Lisa Dillman

LOS ANGELES -- You know you have a fondness -- some might say sickness -- for the beautiful game when it is possible to find redeeming moments in almost every soccer movie to hit the market.

Mike Ditka, really, needed a bigger role in "Kicking and Screaming," didn't he? The man clearly needed room to expand his craft.

Forget master thespian Robert Duvall in "The Godfather," "Tender Mercies" or "Colors." When will Duvall make the sequel to "A Shot at Glory," with Ally McCoist? Or is McCoist just too busy to take phone calls from Duvall and Michael Keaton?

(Yes, there is a line on the pitch, of course, and it was, thankfully, drawn at "Soccer Dog: The Movie." That DVD has never been purchased, and if it is ever discovered in my house, a certain 9-year-old will have to take the fall.)

This might suggest that soccer movie standards here are not as high as expectations for other movies.

Not so.

LOS ANGELES -- Manchester City did the necessary and obvious thing in accepting -- or is that forcing? -- the resignation Friday of its chief executive Garry Cook, who allegedly sent an email seeming to ridicule a player's mother who has cancer.

This may sound like wishful thinking, but the venerable English Premier League football club missed an ideal opportunity to make a point, an out-of-the-box creative statement going beyond the usual safe corporate response.

LOS ANGELES -- He did an admirable job of trying to camouflage his feelings, really. But what looked like the sharp-dressed man was actually one majorly irritated power forward, desperately hoping his knee would catch up with a healthy body.

LOS ANGELES -- It was just a matter of time before the conversation wound around to Winston Churchill.

Two questions, really.

PHILADELPHIA -- If you wanted to see what $82 million sitting on the bench looks like, well, it was in full view at Wachovia Center on Saturday night.