UCL: Picks Will Come Down to Final Matchdays

UEFA Champions League group stage ends on December 6 and 7.

Through 5 group stage matchdays, Mike and Tim are tied with their picks with 11 correct picks each.

As a reminder: our picks are based on who advances to the knockout phase, with third place finish (UEFA Europa League knockout phase) as a tiebreaker.

Correct Picks for Both	Correct Picks for Mike	Correct Picks for Tim	Incorrect Picks
Arsenal Atletico Madrid Barcelona Bayer Leverkusen Bayern Munich Juventus Leicester City Manchester City Paris Saint-Germain Real Madrid	Borussia Dortmund	Monaco	CSKA Moscow (Mike) Dinamo Zagreb (Tim) Dynamo Kyiv (both) Sporting Portugal (Tim)

Teams still in it:

Picks for Both	Picks for Mike	Picks for Tim	Neither Picked
Benfica Porto	Sevilla	none	Besiktas Copenhagen Lyon Napoli

Mike can potentially win the picks if Sevilla advance.  Otherwise, we go to the third-place tiebreaker, which Mike currently leads 4 to 1.

Both of the "batsu" teams - Arsenal for Tim, Barcelona for Mike - have advanced to the knockout phase.

We will see you on December 7 with the final results.

Episode 215 - Pro/Rel Report and Klinsmann Sacking

As you may well be aware, USSF fired Jurgen Klinsmann as the head coach of the US men's national soccer team.

This happened on the same day that Deloitte released a commissioned report on promotion and relegation in US club soccer.

Pro/rel is a topic of much discussion on this podcast and will continue to be so because we (Mike especially) believe that it needs to be done.

Today's podcast is Mike reading the summary of this report and giving his thoughts, as well as his thoughts on Klinsmann's sacking.

Here are some facts from a fan poll commissioned as part of Deloitte's research for this report:

You can read the report yourself at:

http://midfieldpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Deloitte-Sports-Business-Group-Silva-Summary-Document-091116-1.pdf



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Episode 214 - 2016 Election As It Relates To... San Diego

It's Mike's podcast, so he'll do as he sees fit.

And today that means talking about the San Diego stadium vote, and how that will ultimately mean the Chargers are heading for their birthplace in LA - the only NFL team that can rightfully claim that (for the morons who claim the Rams originated in LA, try again: their birthplace is Cleveland).

Fair use 1: "(Jackin' It In) San Diego" opens our little episode today.

Fair use 2: Of course "Senor Stan" returns.



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San Diego Stadium Vote - We Called It!

One election result we kept a close eye on was the stadium vote in San Diego.

Once again, this is all about knowing a thing or two about stadium funding politics in California.  If public money is involved, it ain't happening.  See also: Oakland.

Surely Mr. Goodell and NFL owners would have been aware of this in January when the LA debacle happened - unjustly and unnecessarily ripping a team out of the one city that actually had a stadium plan in place (St. Louis, Missouri) and forcing the two California cities that didn't (San Diego and Oakland) to try to do the politically impossible.

Of course, part of that debacle was that the Chargers would get first option to move to LA should these efforts fail in San Diego.

The results are in:

Measure C (the team's plan for a downtown stadium/convention center expansion) failed miserably, with over 60% of voters rejecting it.

Measure D (which would have opened up the site of the current Qualcomm - or Jack Murphy, its original name - for development) also failed by a similar result.

At the start of next season, be prepared to say the following phrase: Los Angeles Chargers.

Episode 213 - 2016 NFL Midseason

It's the halfway point of the NFL season, and Mike and Tim have made their customary midseason adjustments:

Division	Mike's Originals	Mike's Adjusteds	Tim's Originals	Tim's Adjusteds	Actual (as of 11/2/2016)
NFC North	Green Bay	Minnesota	Green Bay	Green Bay	Minnesota
NFC South	Carolina	New Orleans	Carolina	Atlanta	Atlanta
NFC East	NY Giants	NY Giants	Dallas	Dallas	Dallas
NFC West	Arizona	Arizona	Seattle	Seattle	Seattle
NFC Wild Cards	New Orleans Seattle	Green Bay Seattle	Arizona Chicago	Arizona Minnesota	Green Bay NY Giants
AFC North	Pittsburgh	Pittsburgh	Pittsburgh	Pittsburgh	Pittsburgh
AFC South	Houston	Houston	Indianapolis	Houston	Houston
AFC East	New England	New England	New England	New England	New England
AFC West	Raiders	Raiders	Kansas City	Kansas City	Denver
AFC Wild Cards	Cincinnati Indianapolis	Cincinnati Denver	Jacksonville Raiders	Raiders Denver	Raiders Kansas City
NFC Champions	Green Bay	Green Bay	Green Bay	Seattle	TBA February
AFC Champions	New England	New England	New England	New England	TBA February
Super Bowl	New England	New England	New England	New England	TBA February

Fair use: "Senor Stan" returns because reasons.



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Episode 212 - 2016 MLB Review and Batsu Games

First off, congratulations to the Chicago Cubs on winning the 2016 World Series - their first win since 1908, and one year later than predicted by a certain movie.

Ironically, the longest World Series title drought now belongs to the team that lost this year's World Series, the Cleveland Indians, who last won in 1948.

We actually recorded today's episode the morning of Game 7, so we didn't know who had won it all at the time.  However, batsu was given because we knew the teams we had picked did not win, let alone make the World Series.

Mike opens this episode with his Cardinals' batsu game and recites a couple of verses of Billy Joel's "Piano Man."

Mike's Washington batsu: wear a Los Angeles Dodgers cap for the latter part of this episode.

Tim's San Francisco batsu is a little more long-term: play a minor character in Mike's currently-on-hiatus web series Tales from the Interim Net (Mike is already in the series as a cyborg expert, a ninja-cyborg, the voice of a cop, and the voice of a super-computer).

We end today's episode with "H.E.A.T" by The Kyoto Connection (CC BY-NC-SA), which is the opening and closing credit song for Tales.



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Religion of Sports - Premieres Nov 15

We briefly mentioned this on the podcast.  Now you can see the trailer.