Grad School Or Law School News

-The Mexican Apertura Campeon 2005 was named last night. And shockingly it was Toluca. After a 3-3 draw in the first leg on Thursday, Monterrey seemed to have the upper hand with the second leg being at home. Only 14 minutes in, Monterrey lost a player to a straight red card. Half time saw 0-0. But Toluca scored early in the 2nd half to crank up the pressure. Monterrey clawed for another 30 minutes, but lost a 2nd player to 2 yellows in the 82nd minute. Toluca cruised at that point and put two away in stoppage time for the huge victory. To me it seemed a bit like Monterrey thought the title was theirs. Several players showed up with dyed blond hair, and even the stupid coach had blue streaks on one side of his head and orange on the other. Fools. Hooray Beer for Toluca.
-Big Euro matches this weekend:
Lazio 1-1 Juventus - The Old Lady could not get past the Hitler Youth, and with Inter winning 4-0 over Reginna, the lead dropped to 8 points for Juve. Are Juve still the best team in the World? Or is it Barca?
Werder Bremen 1-1 Hamburg - meaning the #2 & #3 teams fell another 2 points behind #1 Bayern who beat Dortmund 1-2.
Arsenal 0-2 Chelsea - Chelsea goes to Highbury and wins fairly easily. Their defense is amazing.
Real Madrid 1-1 Osasuna - Going to Madrid and drawing was a great boost for Osasuna who stay at #2 and gain some more confidence.
Rangers 1-0 Hearts - The Protestants are not done yet, but hardly have a real chance of catching Celtic.
-Let's see how the top Americans did in Europe this weekend:
McBride & Bocanegra at Fulham: Beat Blackburn 2-1 with McBride going all the way, but Boca out injured - don't know anything more about that, but I will find out.
Friedel at Blackburn: Lost to McBride and Fulham 1-2.
Keller at Monchengladbach: Beat Eintracht 4-3. I hope they sign some defenders in the January window cuz Keller is getting pummeled.
Reyna at Man City: Stomped a mud hole in Birmingham 4-0, with Reyna playing his usual steady positive role.
Convey & Hahnemann at Reading: Won 0-2 at Millwall to extend their Championship Division lead to 6 points. Both guys played the match start to finish.
Lewis at Leeds: Lost 0-1 to Wolverhampton. Eddie played the whole match as usual.
Beasley at PSV: Run DMB returned in the 76th minute after his hamstring injury. PSV won 4-1.
Onyewu at Standard: Won 0-2 at Lierse. Lead the Belgian league at the mid-season break.
Cherundolo at Hannover: His team played to 0-0 draw with Leverkusen, but Stevie did not play due to a calf injury suffered last week.
Berhalter at Cottbus: Beat 1860 3-2, but he did not play due to personal reasons for which he flew back to the USA to attend to.
Spector: Came on in the 69th minute of a 0-3 Charlton loss to Wigan.
Others: Gibbs, Casey and O'Brien still out long term with injuries.
-I am not going to print the score of the Copa Sudamericana second leg Final between Boca Juniors & UNAM Pumas from yesterday cuz you can see it a day late on Fox Soccer Channel - Mon Dec 19 7PM Central. More tomorrow.
-The Club World Championship was settled on Sunday with Sao Paulo doing exactly what they said they would and beat Liverpool 1-0. Liverpool dominated every aspect of the game except "ball in net". Nothing else matters. Check this out - Cornerkicks: Liverpool 17, Sao Paulo 0! Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune covers the match.
-Houston is going to start their life playing games are Robertson Stadium.
-Houston has named Oliver Luck as the president of the team. He has been one of the driving forces from Houston in attracting the team.
-Andrea Canales at Soccernet says that many San Jose players are none to pleased with the move to Houston.
-Lewis Wolff and his billionaire buddies who bought the Oakland A's baseball team back in April as said to be interested in a Bay Area MLS team. Stay tuned.
-Somehow AEG keeps sticking its leg further and further into its own mouth concerning San Jose.
-According to Not-Doug Logan there is already a name and logo ready to go for the New Houston team: "While there is going to be voting for the name, MLS/AEG has the artwork and logo all ready to go..."
-Meanwhile in Kansas City, the big push has to be on building a stadium. Pronto!
-Phil Ball examines La Liga at the winter break: Winter kings and jesters
-Simon Kuper writes about 3 German players who are going to come out of the closet: Gay players set to break team taboo
-Got an email from an MLS insider regarding Doug Hamilton. The person asked that I not use their name, so I guess I can honor that: I was at the L.A. Galaxy victory party at MLS Cup weekend and when they were handing out the medals to the Galaxy players, Tim Leiweke announced that Doug Hamilton had been promoted to CEO of AEG Soccer. It's my understanding that he will still remain as President and G.M. of Los Angeles and his new duties will include the oversight of all of the AEG teams.
-Youri Djorkaeff has signed another 1 year deal to play for Metrostars again next season. I think that's great.
-A feature on Liverpool's American defender Zak Whitbread (currently on load to Millwall) from Yanks Abroad.
-US Nation Soccer Players Assoc website has a Q & A with Pat Noonan of New England.
-And a short Q & A with LA's Todd Dunivent from the same site.
-On Friday we had our first visitor to the site from the nation of Brunei. Welcome.
-A note from BQ: I know I don't have to convince you but there seems to be a lot of numpty's out there who think we are going to sweep right by Ghana. I saw this article in Soccernet and thought I would pass it on. I have listed here some of the club teams represented by Ghana players. It's actually quite impressive and probably more impressive than the teams that the U.S. players represent. I am not saying we cannot beat them because if we play our game we probably should beat them. But these are very good players and a pretty good team.
Borussia Dortmund, Germany
Modena, Italy
Udinese, Italy
Chelsea, England
Red Star Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro
Fenerbache, Turkey
Cremonese, Italy
Roma, Italy