Labor Day weekend in Atlanta – once again, too many things going on to enjoy them all! Definitely not the worst problem to have. We’ve got the Georgia Tech season opener, Dragon*Con all weekend (with the parade just before kickoff, I might add), Decatur Book Festival, Trailer Vic’s Beach Party at the EARL, and LSU and UNC at the Dome. Ah, one of the ubiquitous restaurant weeks is starting, too!

I plan to check out the Dragon Con parade, the GT game, and hopefully a bit of the book festival. All on bikes (parking downtown and in midtown, I assume, will be pretty miserable with two football games going on), and some neighborhood park-grilling may be in my near future, too. What am I missing? What will you guys be up to?

So this morning the USA beat Algeria, BARELY, to secure our progression in the World Cup in South Africa. This has sparked a good bit of discussion in my office, not to mention an overloaded network from people streaming the game and yet another short-term twitter fail whale.

I would be making an even more horrific face than the ones on the Algerian team here. Photo from AJC.

I thought this was a good reason to tell you three about the work going on to bring the World Cup to the US. Details are at gousabid.com, but the short version of it is that we MAY see a world cup game in Atlanta in 2018 or 2022 (I know, I know, it’s Beltline years away). That’s why we hosted a game of the World Football Challenge last summer, AC Milan versus Club America, to prove that we have the ability to host a large-scale soccer game (I think this was a test more of our ability to bring in fans than logistics like parking and facilities. Which we passed, apparently).

So the gousabid people have a petition that damn near 600,000 people have already signed to bring the games here.  (When the world cup goes to a country, the games are spread out all over the place, so it’s a big deal if your city is picked to be a host, but we’ve got to get them to the US first). You enter your zip code upon signing, and apparently Atlanta is up there in the top five for signees out of 18 cities, which is pretty major.

So let’s practice a little bit of long-term planning, dear metblogs reader(s), and support Atlanta’s bid for some World Cup action. Check details and sign here.

just in case you didn’t know, the uefa champions league final will be taking place in moscow this evening. this is, without a doubt, the biggest non-world cup soccer event, and for the first time ever will feature two english teams, manchester united and chelsea, in the final.

atlanta has one of the best soccer bars in the country – i am not making that up, because it was nominated by the us soccer federation for that honor – the brewhouse cafe on moreland in the heart of little 5.

the atmosphere there this afternoon for the match will be absolutely electric. if you like the beautiful game and can ditch work come join us. coverage starts at 2:00.

glory, glory man united!