Our Cup Agony

Wie Fahren Nach Haus?

Well it's the second day of German Cup quarter-final action Wednesday after Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen won on the road in Tuesday's matches. Both visiting teams are favoured Wednesday, with Bayern Munich - which knocked out defending champ Wolfsburg - at Bochum and Hertha Berlin at Heidenheim. 

Hertha's Pokal curse is well-documented in this story by Uli Hesse. But with the club soaring in third place and an easy opponent on tap, the real dream is within reach.

As Hesse writes, 'Some clubs dream of championships, others of promotion and still others of playing in Europe or winning a derby against a fierce local rival. Hertha dream of the final at home.'

That's right, Hertha have never played in the final at home in the Olympic Stadium, while opposing teams chant 'Wie Fahren Nach Berlin' in delight of a trip to our stadium for the final. Your humble blogger was there to witness the BVB fans chant this in the train station into the wee hours last year.

Well are we ever going to play a final at home? Long-time Herthaner and current boss Pal Dardai wants to see that happen. "Since many years, I live with my family in Westend (neighbourhood where the Olympic Stadium is found)," he said. "On cup final day, we always take a stroll across the area around the Olympic Stadium and follow the final only as spectators. This annoys me."

It annoys the IMOTGP blog too. Let's hope that U.S. hero John Brooks and company take the next step and send Heidenheim into hiding. You can watch on Watch ESPN on your mobile device and make sure you Tweet about it and Snapchat during the match while swiping on Tinder and Instagram-ing your whereabouts.

MLS star hangs out with young fan at Super Bowl football match

We heard there was a Super Bowl football match on Sunday and the IMOTGP blog wants you to know that an all-time great MLS footballer was there with some young fan!

How to meet your favourite MLS stars

The MLS season is moving closer and we are less than one month from Patrick Vieira leading one of the league's biggest flops, NYC FC, into Toyota Park to face the Chicago Fire on March 6.  Get your tickets now!

If that's too long to wait, you can watch exciting preseason action all month long streaming for free on the internet. There's also the opportunity to go to Tucson and watch some MLS stars there, and if any blogger down there wants to provide a report, we'll be more than happy to put it on the blog.

According to FC Tucson, "Fans can stick around to grab a few autographs and pictures with coaches and players, including USMNT favorites such as Clint Dempsey (Seattle Sounders FC), Darlington Nagbe (Portland Timbers) Matt Besler (Sporting Kansas City), Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake) and DaMarcus Beasley (Houston Dynamo)."

There is one such open training session left Feb. 26 so mark it on your football calendar. It's one day before the Madrid derby between Real and Atletico so how can you forget?

Another U.S. youngster is on the move and is now in England!

There's plenty of hoopla over the great Christian Pulisic, whose 23 minutes against German powerhouse Ingolstadt have stunned the U.S. soccer world.

Well he's not the only U.S. player making waves overseas since another player will ply his trade in England. It's none other than Shane O'Neill, who has joined Cambridge United on loan. Cambridge is in the fourth tier but they famously gave Manchester United a game last year in the FA Cup with your faithful IMOTGP blogger in attendance.

O'Neill has not yet to be cap-tied to the United States but the 22-year-old may be on the Olympic qualifying team that will face Colombia in March. So congrats to O'Neill and to the United States for producing another European stud!

Don't be fooled football lovers

One question we receive here at the IMOTGP blog from you fans is how come we don't have a Twitter account. Well the latest "Italian" banana story is why.

For those of you living under a rock or in your parents' basement, this report of an 'Italian' reporter being pestered by an idiot with a banana was a laugh riot and one of the funnier moments in the Stamford Bridge area this season - and yes, we have seen Chelsea try to play defense! (rimshot)

Many wondered why we did not report this story, and the reason is because it was all a fraud.  Not quite as fraudulent as MLS "signing" Frank Lampard but fake nevertheless.

We didn't fall for such hi-jinx and hope you didn't either. So the next time you see someone being hit by an inflatable piece of fruit, think twice before deciding if what you are seeing is really happening.

The Greatness of Cristiano Ronaldo - a four-part series

We'll take a break from discussing the usual MLS preseason nonsense to bring you some exclusive footage about a player who will never see the field in an MLS match.

The idiots over at hipster blog Deadspin wondered whether Cristiano Ronaldo can dunk. As an avid watcher of football, I say without hesitation that CR7 is the best athlete I have ever seen outside of track and field.  Where is my proof?  Well our good friends over at the Sports Science Academy have tested Ronaldo to the limit and you can see that exciting four-part series below.

In Part 1, we learn that Ronaldo's speed is amazing, he has 3 percent less body fat than the women he @#$%s, and that he can jump higher than an average NBA player. Keep in mind that straight-line sprinting and jumping are less essential in football than in U.S. sports.

We think Part 2 is the most impressive since it shows what makes footballers unique. In addition to learning that Arsene Wenger and the woman below are in love with CR7, we see the superstar amazingly score in the dark to prove how his footballing mind is simply at a level we cannot comprehend.

Part 3 we found to be not too illuminating although you get to see CR7 unleash an incredible 80 mph freekick.

Part 4 shows some neat dribbling by Ronaldo and a wrap-up as to why he is a dominant force that the sports world has never seen as well as some more mumbling in French by the overrated Wenger.

We hope you enjoyed learning what it takes to be the very best at football, and why Cristiano Ronaldo is that. IMOTGP thanks you for your support.

The newest threat to MLS world supremacy?

Gateway away from MLS!

It's clear that the MLS is growing and adding some high-level talent. Albanian star Shkëlzen Gashi has joined Colorado Rapids from FC Basel while Amsterdam native Johan Kappelhof is coming to Chicago to play for the Fire. Gashi is 27 and Kappelhof is 25 so they are in their primes - that will shut up critics who diss the league. 

This transfer period has made clear that there is a new threat to the MLS vision of world dominance and that is China (pictured above). Our friends at the Guardian are reporting that the Chinese league are swooping in for major talent. MLS may have cause for concern.

According to the Guardian, "In terms of attendances, MLS and China are similar but perhaps not for long. The 2016 Super League season, set to kick off in March, is the most eagerly-awaited yet. Last year saw an average attendance of just over 22,000, less than two hundred behind Italy and France.

A high-ranking league official told the Guardian that this season will see the 25,000 barrier broken and predicts that by 2018, the Chinese Super League will be the third most-watched football league in terms of average attendance in the world behind the Bundesliga and the English Premier League."

The rise in the orient has stunned the hipster football fans over at Deadspin, who were amazed that former Porto and Atletico man Jackson Martinez is headed to China. That Martinez is turning aside Champions League glory for China is surprising.  The 29-year-old should be ready for MLS after five or six years of seasoning in China, and by seasoning we mean this.

How will MLS respond to this threat? Do you think Martinez should have chosen MLS? How many packets of the yellow mustard do you put on your Chinese food? Share your comments below!