Dowie signed a short-term deal for the remaining nine games of the season and one can only hope he brings some of his Goonies magic.
He was a hot coaching commodity after successful stints with Oldham and Crystal Palace, but then his star started to fade as he failed in Charlton, QPR and Coventry.
Most recently, Dowie was Alan Shearer's right-hand man at Newcastle and that clearly didn't go too well as Newcastle was relegated while he was there.
Dowie's appointment has not been met with universal approval by the fans but he said: "My message is it's about us winning games. I believe I know the training ground, I believe I can get players playing attractive and open football. This needs to be a real cauldron. We'll be working every hour God sends.''
I know you've all been breathlessly waiting for the announcement of the World Cup kickoff concert in Johannesburg and ladies and gentleman, the news is finally here .
Alicia Keys, the Black Eyed Peas and Shakira are the artists you've heard of while the concert also will feature a strong African presence with South African folk singer Vusi Mahlasela and Malian artists Amadou and Mariam.
South African rock bands BLK JKS and The Parlotones also will perform as the country prepares to be the first African host in the 80-year history of the tournament.
The event takes place June 10, the day before the first match kicks off. And if you're wondering, basically the only reason I mentioned this is because Shakira is in my current Top-5, just a complete dime, and this allowed me to post a picture of my favorite Colombian.
One can't mention John Terry these days without also talking about Wayne Bridge.
Proving the world is not a fair place, Bridge is doing arguably worse than even Terry. The Manchester City defender and former English defender (who refuses to play on the national team with Terry) had to have hernia surgery yesterday which will cause him to miss a month of action.
Bridge had just recently come back from a knee injury which shelved him for 13 games earlier in the EPL season.
Manchester City is battling for the fourth spot in the EPL standings, which would enable them to qualify for next year's Champions League. It would also throw a curveball into the Big 4 of English soccer: Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Yesterday wasn't a banner day for Chelsea captain and English defender John Terry.
After the Blues were knocked out of the Champions League round-of-16 by Inter Milan (losing the second leg 1-0 at Stamford Bridge), Terry managed to run over some poor Chelsea security guard's leg while he was trying to leave the player's parking lot.
The good news for Terry is that Steve Rowley-the security guard-somehow doesn't seem too upset about the whole event and thankfully, his leg wasn't broken like originally feared.
Not being there, it's hard to say who was at fault for the accident. Apparently, Terry was going slow to avoid the paparazzi and Rowley stated that it was an accident.
All I know is that at this moment, I wouldn't want to be around John Terry. Trouble seems to be following him wherever he goes and one can easily picture that transferring to the World Cup this summer as well.
A couple days ago when Shimer came up with the concept of the All-Ugly team, I thought it was great idea. Probably one of the best we've had in the few short months that we've been online.
Naturally, while he had his first few choices in mind, I thought of the inaugural members of my squad which I've dubbed the Peter Crouch All-Stars. So without further ado here they are with club team and national team in parantheses.
Carlos Puyol (Barcelona, Spain)-Puyol isn't that ugly but his epic hair reminds me of the late wrestler Kerry Von Erich. You just don't find hair like that anymore which is why Spain and Barcelona fans are so lucky.
Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool, Holland): Have you ever wondered what would happen if Larry Bird and Dirk Nowitzki had a love child, in Amsterdam? The spawn of that unlikely combination has to be Kuyt, who is one awkward looking guy.
Marouane Fellaini (Everton, Belgium): With clown-like hair, it's hard sometimes for your game to speak louder than your outrageous style (just ask Carlos Valderrama). Or maybe the whole point is just to look at the hair and not the fact that they're average players? Anyway, current Everton midfielder Marouane Fellaini has taken up Valderrama's cause.
Wayne Rooney (Manchester United, England): While he's arguably the best player in the world at the moment, or at least in the top 3, every time I look at Rooney I think he looks like a Gremlin. In his younger days, he loved getting in scraps at nightclubs but getting older has seemed to calm Rooney down for the time being.
Jose Bosingwa (Chelsea, Portugal): As a man with Portuguese heritage, I know how hard it is to avoid having a unibrow but you gotta do what you gotta do to get the ladies. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell this to Chelsea midfielder Jose Bosingwa who looks like that she-male from Dodgeball The Movie.I guess he was playing soccer too much to ever look in a mirror. Gross.
Peter Crouch (Tottenham, England): The inspiration for my team and its emotional leader, Crouch is proof that you can be the ugliest dude in the world but you can still get an absolute smokeshow of a girlfriend (Abbey Clancy). It probably helps that he makes boatloads of money for playing soccer, although his skills consist mostly of standing near the goal and waiting to head it (usually over or wide of the net). I will give Crouch credit though, he does a mean robot (as you can see in the YouTube above).
So after watching Manchester City this past weekend I realized it would be pretty funny to put together a list of the ugliest/goofiest looking players in professional football today. These guys are the anti-David Beckhams - sorry ladies he won't be showing his pretty-boy face at at the upcoming World Cup - but you will be able to see many of these handsome devils in South Africa.
City has a few of the biggest bozos going with Carlos Tevez heading the list. He looks
between a mongoloid and the villain from the James Bond movie "License to Kill" - actor Robert Davi.
It's not just that Tevez was badly burned by boiling water on his neck and chest, the guy looks like someone that has been in one too many brawls and perhaps a few knife fights on the streets of his hometown Ciudadela in Argentina. Add that to the fact that he often wears one of those bozo girlie plastic hair head-bands to hold his hair in place during games and you have one of the ultimate ugly individuals in the game today.
Here are few more Tevez pics for you to gawk at:
The next guy off the Manchester City roster that is also a total weirdo is England international Joleon Lescott. Like Tevez I feel a little guilty making fun of the guy because when he was 5-years-old he was hit by a car outside his school, dragged down the street, and suffered serious head injuries which is what you see today. But the guy just signed five-year contract with the richest club in the world last August after being sold by Everton for an estimated £22-£24 million. Clearly the guy could afford to have plastic surgery fix the scar on his head or the weird looking line going through his hair-line on his forehead.
To me he looks like a cross between famous model Grace Jones (by the way is a woman) who played May Day, another sinister villain in the James Bond series from "A View to Kill" - and any number of a few Star Trek alien characters including this beaut to the right here.
Here is one more Lescott photo to enjoy:
Last on the list of City lovelies is the Hunchback of Notre Dame - I mean Welsh international Craig Bellamy.
Bellamy is a world-class bozo famous for both his rows with coaches, teammates and fans. In 2004 he threw a chair at his Newcastle boss John Carver, sent bitter text message to Newcastle captain Alan Shearer when on loan to Celtic, allegedly attack Liverpool teammate John Arne Risse with a golf club in 2007, and several other huge bust-ups.
Of course if my body was that disproportioned I would probably be pretty angry as well and have an explosive temper as well.
The U.S. men's national team has added one more friendly before things get serious in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
They'll meet Australia, another World Cup squad, June 5 in Roodepoort-a suburb of Johannesburg.
It's the third time the nations have met. Australia won 1-0 in Orlando, Fla. back in June 1992 and they played to a 1-1 tie in San Jose, Calif. in November 1998.
It also involves rival nations trying to win rights to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.
The 18th-ranked U.S. plays the No. 25 Czech Republic at East Hartford, Conn., on May 25 and meets No. 41 Turkey four days later at Philadelphia before traveling to South Africa, where the Americans are in a first-round group with eighth-ranked England (June 12), 27th-ranked Slovenia (June 18) and 32nd-ranked Algeria (June 23).
Australia, ranked 23rd, is in a first-round group with fifth-ranked Germany (June 13), 28th-ranked Ghana (June 19) and 13th-ranked Serbia (June 23).
Hull City hired Ian Dowie aka Sloth as its new manager on Tuesday night as they try to avoid relegation in the EPL.
