It Is A Great Pleasure Senor, To Meet Your News

-A true stunner: Bob Bradley to coach Chivas USA!!!!!!!!!!!! Both Ives Galarcep at the North Jersey Herald & Michael Lewis at Big Apple Soccer scooped the world (hahahahahaha). I don't know which one of them had it first, so I give them both credit. Did you see this coaching move coming?
-Juventus of Turin meet Chelsea of London. Chelsea meet Juventus. Juve meet Chelski. Old Lady meet the Pensioners. At the top of European football this season I think they are interchangeable as the best team. Far and away the two best. But coming up fast is now Barcelona. Barca did a demolition job at Real Madrid Saturday that was not only stunning, but clearly showed how the ugly skinny kid from the Jar Jar Binks mold of ugly and skinny has become Ronaldinho, the best of the best players in the world today. Even the nasty Real fans gave the man a standing ovation as he left the pitch on Saturday. 3-0 to Barca was the final, but it wasn't that close. You can say that Barca are thin in the back, but when a team as talented as Real can't get the ball and play their own style (even at home), then what difference does it make. The Barca goals were all spectacular barrages of passes and foot skills and blazing speed. Just gorgeous football, the kind I love to watch.
-Read what Phil Ball had to say on the Real v Barca match for Soccernet: Only a game?
-Rob Hughes chimes in too: Awe overpowered the loyalty, and all else, via the International Herald Tribune.
-I would like to say hello to our visitors reading from the Kentucky K-12 School system.
-Demko tipped me off to the fact that DaMarcus Beasley is indeed hurt, with a bad hamstring, and did not play this past weekend (PSV drew 4-4 with Waalwijk) and will likely miss next weekend, and this weeks Champions League match v Schalke. By the way, Feyenoord won 3-2 at Roda and are now just 1 point back of PSV at the top.
-Reading have now gone 21 games without a loss in the English Coca-Cola Championship League. They beat Hull 3-1 on Saturday with Bobby Convey scoring the first goal & assisting on the third, and Marcus Hahnemann doing his usual thing in the nets. Reading still sit one point behind first place Sheffield United with 44 points, and 9 points ahead of third place Watford who have 35. Their overall record is 13 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss.
-Andrea Canales writes of Pando's Sweet Redemption Song for Soccernet.
-And Ives Galarcep asks & answers his own questions concerning MLS for Soccernet.
-Scores & blabs from the big Euro matches this weekend:
Roma 1-4 Juve - an all around ass kicking by the best team in the world
Real Madrid 0-3 Barca - see above ramble about Barca (Raul suffered a partially torn knee ligament for Real)
Fiorentina 3-1 Milan - Fiora continues their unforeseen climb in Italy. Amazing stuff really. They are now tied with Milan in 2nd, five points behind Juve. Luca Toni scored his 14th & 15th goals in just 12 games.
Celtic v Rangers - Celtic hammer their greatest foe 3-0 at Celtic Park, and leaped over Hearts (who drew 1-1 with Aberdeen) into first place in Scotland. Rangers are now in 4th place and 15 points behind the leader.
-Scores from Primera Div Round 16 in Mexico:
Cruz Azul 1-2 Monterrey
Guadalajara 1-0 UAdG
Sinaloa 2-1 Chiapas
UANL 3-1 UNAM Pumas
Veracruz 1-3 Pachuca
Necaxa 3-5 Atlas
San Luis 2-1 Morelia
America 4-3 Atlante
Santos 4-1 Toluca
-NCAA Tournament 1st Round scores (winners advance to play 16 seeded teams on the road Tuesday):
Nov 18 & 19
St Johns 3-1 Marist
Yale 1-2 Stony Brook
SMU 2-1 San Francisco
South Florida 3-0 Stetson
Hofstra 0-1 Providence
Notre Dame 2-0 Western Illinois
Clemson 2-0 Coastal Carolina
Creighton 3-0 Lafayette
Santa Clara 1-0 Ohio State
Wake Forest 2-0 South Carolina
Bradley 0-2 UW Milwaukee
Brown 2-1 Rhode Island
UNC Greensboro 3-2 James Madison
West Virginia 1-0 Robert Morris
Seton Hall 2-1 Hartwick
UC Santa Barbara 2-0 San Diego State
-DC United midfielder Christian Gomez had hernia surgery.
-Americanos in Europa: Kasey Keller & Gladbach drew 1-1 with Leverkusen. Steve Cherundolo captained Hannover to a 2-2 draw with Stuttgart. Brad Friedel's 6th clean sheet this season holds Man City to a 0-0 draw. Reyna didn't play cuz he's till injured for MCFC. Fulham & Brian McBride lost 3-2 top Middlesborough. Bocanegra didn't play due to injury. Eddie Lewis and Leeds won 4-3 at Southampton.
-Another memory from my trip to the MLS Cup final in Dallas: Shortly after arriving at DFW International Airport, we made our way to the Avis Car rental counter. As I stood in line to claim my mini-van, who should saunter up next to me but the one and only Paul Caliguri! Our hero! Mr. The Shot Heard Round The World! Senor Trinidad 0 - USA 1 in 1989! The man who brought us back to the World Cup after 40 years away with his goal in Port of Spain, and kick started the rebirth of American Soccer. Here I was, and here he was. So I had to say hi and all that stuff. We chatted a bit about the upcoming game. We both wanted LA to win. Of course he played for them. I did not. Then there was an open rental agent window and I was gone. Later that night a bunch of us hit Joe T Garcia's in Fort Worth to eat vast quantities of food. On our drive back to the hotel we saw a man and his car stopped on the side of the freeway. We slowed down to see if we could help. The man was shirtless, and oddly familiar. As we got close we realized it was again Paul Caliguri. Only this time he appeared to be scouring the side of the road for cigarette butts (he had several in one hand). He started to look right at us, and we got scared of what to say to him. So I hit the gas and we kicked gravel at him as we sped away. To this day I don't know what that was all about. Was he looking for something to smoke and too broke or embarrassed to go to a 7-11? Or is he one of those Adopt-A-Mile freaks, and this was his mile? Either way, it was nuts, and we were weirded out. Good luck with your mission Paul, whatever it might be.
-Figo scored his first goal for Inter as they beat Parma 2-0.
-To shore up some of their team holes Salt Lake has acquired keeper Scott Garlick and midfielder Carey Talley from Dallas.
-Rob Hughes also wrote about Roy Keane last Friday which I forgot to mention here: In a flash, Keane is gone
-LA coach Steve Sampson attempts an exorcism according to Jonesy at the LA Times. (I still hate Sampson.)
-The identity of the potential new owners of the Kansas City Wizards has finally been revealed. (Did they come out from behind the curtain?)
-I asked around on Big Soccer for an explanation of how the Mexican playoffs & relegation work. A poster named El Kapitan gave me a great answer, and for that I am grateful. (I know you will be shocked to find out that several other posters gave me condescending answers that were useless.) Here is the full deal:
It's quite simple, there's three groups of six teams each, at the end of the tournament the first team and second team with most points of each group qualify to the playoffs.
That gives you six qualified teams to the playoffs, now since the playoffs are made by 8 teams, you still need two more clubs to join, so from the 3 third places the top two third places in points advance to the playoffs.
Now in the playoffs (AKA: Liguilla) qualified teams are ordered from 1, for the team with most points, to 8 for the team with least points.
Team 1 plays 8, 2 v. 7, and so on.
Teams play two games with reciprocal visit, the second game would be always in the house of the team with most points, after the two matches the team with most goals advance to the next round, if teams are tied in goals after the two matches the team with most points in the regular season advances to the next round. That's the system used all the way to the finals, also played in two matches with the same system with the exception that in the final there must be a clear winner, and the second game can go all the way to PK's to decide the champion.
Now as for relegation and promotion, this tournament there's not either relegation or promotion, that happens only after a Tournament of Clausura (played in the spring-summer period).
After a whole year long season, one team gets promoted from Primera A (second division), and one gets relegated to Primera A. Relegation considers each team performance for the past tournaments, the team with the least percentage in the points per game played table gets relegated. Promotion is awarded to the winner of a two game playoff series between the Primera A champion of Apertura (fall-winter tournament) and the Primera A champion of Clausura (spring-summer tournament). If the same team wins both the Apertura and Clausura tournaments gets automatically promoted.