Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter's anchors are too perky for this early in the morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and the blogosphere to bring you everything you need to know to start your day.
• British broadcaster ITV had its Heidi moment on Saturday, cutting away to a Hyundai commercial just before Steven Gerrard's pretty goal against the U.S. "Cock-ups all around," as The Independent puts it . Meanwhile, per ESPN The Soccernet, it's widely expected that keeper Rob Green "will be dropped" like a slow-rolling 30-footer in advance of England's game against Algeria.
• FIFA is looking into all those empty seats.
• Kobe and Paul Pierce trade 15-footers all night in the most earthbound scoring duel you'll see these days, and the Celtics take Game 5 even though Phil Jackson said mean things about them.
• Your reafuckinglignment update: Big 12 commish Dan Beebe is whispering endearments in Texas's ear, according to someone in Joe Schad's sewing circle.
• Franklin Foer, New Republic editor and author of How Soccer Let Me Travel the World on an Expense Account, writes some precious crap about how soccer "remains stubbornly, beautifully immune" to statistical analysis. Scary communists are adduced ("Marxism attempted to discern the scientific basis for history—and it was the Soviet Union that first attempted to unlock the scientific basis for soccer"), and yet Arsène Wenger — who is neither stubbornly nor beautifully immune to statistical analysis — goes noticeably unmentioned.
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Good morning. It's Monday.