The National Football League starts on Thursday, but for those who follow a different kind of football, gridiron remains a complicated, nebulous game. SB Nation Soccer Editor Richard Farley tries to bridge the gap.

While neither Wittgenstein nor Aquinas found a solution to the century’s old Viking-Saint problem, American football will answer the question on Thursday when the latest gridiron season kicks-off in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With the application of foot to ball near 8:30 p.m. Eastern (one of the few times the oblong ball will actually be kicked), the American version of football will start its five month domination of United States’ sports culture. Tailgates, face paint, fantasy points, sports widowhood, and likely Chad Ochocinco (a real name) nudity - they all return with a sixteen game season that culminates with February 6th’s Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas.

That’s how you know the National Football League is a very big deal. They’ve scheduled their season’s big party in the relatively obscure suburb of Arlington. That would be like holding the FA Cup Final in Bury, yet there is no doubt the NFL will pull it off - put on a show that will be one of the world’s most watched television programs of the year. The league so well run that it can hold Super Bowls in the snowy winter of rural northern Florida and have people forget about the disaster within five years. The NFL is Dave Chappelle’s Rick James. It’s the love child of Tom Jones and Elvis Presley. It’s that Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson scene that was never released (because it never happened). Women want the NFL. Men want to be it.

The popularity of the NFL - and specifically, the Super Bowl - has allowed the league to establish a fan base that defies the limited number of people who actually play the game. Whereas association football (soccer) and basketball attract players from across all meaningful demographics, gridiron is only meaningfully played in one place (the United States), amongst a small number of people (peer-pressured men from 8-18 years old, with a minuscule percentage playing into adulthood). Those able to make a career in the game are distinguished by a combination of work ethic, injury aversion, and genetic freakery. While the game is a war analogy, it bares no other commonality with Stratego or a Pennsylvania Civil War reenactment. The NFL is the best-run league in the world, having developed an ability to attract fans who’ve never dreamt of adorning shoulder pads, leading mimicking leagues across the globe to consider revenue sharing, salary caps, and union-breaking labor policies.

But because few people have actually played gridiron, the barriers to entry are high. The game’s so complex that one prominent player, quarterback Donovan McNabb, once forgot its rules in the middle of a game (or, more accurately, at the end). The amount of equipment each player must wear to keep himself alive makes it impossible to actually see any of the players. When the 22 armored players face-off for each "snap," you feel like you’re watching the amalgam of medieval jousting and World of Warcraft as imagined by a 16-year-old on mushrooms.

The game is played for eight to ten seconds at a time, then stopped, yet the game clock (four, 15-minute periods) keeps moving. Sometimes.

Each score (a touchdown) is worth six points, unless you score it with your foot through the goal. Then it’s worth three, unless it comes after a touchdown. Then it’s worth one, unless you run or throw it in. Then it’s worth two.

That confusion leads millions the world over to go through the same, annual, September ritual. "This is the year I follow gridiron," you said (before reading this piece). "From Match Day 1 to Match Day 17. I’m in."

In the NFL, they’re just called weeks, but alleviating that kind of confusion is what this post’s all about. We’re going to help cut-through all the codes and jarson so that this year, gridiron will stick your sporting craw. Thus, we present this primer - the pamphlet from the white shirt, black tie-wearing bell-ringer that will convince you to turn your back on cricket, Formula 1, rugby, cycling, tennis, ice hockey, baseball - whathaveyou.

Gridiron is up-and-coming. No, it probably will never be able to match the ubiquity of football or basketball, and it may not currently be as popular (globally) as those other sports, but you’ll  be a Poster Child Poser if you wait until the NFL’s nicking the Premier League’s heels before you choose a club.

I mean, a franchise.

League Structure

The National Football League has 32 teams, and while that would hint at a 62-match schedule (after home-and-homes), the NFL only plays 16 games. They can get away with this by having eight tables, dividing the teams into four team sub-leagues (divisions) where each club plays the other twice. For the other ten matches, the NFL resorts to a not-so-secret decoder ring to set the fixtures with a neat-o, de-incentivizing twist: The better you finish in Year 1, the more difficult your fixtures will be in Year 2. So, if you don’t think you’re going to be that good in Year 2, you may want to consider having a Fail in Year 1.

Promotion/Relegation

Taking a season off would be a horrible plan if teams faced relegation, but for the most part, they don’t. Americans abhor relegation and promotion to the point of making the subject taboo. Major League Soccer won’t consider it (though in all honesty, it’s non-issue).

Still, there are two implicit types of promotion practiced by the NFL. Each year, a number of players - not teams - are promoted from the second division, a level Americans call “college football.” The name comes from the link between universities and the traditionally amateur teams, with the moniker sticking after many second division teams recently turned professional (such as the University of Southern California, or North Carolina). Each year, NFL teams take turns promoting individual players from those teams, with players on more successful teams more likely to be promoted.

The other type of promotion is team based, with the NFL skipping over teams in the second and third (“high school”) divisions and promoting from ... well, nothing. This is often referred to as spontaneous promotion (and by often, I mean once), a process that recently gave the NFL the Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans.

The closest thing the NFL has to relegation and promotion sees a "new" team surface at the expense of a previously existing one. This is called Pet Cemetery Management, when a new team surfaces with the bastardized soul of it predecessor. Teams in Arizona, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Oakland, San Diego, St. Louis and Tennessee are the undead visages of previous incarnations. They are the Milton Keynes Dons’ of the NFL. For some reason, this is accepted by both league and new host city.

Match Days

Almost all matches are played on Sunday, the reason why gridiron is often referred to as the U.S.A.’s true religion. The one exception is the traditional Monday match. There are occasional Thursday matches - the season opener and Thanksgiving’s slate. Late in the season, the league will regularly play on Thursdays, but by that point the league’s often playing on Saturday, too - after the second division’s regular season has ended. The NFL may also play on Friday, once the third division’s done playing.

But aside from that, the NFL is a Sunday league.

The Game Itself

Each game has a 60-minute game clock that takes between three and three-and-a-half hours to wind down, during which time teams will take turns trying to score touchdowns. The team with the ball gets four chances to score before having to give the ball back. In that way, there are no possession-hogging Barcelonas in the NFL. You either get the ball over the goal line or give it back.

Well, unless you get ten yards. You see, the field is 100 yards long, and if you get ten yards with your four plays, you’re given another four plays. Actually, sometimes you don’t even need ten yards, because there are these types of penalties with - let’s just leave that for now. My point: There are circumstances where a team will have the ball for more than four plays at a time. In fact, it’s quite common.

As a result, there can be Barcelonas in this league. Bill Parcells’ New York Giants (he was a kind of manager) - with their ability to string together scoring sequences of 12, 14, 16 plays - was the answer to the modern day Blaugrana. Neither team gave up the ball. Both teams won titles.

While a three-plus hour match duration sounds massive, you’ll have plenty of time between plays to catch football highlights on Fox Soccer Channel or GolTV. Some estimates hold only 12 minutes of actual action takes place in a gridiron match, part of the reason delivery pizza and power naps are so popular here in the States.

Choosing Your Team

Thirty-two teams creates a huge, confounding cluster, and given the NFL has accepted parody as its cornerstone, there are few habitually good or chronically bad teams. Zoom out far enough, and the teams that dominate the current landscape start to blend into those who have first pick of the promoted players.

Still, the best way to become a NFL fan is to pick a team and blindly support them. Embrace the veil of ignorance and enjoy the taste of your Kool Aid!

The easiest way to do that is to find the NFL team that’s most like the club you support, and while this post can’t list every club in the world and assign it an NFL team, we can go through gridiron’s 32 teams and give you an idea of what you’re in for.

So choose wisely, but choose. Your enjoyment of the 2010 National Football League season, which starts Thursday night, depends on you making the right choice:

Arizona Cardinals AFC West	Having experienced recent success after a history mediocre enough to make Neil Lomax (a quarterback with an arthritic hip) a demigod, Arizona risks a potential descent after their star player called it a career. Club: Their spurt of success in the 1980s is Bordeaux’s version of Arizona - nay, St. Louis’s - 1974 and 1975 division titles. Just as quarterback Kurt Warner hass departed, Yoann Gourcuff’s gone to Lyon.	Girondins de Bordeaux France
Atlanta Falcons NFC South	They’ve been to one Super Bowl and look strong for 2010, but this is a team with a history of losing. They also have a spurious if damning connection to Hammer's "Too Legit To Quit" video. Club: Though they actually won a title a decade-and-a-half ago, I’m imagining a sewn-together Blackburn Rovers-Falcons kit. In a way, Alan Shearer is England’s Deion Sanders, but the only way I can be sure is if Prime Time and Shearer switch spots one weekend so that Deion can augment an Alan Hansen's breakdown of Arsenal's build-ups.	Blackburn Rovers England
Baltimore Ravens AFC North	A bit of a shallow history, but one with a title. One of the favorites coming into this season, they’re a team with a rugged style that makes opponents rue the match-up. Club: Only because Baltimore and Tartarstan have a number of parallels, Rubin Kazan.	Rubin Kazan Russia
Buffalo Bills AFC East	A team with long, deep roots that is more famous for their near-misses than their quality. Club: Blue and red are also colors prominently featured in Atlético Madrid’s kit. Kün Agüero does have the Thurman Thomas-esque quality to him.	Atlético Madrid Spain
Carolina Panthers NFC South	Had early success but recent failures to live up to expectations have left their cool uniforms the highlight of recent campaigns. Club: Perhaps my affinity for their kit makes this a bad choice, but Valencia has certainly failed to live up to expectations in recent seasons. As with the Panthers, expectations now seem sufficiently lowered.	Valencia Spain
Chicago Bears NFC North	One of the league’s cornerstone franchises, it’s now been almost a generation since they’ve won a Super Bowl. Coming off a season where they failed to live up to high expectations, the Bears enter a year where few know what to expect. It may all come down to whether their star player (Jay Cutler) can regain his form. Club: Perhaps the only other parallel you can draw between Cutler and Steven Gerrard would be thick regional accents, but the Chicago Bears and Liverpool are both storied members of their leagues. If you need some history supporting the (lack of) present results, Chicago could be your lot.	Liverpool England
Cincinnati Bengals AFC North	Surprised many with a division title last year, though their personnel’s led to speculation that off-the-field issues could derail their defense. Club: Hatem Ben Arfa’s exit may have alleviated Marseille’s chemistry concerns, but their title defense is off to a trudging start. Not sure how much the city of Cincinnati has in common with Marseille, though.	Marseille France
Cleveland Browns AFC North	Once a cornerstone team with highly devoted fans, the team has had to undergo a literal rebirth in recent years after temporarily disappearing from the scene. Club: If only there were more barking in the stands at St. James’ Park, the Newcastle United parallels would be scary.	Newcastle United England
Dallas Cowboys NFC East	A stadium that's the envy of their league with other off-the-field success that makes them, from a business perspective, the model. It also makes them the most polarizing team in the NFL. You don't hear many people say "meh" when asked their feelings on the Cowboys. Club: The Dallas connection with Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks is hard to avoid, but see the glaze that passes over somebody's face when they think about Manchester United and you'll know what Cowboys fans see every time they reveal their allegiance.	Manchester United England
Denver Broncos AFC West	There is no club football parallel for the Broncos, because there’s only one Tim Tebow. The soccer-world equivalent of Tebow would be Tebow, if Tebow ever decided to play the game. Alas, he hasn’t, one of the reasons soccer will never be as popular as gridiron in the United States. We could solve this problem by cloning Tebow, but Tebow's certainly morally opposed to it. Club: Tebow FC.	Tim Tebow Colorado, Florida
Detroit Lions NFC North	A team with a history dating back to the beginning of organized football, the Lions have become a bit of a joke, recently becoming the first team to finish a 16-game season without a win. Though they recently had one of the best players of all-time, running back Barry Sanders, the days of elite talents in the Motor City are distant memories. Club: One of the world's best players ever, Romanian midfielder Georghe Hagi, had his breakthrough for Bucharest’s Sportul Studentesc, a club that was just finished a four-year stint in Romania’s second division. They’ve never won a league title, finishing second once, 25 years ago.	Sportul Studentesc Romania
Green Bay Packers NFC North	A team that dominated the early days of the National Football League and had a strong spell in the nineties, the Packers have reorganized their team over the past few seasons, letting the iconic player of their most recent glories leave while building around a younger star. Now, Green Bay is reemerging as title contenders. Club: There was an invincible quality about the 1996 Packers that gets forgotten amidst their upset Super Bowl loss to Denver, but even though Arsenal's Invincibles saw more success, the recent parallels might see Gooners find a home supporting the green and yellow.	Arsenal England
Houston Texans AFC South	A new team on the landscape, they have resources but aren't using them well, have some stars that should be better, and have threatened without truly challenging. Club: When Hoffenheim was promoted to the Bundesliga two years ago, they shot to the top of the league, leading to some misgivings that their resources could lead to an asterisk-riddled stay at the top of the German league. Two years later, they're a decent club whose original threat seems quaint.	Hoffenheim Germany
Indianapolis Colts AFC South	A high octane team who have a player many see as the league’s best, Indianapolis’s aggressive and entertaining approach to the modern game makes for most-watch football, part of the reason aspects of their style are being emulated by other teams. Club: Fans of FC Barcelona will recoil at this comparison, but this generation of Barça player has one or two European titles (depending on how you define generation), not that different from Indy's haul. It wasn’t so long ago that Real Madrid was claiming titles in Spain. While Barcelona is favored by many to expand on that resume, many see the Colts has having more title runs in them.	Barcelona Spain
Jacksonville Jaguars AFC South	The Jags went through a relatively recent stretch where they were contending at the top of division and league, but now nobody’s quite sure what they are. There just kind of there. You see scores next to their name each week, are reminded they're still in the league, and think it’s been five years since anybody cared about them - though you’re not really sure. It’s all fuzzy and ultimately not worth thinking about. Club: Anybody remember Super Depor? Those Deportivo La Coruña teams are the Mark Brunell-era Jags squads, just minus the born-again southpaws. Stylistically, it’s not a perfect match, but in terms of enduring significance, Jacksonville and Depor are both struggling to have a lasting impact.	Deportivo La Coruña Spain
Kansas City Chiefs AFC West	It’s been a while since Kansas City competed for a championship, but this club, located in the heart of the country, is one of the seven or eight teams you must mention when detailing the history of the National Football League. Club: Likewise, Aston Villa not a title contender, but they have an important part in of English football history.	Aston Villa England
Miami Dolphins AFC East	Miami’s won Super Bowls and have has some iconic players, but their team is defined by the horrible cartoon dolphin jumping through a hoop on the side of their helmet. That combined with team colors of tangerine orange and nausea teal helps make casual fans associate the horrible uniforms above the on-the-field success. Club: It’s hard to find clubs with cartoon animals adorning their kits, but Real Sociedad’s stripes can cause seizures, and with a couple of Primera Division titles to their credit in Spain, they join the Dolphins as a team that can be overshadowed by poor fashion sense.	Real Sociedad Spain
Minnesota Vikings NFC North	Two years ago, this team acquired Brett Favre, a player that overshadowed their otherwise historic organization. Just over a season later, we're all wondering how long this can last. The team is still good (as is the player), but as long as he's around, there is a side-show aspect to the team. Club: Ronaldo's return to Brazil was supposed to push Corinthians toward Copa Libertadores in the club's centennary year. However, just like the Vikings last year, Corinthians came up short.	Corinthians Brazil
New England Patriots AFC East	At one time the standard, football fans are reserving judgement on whether the Patriots are fully waning or re-waxing. Winners of three Super Bowls in four years not-so-long ago, the Patriots now have an unhappy star receiver and a quarterback in need of a new contract. Club: In Brazil, Sao Paulo just ended a three-season stint atop the Serie A and saw their quarterback, midfielder Hernanes, move-on to greener pastures. This season’s version of the Tricolor is like watching the season Matt Cassel led the Pats.	Sao Paulo Brazil
New Orleans Saints NFC South	The reigning NFL champions shook their lovable losers label by winning the first league title in the team’s 43-year history. Club: For Banfield, the wait was a little longer. The Argentine club won last year’s opening tournament, the first league title in the history of a club that was founded in 1896.	Banfield Argentina
New York Giants NFC East	The most successful team from the country’s biggest city, the Giants are led by quarterback Eli Manning, whose father was a prominent NFL quarterback. Manning’s quality is highly contested, with proponents seeing his world title as vindication of his abilities while others see him closer to average than greatness. Club: Currently the most successful club in England’s biggest city, Chelsea features midfield general Frank Lampard, whose father was a prominent footballer. Lampard’s quality is contested, with proponents seeing his raw numbers as vindication of his abilities while others see him closer to average than greatness. Neither team plays in the geographical location they claim to represent.	Chelsea England
New York Jets AFC East	The Jets live in the shadow of the Giants but are still a prominent NFL team. They’re a former World Champion though lately are better known as a weigh station for the fading greatness of Brett Favre and LaDainlian Tomlinson. Bold: Supporters of Tottenham Hotspur share many of the almost-there frustrations that have recently dogged Jets fans, and while Spurs have no current weigh station players (Robbie Keane excluded), they have hosted the sunsets of players like Jurgen Klinsmann and Gary Lineker.	Tottenham England
Oakland Raiders AFC West	Still one of the league’s most popular teams, they are confusingly bad; bad to the point that it’s difficult to remember a time when they were good. Club: And as there’s hope of the Raiders this season, Saint-Etienne has two wins in four to start the Ligue 1 season. However, this is a club which, one of the most popular in France, has found a way to flirt with relegation in recent seasons.	Saint Etienne France
Philadelphia Eagles NFC East	In Andy We Trust is what the Eagles have implicitly said about their head coach, Andy Reid, who (this offseason) traded away his star quarterback to a division rival in the process of reshaping his team. Having also recently let Brian Dawkins and Brian Westbrook leave, Reid’s exhibiting faith in his ability of his stars’. Club: Felix Magath casts a similar shadow over Schalke 04. This summer, the manager said goodbye to Kevin Kuranyi, Heiko Westermann, Rafinha and Pedro Bordon. Just as Philadelphia’s never won a Super Bowl, Schalke’s never won a Bundesliga.	Schalke Germany
Pittsburgh Steelers AFC North	One of (if not the) most successful teams in league history, Pittsburgh’s always been known for their strong defending, even amidst changes to their offensive philosophies. Those philosophies may change again early this season, with the club’s quarterback suspended for the season’s first month. Club: Though it remains to be seen which of Ronaldinho, Robinho, or Zlatan Ibrahimovic will play a Roethlisberger role, Milan is one of the best teams in Europe’s club history, one that has always featured strong defending.	Milan Italy
San Diego Chargers AFC West	For the last few seasons, they have been the big fish in their small, AFC West pond; however, the Chargers have been unable to replicate their divisional success in the playoffs. Club: Though they won a Champions League within the last decade, FC Porto had used Portugal as their small pond until last season, more often than not exiting Champions League before making an impact.	FC Porto Portugal
San Francisco 49ers NFC West	At one point, this team had some of the league's best talent, but not only has it been a generation of players since the 49ers were good, it may be another before they're a viable title contender. They're not bad. They may make the playoffs, but they're not the championship caliber team they once were. Club: That would make them Napoli, but that would also make Joe Montana analogous to Diego Maradona. Why am I imagining a short, fat, powder-mustached version of Barry Manilow recoiling through a cloud of white smoke?	Napoli Italy
Seattle Seahawks NFC West	The ‘Hawks have had peaks of competitiveness, including a recent Super Bowl appearance, but for the most part they’ve been a good-not-great team in a nice coastal city. Club: Like the Seahawks, Villareal seems to be regrouping. Three seasons ago, they finished second in league. ast year, they dropped to seventh and look to be on the edge of Europe again this season.	Villareal Spain
St. Louis Rams NFC West	It doesn’t seem that long ago that the Rams were winning a Super Bowl, but it’s been 11 years, and now the team is (justly) more associated with the depths of the NFC West than the football they played in 1999. Club: The last time a club outside of Italy’s big three won a scudetto? Lazio in 1999-2000, when the Eagles edged Juventus for the title. Last season, the Rome-based club spent the season’s first half staring-down relegation before rallying to 12th place.	Lazio Italy
Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFC South	Won the 2002 Super Bowl, an accomplishment that now looks a bit anomalous, leaving their horrible uniforms the most distinct part of their franchise. What is it about Florida franchises and horrible gear? Club: In 1997-98, Lens won their only Ligue 1 title and have recently been in the French second division (though they’re now back in the top flight). And they also have horrible kits.	Lens France
Tennessee Titans AFC South	Has one the league’s most electrifying players (Chris Johnson) but there’s also a sense that he isn’t long for the team. This could be their last year to win before he moves on. Club: Neymar recommitting to Santos was as surprising as Chris Johnson ending his hold-out, though the Brazilian may have more than one season left in the Brasileirao.	Santos Brazil
Washington R******s NFC East	A capital-dwelling team whose recent struggles have pushed historical success farther into the past - results beguiling considering so many available players make their way to D.C. This year, a new coach with a title-adorned resume has been brought-in to restore the team’s status. Club: Mike Shanahan is no José Mourinho and Real Madrid's had more historic success than the R******s, but if Real Madrid is (again) eliminated in the Champions League Round of 16, I defy you to get this comparison out of your head. Regardless, Real Madrid supporters should feel at home supporting the R******s.	Real Madrid Spain

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Monday

Haven debuts; this Stephen King–inspired series is supposedly based on his novel The Colorado Kid, but the novel had a distinct lack of "people affected by a range of supernatural afflictions," which makes it seem like the latest entry in the Hey Guys Look At This Weird Place We've Found subgenre of TV dramas. Canadians will no doubt be interested to know that the show is filmed in Nova Scotia. Well, probably they won't be interested to know that, actually, but as a television critic working in Canada I am legally obligated to mention such things, lest we all start to feel bad about our television production industry. (Showcase, 10 p.m.)

All this week on The Agenda: it's racism week! Well, not so much, as the theme is "Encounters With The Other," so it's more about how people deal with the issue of race on a daily basis instead of being The Agenda's version of Jerry Springer. Basically it will be an interesting week full of smart people talking about vital issues, which is why The Agenda is always a good show, even if Steve Paikin does remind us at times of Rick Mercer in an unsettling way. (TVO, 8 p.m.)

Tuesday

The 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game is on. If you don't like baseball, maybe you shouldn't watch it. This might seem obvious, but with the World Cup now over, it really is amazing how many people on the internet feel the need to tell you over and over again that they don't like soccer, and even more amazing how many of them think that doing this is somehow clever. Then again, we do the same thing for The Bachelor. Of course, that's actually really sleazy and disgusting, whereas in soccer, the only thing that's sleazy and disgusting is watching the Italian team play. (Fox, 8 p.m.)

People who do not like baseball and instead like golf, or at least perhaps like movies about golf, have two excellent options. Firstly, AMC has Tin Cup, the excellent comedy from writer/director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) about Kevin Costner as a washed-up golf pro, also featuring Don Johnson as the bad guy. (8 p.m.) Also, TSN airs Caddyshack, because... wait, seriously, TSN, are there literally zero sports you can air? Nothing? Isn't there maybe some cricket or something you can broadcast? Man, is TSN going to become the next MuchMusic and start asking the CRTC if they can show "sports-thematic programming" or "programming that the target audience for sports might appreciate" instead of actual sports? (8 p.m.)

Wednesday

So Alex Wong (who is Canadian, if you did not know that; I bet you feel better about your country now) got eliminated last week on So You Think You Can Dance due to a torn ACL preventing him from dancing, which immediately makes this enormous snafu of a season even less appealing to watch. The week-in week-out adulation for Jose—the breaker who can't really do much of anything dance-related—on the basis of his sparking personality is intensely grating, and nobody left really deserves to win the season. Even if they did, the "All-Stars" concept can only be described as a failure at this point, considering that the All-Stars (who are mostly much more experienced dancers than the contestants) constantly out-dance the contestants and make them look weak in comparison, and the show's dismal ratings this year reflect the mediocre level of performance. None of this will stop the judges from cheerleading the show's new format, of course, and it would be silly to expect them to acknowledge the fact that this experiment is disastrous. But it's disastrous nonetheless. (CTV, 8 p.m.)

The Simpsons rerun of the week: "Beyond Blunderdome," wherein Homer helps Mel Gibson "fix" his remake of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Hey, remember when hearing that Mel Gibson was in something you like didn't make you wince? "It was fine for the 1930s. The country was doing great back then. Everyone was into talking. But now, in whatever year this is, the audience wants action. And seats with beverage holders. But mainly action." (Fox, 11 p.m.)

Thursday

Deep Blue Sea! If you haven't seen Samuel L. Jackson's big speech moment and heard LL Cool J's ending credits rap song ("MY HAT IS LIKE A SHARK'S FIN!"), you have not lived. Or, at least, not seen this great B-movie about super-intelligent killer sharks. If nothing else, we have this movie to thank for the career of Thomas Jane. Have you not recently given thanks for Thomas Jane? We thought not. (CHCH, 9 p.m.)

Friday

Last American Cowboy is a fun show that at moments gets hokey. After all, it's Animal Planet airing this show, so you expect the animal admiration: the cute widdle calves, the noble stallions, et cetera. But the show's contrast between the three ranches (the small one-man operation, the giant five-thousand-head herd, and the family ranch) actually makes it quite watchable beyond the "lookit the baby cow try to stand up" moments, even if the narration often over-romanticizes the profession. ("The cowboy code." Really, Animal Planet?) Mildly recommended. Wildly recommended if you want to see a baby cow or three, though. (9 p.m.)

Ghost Ship is one of the aughts' "new generation of horror" movies, and like most of them, it's a remake of an older obscure horror movie because there's nothing new under the sun. Rottentomatoes.com gives it a lousy rating, but it's always been a sentimental favorite here; it's not a great horror movie and never will be, but it's definitely trying to imitate the better class of action/horror flicks, with Julianna Margulies doing her best "Sigourney Weaver in Aliens" impression and generally pulling it off. (AMC, 8 p.m.)

The Weekend

"The Pandorica Opens" kicks off the two-part season finale of Doctor Who, and with the exception of that crappy episode with the Daleks in Blitz-torn London (which had a great concept and sadly just felt like a lackluster, required-by-contract "okay, nerds, here are some Daleks" affair), new showrunner Stephen Moffat has had a very strong opening season, and Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are excellent as the eleventh Doctor and his new companion Amy Pond (who is magnificently Scottish). Granted, most Who diehards have probably already downloaded these episodes a few weeks ago when they aired in England, but if you haven't, then don't miss this one, because Moffat's been building to it all season and the whole show just comes off smashingly. (Space, 8 p.m. Saturday)

Televisualist isn't sure why anbody watches the ESPY Awards, because aren't there already a bunch of awards to recognize when athletes do really well in their sports? Like, doesn't every sport already have those things? But the ESPYs have been going forever, so presumably people just like to see people get awards. After all, that explains the People's Choice Awards. (TSN, 8 p.m. Sunday)

Entourage's seventh season definitely seems to have a bit of story thrust to it: Turtle and E are moving forward in their careers, Drama finally seems to be acting like an adult (well, on a sliding scale where Drama's stabs at being a grownup are still relatively petulant, but even so... progress), and Vince is stuck in Neverland and almost acting more irresponsibly than usual just for the hell of it. It's a good progression from season six and the show isn't stumbling, and a show like Entourage, which is basically Sex and the City but for guys, has to play these cards very close, so advancing characters as they are isn't an easy trick for them to pull off. (HBO Canada, 10:30 p.m. Sunday)

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED OVER THE WEEKEND? College football as you know it may have ended and started its transformation into something new altogether, a collection of behemoth conferences with their own networks standing like great tropical hardwoods blocking out the sunlight for the rest of college football's smaller flora. 

IS THIS REALLY JUST A BIG GAME OF RISK? Sort of, yes. Texas is Australia. (Via commenter Bambakophobia:) 

GOT ANY NON-BOTANICAL/NON-BOARD GAME METAPHORS FOR THAT, PLANT NERD? Yes: Chip Brown was totally on point, and the Pac-10 is going to attempt expansion at the cost of the Big 12 in spectacular fashion, and this is the complete realignment of the world post-Soviet Bloc Collapse. 

THANK YOU. A MOMENT OF REVIEW, PLEASE? We'll assume you are already familiar with the other relevant piece of this puzzle, the Big Ten's plan to expand, add a championship game, and possibly skim a team or two off the Big 12 North (Nebraska, Missouri) or the Big East (Rutgers.) Alive in this scenario are less likely but equally possible things like Texas joining the Big Ten, Jim Delany hosting a nude pilates program on the BTN, and the conference adding the Montreal Alouettes and a Carolina pit bull named "Bo-trac" as its new members. 

On Friday, Chip Brown publishes his story about the Pac-10's plan to take six teams from the Big 12 and form a new super conference with two divisions and a championship game. The six teams are Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M. 

IS THIS THE ONLY PLAN THEY HAD? No. The Pac-10 actually had four scenarios on the table, and one was even more balls-out crazy. A full proposed 22 team merger with the Big 12 is still on the table for Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott; so is a two-team expansion with Utah and Colorado, and so is a final and very important option, doing absolutely nothing. Don't forget that one. It's important. 

WHO THE HELL IS LARRY SCOTT?  The new Pac-10 president leading the counter-charge to the Big Ten. Expectations were universally low for Scott coming in as a women's tennis exec whose last college football game was Harvard/Yale in another millennium. Then again, Scott is a Harvard graduate with a BA in European History, so perhaps the Big 12 looked more like any number of easily dismantled political bodies littering the course of history than any other major college football conference .

WHY IS THIS EVEN BEING CONSIDERED RARGH MY MEDS GET OFF MY LAWN FUTURE FOOTBALL? We know: it's all very frightening and disorienting. Here's a picture of LIllian Gish to ease the pain, old 96er. 

WHAT A LOOKER!

The Pac-10 is doing this for many reasons. They're doing this because their television revenue sucks, the product of Tom Hansen's completely negligent dealings in this department. Revenue is currently split unevenly between the teams, just as it is in the Big 12, but done through an unnecessarily arcane system of percentage splits. The overall results do not stack up well against other conferences in revenue. The Pac-10 in 2008 earned $43.25 million in television revenue. In contrast, this past week the SEC handed out $209 million combined to its member schools, and the Big Ten's  per school handout (while only an estimate) is conservatively in the $20 million range for each conference member.

(It's likely more than that, but Jim Delany does not kiss and tell.)

(Unless you're a slut and deserve it.) 

That's poor pimpin', and it is reason one to expand in a time when Cal had to take a bus to games instead of flying this year. Other reasons are simply window dressing. 

WAS THIS UNEXPECTED? Yes, but in hindsight not as much as one might think. Sharing a network with the Big 12 had already been proposed, so this really just involved the Machiavellian stretch of marrying self-interest with the willingness to slit another conference's throat before they knew what was happening. It's just business, Dan Beebe. 

/slice

SHOULD I ATTEMPT TO CONVINCE DAN BEEBE OF MY INNOVATIVE NEW COMPUTER, THE A.B.A.C.U.S., HORNSWAGGLE HIM OF MILLIONS, AND THEN PRESENT HIM WITH AN ABACUS AS A LEGAL SCAM? You could, since the Big 12 Commissioner might fall for the ruse.  Caught completely flatfooted by this, the Big 12 went into ninth-degree panic mode on Friday, cancelling press conferences and watching as member ADs declared their own lack of loyalty to the conference in the lobby.  Dan Wetzel's column here contains a lot of columnist hyperbole--much of it inaccurate and sensationalized--but he is right on one thing: Beebe got played, yo. 

SO WHICH ELEMENT OF THIS STORY WOULD BE ESTIMATED AS MOST CRUCIAL? Texas. At this point in the narrative we remind you how independent and self-interested everyone in this story truly is. No one is compelled by anything here but their own interests as defined by the schools themselves, including the great counterweight in all of this, Texas, the one school that could scuttle this entire reshuffling and turn what appeared to be a revolution into a fizzled coup. 

Texas has options of their own. As a target of both the Big Ten and Big 12, it could get a lot of skin flashed at them for very little unwinding of their money roll. The Big Ten offers more fixed, defined, and limited terms of engagement in terms of potential revenue, scheduling, and share of the league's profits. COLLEGE FOOTBALL, on the other hand, would be able to offer Texas additional bonuses it might not have in the Big Ten (a larger slice of revenue, for instance, scheduling preferences, etc.) All of these promises would be contractual fictions until seen, of course, unlike the hard promises of the Big Ten. 

THEY'VE ALREADY GOT THE BRANDING RIGHT? Sega was on this shit so long before the rest of us: 

WERE YOU EVER ABLE TO DEFEND JEROME BETTIS ON THE TOSS SWEEP IN THAT GAME? No, never. He was unstoppable, and the source of at least one fistfight between the brothers Swindle. 

IS THAT WHAT THEY'RE CALLING IT? No. As far as we know there is no name for the merged Pac-10/ Big 12, but if we were Larry Scott we'd enjoy pissing people off, and thus would simply refer to the conference as "COLLEGE FOOTBALL," and thus attempt to burst a few pipes in Jim Delany's brain. 

DID DELANY REALLY MAKE REPORTERS WAIT OUTSIDE ON SUNDAY RATHER THAN LETTING THEM IN THE FOYER OF THE BUILDING WHERE THE BIG TEN WAS MEETING? For a while at least, yes. Delany would have been a brilliant Cold War spymaster. 

DOES TEXAS HAVE COMPLETE FREEDOM? No. They have asshole relatives like everyone else, in this case the the assholes being the Texas State Legislature, a body so determined to get their dick swinging measured into the calculus here that taking Texas A&M along with Texas isn't even a bargaining chip, but is instead a given. In addition to tacking the Aggies and the Red Raiders onto the deal along with Texas, anyone who wants the Longhorns may have to take Baylor thanks to a group of legislators agitating for the Bears' inclusion in all this. 

You may recall this happened last time expansion rolled through the Dust Bowl, and that Ann Richards strangled a man in front of a horrified but impressed legislature to show her seriousness. She's dead, a factor which reduces the chance of Baylor bumping a team like Colorado significantly, but it is still in play. Someone may be asphyxiated to prove a point in this debate yet. 

COULD TEXAS DO NOTHING? Yes. Remember that in all of this, doing nothing and standing pat is always an option. With the Big 12 Texas has a low-effort independent deal in practice already, taking an uneven and generous cut of television revenues and playing a conference that on the whole cannot keep up with its budget, recruiting, and brand profile. We just used the term "brand," and thus proved that we're all moving towards the "Hipster Runoff Singularity" of everyone discussing "brands" in "quotes" all the "time." 

Alternately, Texas could just shoot middle fingers in all directions, nod approvingly at Notre Dame, and go full independent. Remember that, too: one response to all of this potential alignment would be labor-intensive but possibly lucrative non-alignment. If you don't think Mack Brown could strike a Marshal Tito pose and hold it for a decade or two, you're underestimating his fondness for epaulets. 

WHAT ABOUT NOTRE DAME? Well, if they're in they better hurry up about it. One expansion theory has Notre Dame as the pivot point for the entire landscape of college football, not Texas. If ND joins the Big Televen, they become the Grande Diez, pick up a significant national television draw, add eyeballs all over the place, balance out into six team divisions for championship game alignment, and possibly solve all of their problems at once. The Big Ten stands pat, turtles up, and continues to build their kingdom built of dippin' cheese and fine American shaving cream while leaving Nebraska and Mizzou--the two Big 12 teams most likely poached from the conference--out in the cold in a drifting, burning wreck of a conference. 

If they don't go, however, then the other options listed remain on the table (in this theory, at least.) 

ARE WE AT FULL HAM? 

Yes we are. DANCE BREAK. 

HOW FAST IS THIS ALL HAPPENING? For large organizations resistant to change? Very, very quickly. Scott may fire when ready per the Pac-10, and could announce the formal expansion as soon as July 27th at the Pac-10's Media Days in New York.  Offers could go out by Friday of this week, however, and could rapidly push forward the deadlines and timeframes for everyone, the Big Televen included. 

You may notice that the Pac-10 is having their media days this year on the opposite coast. There are reasons for this, and they should be very obvious. If not, we will remind you part of this itinerary includes a long visit to ESPN's studios in Bristol. Tom Hansen, former Pac-10 commissioner, would have settled for tasteful telegrams sent to illustrious columnists at important newspapers in Bangkok, London, and across the relevant spots in the British Empire and associated territories. 

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF POOR BOISE? You're keeping the Mountain West from their favorite piece of blue turf, dammit. 

WHAT'S THE SEC GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS? By all indications, a hot load of jack-nothing, man. Happy to stay out of this, the SEC appears to have battened the hatches and is spending the summer watching the Big Ten and Pac-10 take turns setting the Big 12 on fire at their neighborhood barbecue. We like to think of this as an event, where the Big 12 received an invitation saying "We're having you over for dinner!", and then discovered the invitation was really and truly more literal than they expected. The cannibalism is, from this perspective, very entertaining. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE BCS? Some reconstitution, and an even dicier existence when renegotiation time rolls around after the contract ends in 2014. At that point you might have two huge megaconferences who most likely will not have undefeated teams going into the championship game, much less coming out of one. Using the current model, this could mean an ever-more-crushing pile of one-loss teams at the top of college football, further absurdity, and worse still more horrifically disingenuous PR from the BCS claiming out it works. The BCS could survive, but the possibility of a plus one scenario gets even more likely for 2015 under certain realignment situations. 

It also gets less likely in others. WHEE FUN EQUIVOCATION. 

IS THAT EVERYTHING? Hell no. This rolls on. For the moment, though, that should get us all caught up and breathless before the Big East announced their merger with the NFC East and the Jamaican Cricket League in the next 24 hours. 

There are pioneers in cricket, just as there are in football and rugby, who believe the sport has a manifest destiny in the west

Nowadays there is nothing at the corner of 1st and 33rd to suggest that cricket was once played in this corner of Kips Bay, Manhattan. On one side of the road sits the squat grey office block of the New York University Medical Centre, and facing it is a low-rise parking lot. In the 19th century this was the site of St George's Cricket Club. It was here, underneath the foundations of the Medical Centre, that the very first international cricket match was played between Canada and the USA. That was in 1844, 33 years before England first played Australia. The match drew a crowd of around 5,000.

166 years on, and that is still the record for the largest single attendance at a cricket match in New York. Cricket's popularity in the US peaked in the 1850s before being checked by civil war, which broke out in 1861. The theory goes that it was a lot easier for soldiers to arrange an impromptu game of baseball than it was cricket. It is a lot simpler, after all, to throw down four satchels as bases than it is to lay a rough wicket and mark out a boundary. After the war cricket became ghettoised, confined to small pockets of the country around Chicago, San Francisco, New York, St Louis and Philadelphia. Here, for a time, the sport thrived. Philadelphia were one of the great club sides of the Golden Age, twice beating touring Australian Test teams.

But as Philadelphia's glory years faded into memory through the 20th century, so participation dwindled across the US. And ever since, administrators, entrepeneurs and businessmen have been dreaming of tapping the residue of the USA's cricket-playing population. There are pioneers in cricket, just as there are in football and rugby union, who seem to believe that the sport has a manifest destiny in the west. This despite the obvious apathy of the mainstream market. "Rule of thumb," wrote sports columnist Greg Cote in the Miami Herald last week, "if your sport is named after a grasshopper-like bug, give it a new name." Cote added, in a telling aside: "Still trying to figure out why Broward County agreed to fund a $70m cricket stadium in Lauderhill. I believe the expenditure was OK'd that one day all of the county commissioners showed up for work drunk." Cote was writing about cricket because, on 22 and 23 May Sri Lanka and New Zealand played two Twenty20 matches at that same stadium, the first purpose-built cricket ground in the USA.

So much for the cynics. The man at the centre of this drive to revive American cricket is the chief executive officer of USACA, Don Lockerbie. "We could become the capital of cricket in the western hemisphere," Lockerbie said recently, reeling off a dizzying list of statistics to support his case. There are 15 million cricket fans and players in the US alone. Taken in combination with Canada the USA has the single largest online audience for cricket in the world. There were more people willing to pay-per-view the 2007 World Cup in the US than in any country other than India. There are 30,000 registered players and an estimated 200,000 recreational players. And 500 pitches across 30 states.

The trouble is that these are familiar numbers. We heard them in 2004, when the entrepreneur Kay Patel launched the Pro Cricket League. We heard them again in 2005, when the Pro Cricket League folded and was replaced by Major League Cricket. And we heard them in 2009, when another visionary, Jay Mir, launched the American Premier League. Of those three competitions, only the Pro Cricket League ever amounted to anything other than big words and fine plans on paper.

Pro Cricket was a glorious farce. The first game was played at a minor league baseball ground on Staten Island, between the New York Storm and the New Jersey Fire. The international players roped in from overseas were Mervyn Dillon, Ajay Jadeja and the 50-year-old Larry Gomes. The groundstaff forgot to bring any stumps so the start of play was delayed by 50 minutes. At Pro Cricket's second match, in San Francisco, the boundary rope stretched only A cricketer in Central Park, New York City. two-thirds of the way around the ground and Dillon was forced to bowl off-breaks because the wicket had been cut only 10 minutes before the start of play. The scores were displayed on an American football scoreboard in what the organisers described as "a vaguely plausible way". Despite entry for both games being free, neither attracted a crowd of more than a few hundred.

It would be unfair to weigh the potential of Lockerbie's plans against the success of Pro Cricket, not least because he is working with the ICC rather than against it. But there are still some salutary lessons here about the difficulties of turning the all those seductive statistics into actual returns. The groundsman at Lauderhill recently complained that one of the hardest tasks facing him was finding enough one-and-three-quarter inch rope to encircle the outfield. He had to fashion sightscreens by hand out of old billboard hoardings. Most of the 500 pitches that Lockerbie mentions are made out of portable matting.

There is undoubtedly an appetite for cricket among the sizeable immigrant population. Since 2000, the Indian-American community has been one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the USA. It grew by 53% between 2000 and 2007, from 1,679,000 to 2,570,000. But those 2,570,000 are scattered across the nation, split between California, New York, Texas and every other point of the map. The amount of money it would take to create a coherent infrastructure across a country of that size is an insurmountable obstacle. At the moment USACA cannot even afford to pay for any of their players to be professionals.

Lockerbie plans to fund a full-time structure by 2015. His ambition should be applauded, and in the brief time he has been in charge he has done much to raise the administration of the sport from the gutter. As recently as 2007 the USA board were suspended from the ICC because of mismanagement and in-fighting. But his idea that cricket can be grown domestically by wooing failed baseball players – just as USA rugby believes it can exploit the legions of frustrated American footballers – is clearly erroneous. As is the notion that cricket could take off outside the immigrant population. "Our objective is to see indigenous Americans playing the game from youth and school up," said ICC president, David Morgan. Dream on. Allen Stanford spent $3.5m test-marketing his Twenty20 competition in Fort Collins, Colorado, a town with no natural affinity for cricket whatsoever. It was a sorry failure. It cost Stanford $274 for every citizen his pollsters persuaded to show any interest in watching the sport on TV.

Cricket will continue to grow in the USA as a minority sport played immigrant communities. The New York Police Department are currently sponsoring a 10-team league in an attempt to build closer relations with the Caribbean and Indian populations. And if the wicket at Lauderhill is improved, or the proposed new stadium in Indianapolis is built, then the country may have a role to play as a neutral venue for international competitions and the IPL. But the average American sports fan has no need for, or interest in, cricket, whether it is Twenty20 or Test.

This is an excerpt from the Spin, guardian.co.uk/sport's free cricket email. Get the Spin delivered direct to your inbox by signing up here.

Plus: Football v Natural disasters (2); the international venue merry-go-round; and the closest league season ever. Send your questions and answers to knowledge@guardian.co.uk

"With the general election approaching," begins Doug Webster, "I was wondering whether any politicians had been decent footballers. And did any footballers go on to be decent politicians? If such a thing exists."

We have looked this before (Footballers pursuing political careers George Weah, Pele, Zico, Oleg Blokhin and Marc Wilmots all covered) but with election day in the UK so close at hand it's worth having a look at few others who have swapped the dressing room for the dispatch box. Or at least tried to.

One of the unsuccessful candidates was Andrey Arshavin, who ran on a pro-Kremlin ticket for Vladimir Putin's United Russia party in regional council elections in Russia in 2007. Though the Arsenal forward (then at Zenit St Petersburg) withdrew his candidacy before a vote was cast, his international team-mate Roman Pavlyuchenko did keep his name in the hat in 2008 and was elected to the regional council in his home town of Stavropol.

"I suspect one of the highest profile players to turn his hand to politics must have been Josef Boszik, legendary wing half of the legendary Hungarian side of the 1950s," writes David Warriston. "Boszik, a boyhood neighbour of Puskas who once said he could find a Boszik pass in the darkness, was a member of the Hungarian parliament for several years in the 1960s. He had the option of turning his back on Hungary when the revolution broke out in 1956 but decided to return.

"So too did Gyula Grosics the goalkeeper, who after the collapse of the Soviet regime was a spokesman for a right wing political group. Perhaps he can be forgiven because a few months after the 1954 World Cup final he was arrested for treason no less, and put under house arrest for 18 months. Presumably the commissars felt he should have got down quicker to Helmut Rahn's rasping low drive."

Staying with the mighty Magyars, the Hungarian prime minister elect Viktor Orban is a keen amateur player with Felcsut FC and cancelled a cabinet meeting so that he could participate in his club's mid-season training camp in 2001. "You could even sign him in Football Manager 2006," writes Dave Edwards.

Mark Hayden writes in with a remarkably detailed CV of Olli Rehn, Finnish MP and MEP, currently serving as European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, who played football for his hometown club Mikkelin Palloilijat in Finland's top division. And Robert Marriott has news of Rev Robert Bradford, the Ulster Unionist MP for South Belfast in the 70s, who played for Glenavon and Distillery in his youth.

But it's not just eager amateurs who after hanging up their boots throw on a pair of smart leather shoes, start ringing doorbells and ask if they can rely on your vote. Following the path trodden by Pele and Zico from joga bonito to the somewhat less bonito world of Brazilian politics is Romario, who, writes Admir Pajic, has recently announced he's running for congress with the Brazilian Socialist Party. ""My principal objective is to work with all my strength to aid impoverished children," said the former striker,

And finally there's Gianni Rivera, the Italy forward who played in four World Cups (1962. 1966, 1970 and 1974), won 60 caps for his country, played over 500 times for Milan and holds two European Cup winners' medals. "You'd be hard pressed to say he wasn't a decent footballer," writes Roger Kay. "He later entered the Italian Parliament and later a Euro MP. Whether he is a decent politician is another matter: how does one judge such things?" How indeed.

FOOTBALL v NATURAL DISASTERS (2)

Last week we looked at football falling foul of natural disasters (lightning, hurricanes and the like, rather than the obese WWF tag-team of the early 1990s.) As ever, the Knowledge inbox has been filling up with those "I can't believe you missed ..." emails.

Not a natural disaster as such, but a freak gust of wind caused the suspension of a Premiership fixture between Orlando Pirates and Black Leopards at Ellis Park in 2007. Play was abandoned for five minutes after advertising hoardings flew across the pitch, injuring several players. It had been something of a troubled fixture:Kick-off had to be delayed by 15 minutes because of a power cut and seven minutes after the resumption of proceedings following the wind break the game was abandoned due to torrential rain.

Niel Butler emails in with this rather terrifying clip of a dust devil interrupting a children's game, and no less scary in its own way is this footage of bees-stopped-play from Chrostopher Watling.

"On 28 August 2008 during the inaugural season of Concacaf's Champions League a play-off round match between Mexico's UNAM and the Jamaican club Harbour View was cancelled after Tropical Storm Gustav (later upgraded to hurricane status) slammed into Jamaica," writes David Downs. "Later that same tournament, the group phase match between Houston Dynamo and El Salvador's Luis Angel Firpo was postponed several weeks when Hurricane Ike prevented them from playing in Houston in September."

VENUE MERRY-GO-ROUND

"I've been doing some poking about," confesses Ali Houston, "and apparently over the years Scotland and Wales have played against each other in 24 different venues. Is this an international (or inter-team) record? My poking has discovered that we've only played England in 20 grounds, so don't even try starting there."

Mexico and the USA can match Scotland and Wales, reckons Jesse Ziter, with the neighbours meeting in 24 different venues (deep breath): Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; Columbus Crew Stadium, Columbus, Ohio; Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Texas; Estadio Azteca, Mexico City; Estadio de los Deportes, Mexico City; Estadio Neza '86, Mexico City; Estadio Parque Artigas, Paysandú, Uruguay; Estadio Tecnológico, Monterrey, Nuevo León; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Foxboro Stadium, Foxboro, Massachusetts; Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey; Havana, Cuba; Invesco Field at Mile High, Denver, Colorado; Jeonju World Cup Stadium, Jeonju, South Korea; Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, California; Monterrey, Nuevo León; Puebla, Puebla; Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, California; Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas; RFK Stadium, Washington; Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California; Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois; Stadio Nazionale, Rome, Italy; University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona.

Brett Taylor can beat that, however, with Australia v New Zealand. "As soon as I read it I thought Australia v New Zealand might be in with a chance of beating that. My digging was made easy by the excellent ozfootball.net website and it confirmed my suspicions. According to that site the Socceroos have met the All Whites at 35 different venues, in six different countries including the obvious two and Indonesia, Vietnam, Tahiti and England. One or two may be the same venue with a changed name, I'm not certain. We're set to play them again on 24 May at the Melbourne Cricket Ground which I think will be the 36th venue."

Right, here we go in chronological order (even deeper breath): Carisbrooke Park, Dunedin; Athletic Park, Wellington; Domain (now Carlaw Park), Auckland; Brisbane Cricket Ground; Sydney Cricket Ground; Newcastle Showground; Exhibition Ground, Brisbane; Basin Reserve, Wellington; Blandford Park, Auckland; Lancaster Park, Christchurch; Melbourne Showgrounds; Sydney Sports Ground; Cong Hoa Stadium, Saigon, South Vietnam; Senayan Stadium, Jakarta, Indonesia; Newmarket Ground, Auckland; Olympic Park, Melbourne; Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland; Parramatta Stadium, Sydney; Hutt Recreation Ground, Lower Hutt; Sydney Football Stadium; Athletics Park, Wellington; Caledonian Ground, Dunedin; Queen Elizabeth Oval, Bendigo; QEII Stadium, Christchurch; Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide; Breakers Stadium, Newcastle; Lakeside Stadium, Melbourne; North Harbour Stadium, Auckland; Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane; Papeete, Tahiti; Westpac Trust Stadium, Wellington; Stadium Australia, Sydney; Ericsson Stadium, Auckland; Craven Cottage, London.

A worthy effort, but here's Tim Dockery. "I spent too long a time on such a short answer," he writes, somewhat missing the point of this column, though we'll forgive him. "But here goes: Argentina and Brazil have played each other 94 times in 41 stadiums in 27 cities in 16 countries."

The details of which can all be found at the brilliant Brazil RSSSF site. Or below (extremely deep breath):

Estádio das Laranjeiras, Rio de Janeiro; Campo do Velódromo, São Paulo; Club Gimnasia y Esgrima, Buenos Aires; Parque Pereira, Montevidéo; Campo do Sporting Club, Viña del Mar (Chile); Campo do Barracas, Buenos Aires; Central Parque, Montevidéo; Estádio do San Lorenzo de Almagro, Buenos Aires; Estádio de São Januário, Rio de Janeiro; Parque Antártica, São Paulo; Estádio do Independiente, Buenos Aires; Estádio Centenário, Montevidéu; Estádio Nacional, Santiago (Chile); Estádio do Pacaembu, São Paulo; Estádio Monumental de Núñez, Buenos Aires; Estádio Olímpico, Cidade do México (Mexico); Estádio do Racing, Buenos Aires; Estádio Nacional, Lima; Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro; Estádio Olímpico, Guayaquil (Ecuador); Estádio Nacional da Costa Rica, San José; Estádio Hernán Siles Zuazo, La Paz; Estádio do Morumbi, São Paulo; Estádio Mineirão, Belo Horizonte; Estádio Beira-Rio, Porto Alegre; Niedersachsenstadion, Hannover; Estádio Cordeleon, Rosario; Estádio Rosário Central, Rosário; Estádio Sarriá, Barcelona (Spain); Estádio da Fonte Nova, Salvador; Olimpic Park, Melbourne (Australia); Stadio Delle Alpi, Turin; Estádio Vélez Sarsfield, Buenos Aires; Estádio Pinheirão, Curitiba; Estádio Monumental, Guayaquil; Estádio do Arruda, Recife; Estádio Attilio Paiva Oliveira, Rivera (Uruguay); Estádio Tres de Febrero, Ciudad de Leste (Paraguay); Estádio do Beira-Rio, Porto Alegre; Waldstadion, Frankfurt; Emirates Stadium, London; Estádio José Pachencho Romero, Maracaibo (Venezuela); Estádio Mundialista, Rosário

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"After the Chelsea game yesterday, Sky Sports were saying this was the first time since the Premier League's inception that the top two teams have gone into the last game on the same points," wrote Terry Chops back in the halcyon days of 2008. "But how many times has it happened before that in the English top flight? And has there ever been a season when the top three teams went into the last game on the same points total, or even the top four?"

Yes. Back in 1968, it was level-pegging as Manchester City and Manchester United began their last matches on May 11. Under joint managers Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison, City overcame Newcastle 4-3 in a sensational match while United were turned over 2-1 at Old Trafford by Sunderland.

For further examples you must hark back to the sepia-tinted days of yesteryear when folk wore hats and lived life in a fast and jerky fashion. The year is 1950 and bums in the Midlands and on the south coast are squeakier than the door in Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

Wolverhampton Wanderers and Portsmouth are going into the final weekend level on 51 points with Portsmouth top owing to a superior yet very slim goal average (goals scored divided by goals against). When they thumped bottom-placed rivals Birmingham City 6-1, Wolves must have thought they'd done enough but a 5-1 home win against mid-table Aston Villa saw Portsmouth clinch the title by two-fifths of a goal.

The 1914-15 season was a good one for Everton with Liverpool embroiled in a dodgy betting scandal and the Toffees crowned champions. Thanks in no small part to Bobby Parker, who scored 35 goals in 36 games, Everton were neck-and-neck with Oldham and only separated by a wafer-thin goal average. On the last day of the season, they stumbled rather than strode across the finishing line with a 2-2 draw that, with Oldham choking in a 2-0 defeat, was just enough.

At the end of the 19th century, the fixture computer gave fans a last-game, winner-takes-all title-decider by pairing Aston Villa against Liverpool - both teams level on 43 points. A superior Villa goal average meant Liverpool had to go for the win but got nowhere near. Villa dished out a 5-0 drubbing and partied like it was 1899, for that's what it was.

In the nearest thing to memorable top-of-the-table threesome nail-biter, the 1904-05 season was a corker. Everton had a point advantage and having played a game more than title-chasing rivals Newcastle and Manchester City (these were the days before Super Sundays on Sky) were reliant on both teams losing. Manchester City obliged with a 2-3 reverse but Newcastle beat Middlesbrough 3-0 to be crowned champions. That's when the top flight was exciting, eh Kev?

For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive

Can you help?

"Here in Portland, USA, tonight brings a strange occurrence," writes Zach Dundas. "The NBA's Phoenix Suns play our Trail Blazers in a playoff game; at the same time, in the decidedly more modest second-division football league (or United States Soccer Federation Division II Pro League, if you want to get technical), our beloved Timbers face a home fixture against regional rivals Vancouver Whitecaps. As everyone knows, the Suns are led by Steve Nash, a Canadian Tottenham fan (surely not the only one). As far fewer people know, the Whitecaps feature Martin Nash, Steve's brother. Two brothers playing in different sports in away matches against teams in the same city, at exactly the same time. Has this ever happened before?"

"During this January's FA Trophy fixture between Cambridge United and Eastbourne Borough, U's striker Danny Crow scored an own goal to put Eastbourne 2-0 up before scoring two penalties at the correct end," writes Matt Ramsey. "Having watched the match DVD I was able to time the speed at which he scored at both ends, having scored the first penalty only 99 seconds after putting through his own net. Is this a record?"

"This season Altetico Madrid have reached the final of the Europa League, despite winning only two of their 14 European matches this season," notes Christopher Betteridge. "Have a side ever reached a major final by winning fewer matches than this?"

"Norwich's 3-0 away win at Bristol Rovers today means we've scored in every league away game for the entire season," writes Ffion Thomas. "How often has this feat been achieved?"

"With Bayern all but securing the Bundesliga title at the weekend, Arjen Robben has won four different league titles in four different European countries," says Kriz Walsh. "Aside from Mateja Kezman, have there been instances of other players winning four titles in four different countries, or even five?"

Send your questions and answers to knowledge@guardian.co.uk

Ever heard of the song by AC/DC entitled "Back In Business?" For those of you who have, it doesn't take a minute to realize the the Los Angeles Galaxy's scoring touch was back in business again. And would you believe it: by the grace of the football gods, they were able to diversify their portfolio for once.

Only 53 seconds into LA's initial ordeal with the Philadelphia Union, it was A.J. De La Garza who opened the proceedings. Edson Buddle—known more for his finishing than his facilitating ability—proved he can also deliver in other ways. His delivery found De La Garza, and it set the tone for a 3-1 victory before a crowd of 15,453 at the Home Depot Center.

De La Garza's goal was the second-fastest in club history. The fastest goes to current Galaxy member Clint Mathis, who scored one against the Kansas City Wizards in a match that took place during the 1999 season.

Coincidentally, Mathis made his season debut on Saturday, marking his 250th appearance for the Galaxy. Well done, you vet.

Let's go back, however, to Mr. 14. As you all know, this year's Buddle would not be this year's Buddle without this year's Buddle getting one, right? Right? So he did, starting with the 27th minute. A scramble of the corner from Landon Donovan almost saw Alan Gordon earn his first of the season. Instead, it was Buddle who got this eighth of the year doing it the tried and true way.

Note to self, Edson: don't try to pull off a Chaleira if you are in traffic inside the box. Stick with your bread and butter, please?

Buddle completed his brace late in the first half with a pass in the transition from Landon Donovan. The goal in the 45th minute was his ninth of the season.
And that was, for all intents and purposes, all that the Galaxy needed aside from some sound defending in the second half.

But wait a minute here. Holy smokes, let's look at this again: nine goals in six matches. That's a blistering 3 to 2 ratio. Now here is how it's all done in Major League Soccer (and this is what I am most proud about). Everybody plays each other once on the road and once at home. There are 24 matches remaining.
 
So let me get this straight: could Buddle be on pace to score 45 goals this season? Really? No way, you have to be kidding me, oh statistics! The current MLS single-season record is 27 goals by Roy Lassiter, in 1996, the inaugural year. Buddle's already a third of the way there, and we aren't even a fourth of the way into the season.

If you are out there in Austin, Roy Lassiter, you'd better be keeping an eye on this one. At this rate, Buddle couls pass him by World Cup's end, if not before. And this is assuming that Bradley commits suicide by not calling up Buddle, or if no team outside of the league tempts Edson with an offer he can't refuse. Stay tuned, pardner.

Now it's time for some ins and outs from this match:

Chicken Thief No. 2 - Jack McInerney

This week's Chicken Thief comes from the unlikeliest of culprits. Why, it's none other than big Jack McInerney. Fresh from his role as a member of the USA Youth National teams, McInerney shows what he can do when a team's defense bites on the transition. His goal late in the 84th minute is a clear sign of things to come. Look out for Jack, he's on his way.

Donovan Ricketts...a potential three-sport athlete?

Fans inside Victoria Street got treated to something normally reserved for the diamond or the gridiron. In the 42nd minute, Ricketts threw the ball well into the Galaxy's attacking half.

This brings up an interesting question: could Ricketts be a successful three-sport athlete? That had all the muscle of a quarterback and the arm of a center-fielder. If Jamaica had their own baseball team or American football team, Ricketts should be under consideration to play international matches for those sides. That is one heck of an arm.

I am going to take the Fifth on speculating if Ricketts had a future bowling for the West Indies cricket team.

More musings off the streets of Philadelphia

Apologies, Bruce Springsteen.

Where the heck was Danny Mwanga? Don't tell me you were trying to save him for the match against the Sounders, Piotr Nowak. I am sure the fans wanted to see what the overall top MLS SuperDraft pick could do; he WAS available, you know.

Actually, forget about Mwanga; where was Sebastien Le Toux? I could have sworn that the match would have been a shave closer if Le Toux was starting today. Zis is an outrage!

Speaking of outrageous, how about the brain explosion by Stefani Miglioranzi. Mama mia, Stefani, come on you didn't have to go late on Juninho, capisce? A late tackle on the Brazilian was enough for Yader Reyes to send the former Galaxy player marching with a head full of steam while the supporters sung a certain classic ditty by a band with the same name.

I leave it to you to figure that out. As for me, I'm still trying to figure out why Nowak decided to make the team run sprints after their Open Cup defeat to the New York Red Bulls. It sure didn't make any difference Saturday night, that's for sure.

Finally, the Sons of Ben were A.W.O.L. at the Home Depot Center. While they should be lauded for their hard work in getting an MLS team to Philly, these fellows were nowhere to be seen. I reckon the flights to Los Angeles and back played a big factor in the absence, but that's just me.
 

Big road trip twin-around for Galaxy

This contest with the Union is the first of three matches in eight days for the Galaxy. This Wednesday, Dick's Sporting Goods Park welcomes LA as they clash with the Colorado Rapids. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. PT.

Next Saturday, the Galaxy will be in Seattle to take on the Sounders. Kickoff for that match at Qwest Field is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. PT.

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