Soccer on the Brain

As I sit here watching SportsCenter waiting for the announcement of the US World Cup roster, here are a couple of interesting bits from the soccer world.

First, ESPNsoccernet had an article yesterday about American players dealing with racism in Europe, focusing on PSV Eindhoven's DaMarcus Beasley and defender Cory Gibbs, who used to play for Feyenoord. While some of the abuse they've taken appears to be nationalistic (i.e., they hate Dubya in Europe), most of it, sadly, seems to be the basest kind of racism that we, thankfully, don't have much of in the United States.

Second, the Washington Post has a good World Cup blog going. I'm sure there will be lots of discussion there once the roster is announced.

UPDATE: So, we have a roster now. Brian Ching? Jimmy Conrad? Frankie, again? Oy. In Bruce we trust, in Bruce we trust . . .