It's the 2016 IMOTGP Awards!

Now that the European club season has ended, it's time for the stars of the football world to learn who has won the real prize - and we don't mean her.  We are talking about the 2015-16 IMOTGP European football awards!

Noemie didn't make the cut!

TEAM OF THE YEAR: Real Madrid.

The Champions League winners may not have been the best team in the world, although they pushed Barcelona to the limit in Spain. They endured a rocky season in which Rafa Benitez was dismissed and replaced by Zinedine Zidane.

They suffered through tremendous criticism since Cristiano Ronaldo was ripped by Adam Belgeri among others. That caused Zidane to fire back at Belgeri with a blistering rant in Madrid. And Zidane had the last laugh this past weekend when he encouraged the struggling Ronaldo, who fired home the winning penalty.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Jamie Vardy, Leicester City.

Sure Luis Suarez scored 40 La Liga goals but he is a bellend. Gonzalo Higuain scored 36 Serie A goals to nearly double his closest competitor in Italy. Vardy, meanwhile, didn't lead the Premier League in goals and may not be the best player on his own team.

So why is Vardy the IMOTGP choice? It's because of his rise from obscurity to footballing greatness, reminiscent of rap impressario extraordinaire Jay-Z's rise to fame and fortune.  That under-the-radar story was spotlighted on the blog - the only outlet to compare Vardy and the Jiggaman and earned the English superstar the nod for this honor. When you transcend football and rap, you deserve IMOTGP player of the year!

FLOPS OF THE YEAR: Chelsea FC and Hertha Berlin (tie).

These teams wearing blue had plenty in common in that both wear blue. Chelsea were defending champions in England but faltered miserably leading to the demise of Jose Mourinho. 

Mou was later spotted watching a top Bundesliga clash in Berlin between Hertha and Dortmund. He was there since Hertha used defensive brilliance to contend for a Champions League spot.

Alas, the Berliners collapsed in epic fashion and finished in seventh place.  That's still three places higher than Chelsea finished in England, but both teams sucked when it counted the most.

USELESS TEAM OF THE YEAR THAT DID WELL: Tottenham Hotspur.

A second-place finish in the most expensive league in the world is better than this club usually fares. Instead they didn't finish second and finished third behind Arsenal! This when they had second in the bag.

Spurs were also thrashed by Dortmund in the Europa League, choosing to start reserves and embarrassing the club. They could have claimed a major European scalp like Liverpool achieved. Finally Tottenham failed to beat champions Leicester City in either league matchup and arch-rival Arsenal either time as well. What a waste of a season.

STRANGEST TEAM OF THE YEAR: Europa League champions Sevilla.

Did you know that in the top five European  leagues that only one club failed to win an away match in league play? That club is Sevilla - with 10 defeats and nine draws in La Liga play.

Los Rojiblancos also shipped eight goals in losing all three away games in the Champions League but a 1-0 victory over Juventus on Matchday 6 helped them avoid last place in the group and gave them another crack at the Europa League.

That's when Sevilla did what they do best - sweeping through the competition and even winning on the road against Athletic Bilbao. Their second-half masterclass against Liverpool in the final was a thing of beauty and four days later they took Barcelona to the wire in the Copa del Rey final.

We wish them well in the Supercup against Real Madrid in August!

UNDERRATED PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Chicharito, Bayer Leverkusen.

Chicharito struck 17 times in 28 matches for Bayer, leading them back to the Champions League with a third-place finish. It wasn't exactly a career revival since he proved he has been clutch by scoring the winning goal in a quarterfinal tie with Atletico Madrid a season ago for Real.

Still, the Mexican was in fine form with one of the Bundesliga's most attack-minded teams  and showed his dedication and professionalism by scoring on April 1 off the bench in a key victory over Wolfsburg just three days after your faithful blogger saw him play for Mexico. He's a quality striker and an icon in his home country and is proven to be the best CONCACAF has to offer to Europe.

THE HERTHA FAILED BUT WE DIDN'T AWARD:  Sassuolo.

While Hertha failed miserably to reach its target of the Champions League, there was an even better story in Italy with Sassuolo cementing a Europa League berth on the final day of the season over fancied AC Milan.

I Neroverdi entered Serie A for the first time in 2013-14, surviving by the skin of their teeths.  They showed staying power with a 12th-place showing the next season before a 61-point haul.

They had to sweat out a tight Coppa Italia final between Milan and Juve, but that went their way. Domenico Berardi and Sime Vrsaljko are top transfer targets for a club that has risen from nowhere to Europe in a three-year span.


INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR: There's only one candidate ...

MATCH(ES) OF THE YEAR: The IMOTGP blog watched countless football matches and some deserve more mention than others.

The best were the Copa del Rey final and the two Bayern Munich-Juventus ties in Champions League. Finishing close behind was the second leg of the Dortmund-Liverpool tie.

In league matches, Bayer Leverkusen's rally from two goals down in the last 20 minutes for a 4-3 victory over Stuttgart was a good one as was Everton's 4-3 loss to Stoke City in a major collapse. Also Celta de Vigo's mid-week 4-1 thrashing of Barcelona in September was a lot of fun.

That's all from IMOTGP. We will move on to Copa America and the European championships and have major plans to pay top dollar to attend a huge game in one of those competitions this weekend!

Leave your comments below!

Sacre bleu! French loudmouth idiot trashes soccer!

As you all know, there's a major tournament this summer and it's the European championships in France. It's a huge deal and there are major storylines galore, from whether Spain will claim a third straight crown to whether world champion Germany will snatch the crown to how the bloated 24-team field tournament will look.

It's an exciting time in sports in general in France with the French Open going on in the build-up to the football. But leave it to an idiot who plays a different kind of football to reign on the parade, it's a dope who plays the American sport of NFL.

New York Giants of the United State's NFL have signed French receiver Anthony Dable, who learned to play that sport from Nintendo. It turns out Dable isn't a fan of the football his country is known for.

"You grow up watching soccer and there was something I didn’t like," he said. "You touch a player and they fall down. But in football, you can break your ankle but you stand up with pride and walk off. Football is so close to life . . . One game of football can really translate to life and not giving up."

It's sad enough that the majority of people in the United States have this dim-witted view but to hear it from the country that produced Just Fontaine, Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry is that much more ridiculous. Let's understand that Dable won't ever play a down in the NFL and is only trying American football because he failed at the real football.

For his idiocy, we name Dable the IMOTGP Moron of the Week! 

Campeones! UPDATED WITH MORE PHOTOS

Former Miss Belgium!

Well the Champions League is over and unfortunately Real Madrid has won, as everyone thought they would. It's truly a dark time in the football world to see a shirtless Ronaldo celebrating another title.


At least we can report with great accuracy that one woman Ronaldo hasn't been involved with (yet) is former Miss Belgium Noemie Happart, who unwittingly became a major part of the Champions League final in Milan. That's because her boyfriend, Atletico's Yannick Carrasco, went right to her after he tied the game in the 79th minute.

So while Ronaldo enjoyed his magic moment, Happart set social media abuzz worldwide with her cameo in the Champions League final. Many countries took notice of this special moment, including Le Huffington Post. That's a solid consolation prize for Carrasco!

The IMOTGP Commentary: Butthurt MLS looking more foolish than ever over Giovinco reaction

OK, MLS, we get it. You are happy that among the high-priced flop imports that treat your league as a retirement home, there is one shining light among them.  That would be Sebastian Giovinco, under the age of 30(!), and the reigning league MVP.

And we understand that certain national teams have more cache than others, which is why the league seemingly doesn't care that the No. 2 team in the world has called up Laurent Ciman of the Impact. Belgium isn't one of those teams but Italy - winners of four World Cups - certainly is even if the Azzurri aren't favoured to do as well as the much-fancied Belgians at Euro 2016.

But yes, it had to hurt that a player like Giovinco who tore up MLS was not selected to play for Italy at the Euros. But seriously, how many moronic thinkpieces do we need to read about this? Simon Borg of the MLS site particularly disgraced himself on the matter.

These MLS lovers clearly cannot read. Let's look at Italy boss Antonio Conte's comments more closely about omitting Andrea Pirlo and Giovinco.

"I spoke to Andrea, I needed to hear from him and we sent people to the U.S. However, we've made other choices and you have to accept them and deal with the consequences. Nothing was left to chance.

"We evaluated him and Giovinco, it's normal that if you choose to go and play there then you can pay the consequences in footballing terms.

"We evaluated them technically, we didn't leave anything to chance. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong, we went everywhere to have clear and precise ideas."

Everyone is focused on the middle part of the statement rather than the statement as a whole. Conte is not simply saying that they paid the price by going to MLS, he's also saying that the Italians evaluated the situation thoroughly and went in another direction. Why would anyone not believe him?

For all the talk about how Eder is in a slump and that Zaza and Immobile are losers, it's still not clear why Giovinco should be a lock for the squad. Do you realize he has scored only once for the Azzurri? This blogger should know since I was there for that lone moment of Giovinco 'magic.' It was a tap-in that anyone could convert, but that's not the point.

What these MLS idiots don't understand is that Conte also omitted the top Italian goal scorer in Serie A - Leonardo Pavoletti of Genoa. Pavoletti scored 14 - one more than Massimo Maccarone of Empoli - also not good enough to make the cut. See how easy it is to play this game about who is doing what in what league and whether he should be on the team? Where's the MLS outrage over Pavoletti and Maccarone?  That's right, there isn't any.

Leave it to James Horncastle to explain how things went down. Conte's assistant, Marco Scampa, came to North America to watch Giovinco and Pirlo play.  That, more than anything, is a major sign of respect and should be seen as much for an Italian coach to watch MLS. Now if said coach believed that MLS wasn't a true indicator of how a player would fare at the highest level, he isn't the only Italian to believe so, as previously reported by IMOTGP.

The bottom line is that Giovinco maybe could have been on the Italian team but would not have had a major role. Any other insinuation from thin-skinned MLS types is pure folly - and they should stick to producing Frank Lampard highlight tapes for the fans instead!

Bayern Munich to ID top young talent in Chicago!!!

Just because Pep Guardiola is out the door doesn't mean that Bayern Munich ceases to exist anymore. It's been known for some time that the German champions are coming to Chicago to play AC Milan, although it's never been said what part of the reasoning is for the world powerhouse - until this exclusive IMOTGP reporting.

It can now be revealed that Bayern is ID-ing the top young talent in Chicago as part of their visit. Chicago City SC and Bayern have formed an important partnership that should no doubt improve the footballing ability of the youth in Chicago.

So any of you IMOTGP parents out there who want their kids to learn the Bayern way should keep up to date on when this program will run and who knows? Maybe your son will play for Bayern Munich one day!

Pirlo: MLS players have no idea how the game is played

This is not football!

The story of the weekend was not Barcelona completing a double or Pep Guardiola completing a double at his former club, or Louis Van Gaal winning his final match in charge at Man United.

Rather the football world was stunned by what it saw Saturday when the New York Red Bulls thrashed NYCFC 7-0 in an incomprehensible beatdown that matched the largest margin of victory in an MLS match.

The contest was an embarrassment for the MLS as its first nationally-televised match of the year. And it came after Andrea Pirlo hit out at the quality of the league - and he's completely right.

Said Pirlo: "It’s a very hard league to play in. It’s very physical, there’s a lot of running. So there is a lot of physical work and to me, in my mind, too little play."

He said - accurately - that U.S. players are not trained in the technical skills of the game - unlike the European academies.

"They (European teams) pick them and they train them in much more than just running," commented Pirlo. "They train them in stopping the ball. Here that doesn’t happen.

"So when a young man becomes a professional in the United States he still has some gaps that need to be filled when playing on the field."

Pirlo is 100 percent right and it's nice to see one of the game's legends speak the truth to the American public - unlike a know-it-all like Jurgen Klinsmann.

In other U.S.- based football news, it has been confirmed that FC Cincinnati will host FA Cup finalist Crystal Palace in July. Get your tickets now!

Victory!!!

Those of you who follow this blog know that we don't always ever see our teams succeed after seeing Hertha BSC collapse down the stretch in insipid form. Then there's the US men's team led by Jurgen Klinsmann, who leads us to fourth-place Gold Cup finishes and defeat in Guatemala.

That's why we are happy to report that our United States under-17 team just thrashed India 4-0 in front of a hostile road crowd at the AIFF Youth Cup. William Sands had a first-half brace, Chandler Vaughan scored just before half-time and Kevin Negrete added another goal in a dominant display.

Sure the U.S. beat a visiting India team that was about as toothless as a Bengal tiger who had enjoyed a steady diet of  besan ladoos. India looked disorganised and lost on the pitch in a dismal showing in front of the home fans.

Still, the performance was enough to put a smile on your blogger's face as the IMOTGP blog finally tasted victory. And it tasted like a steaming hot dish of aloo gobi.

Congrats to our United States!  Let's hope the celebrations are peaceful in our country and there is no rioting or looting.

The IMOTGP Match of the Year: My Proudest Moment - UPDATED!

There's a huge matchup in football this week for the IMOTGP blog. And no, it's not today's Europa League final between two-time defending champion Sevilla and Liverpool.

It's set for Thursday and pits my two countries in a match of two extraordinary footballing nations, That's right, the United States is playing India in a under-17 football match in Goa, India!

As you can imagine, this creates a dilemma for your humble blogger. Which jersey do I wear on matchday? Well the answer is simple, my friends. Although I truly cannot root for one team over the other I will wear the jersey of India because to wear the United States would be tacit support for this moron!

UPDATE: Former MLS head coach John Hackworth has praised the Indian team, saying "I’m a little surprised as to how well the Indian players play. They’re technical, strong in terms of their engine. It looks like they can run all day. They try to play good soccer. I watched a couple of the professional games and I was impressed."

So there you have it, IMOTGP football fans. Feel free to greet me Thursday with a friendly 'Namaste. Aap kaise hain?' as India and the United States do battle on the pitch!

An IMOTGP Report: Why is Colorado any Good?

Defend Our Dick's!

Football fans know that the IMOTGP blog covers some of the hottest stories in the sport. Whether it's an appraisal of Pep Guardiola, a humourous Liverpool FC video or an interview with obscure English star Calum Angus, you can find it here.

We have often been criticized for our lack of coverage of the United States' MLS, which is why your humble blogger decided to head for the mountains to see the best team in MLS this season - the surprising Colorado Rapids. We decided to do that when we weren't busy doing other things like rock climbing or eating overrated local Mexican food.

What resulted was a 1-0 victory for Colorado over Sporting Kansas City.  The Rapids drew at Columbus 1-1 this past weekend and we have some insight as to why they are any good - relative to MLS.

1. Jermaine Jones is still an above-average MLS player, sad to say. Sure he's a weirdo but Jones sure fits the part in Colorado. He's absolutely toying with the losers of the league and it's clear that - brace yourselves - Jurgen Klinsmann has big plans for the German in Copa Centenario.

2. The best defense in MLS. The centerback pairing of Swedish star Axel Sjoberg and Colorado native Bobby Burling has started together eight times. The Rapids have conceded a league-low nine goals and the 42 shots on goal allowed are second-best to D.C. United. Zac MacMath has been solid and many supporters are wondering why this English Premier League reject has signed on. Credit Pablo Mastroeni for building the club's defensive identity.

3. Gashi is gashing them. We didn't see Shkelzen Gashi in mid-week but the Albanian's form has been superb and he assisted on Kevin Doyle's goal over the weekend. With Gashi, Doyle and Jones, the Rapids have a solid but unspectacular trio of foreigners who know how to mount a quality attack. You should know that such a sub-Europa League triumvirate is all it takes at the MLS level.

4. DEFEND OUR DICK'S! This family-friendly slogan just about says it all. The Rapids have won all six home games and while Dick's Sporting Goods Park doesn't resemble a fortress, it's an uncomfortable enough environment for visiting teams. Almost as uncomfortable as the fan chant 'Defend Our Dick's!' Say it with us now!

Do you think Colorado will keep up this pace?  Is Jermaine Jones the best player on the United States team? How much of a fool is Jurgen Klinsmann?  Leave your comments below.

The IMOTGP investigation: Karl Ouimette is a jerk!

All of you football fans no doubt saw the violent kick by Pittsburgh Riverhounds' Romeo Parkes to the back of New York Red Bulls' Karl Ouimette from over a week ago.

The condemnation was harsh worldwide and even tennis great Martina Navratilova chimed in with her thoughts. Sadly, football in the United States was finally thrust into the limelight - and in a negative light at that. Parkes lost his job, and the sports world  roared their approval.

Now the sports media left this story but IMOTGP has not and we can reveal as a result of our informal investigation that Ouimette is a major douchebag. We are not excusing the kick in the back but it hasn't been reported widely that Ouimette was suspended for three games for punching Parkes in that match. 

Why has this not been reported?  Because the gutless Canadian was too shady to be caught on camera sucker-punching the Jamaican, we can only surmise.  The official USL response is that Ouimette initially punched Parkes with closed fists and the Pittsburgh man retaliated. That's why Ouimette was given a red card in the first place. There are rumors on the blogosphere and Twitterverse that Ouimette is a big jerk in MLS circles as well.

So remember football fans, look deeper into the story to see the story behind the story when you see such incidents. It takes two to tango and while Parkes was a moron, Ouimette is a jackass as well. Both should be banned from football.  Thank you and this has been an IMOTGP investigation.

IMOTGP Final Analysis: We Choked!!!

Well folks, they said it couldn't be done and they were right. What was once a heart-warming story turned into a nightmare as Hertha BSC failed to win any of our last seven games with a pathetic two points in a stretch in which we were outscored 15-5 to finish seventh in the league. 

It means that Hertha will play in the Europa League qualifying rounds in late July. It's quite a fall for a team that held third place from Matchdays 18-29 and held a Champions League spot from Matchdays 15-31. Instead the team fell apart ever since Jurgen Klinsmann injured Hertha star John Brooks in Guatemala.

No one believed in this team and it turned out they were right. Hertha are simply not Champions League material now or ever and in truth, were worse than every team in the Bundesliga in this final stretch - by some distance. Heck, even the Europa League is too much to ask for this toothless group. We even mixed in a listless 3-0 German Cup semi-final loss at home to Borussia Dortmund in this horrific stretch in which we resembled a team from the U.S. MLS more than a Bundesliga outfit.

Please don't think that Hertha couldn't compete with the Bundesliga heavyweights as to why this collapse happened. Hertha couldn't compete with anyone in actuality - getting one point from matches against tomato cans Hannover 96, Hoffenheim and Darmstadt as we blew a 1-0 lead each time. Even the free beer to the long-suffering fans didn't help in last week's loss to Darmstadt.

A seventh-place finish in the world's best league outside of Spain isn't bad but Hertha BSC truly are bad. We choked, we are losers and your blogger actually enjoyed getting relegated more than this slop at the end of the season.

Your humble blogger's final analysis - We are truly losers!

Did Pep Guardiola Succeed at Bayern? Meh

The post-Champions League debate is well underway and it's not about which Madrid team will win the trophy - the Athletic ones or the Real ones.  It's actually about whether a losing manager in the semi-finals was a failure.

The prevailing sentiment is that hey, so Guardiola didn't win a Champions League at Bayern, he was great anyway. Not only that, Bayern fans love the guy too. And besides, he took time to immerse himself in the Bavarian culture and even learned German before a ball was kicked! You know how hard it is to learn a foreign language?

So the consensus is that the Guardiola years were memorable and not a failure. We here at the IMOTGP blog don't consider him a failure but memorable?  Meh.

We don't want to frown on three Bundesliga titles but it would be very hard for Bayern not to win them. For one, the league stinks outside of Bayern and Dortmund. Yes, Gladbach and Leverkusen are decent sides but their Champions League performances show they were not too formidable. Last season's runner-up, Wolfsburg, sold their best player, Schalke couldn't get out of their own way and these losers who wear blue actually held third spot for much of this season before forgetting how to play football once April started, turning instead into April fools.

Pep won one German Cup title two years ago that was slightly disputed and crashed out last year in the semi-finals at home, with your faithful blogger in attendance. There is still an up-for-grabs German Cup final versus Dortmund set for this May.

In the Champions League, Pep won at Arsenal in his first knockout away match then proceeded to never win one again for the duration of his Bayern tenure. That included three defeats each of the last three years in Spain in the semi-finals, an embarrassing defeat in Porto, a blown two-goal lead at Juventus, and an uninspiring draw at Benfica. He couldn't even beat David Moyes' Man United away and Bayern were behind in that tie in the second leg!

Let's talk the matches that mattered - the semi-finals in a row against Real, Barcelona and Atletico. For all of Pep's attacking reputation, Bayern never produced an away goal. The capitulation at home vs. Real ranks as one of the club's worst European matches.  His side displayed a naivete in the first leg at Barca to allow two late strikes.

We submit that Bayern were the better side over Atletico over 180 minutes, but he inexplicably left Muller out of his XI in the first leg and it was Simeone's team that reacted better in the immediate aftermath of the halftime break in leg two. Also if you say that Bayern were better than Atletico, it must be said that they were probably outplayed over the first 180 minutes of their round of 16 tie against Juve as they escaped by the skin of their teeth.

Also, did any player really individually reach the heavens for him like Franck Ribery did for Jupp Heynckes in 2012-13 when he could have and maybe should have captured a Ballon D'Or?  Maybe only Robert Lewandowski and his magical five-goal haul came merely against Wolfsburg in a mid-week home match. Yes, Xabi Alonso became integral in the midfield but it hardly made him must-see-TV. It's clear that all that Messi magic was down to the man himself as well as Xavi and Andres Iniesta.

Pep will celebrate a third Bundesliga title this weekend - and if he doesn't, things will have gone horribly wrong. It's not fair to say things went horribly wrong for him at Bayern. But these teams won't be remembered at all and if they will, it will be for the way they joylessly throttled a bunch of Bundesliga also-rans. His tenure also overlaps with a German World Cup-winning team that wasn't amazing either, but at least will go down in football history for a 7-1 shellacking of the host nation in the semi-finals.

Pep's Bayern teams? Meh.

Change is coming to the Champions League!

Back in March, there was a stir when New York-based soccer maven Charlie Stillitano made his controversial remarks about the possibility of a European Super League being created. He currently runs the ICC tournament that is coming to a stadium near you in which the business model is to have top European clubs play their clubs in front of a clueless sellout crowd of U.S. soccer fans hungry to see anyone wearing a Man United or Real Madrid jersey in front of them.

Said Stillitano, a former general manager of the New York/New Jersey MetroStars in MLS: "This is going to sound arrogant and it’s the furthest thing from it … but suddenly when you see the teams we have this summer in the ICC you are going to shake your head and say, ‘Isn’t that the Champions League? No, the Champions League is PSV and Ghent."

He also seemed to insult Premier League champions to be Leicester City, although it should be noted that the Foxes are in the ICC. "What would Manchester United argue: did we create soccer or did Leicester create [it]?" he said. "Let’s call it the money pot created by soccer and the fandom around the world. Who has had more of an integral role, Manchester United or Leicester? It’s a wonderful,
wonderful story – but you could see it from Manchester United’s point of view, too."

Well ol' Charlie was roasted by the British media for such comments since this Yankee is out to ruin the purity of the English game - so pure that the money-hungry league has hogged every time slot on the weekend and has allowed foreign owners to run amok. Words like 'wanker,' 'asshole' and 'dick' were used to describe him.

Those remarks have been clarified with another edition of the ICC nearing us, with Charlie noting first off that Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool all agreed to meet with him in the first place.

The more important reveal was that, yes, the Champions League format will be changing eventually. There's a possibility of two eight-team mini-leagues in a group stage. The details haven't been worked out but it's clear that change is coming.

It's also clear that he meant no harm. The Champions League used to contain exclusively of champions. That's not the case anymore with fledgling clubs like Hertha BSC knocking on the door. Who wants to watch those losers? And be honest, how many PSV and Ghent matches in the Champions League did you watch? So he makes a good point on that.

Other European clubs feel the same way, with Barcelona backing a wild card into the Champions League. The bottom line is this format will change, the rich will get richer and it's the official IMOTGP position that you shouldn't shoot the messenger - Stillitano - when it does. The football world wants it and it will happen.

Think the Champions League format is fine the way it is?  Do you think Stillitano is a wanker? Will the United States ever have a player in it who isn't in the Bundesliga? Leave your comments below!