Move over, Maru. Hello, Anfield Cat.

Maru, King of the Kittehs, the adorable Scottish fold with the doting Japanese owner, got upstaged by a cat in England.

This guy wandered onto the pitch at Anfield, 11 minutes into a match between homestanding Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspur.  "You'll Never Walk Alone" certainly applied to "Anfield Cat," who ended up providing the sole highlight of a goal-free draw.



This isn't the first small, furry creature to wander onto a soccer pitch during a match, but he may be the tamest.  I'm not sure what scared Anfield Cat more, U.S. keeper Brad Friedel's attempt to shepherd him, or the 45,000 fans who decided to serenade him.  He was only too happy to end up in the arms of the steward who escorted him to safety.

If his behavior doesn't convince you that he's no feral cat, perhaps his "official" Twitter feed will.  Or maybe one of its emulators.  My guess is that Anfield Cat is a community cat, someone who lives outdoors but gets fed, petted and possibly sheltered by people who live near Anfield.  At least one of his daily handlers has stepped forward.

Oh, and here's a better call of the same event from Ian Darke.  Who said Darke couldn't call games?

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Tuesday Football: Well, it's a start

It's been interesting to see which NFL clubs have been issuing pink slips this week.

Some gridiron pundits have expressed surprise at the Indianapolis Colts' firing of the Polian lads, but evidently, they stopped paying attention when the Colts won the Super Bowl five years ago.  Peyton Manning had covered up so many of the Colts' problems by himself, a disaster like their 8-Strength (2-14) season this year was inevitable.  All it took was an injury through which even Manning couldn't possibly play.

Here's an interesting, little noted aspect of Monday's management purges in Tampa Bay (16 Strength, 4-12) and Saint Louis (9 Strength, 2-14)  the Buccaneers, Rams are related by ownership to English soccer teams.  By that, I don't mean little third-division outfits -- I mean Manchester United and Arsenal.  The Cleveland Browns (17 Strength, 4-12) are similarly tied to a third Premier League side, Aston Villa.  It's probably a nasty coincidence, but all three NFL teams just finished horrible seasons.

As for the Chicago Bears, whose collapse lef them to fire general manager go and lose vaunted OC Mike Martz, Yahoo!'s "Shutdown Corner" column pretty well encapsulated their problem:

Maybe Martz wanted capable, productive wide receivers, while the Bears organization wanted Roy Williams. [Or Sam Hurd, who turned out to be as incompetent at dealing drugs as catching Jay Cutler passes.]

Trust me, Chicago and its environs are celebrating.  I'm celebrating, too, as evidenced by the haiku now gracing this blog's title bar.

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Victory Weighting update: With two big exceptions, this year's Victory Weighting tracked the official standings exceptionally well.  11 of the 12 playoff teams showed up in the correct order, as did the top six draft picks.  Overall, Victory Weighting needed only five tiebreakers, including three for draft order.  The exceptions are two teams I've already covered at length:

• Denver would miss the playoffs.  San Diego would host the Steelers in their place.  It's too bad, really; I'd like to have seen a stake put through Tebowmania™ a year early.
• Despite a better winning percentage than Seattle, Arizona would finish third in the NFC West behind the Seahawks, because the Cardinals have a lower Strength.

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Tuesday Football: FOX Sports' oddly sensible programming trick

Last Sunday, FOX Sports used its NFL telecasts to pitch next week's Manchester United-Chelsea match, which it plans to show on tape delay.

Wait.  Back up.  Scratch that needle back across the vinyl.  FOX ran ads promoting a taped soccer game on its flagship network, and nobody's head rolled?  Apparently, everyone got out without so much as a paper cut.  In all seriousness, though, this coming weekend is already a major milestone in U.S. soccer history.  Think about it a bit:  One of the U.S.'s major English-language broadcast networks now feels comfortable not merely counter-programming live NFL games with a foreign soccer match, but proudly announcing the move to the general public.

FOX Sports has made the correct calculation:  American sports fans may not be watching American soccer clubs, but they are watching soccer.  ESPN2 has been airing live English Premier League matches for years, and it appears that this season, one will air on that channel every week the EPL is playing.  Both the News Corp and DIsney syndicates are showing live Champions League games.  Last season, either ESPN or ESPN2 broadcast live matches from Spain, sometimes directly opposite NFL games.  [All that is before we even get to the big Spanish-language channels.]

Mind you, it's only five games, and the first four are on tape.  What's interesting is the timing:  FOX will air the taped EPL games on those weekends when CBS is running NFL doubleheaders.  Where I live, the Chicago Bears will play at New Orleans at 12:00 on FOX, then the MUFC-Chelsea tape will run at about 3:15, after the Bears' game has finished.  [The same goes for Saints fans.]  In the Metroplex, the situation will be the opposite.  Since the Cowboys are away to San Fransico, the soccer match will show up at 12:00, while the 'Pokes-49ers game starts at 3:15.  Either way, viewers will choose between the MUFC-Chelsea match on FOX and an NFL game on CBS.  The honchos at FOX Sports think that fans will blow off the CBS game for the taped soccer -- and in a sizable minority of cases, they will be right.

FOX Sports will air three more EPL matches this way.  Then, on Super Bowl Sunday, it will air the return Chelsea-Manchester United match live from London.  That will probably get impressive numbers, too.

While this development doesn't suddenly make soccer America's Number One Sport™, it should put to a permanent rest the notion that soccer is not a major spectator sport in the United States.

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Slow starts win races, anyway:  Both my fantasy football teams lost Nate Kaeding, their shared kicker, on his opening kickoff, but both muddled through to win their openers.

Tom Brady blew open a tight opener against Flying Hawai'ian, handing the Horde a 106-92 win, but there will be serious changes, as Darren Sproles has run past Ryan Grant for the RB2 spot.  Danny Amendola may or may not return this season, but fortunately, I have kick-return emperor Devin Hester handy to take his WR3 position.  Finally, Robbie Gould becomes the third Chicago Bear to join the Horde, replacing Kaeding.

Meanwhile, the Ghost-Grey Cats saw Patriot RB Danny Woodhead provide adequate relief for the injured Arian Foster.  The Cats struggled without Kaeding, but their opponents were just bad.  Kittehs 88, Super Steeler Fan 77.

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