Two large gaps in the soccer blogosphere threaten to engulf us all. First,  the spirit of the classic CNN-interview-own-journalist-as-expert. Second, the feelings shared by real celebrities as the “fake-celebrity-twitter” contagion. I had hoped for help from Pusky, but he batted his cyber eyelashes and rejected my online advances in the cruelest form – the unreturned email. Rather than check my inbox on my Iphone incessantly, I will avoid the later-life-styles arthritic bills and do the interview of myself.

Yes, that’s right, you finally get an exclusive, no punches-held-glimpse at the inner workings of the brain behind this site. Prepare to be mortifiedly terrified. Or terrifiedly mortified. Continue reading “Pusky Rekindled – The Interview – Part 2” »

Ironically, the most important and rewarding aspect of blogging is the social interaction. Ironic because, on the one hand, I will never see any of my readers or fellow bloggers. Aside from their gravators and bigsoccer profiles, that is. On the other hand, this may be a good thing. The internet allows us to engage on a purely intellectual level, and the sheer depth and breadth of my typographical errors should make clear I am no ivy league graduate. No, I am the blue collar, working man’s blogger, the hardest working blogger this side of Pete Rose. In my world of posts and tweets there is no guaranteed ground out -I will hustle to first even when my coach calls for a hit-and-run. That is why my site averages a post every other day – I am so exhausted from my efforts that 24 hours of rest is necessary.

So, despite my dedication, commitment, and mad social skillz, I can’t help but think of the Dead Hungarian Footballing apparition that got away. I know, I know – I sound like a middle aged fisherman. Hemingway wrote a short story on the folly of free will by focusing on an old man’s valiant efforts vs. the forces of nature. I don’t plan on flailing broken oars at sharks anytime soon, but is it too much to ask an email every few months of a Dead Hungarian Footballing apparition? Every six months? Continue reading “Ferenc Pusky: Re-kindling the Old Flame, Pt. 1” »

This morning I checked my email and an unread message warmed my heart. It was from Pusky!

I hadn’t heard from Puskas (or been shaken awake) in about a month. Granted, in that time I had only received the occasional tweet, but certainly you would expect the apparition of an iconic footballer to send a postcard or something. Is that too much to ask? Continue reading “Dead Hungarian Wishes You Happy Holidays!” »

As you may have guessed, I am a practicing Roman Catholic. Within my belief structure, boxes exists for spirits and ghosts and hauntings. Purgatory awaits those with impure souls, the flames of hell toned down to a mild orange so as to burn away sinful elements of our time on this Earth.

Up until this point, I had thought of Puskas as adversarial and one minded. He only wanted goat’s blood. Yet I had been equally adversarial and one minded – I had created major-struggle-mountain out of a molehill. But I took a deep breath and asked myself a very basic, simple question: why did this former Real Madrid legend want goat’s blood? And what did it have to do with me?

I had to expand my mind between simple notions of victory and defeat, life and death, lots of goat’s blood or no goat’s blood. Continue reading “The Life, Death, & Life of Ferenc Puskas” »

Well people, I fear I may have unleashed a monster. I never once thought my blog and ouija board would combine to form a pandora’s box of supernatural proportions, but such is my fate. I cannot coax this demon back into his dungeon. Puskas is on twitter. I just want to watch the MLS Cup, enjoy Thanksgiving with family, and rock the job search – becoming an online ghostbuster is nowhere near the top of my day planner, let alone monthly agenda. And the worst part is, I’m not so sure this is a Casper-apparition. Right now he only talks of goat’s blood, but how long before he seeks….human blood?

And I’m kinda worried about my dogs, Ralph and Bella. That’s the likely next target/victim if sangre de chivo is not made available asap. Continue reading “An Open Invitation to Disaster…” »

Alright folks, I am 100% sure that it is not my brother pulling this stunt. Why? He’s working the night shift, has a classy prepaid cricket cell phone (no iphone), and I just got a little message from everyone’s favorite “dead” Hungarian. The timing does not work up, unless my bro has a conspirator. But that’s unlikely. And here’s an odd thing…

…the half hour early email makes me wonder…I think this is some polite UK guy. First off, blowing me off with notice is just a bit too proper and polite for my bro. It is definitely not Santi. Santi would be all “yeah dude that idea for a post sounds great…I’ll get it to you later.” And then I’d be, what do you mean by later.” And Santi would be all “Did you read that hysterical article on Run of Play?” Continue reading “The Disappearing Apparition is Quite Polite” »

So the best part about blogging is eventually growing a well-educated, loyal, and assertive readership base. Yes, the livetweet of the Grant Wahl book failed to irreparably disrupt the space-time continuum (at least in this dimension), but we had fun? Didn’t we? Well, I had fun.

But for those of you too cool for twitter, you missed a rare livetweet seance event involving a spooky old prairy mansion and a dead Hungarian footballer. But the story just got a bit weirder… Continue reading “The MOST important soccer event today, ever” »