophy after trophy, it was only understandable that this season's FA Cup final of Manchester City and Wigan was branded as something of a David v. Goliath battle, and rightfully so. Manchester City, thanks to new ownership in recent years, an influx of cash and resultantly some of the best players in the world, have quickly solidified their place as one of the top clubs in England, while Wigan, contrastingly, have become oddly famous for dramatically escaping relegation seemingly every season while scraping by on the most meager of budgets as compared to some of the renowned rivals.

No, the apparent gulf in class between the two sides gracing the pitch at Wembley couldn't have been any more vast, and one would have been hard pressed to find anyone who would have actually given Wigan a chance to win, much less remain competitive with last season's Premier League champions. However, as we've seen in years past, magical things can happen during an FA Cup final; just ask former Liverpool and Wimbledon players about that.

Where does Everton go from here?

With today's far from surprising announcement that David Moyes would now attempt to fill Sir Alex Ferguson's sizable shoes at Manchester United, the beginning of a new era at Old Trafford likewise signaled the end of one at Goodison Park. Though Everton haven't reached the most dizzying of heights under David Moyes, fans of the blue half of Liverpool could have hardly had any complaints about a manager who over the course of eleven years in charge steadied the Everton ship and transformed them into a consistent, if not pragmatic, team that few looked forward to playing against and was perfectly capable of beating just about any other team on the right day.

Yes, a solid foundation will greet the new Everton manager, but much like the situation David Moyes is now plunging into, the job at Goodison Park is one that will come with its share of expectations and comparisons to Moyes' time in charge. With that said, it's a job that could be perfect for one manager who has been tipped for greater things in recent years. Contrastingly, it might also be a perfect chance for a once shining star in the managerial world to renew a bit of the luster that he has lost of late.

Sir Alex Ferguson retires: the end of an era

With Sir Alex Ferguson now in his early seventies, Manchester United fans knew that it was only a matter of time before Ferguson would call it a day and accordingly bring an end to his superlative time in charge of the English giants. However, even with that reality in mind, this morning's announcement of his imminent departure still came as a massive surprise to many of us in the soccer world, especially as some of his recent comments seemed to suggest that he had a few more seasons left and his passion on the Manchester United bench looked to be as fiery as even in leading the club to yet another Premier League title this season.

And yet, here we are, bringing the curtain down on a reign that started in 1986 and, despite a rather tumultuous beginning that saw him very close to being sacked, has represented one of the most prolonged  periods of excellence in the game's history. Some naysayers would be quick to suggest that more recent successes have come about due to Manchester United's standing as a multi-billion dollar global brand, but those detractors would be likewise remiss to not recognize that Manchester United, while steeped in history, was nowhere close to their current stature when Ferguson took over, and their transformation into such a worldwide empire can be largely attributed to the conquests to which he would lead the club from the early 1990s onward. Now this empire he has overseen is in a state of transition that is quite unfamiliar to all involved.

Wolves: a postmortem

It seemed that everything had gone as wrongly as it could for Wolves last season, didn't it? Following a fantastic start to the 2011/12 Premier League season that actually saw them topping the table at a very early juncture of the season, the results began to go from bad to worse, Mick McCarthy was inevitably sacked, and longtime assistant coach Terry Connor could do nothing to stop the bleeding as Wolves finished at the foot of the table and exited the Premier League with little more than a whimper.

And yet, even with the sour taste of a dreadful season still in the mouths of the fans, there was plenty of reason to think that this season back down in the Championship might re-instill some hope. After all, Wolves had been able to hang on to the likes of Karl Henry, Kevin Doyle, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, and Roger Johnson, and Bakary Sako looked to be just the signing new manager Ståle Solbakken needed to inject a bit of flair into a side that, on paper at least, looked poised to have a season at the sharp end of the table. These ambitions would soon subside, and the familiar despair of last season would return. 

The Ryan Martin Show: 5/6/13

Today's show is now up. Reactions to the all-German Champions League final, Wigan's great escape, a crazy final day in the Championship, and Houston's cathartic win were just a little bit of what was talked about this morning.

The true power of the game

There can be times in this day and age of the game when we can all become somewhat jaded and fed up with seemingly everything. Whether because of match-fixing scandals, overpaid players having a laugh in the tunnel despite having just seen their teams relegated, or a certain player losing his mind once again and biting an unsuspecting opponent, our collective patience can be tried over and over again. Maybe in light of these moments we even begin to wonder why we love this game in the first place.

Thankfully in recent days, the actions taken by a few clubs and their players have served to remind us once again of what is indeed still good about the world's game, and it is these fantastic gestures that deserve far more attention than some of the more unsavory headlines that could be written otherwise.

Deutschland über alles: der Pokal gehört nur einem Land

For those of us in the soccer world, whether fans or pundits, the debate over which league boasts the best teams in Europe has been one that has raged on for years, if not generations. It's an argument whose foundations shift every few years, with the likes of Serie A and the Premier League having respectively had the grand occasions of an all-Italian and all-English Champions League final to cite as proof of their place at the top of the European pedestal in the last decade. In very recent times, the near consensus has been that La Liga, thanks to Barcelona and Real Madrid featuring once in a generation talents as Messi and Ronaldo, was at the very pinnacle of not only the European game, but the global game as well.

Yet, as qualitative and almost steeped in mysticism as our opinions on this topic may be, the results tend to speak for themselves and tell us everything we need to know. With that very blunt fact in mind, there can be only one conclusion in 2013: the power has firmly, if not resoundingly, swung to the Bundesliga.