The young lady is Amii Grove, a model who features in paragraph one of this fine post.  Thanks to Kickette for the photo. Also, I apologize in advance for the gratuitous first person usage. It starts here. Before long I’ll move on to Starbucks, appetizers at Chili’s and a stirring recap of my first colonoscopy.

Discernment has never been Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant’s forte.  He’s had a few high profile incidents with the sauce.  His girlfriend, model Amii Grove, once caught him cheating through the CCTV cameras he had installed in their home.  So, unsurprisingly, he picked perhaps the worst thinkable place to propose to Ms. Grove, her recently deceased brother’s gravesite.  She did say yes. (Lad mag models aren’t that sharp) But, the forthcoming bells are probably the least of Pennant’s concerns, as the Reds wish to be rid of him when feasible.

Hull City striker Dean Windass has a lighthearted name but can be a bit chesty, as he proved on a recent 3 A.M. team bonding trip to the casino.  Windass insulted fellow striker Marlon King (his starting replacement) with an unknown barb.  King then threatened to tell his “boy,” who is apparently quite fearsome.  Windass said it was a joke.  King then headbutted him, inciting a Joey Porter-style kerfuffle that spilt blood and poker chips.  To top the pleasant evening, King slipped his $28,000 watch into his pocket, in plain sight of casino staff, then berated staff members about how his watch had been stolen.  Stories such as this are why I love soccer.

On Wednesday, I expressed my belief that Landon Donovan winning the Honda Player of the Year Award over Tim Howard was villainy.  I was not alone.  The normally staid Ives Galarcep, of four-letter and Soccer By Ives fame (fantastic site by the way), was not a happy camper.

In what has to be one of the more embarrassing results in American soccer award history, Landon Donovan has been named the 2008 Honda Player of the Year, beating out Tim Howard in a vote that can best described as a bad joke.

The announcement marked Donovan’s fifth Honda Player of the Year award, and while he has certainly earned many of those, the 2008 prize will go down as the clearest example of a flawed voting set-up that has culminated in a result that has to diminish the credibility of a once-prestigious award.

Created by Futbol de Primera, the Honda Award is voted on by 213 “journalists across America.” Now you find me even half that many soccer journalists who cover the U.S. national team with any legitimacy and you too can have a prize.

In the Soccer By Ives poll (as of midnight last night), 92% of more than 1,600 respondents felt that Donovan should not have won.

To finish, here is a video from MLS and Volkswagen’s rollicking Road to the MLS Cup viral campaign.  It stars Mo Collins from MADtv.  I feel the same way about this commercial as I do about MADtv, a funnily conceived setup, blunted as it blasts through a bullhorn. Guy Ritchie it is not.