Serving Soccer

Paulie they called me for years at Fior d'Italia, America's Oldest Italian Restaurant(TM). Pele changed all that.

iirc, 1999, a hotel calls. Do we stay open late for Pele? Fior has been operating since 1886.

Pele's party is elegant and friendly. Servers from around North Beach come to him. Pele gives everybody an autograph. I chose his vodka. Absolut. Pele drank some.

Pele signs for dinner. The tip is well taken.

Pele is so cool you never want to refer to him by a pronoun. "He was charming" versus "Pele was charming"? Pele's Law: Utter proper name only. Makes your sentence livelier.

Paule they called me at Fior d'Italia until my final day, after Pele left. It was based on two gags. Pele stopped by the bar and thanked me for "introducing soccer to America."

Then he said, "mind if I call you Paule?" Ruben heard it first that night. Larive the next day laughed at it. Gina (Dahler) almost laughed before throwing a towel at me.

Franz Beckenbauer is the most powerful man in football, would anybody not consider the question ridiculous?

Franz Anton Beckenbauer (born September 11, 1945) is a German football coach, manager, and former player, nicknamed der Kaiser ("the emperor") because of his elegant style, his leadership qualities, his first name "Franz" (reminiscent of the Austrian emperors called Francis in English), and his dominance on the football pitch.

Beckenbauer is one of two men (with Mario Zagallo) to have won the Cup as player and as coach, and he is the only man to have won the title as team captain as well as coach.

In his first ever World Cup match, against Switzerland, he scored twice.

From 28 December 1993 until 30 June 1994, and then from 29 April 1996 until 30 June of the same year, he coached Bayern Munich. His brief spells in charge saw him collect two further honours - the Bundesliga title in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996.

In 1994 he took on the role of club president at Bayern, and much of the Munich giants' success in the following years has been credited to his astute management. Following the club's decision to change from an association to a limited company, he has been chairman of the advisory board since the beginning of 2002.

In 1998 he became vice-president of the DFB. At the end of the 1990s, Beckenbauer headed the successful bid by Germany to organize the FIFA World Cup 2006. He chaired the organizational committee for the World Cup and was a commentator for the Bild-Zeitung.

Beckenbauer runs the German National Team and Bayern Munich.

Beijing calls him a monarch.

INNSBRUCK, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Franz Beckenbauer has called for Jens Lehmann to cede his position as Germany goalkeeper after Euro2008 in order to give younger players a chance.

According to Deutsche Welle's report on Monday, the German soccer monarch hailed the ongoing European Championship at Switzerland and Austria as a perfect opportunity for Lehmann, 38, to step aside from national duties to make room for the country's up-and-coming prospects.

"Such a tournament is always an opportunity to quit and to allow a new era to start," said Beckenbauer.

"I would tell Jens to retire after Euro to give younger men a chance to play."

What are the odds Lehman is capped in South Africa?

Franz Beckenbauer yesterday on video at bild.de made his feelings known about UEFA's Euro 2008. For der kult Kaiser.

Hamburg - Germany must even fear Austria at Euro 2008 after being brought down to earth harshly by Croatia, German football icon Franz Beckenbauer warned on Friday. Beckenbauer said in his column in Friday's edition of the Bild daily that he had never expected such a decline in the form of a 2-1 loss the previous day against Croatia, four day's after Michael Ballack and company had convincingly beat Poland 2-0. "I said after the Poland match that we don't have to fear any one if we play like this. After this defeat it's the other way round: We must even fear Austria if we play like this," Beckenbauer warned. Germany require a draw to make the quarter-finals.

Beckenbauer said he was "aghast" about Germany's performance, saying "I have rarely seen such contrasting showings." He urged coach Joachim Loew and the team to analyse the game quickly and then "to approach the Austria match on Monday with power."However, Beckenbauer, who captained Germany to its first of three Euro titles in 1972, remained upbeat that the Germans will advance into Thursday's knockout match with Portugal, naming elimination "unthinkable."Bild itself spoke of a "Kroatastrohe," Spanish sports daily AS named the German game "primitive" compared to Croatian "genius" and England's The Guardian said that Germany was "mortified" in the end.

The video was mesmerising. Opens with der Kaiser playing keepy uppy. It reminds me of a five point star. In the background is a graven image of Petr Cech. It's pentagonal. His opening line is tight. He he.

Don't speak German? Doesn't matter. After you watch it, repeat. But, only listen to it.

Beckenbauer was the first sweeper. Nobody ever uses one now.

When I was a kid I watched Franz Anton sweep for the Cosmos. Downing Stadium I get a rush thinking about. Old New York lost in my lifetime. Never went there but still I'm reminded of nostalgia like symptoms. Might be from times watching the Cosmos on TV. It's all a blur now, of course. Imperator Francis will one day contribute the closest thing to a transitional fossil.

Do they engineer the game? Why know? It will always end in tears. Isn't that enough?

What if Holland wins the FIFA World Cup in 2010? Maybe we are being prepared for a weird joke, or worse. What if it is engineered? Who could do it? Who cares? Why do it is more interesting. Limited though either notion is. Who cares if it's fixed? Makes the whole thing more fascinating. On one level, if it is. Then you can ask questions about genetic engineering. Are they among us now? Are we all they?

I was a sports nut when I was young. Guess I still am.

Pitched a no hitter in Little League. 4-0 over the Fire Department. In another era I might have been approached by pros. Two guys I could never strike out. Carl Habib and the late, great Tommy Monahan. Miss you, brother.

Funny how somebody like der Kaiser today matters so much. Again. I was proud of being a Cosmos fan. What a rube.

Sorry...the pastes coming up might have been more conscientiously presented. What am I supposed to do?

It seems like der Kaiser is the face of the world's 2nd largest publisher.

Axel Springer AG is one of the largest newspaper publishing companies in Europe, having over 150 newspapers and magazines in over 30 countries, including several Central and Eastern European countries: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and western European countries: Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, more than 10,000 employees with annual revenues and income on the scale of €1 billion. It was started in 1946/1947 by journalist Axel Springer ^[1].

Along the way I've come across:

Springer Science+Business Media or Springer (IPA: [ˈʃpʁɪŋɐ]) is a worldwide publishing company based in Germany with major offices in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dordrecht (Netherlands) and New York, which focuses on academic journals and books in the fields of science, technology, mathematics, and medicine. Within the Science, Technology, and Medicine sector, Springer is the largest book publisher, and second-largest journal publisher worldwide (the largest being Elsevier), with over 60 publishing houses, 1,900 journals, 5,500 new books published each year, sales of 924 million euro (in 2006) and 5,000 employees.[1]

Just looked for Springer in the 1929 Britannica, Vol. "Sord to Text", Vol. XXI, p. 264 ) and the 1973 New Standard XXII, S-563:

This is what the Britannica has:

SPRINGER, the term given in architecture to the stone from which an arch springs (see ARCH) ; in some cases this is the stone resting on the impost or capital, the upper surface of which is a plane directed to the centre of the arch.

NSE got nothing:

Spring Caliper. See Caliper.
Spring Tide. See Tide.

Owen Hargreaves was raised in remote Canada until at 16 he moved to Munich, to play for der Kaiser. Weirdly mirrors the youth of Prince Philip. I apologize for the indelicate association.

As an international he could have represented Canada, Wales or England. I'm predicting by 2010 the lad will be Captain of club and country.