Get this out of the way...

I should've started this blog before relegation came calling for my beloved Magpies, because this will read a little like sour grapes, but best wishes to the foolish club that deems Michael Owen worth a mound of gold this off-season.

Despite the UK media feeling the need to wonder aloud why in the world Fabio Capello hasn't called upon Owen for national team duty, you get the feeling neutrals who follow the EPL get the idea a lot quicker than the journalists who cover it.

While Owen deems it ridiculous to consider him finished, there should be no debate that the one-time wonderkid is on the downside of his career at 29. After scoring more than a goal-every-other-game with Liverpool from 1996-2004, he's notched just 39 times in 109 matches with Madrid and Newcastle (Yes, that's less than . It isn't his plaster-of-paris skeleton's fault, either: Owen's first injury-plagued season still included 19 goals at Anfield.

Owen has fantastic finishing skills, and certainly will net a few should Aston Villa or Everton decide to include him in a starting 11, but it seems very unnecessary. The fact that he spurned Mike Ashley's August 2008 offer of 120,000 pounds-per-week and will likely ink elsewhere for less than half that wage should be humbling enough, but no one who witnessed his faithless performances to end the relegation campaign can think he's learned any sort of lesson.

Thanks for letting me get that bout with the obvious out of my system. I'll always have a healthy dose of respect for Owen, but his departure tastes a lot worse than Shay Given's move to Man City. When the season began, they were my two favorite Mags player since Alan Shearer, maybe even 1a and 1b. Now, both are gone, and Given is the clear No. 1.

Welcome

Exactly one year from today, the start of the "Why Wouldn't You?" world football blog, we'll all have wrapped our first day of World Cup 2010 in South Africa. It seemed an appropriate day to finally start publishing some of the work I've been doing in preparation for a book on American soccer and perception in the world, and allow some friends and me the opportunity to publish thoughts on the beautiful game as they happen.

Many of you coming here may be linked from my work at WGR550.com in Buffalo, but if you don't have any idea who I am, here's my football/soccer background:

I'm a terrible offensive player who didn't pick up the game until I was 15-years old. I follow the game with as little bias as possible, but do have my favorites... favorites that fit in with the long-suffering sports teams in the city I was raised in: Buffalo, N.Y.

There are only two teams I would qualify myself as a supporter of: Newcastle United and the United States mens team. Each has provided me with ample opportunity to punch myself in the face, most recently insipid and uninspired performances that led to relegation and a 3-1 loss to Costa Rica, respectively.


There are other teams I would call "allies." I'm a season-ticket holder for Toronto FC of Major League Soccer. I am the play-by-play voice of the Buffalo Flash of USL W-League. Great acquaintances made on my honeymoon cemented Fiorentina as my Serie A squad, while a friend's honeymoon to Spain and a certain Catholic upbringing give me an affinity for FC Barcelona and Celtic.

There are some wonderful books I've read in research that have only fed my love for football of the non-tackle variety, and I'd encourage you to read them, in the following order:

1. Eduardo Galeano's "Soccer in Sun and Shadow"
2. Ged Clarke's "Fifty Years of Hurt"
3. John Foot's "Winning at all Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer"
4. David Winner's "Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer"

I hope that by the time we reach South Africa, you'll have read, or be reading, our work on the American game. Until then, I hope you'll find the time to check in with us for interviews, opinions and much, much more.

Why wouldn't you?