Yahoo! Answers

Photo by IsakAronsson

We asked you to pick your “Team of the Tournament” last month by picking the top 11 players from this year’s World Cup.

Happy to share that we got a great response from our community. We received more than a thousand answers. Thank you to all who took the time to share your top players.

We promised 110 BONUS POINTS to the exact match or even the closest match. Congrats, Steele W with 8 correct matches! Here’s their answer below:

GK: Casillas, ended tournament with no goals for last 433 minutes of play.

RB: Sergio Ramos, constantly posed an attacking threat while still getting back and playing excellent defense
CB: Lucio, great and powerful defender, even had skill to push forward on many occasions
CB: Carles Puyol, always hard worker, saved Spain on many occasions, best center back of the tournament, game winner against germany that sent spain through
LB: Phillip Lahm, provided leadership and skill for germany playing left back, constantly pushing forward and threatening in the attack

CM: Xavi, created more goal scoring opportunities than any other player by far, kept his cool when spain at times looked like they could lose it, was never rattled.
CM: Bastian Schwiensteiger, real leader for germany, superb skill and great defensive play, was the glue that kept the german side together
CM: Wesley Sneijder, dutch master, scored five goals from the midfield, single-handedly beat brazil in a way only Zidane was able to do back in 2006

LW: David Villa, Spain’s attacking force, scored five of the most important goals in spain’s soccer history
RW: Thomas Müller, only 20 years of age and won best young player and the golden boot, the future looks bright for Múller and Germany, the next rudi völler? possibly.
ST: Diego Forlán, carried uruguay to the semifinals, scored five goals of beauty. shone far brighter than most other stars coming in to the tournament.

Check out the full list from our very own Brooks Peck on the Dirty Tackle.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Photo by Axel Bührmann

Just two weeks into the World Cup and we’ve already seen ingredients for a blockbuster movie. Landon Donovan scored a late goal in added time to seal perhaps the most dramatic time in American soccer history. USA advances!

Now you’ve all had chance to check out the talent from all of the countries participating in the World Cup we want you all to take your pick of your team of the tournament by picking the top 11 players you would have in your own World Cup team for our World Cup featured question:

Who would you choose to be in your World Cup team of the tournament?

To ask this question we’ve partnered with Brooks Peck from our very own ‘Dirty Tackle’ on Yahoo! Sports.

At the end of the tournament Brooks Peck will be choosing his own `Team of the Tournament` and the first response to match his will get the best answer and 110 BONUS POINTS — that’s 10 points for each player on your team!

Remember, as with any soccer team you’ll need to include just ELEVEN players:

-         A goalkeeper
-         Defenders
-         Midfielders
-         Forwards

But the formation is entirely up to you!   One more `rule`: The players must have appeared in the World Cup, too!

Once you’ve formed your team, why not share it with your Facebook friends by publishing your answer to this question?  See what they think of your team choice and if they want to make their own!

Still can’t get enough of the World Cup?  Get the latest World Cup 2010 news and coverage here.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Hey Guys,

99% of the time, I couldn’t care less about soccer. Hey, I’m just being honest. But like most fair-weather fans, I merrily jump on the bandwagon during the World Cup.

In honor of the month long party down in South Africa, I looked through Yahoo! Answers for some popular questions about “the beautiful game.” Here are a few answers that might help you look less like a fair-weather fan and more like a hardcore hooligan.

Why do Americans call the sport “soccer”? — Here’s the scoop, according to Mavens’ Word of the Day. It may come as a surprise to learn that the term originated from Britain. “The formal designation for the game we know as soccer is Association football.” Mavens’ goes on to explain that the word “soccer” is simply a contraction of “(As)soc(iation football)” and an “er” suffix. The sport most Americans know as football is technically “North American football.”

Who coined the phrase “The Beautiful Game”? — A tough one to answer. Some say that that Brazilian player Valdir Pereira came up the expression. However Stuart Hall, a BBC announcer, claims he coined the phrase, after watching his favorite player, Peter Doherty, many years ago.

Why does the goalie wear a different uniform? — If you think about it, this one is actually pretty simple. When the ball is near the goalie, all hell breaks loose. As the goalie is the only who can use his hands, it’s important that he be easy for the refs to identify. Hence, the garish jerseys.

Got more questions about soccer/football/the beautiful game? Leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Hey Guys,

Few fashion trends stand the test of time (the pegged pants fad of 1989 was mercifully brief). However, Chuck Taylor Converse basketball shoes are just as popular now, if not more so, as they were in the 1930s. I see them on everybody from young hipsters to older folks, who couldn’t care less about style. But as beloved as the shoes are, I bet that if you asked any of these people who Chuck Taylor was, they’d likely draw a blank.

Normally, when an athlete has his name emblazoned on a basketball shoe, it’s because they’re one of the great hoops players of all time. Chuck Taylor, while a talented player, wasn’t considered to be one of the greatest ever. But he was one of the first good ones and a dedicated salesperson. And, more importantly, he loved the sport.

Taylor was a star basketball player in high school and played professionally as a young man in the 1920s (this was well before the NBA was established, which started in 1946). According to the Basketball Hall of Fame, a young Taylor “hobbled into a Converse Chicago sales office complaining of sore feet” in 1921 and convinced the shoe company to create a sneaker especially for the sport of basketball. The rest is history.

Well, sort of. A site dedicated to Chuck’s contributions to basketball (and footwear) explain that Chuck was also instrumental in promoting the shoe. He traveled the country, working for Converse, and was even a player/coach for the Converse All-Stars, “the company’s industrial league basketball team.” Several years later, Converse added the name “Chuck Taylor” to the shoe’s ankle patch.

And how did Chuck sell so many shoes? A blog from a classic sneakers site explains, Chuck would make friends with the small town coaches. A former president of Converse recalled, “He would teach basketball and work with the local sporting goods retail, but without encroaching on the coach’s own system. He drove a big car, a Cadillac. And his home was the back of the car.”

It could be argued that nobody did more for the sport, especially when it was first starting, than Chuck Taylor. He may not have had a shot like Bird or hops like Jordan, but nobody worked harder, and nobody loved basketball more. Taylor passed away of a heart attack in 1969. And for the record, he didn’t get a commission on his sales from Converse. I guess he just did it because he believed in the shoes.

The shoe, which has changed surprisingly little since its inception, has sold hundreds of millions of pairs. I think I’m one of the four people in the world who have never owned ‘em. Do you think high-tech athletic shoes actually “do” anything, or would basketball players be just as good in the old fashioned Chucks? They were good enough for NBA great Bill Russell, right?

Thanks for reading,

Mike

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Hey Guys,

The Major Leagues recently honored Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in baseball, by having all the players where Jackie’s number (42) for one game. There can be no debate that Robinson was a great hero, who had an immeasurable impact on baseball. I got to thinking about other players who helped change the face of the big leagues. That led me to the story of William Hoy.

William Hoy was one of the first deaf people to play Major League Baseball. Hoy, who went by the nickname “Dummy,” joined the big leagues in 1888, at the age of 26. Hoy lost his hearing at a young age after suffering from meningitis, but went on to graduate at the top of his class from the Ohio State School for the Deaf. Later, after opening his own shoe repair store, he switched tracks and made baseball his career.

Hoy played professional baseball for more than 14 seasons, racking up over 2,000 career hits and nearly 600 stolen bases. In fact, at the time of his retirement in 1902, Hoy had the third most stolen bases in MLB history. Even now, over a hundred years later, he’s still number 18 all time.

But that isn’t all — Hoy is credited by many for creating the “safe” and “out” gestures used by umpires in games. The reason was obvious — he couldn’t hear, so he needed some other way of knowing what was going on in the game. He asked his third base coach to raise an arm if a ball was a strike. The practice caught on. Those same basic gestures are still used today in every level of baseball.

No doubt he was a heckuva baseball player. But, according to dummyhoy.com, he was also an incredibly likable and honest person. Apparently, during a game in which the sky had turned dark, Hoy was ruled to have caught a fly ball hit by the opposing team. The other team protested and when the umpire asked Hoy if he had really caught the ball, he admitted that he had not. “The umpire called the batter safe. Hoy’s teammates were furious. Hoy was satisfied that he had told the truth.”

According to a site dedicated to his memory, Hoy would often tell people that he had two goals in life. One, to live to be a hundred years old. And two, to make it into the baseball hall of fame. He almost accomplished the first goal. He passed away in 1961, at the age of 99. Just a few months before he died, he threw out the first pitch in game three of the World Series.

Hoy’s other goal, to be enshrined as one of baseball’s best ever in Cooperstown, was never achieved. But people are still trying. Hoy’s fans ask that others email the Hall of Fame directly. From a statistical point of view, Hoy was certainly far above average. But as a man who helped mold the game into what it is, America’s Pastime, he is one of the all time greats.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!