Yeti News

-NEWS FLASH: Kasey Keller has been named USA Player Of The Year. The keeper for Borussia Monchengladbach of the German Bundesliga also won the award in 1999. He is a worthy recipient, but I personally would have picked DaMarcus Beasley. Landon Donovan was the third finalist.
-So much for not losing in 23 straight. Arsenal 3-0 Reading, in the Carling Cup. It's what Reading can look forward to in buckets full next year if they get promoted. The other scores from Tuesday:
Doncaster 3-0 Aston Villa - hahahahahahahahaha, hahahahahahahahaha, um, hahahahahahaha, now that's funny
Millwall 2-2 Birmingham - B'ham win 4-3 on pk's
And Wednesday's matches are:
Bolton v Leicester
Charlton v Blackburn
Man United v West Brom
Middlesbrough v Crystal Palace
Wigan v Newcastle
-Mexican Laguilla (playoffs) kicks off tonite:
UAG v Monterray wed-sat (5pm gala live)
Pachuca v Necaxa
-Italy's league tournament the Tim Cup moves into the second round today with first leg matches (second legs will be played Dec 8). Here are today's matches:
Milan v Brescia
Atalanta v Udinese
Parma v Inter
Fiorentina v Juventus
Bari v Palermo
Lazio v Cittadella
Cagliari v Sampdoria
Napoli v Roma
-Colorado sent unhappy defender Ritchie Kotschau to Columbus in exchange for forward Cornell Glenn. This is Glenn's 4th team in 2 seasons.
-Luis Bueno gets the skinny on coach Bruce Arena's World Cup plans for Team USA.
-Some dopey kid tries to make his high school soccer team with help from the Metrostars, tonight on MTV's Made. He obviously didn't know that the Mets can't do anything right. Poor sap.
-After all this time, The San Jose Mercury News has finally gotten on it's frickin horse to help drive the "Save Our Team" bandwagon. There is an editorial begging the city to do something positive for the team in today's edition, a 2nd editorial has the author "head scratching" over the whole ordeal, and a 3rd article says there is a "super secret" plan afoot.
-The grass is being laid this week in Chicago's new Bridgeview Stadium. The team expects to play their first match in the new place in early June, but no date has been set. This re-confirms the idea that the team will play many games on the road to start the season.
-If you haven't already heard about this kid, I will tell you know: There is a talented soccer playing American kid from Jersey, named Giuseppe Rossi, whose parents are both Italian, hence he holds an Itey passport as well as Americano one. He now plays striker for Manchester United's reserve team, and recently scored in his debut with the senior team. He really wants to play for Italy, but may consider playing for the USA (longshot, I say). Many stories have been written on him over the past couple of years. Here is the latest, written by one of my faves, Andrea Canales via Soccernet.
-Despite Amado Guevara's constant talk of leaving Metrostars & MLS, he has applied for his green card, so he can keep playing with the team and not count as a foreign player. I guess his complaining is his way of negotiating for a better contract, but I think that for a guy who is 30 and underachieves with the best of em, he should be happy to get paid as much as he does, which is about $250,000 a year.
-ADDITION: According to the Denver Post: Jeff Cunningham (is) auditioning for teams in France

You Two Look Fabulous In That News

-Beyond the Jan 29 match v Norway at Home Depot Center, the USA will shortly announced two more matches:
Jan 22 v Canada (game site not yet confirmed, but West Coast is most likely)
Feb 10 v Japan in San Fran
-Andrea Canales gives us readers her perspective on the season that Steve Sampson just coached his way through for Los Angeles.
-I mentioned last week that 4 World Cup coaches are Dutch. Well check this one out: 3 World Cup coaches live in the USA - of course Herr Bruce, and then Jurgen Klinsmann of Germany, but did you know about Stephen Keshi who leads Togo (he is Nigerian).
-There a million stories floating around on the web about George Best. I have been asking myself, "How do I figure out which one's to read?" The answer I have found is at the Belfast Telegraph. Why not. It's his home town. Give them some love. RIP Georgie.
-It looks more and more like Sheffield United coach Neil Warnock is going to become the new head dude at Portsmouth. Does this give the current edge to Reading for first place in the England's Championship Division? Bobby Convey & Marcus Hahnemann's Reading are still on their dream run of 23 without a loss, and have a 4 point lead at the top. Hooray Beer!
-And it's time for another round of England's Carling Cup today and tomorrow. Here's the matches:
Tuesday
Arsenal v Reading
Doncaster v Aston Villa
Millwall v Birmingham
Wednesday
Bolton v Leicester
Charlton v Blackburn
Man Utd v West Brom
Middlesbrough v Crystal Palace
Wigan v Newcastle
-No surprise at all: Ballon D’or 2005 to Ronaldinho as Europe's best player.
-Watch the World Cup draw live on ESPN2, Fri Dec 9 at 2pm central time!!!
-And don't forget that the USA Player Of The Year will be given out tomorrow.
-The scramble continues for the teams in KC and San Jose. Today it's San Jose's turn, trying to find a place to build a stadium and keep their team from leaving town. But KC will not be left off the daily pages either.
-Luis Bueno previews the Mexican playoffs for Sports Illustrated.
-And while we discuss Mexico - maybe someone can explain to me how UANL Tigres got into the playoffs with 22 points, while Chiapas with 23 did not. What is going on??? Actually Soccer America (bless 'em) has the answer, and it is massively retarded: CHIAPAS JAGUARES missed out on the playoffs because of a three-point penalty for failing to adhere to a Mexican rule that requires teams to play at least 765 minutes with one player under the age of 20 years and 11 months. Get the hell outta here. Is the whole league run this idiotically? No wonder Hugo Sanchez is so pissed off all the time. They make MLS seem normal and kinda quaint.
-The Mothership down in Guadalajara chitty-canned their coach as well now. Chivas of Mexico fired coach Xavier Azkargorta after a horrible season. XA himself only took over the team midseason from Benjamin Galindo who also got the boot. They managed only 19 points from 17 games and finished 14th out of 18 teams. (You like all those numbers?) In reality I think if Guada had won their last game they may have made the playoffs, but instead they got wiped out 3-0 by Toluca
-Will Amado Guevara stay with Metrostars or demand to be sold? This is a mystery to nearly all. Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald tries to find out.
-Costa Rican teams Perez Zeledon meets Saprissa at home tonite to determine who will play LA in the Champions Cup next spring. Saprissa holds a 2-0 aggregate lead going in. The Galaxy will then face the winner on Wed Feb 22 at the Home Depot Center, with the return leg on March 8 in CR.
-The other USA team in the Champions Cup - New England - heads to CR for the first leg, at Alajuelense, on the same Feb 22 date, with the return leg is in Boston, also on Mar 8.
-Two more from Rob Hughes at the Int Herald Trib, with one story beautiful and the other ugly (natch): The joy is Ronaldinho's, but the pleasure is all ours - & - Fans' racism returns to taint games in Italy and Spain
-Houston Chronicle's Week In Review
-The Insider goes mad with a visit to Birmingham for Aston Villa v Man United, and, The Arse v Blackburn.

Flyers & Brochures & News

-Adios Mr. Best. Rest In Peace my man.
-Carlos Bocanegra was again healthy and ready to go for Fulham. He played the whole game, but his American teammate Brian McBride stole the show, scoring both goals in a 2-1 win over Bolton. Huge day for McB!
-Phil Ball writes about what makes Spain so lovely: Beautiful anarchy
-US Soccer Players Assoc site oddly has a feature story on Canadian Dwayne DeRosario.
-The Copa Sudamericana 1st Leg Semi Finals were last week, with Universidad Catolica pulling off the 2-2 draw with Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile across town, Velez were held 0-0 by Pumas. The return legs are Thur in Santiago, and Wed in Mexico City.
-Simon Kuper sheds a literary tear for Italy: Italians flee from theatres of nightmares
-As Chivas USA kicked off their first season last April they ran ad's and hung banners that read ADIOS SOCCER HOLA FUTBOL. How did that work out for them? Maybe they insulted the soccer gods. But by making Bob Bradley the man at the helm (technically the 4th coach already - Rongen - Ledesma - Westerhof - Bradley), there is a suggestion that Chivas has already reneged on that promise, and rejected Futbol in favor of Soccer. LA Jonesy investigates.
-In La Liga, Barca are at the top after trouncing Racing Santander 4-1, while Osasuna stayed right with them, beating Alaves 3-2. Read Madrid fell to 6th place (!!!!!!!) after a 2-2 draw at Real Sociedad. Real trailed most of the game, and got 2 at the very end to save a little face.
-Hannover has a new coach and Steve Cherundolo is his man at right back. Hannover beat the brutal Kaiserslautern 5-1. That's embarrassing. But great for Stevie!
-The NCAA Tournament - 3rd Round scores from Sat & Sun (winners advance & losers sent packing):
Maryland 3-1 St Johns
U Conn 3-3 Akron - Akron wins 3-4 on penalty kicks
SMU 3-1 North Carolina-Greensboro
Virginia 1-2 North Carolina
Notre Dame 0-1 Clemson
California 3-2 Wake Forest
Cal St Northridge 0-1 New Mexico
Penn State 1-3 Creighton
Round 4 is this weekend:
Maryland v Akron on Sat Dec 3
North Carolina v SMU on Sat Dec 3
Clemson v Creighton on Fri Dec 2
New Mexico v California on Fri Dec 2
-Nice feature story on those bitchin Zips of Akron from Soccernet's Mike Hanzel.
-Jonathan Spector was not allowed to play for Charlton last week against the team that owns his contract, Manchester United, and this week he was on the bench but did not play as his loaner team lost 1-0 to Villa. They should have played him. He would have kept that score line empty all by himself!!! (hahahahahaha)
-Marcus Hahnemann with yet another clean sheet and 23 games without a loss for Reading in a 0-2 win over Plymouth Argyle. Of course Bobby Convey got another assist.
-In Holland's Eredivisie, PSV, without our hero DaMarcus Beasley, whipped Den Haag 3-0, to stay one point ahead of Feyenoord at the top, after Feye destroyed Heracles Almelo 7-1.
-Soccernet has features on Bob Bradley (by Ives Galarcep) & the San Jose debacle.
-Video game website IGN.com has an interview with our LanDo. It starts out with questions about video games, and then moves into more personal soccer stuff. Nothing earth shattering, but still interesting to see him turning up in places other than soccer websites.
-Mexican Primera Division
This is the 17th and final round of the Apertura, all games will be played on Saturday and will kickoff at the same time - the Playoffs begin shortly.:
Atlante 2-0 UANL
Atlas 1-0 San Luis
Chiapas 5-1 Santos
Monterrey 4-1 America
Morelia 2-1 Veracruz
Pachuca 0-0 Cruz Azul
Toluca 3-0 Guadalajara
UAdG 3-2 Necaxa
UNAM 2-0 Dorados
Laguilla (Playoffs) will look like this (first team listed gets 2nd game of home and away at home):
1 Club America v 8 UANL Tigres
2 Monterrey v 7 UAG Tecos
3 Necaxa v 6 Pachuca
4 Cruz Azul v 5 Toluca
-Kasey Keller and his Monchengladbach team were totally dominated by Hertha Berlin, yet somehow got a 2-0 lead, they wilted into a 2-2 draw. Not bad for being outgunned on the road. But it's pretty bad to give up the lead like that.
-Liverpool sent our boy Zak Whitbread to Millwall on loan for the rest of the season. Good for Zak, he needs action, which he got immediately by playing on Saturday. He went the full match, but lost 0-1 to Leeds and fellow American Eddie Lewis who had another great game. Whitbread hilariously got his first Millwall yellow card for hacking down Lewis!
-Everton-Wigan Watch: A few weeks back I predicted that Everton would finish above Wigan in the final Premiership season tally. At that time, Wigan was in 2nd place and Everton was in 19th place. As of today - Mon Nov 28 - Wigan is down to 4th, and Everton is up to 16th.
-Chelsea of course is still dominating in England with 37 points after 14 games. Man U is 2nd, 10 points back, followed by The Arse 1 more point back, Wigan 2 more points back, and Tottenham in 5th place, 3 more points back.
-In Serie A, Juve kept the lead at 5 points by winning 3-1 over Terrible Treviso. Milan beat Lecce 2-1. Fiorentino had its assent to the top slowed in a 1-1 draw with Roma (of course Luca Toni scored). And Inter won 1-2 at Messina to stay in 4th place.
-More news on potentiality in KC. Story one & story two.
-Buzz Carrick of the excellent FC Dallas fan site, 3rd Degree, discusses the good and the bad of their new home, Pizza Hut Park.
-Last weeks UEFA Cup Matchday 3 (of 5) scores:
Lokomotiv Moskva 4-2 Brondby
Viking 2-2 Slavia
Monaco 2-0 Hamburg
Espanyol 1-1 Palermo
Hertha 0-0 Lens
Halmstad 1-3 Sampdoria
Alkmaar 0-0 Middlesborogh
Dnipro 0-2 Litex
Tromso 3-1 Crvena Zvezda
Roma 1-1 Strasbourg
CSKA Moskva 2-1 Levski
Marseille 1-0 Heerenveen
PAOK 1-2 Stuttgart
Shakhtar 0-1 Rapid
Guimaraes 1-1 Bolton
Zenit 2-1 Sevilla
See Group stadings here.

Forgot To Mention

Hey Dudes
I forgot to mention that I was taking a couple days off to eat too much and watch movies. So far I have seen the first three episodes of season one of The Wire, Kill Bill Vol 1, Kill Bill Vol 2, The Pianist, several episodes of season 5 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, all the episodes of Extras, and Batman Begins. Episodes 4-6 of The Wire are next.
Yeah, I think it's safe to say that things are going ok.
See ya soon,
Yer pal,
Bruce

Stuffed Like Dumb Bird News

-(Stolen from Jamesey) In Turkey, Galatasary fans arrive at games in Fenerbache by boat! Holy Shit! They look completely insane! I love them all. Can I get a boat to take to games??!!??
-Ken drops by with an update from Wednesdays make up games from the NCAA tourney: Akron crushed West Virginia 5-0 today. From what I've read the first goal was a bicycle kick. Total domination by the Zips in terms of shots and possession (and obviously the scoreline).
UCONN beat Stoney Brook 2-0. Both goals came in the 2nd half.
The Zips travel to UCONN this weekend for the next round thanks to UCONN (15-3-1) being seeded #8 and the Zips (17-1-2) being seeded #9. Basically the Zips got screwed. But they've beaten some big names on the road this year so I'm confident they will prevail!!
Go Zips!!!
-More from the NCAA - 3rd Round games on the schedule (winners advance, losers go home):
Maryland v St Johns
U Conn v Akron
SMU v North Carolina-Greensboro
Virginia v North Carolina
Notre Dame v Clemson
California v Wake Forest
Cal St Northridge v New Mexico
Penn State v Creighton
-Mexican Primera Division
This is the 17th and final round of the Apertura, all games will be played on Saturday and will kickoff at the same time - the Playoffs begin shortly.:
Atlante v UANL
Atlas v San Luis
Chiapas v Santos
Monterrey v America
Morelia v Veracruz
Pachuca v Cruz Azul
Toluca v Guadalajara
UAdG v Necaxa
UNAM v Dorados
-UEFA Champions League scores from Wed:
Schalke 3-0 PSV
Fenerbahce 0-4 Milan
Rosenborg 1-1 Olympiacos
Real Madrid 1-1 Lyon
Liverpool 0-0 Betis
Anderlecht 0-2 Chelsea
Inter 4-0 Artmedia
Porto 1-1 Rangers
If you had Andriy Shevchenko, Levan Koiashvili, & Adriano all on your Fantasty team you would have scored about Elenty Million Points last night. This three were out of their minds scoring goals. Kobaishvili of Schalke has 2 PK's and a 3rd strike against PSV who were blown out of a game (any game) for the first time in 2 years. Or Adriano getting his act together to bag 3 for Inter v Artmedia. But the real king of the nightime world was Scheva of Milan with 4! Four! Vier! Quatre! v Fenerbache. What class!!!!!
And here's a list of the 10 teams that, so far, have made it through to the knock out stage. There is only one Matchday left for 6 others to make the list of 16 or go home crying - or head over to the highly inferior UEFA Cup competition were you might get to tangle with the Mighty Fighting Cheez Gnyps of Crvena Zvezda or the Everlasting Blisters of Litex. Here ya go big boy:
-Bayern Munchen
-Juventus
-Arsenal
-Ajax
-Barcelona
-Lyon
-Real Madrid
-Liverpool
-Inter
-Chelsea
11 -?
12 -?
13 -?
14 -?
15 -?
16 -?
-Here are the brand new FIFA Rankings & World Cup Seedings - this is the last FIFA ranking before the World Cup draw on Dec 9. Will these rankings play any part in the Seeding of the Top 8 teams?
The current top 20:
01 Brazil
02 Czech Republic
03 Netherlands
04 Argentina
05 France
06 Spain
07 Mexico
08 USA
09 England
10 Portugal
*11 Turkey
12 Italy
*13 Denmark
14 Sweden
15 Japan
16 Germany
*17 Greece
*18 Uruguay
19 Iran
20 Croatia
(* did not qualify for the World Cup field)
Others in the World Cup (by ranking):
21 Costa Rica
23 Poland
28 Tunisia
29 South Korea
30 Paraguay
32 Saudi Arabia
36 Switzerland
37 Ecuador
40 Ukraine
41 Cote d'Ivoire
47 Serbia & Montenegro
49 Australia
50 Ghana
51 Trinidad & Tobago
56 Togo
62 Angola
-I have been asked to participate in: Our Own World Player Of The Year Poll, by It's Up for Grabs Now. I will be voting soon, in the mean time you all should give this great site a read. It's been going since late summer 02!
--All these dogs will be slugging it out on Thurs in Matchday 3 games in the UEFA Cup. (Go Zenit!):
Viking v Slavia
Monaco v Hamburg
Espanyol v Palermo
Hertha v Lens
Halmstad v Sampdoria
AZ Alkmaar v Middlesbrough
Dnipro v Litex
Tromso v Crvena Zvezda
Roma v Strasbourg
CSKA Moskva v Levski
Marseille v Heerenveen
PAOK v Stuttgart
Shakhtar v Rapid
Guimaraes v Bolton
Zenit v Sevilla
and in special Wednesday action, it was Lokomotiv Moskva 4-2 Brondby
-MLS players give thanks on Thanksgiving Day. (Todd Dunivant is a genius for being thankful for Netflix! Me too!)

Sweetly Sublime & Stinky News

-There is a seating & price chart available for Chicago's brand new Bridgeview Stadium. It looks so damn great! I can't wait to attend my first match there. My dream is to secure tix for the opening match. One thing I really love about this chart is the view of the "Party Deck"! Woooooohooooo!
-And this page has loads of up to date photos of the actual construction going on at Bridgeview. I am excited.
-If you are a fan of the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano (he wrote the incredible - Soccer In Sun and Shadow) then you should pick up the December 2005 issue of Ode magazine. He has an article titled: Soccer Is Everything. Ode is a fairly new magazine started by one of the original founders of the Utne Reader. You can also read it on line here.
-Check out Part 2 of a really great interview with Jonathan Spector at Yanks Abroad. A link to part 1 is there if you missed it.
-Rob Hughes of The International Herald Tribune: Asia Punishes Its Best Players
-Taylor Graham of the USL First Division Champs Seattle Face-Kickers has signed with Metrostars. Graham had been on loan to the Face-Kickers from Kansas City.
-Houston Chronicle's Week In Review
-Also in the Houston Chronicle - reporter Bernardo Fallas interviews MLS commissioner Don Garber about MLS & Houston.
-One of the people believed to have started the fight between Turkey and Switzerland after the World Cup Qualifying Playoff game last week was Turkish Assistant Coach Mehmet Ozdilek. Yesterday Ozdilek resigned from the team. Nothing else has been said regarding the matter yet.
-The San Jose Earthquakes have named their Best 11 from their first decade as a team:
G
Joe Cannon
D
Jeff Agoos
Troy Dayak
John Doyle
Wade Barrett
M
Richard Mulrooney
Ronnie Ekelund
Brian Mullan
Eddie Lewis
F
Landon Donovan
Ronald Cerritos
-Champions League Matchday 5 games on tap:
Tuesday's scores:
Juventus 1-0 Brugge
Bayern 4-0 Rapid
Thun 0-1 Arsenal
Ajax 2-1 Sparta
Barca 3-1 Bremen
Panathinaikos 1-2 Udinese
Lille 0-0 Benfica
Man U 0-0 Villarreal
Analysis: Both Barca & Arsenal who were already thru to the knock out stages clinched the top spot in their group. Bayern, Juve & Ajax are also through to the final 16.
And these matches will be played today:
Schalke v PSV
Fenerbahce v Milan
Rosenborg v Olympiacos
Real Madrid v Lyon
Liverpool v Betis
Anderlecht v Chelsea
Inter v Artmedia
Porto v Rangers
-All the scores from the NCAA 2nd Round matches from last night:
Yesterday we had Indiana talking about winning a 3rd straight title, and now they are out! Another perennial contender, UCLA is also out. But the 2 favorites, Maryland & New Mexico roll on.
Maryland 1-0 Brown
Dartmouth 0-1 St Johns
Akron v West Virginia - postponed due to weather - will be played today at Noon local time
Connecticut v Stony Brook - postponed due to weather - will be played today at Noon local time
UCLA 0-3 SMU
Virginia Tech 0-0 UNC Greensboro - UNC-G wins 3-4 on PK's
Virginia 4-4 South Florida - Virginia wins 7-6 on PK's
North Carolina 2-0 Providence
Indiana 0-2 Notre Dame
NC State 0-3 Clemson
Penn State 1-0 Seton Hall
Duke 1-2 Creighton
California 0-0 Santa Clara - Cal wins 5-4 on PK's
Old Dominion 1-2 Wake Forest
Cal State Northridge 3-2 UC Santa Barbara
New Mexico 2-2 UW Milwaukee - - NM wins 5-4 on PK's
Third Round games will be played on Saturday & Sunday.
-Reading went to Ipswich and thrashed the home team 3-0! This win, coupled with a Sheff United draw (0-0 at Wolverhampton) sends them to the top spot in the Championship Division, one point ahead of SU. Once again Bobby Convey was in the middle of all the action. They are really playing great right now. Too bad 60% of the season lies ahead of them still. Marcus Hahnemann had one of the quietest matches of his career. Total domination.
-Eddie Lewis & Leeds also did some thrashing, but at home 2-0 against Burnley. Eddie drew a penalty for the first goal, and played his usual wicked game. They sit snuggly in 4th place, but are already 14 points behind Reading.
-Frank Dell'apa writes at Soccernet about the contract negotiations between US Soccer and the Players Association.
-I missed this one last week: DC United President Kevin Payne laid out his plan for a new stadium, and took questions following. Here is a transcript of the Q&A.
-The US National Team Players Association website has a post-season Q&A with keeper Tony "I Shave My Legs" Meola.
-Gregory Sica from Sports Illustrated has a preview of the Copa Sudamericana Semi-finals. Both First-Leg matches are being played tonite in Buenas Aires Argentina:
Boca Juniors v Universidad Catolica (return leg played Dec 1 in Santiago)
Velez Sarsfield v Pumas UNAM (return leg played Nov 30 in Mexico City)
-And lastly - Have you noticed the 180 degree turnaround by SportsIllustrated.com on Soccer from just 1 year ago. For many years they had a Soccer "section" on the site, but a year ago it vanished, only to turn up soon after stuffed in the "Other Sports" drawer with the other stray and holey socks. For many months there followed the insidious sound of the gnashing of soccer geek teeth all across the Republic of the 50 States. But about 2 months ago there was a miraculous rising from the dead of the entire Soccer section. Now, not only is it back, but its filled with all kinds of excellent writers covering stories (like the one I linked above) that no other US soccer source is covering. The story the other day on Carlos Tevez was fantastic and another prime example of the quality SI can deliver when they choose to care. The only bummer right now, is that their best American writer Grant Wahl is barely writing about soccer, and the few times he does, you can only read the stories if you are a subscriber to the magazine. That's a mistake, but for right now, its their only mistake.
-EMERGENCY ADDITION: Word has come down that Roy Keane does not like this weblog! As my mother would say: "Bless his little heart."

Live Champions League Audio This Week

Don't forget - you can listen (in English) to all 16 Champions League matches being played today (8) and tomorrow (8) for free via UEFA. com. Take advantage of this one time only deal. You will love hearing the action from all over Europe. I know I will. (When you click on the link it will open a new page, then scroll down and look for match audio links on the left side.)

Why Can't We Always Have This Much Fun With News

-So yesterday I wrote what turned out to be some fairly bogus stuff concerning the future of the San Jose Earthquakes in San Jose (thanks to Ethan_Prime for setting me straight). But since this story is so immediate it was not tough to get plenty of fresh info for y'all to read. Here we go with articles from the San Jose Mercury News laying out many little clues as to what is possible in SJ. Soccer America also has more info on the real reasons that Barca, Ajax & Club America have an interest in the United States. It's not as we thought. And some more tidbits from the Merc News Blog.
-Soccer America also has a feature story on Bobby Convey.
-If you didn't really get to it yesterday you should definitely check out the LA times story on Steve Sampson. He actually opens up a little bit about the France 98 debacle. The one thing that still bothers me though, is that he has never ever publicly taken any responsibility for how bad it went. He only talks about how much crap he gets everywhere he goes in America. But at least he admits that he hears it.
-Here is something I don't understand about Chivas hiring Bob Bradley: Didn't they just commit to Hans Westerhof? So what does he do now? I suppose he goes back to running Guadalajara in a GM type role.
-The draw was held yesterday for the 2006 CONCACAF Champions Cup. MLS has two teams among the 8. League runner-up New England will be paired with Alajuelense from Costa Rica, while League champs Los Angeles will be paired with the winner of Saprissa & Perez Zeledon, also both of Costa Rica. First leg matches are played in late February. Games will be shown on Fox Soccer Channel. Alajuelense won the Cup in 04, while Saprissa won it last year.
-FC Dallas' young shit hot midfielder Ramon Nunez is getting his first call up to the Honduran senior squad. They are playing in a tournament in Egypt in January. He has played for their youth national teams before.
-San Jose defender Danny Califf is trying out for Aalborg of Denmark. He is looking to transfer.
-Two awesome pictures of Rochesters new stadium PAETEK Park. One & Two.
-Madrid's big sports daily newspaper Marca are claiming that Michael Ballack has signed a deal with Real for next year, after his contract with Bayern Munchen runs out. Adios Man U.
-Alexander Hleb, who plays for Arsenal, has been named Belarus Player Of The Year. I know you were all dying to find out who won it.
-The USA Player of the Year award will be handed out a week from Wednesday in LA. LanDo, DMB, and Kasey No-Nickname Keller are the three finalists. I predict that Keller will win it. But I feel that Beasley deserves it most. On the other hand, all three had sensational years.
-The Guardian declare: Fiorentina join the party! By the way, KeeperKen suggests we all get used to calling the team FiorenToni, in honor of goal scoring supreme being Luca Toni, from now on.
-Ricardo Seyton at Sports Illustrated cringes when he writes that an Argentine has taken over Brazilian futbol. But he admits it's true for good reason. Tevez! Tevez! Tevez! Tevez! Yes, Carlito looks like Fred Flintstone, but he is magnificent.
-Champions League Matchday 5 games on tap:
Tuesday:
Juventus v Brugge
Bayern v Rapid
Thun v Arsenal
Ajax v Sparta
Barcelona v Bremen
Panathinaikos v Udinese
Lille v Benfica
Man U v Villarreal
Wednesday:
Schalke v PSV
Fenerbahce v Milan
Rosenborg v Olympiacos
Real Madrid v Lyon
Liverpool v Betis
Anderlecht v Chelsea
Inter v Artmedia
Porto v Rangers
-NCAA 2ND Round matches on tap for today:
Maryland v Brown
Dartmouth v St Johns
Akron v West Virginia
Connecticut v Stony Brook
UCLA v SMU
Virginia Tech v UNC Greensboro
Virginia v South Florida
North Carolina v Providence
Indiana v Notre Dame
NC State v Clemson
Penn State v Seton Hall
Duke v Creighton
California v Santa Clara
Old Dominion v Wake Forest
Cal State Northridge v UC Santa Barbara
New Mexico v UW Milwaukee

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.

My Head Is Spinning Cuz Of MSG, Or Is It News

-A little bit of a kinda sorta update on the sale of Kansas City by the Hunt family.
-No real surprise to most of us, but it's the end of the frickin world for many blind Manchester United fans: Roy Keane has quit the team. Shocker!! The dude quit on Ireland right before the last World Cup too. I guess the moral of the story is that when the chips are down, don't count on Roy to be there. And if for some reason he is still lingering around, he will find someone else to blame for all the bad shit going down. By the way, I know plenty of diehard Man U fans that think Ferguson should be gone too. And lastly I will say that Keane was a great player at one time, but that day is long past. Too bad his ego is so massive that he can't see that, and act with some humility behind the scenes instead of making a giant messy splash.
-Brazil's 1994 World Cup winning goal keeper has joined the staff of Miami FC as a talent consultant.
-The NCAA Soccer Tournament kicks off tonite with the Play-In round. Winners of those 16 matches will play next week (Tuesday actually) at the seeded teams who have a buy in the first round. I ran the whole schedule a couple days ago, so check back there for the detials on today and tomorrows matches.
-On top of the news that MLS Commissioner Don Garber is in Germany touting his league to the top Bundesliga clubs, and Barca Pres Joan Laporte attending the MLS Cup final, comes word that Chelsea owner & President, Roman Abramovich & Peter Kenyan, are in LA to meet with AEG (owners of the Galaxy) and touring Home Depot Center.
-In addition to the lousy player swap between Salt Lake & Chivas USA yesterday, SL also got young player Christian Jimenez in the deal. This tips the scales mightily in the favor of SL in this deal. This kid has some skills but is still very green at 19. This then begs the question, "Why did Chivas give up Sequeira & Jimenez for someone as mediocre as Dunseth?" Are Chivas trying to be bad?
-Salt Lake also signed Diego Walsh who was released by KC.
-Not too surprisingly Bahrain is officially protesting their loss to TnT. Their claim is that they scored a late goal that was wrongly disallowed by the referee. Oddly, US Soccer has taken up TnT's case, with a video of the offending goal, and a link to the actual rule that "rightly" disallowed the goal. Check it.
-The short list for the 2005 Missouri Athletic Club Hermann Trophy aka the NCAA Player Of The Year.
-A rumor going around San Jose is that Ajax of Amsterdam may be interested in buying the team, or being involved in the ownership of the team.
-Both Everton & Kansas City say there is nothing to British tabloid stories on Josh Wolff being sold. He is simply at Everton training to maintain fitness until US Soccer calls him in to the team in January.
-Big Euro matches this weekend:
Roma v Juve
Real Madrid v Barca
Fiorentina v Milan
Celtic v Rangers
-Off to the races in Mexico with only two rounds left before the playoffs:
Saturday;
Cruz Azul v Monterrey
Guadalajara v UAdG
Sinaloa v Chiapas
UANL v UNAM Pumas
Veracruz v Pachuca
Necaxa v Atlas
Sunday-
San Luis v Morelia
America v Atlante
Santos v Toluca

It's Perfect News

-The second leg of World Cup Playoff Qualifiers are now complete, and the last 5 are in. Here's a recap:
*In a distant timezone, Australia has pulled off a huge upset and gained their first World Cup birth in over 30 years, knocking out Uruguay. Aust won the match 1-0, tying the series at 1-1, then won 4-2 on PK's. Coach Guus Hiddink proved that he has magic in his fingers by getting them qualified! He should be the next USA coach for sure!!!!
*In Bahrain our neighbors to the south from the island nation of Trinidad & Tobago had a glorious day, winning 1-0 and advancing 2-1 to the final as well! Hooray T&T! Hooray Beer! Hooray Beenhakker! Hooray Dwight York! That makes i 4 CONCACAF teams in the World Cup! Pretty cool huh?!?!?!
*Czech Rep landed in the World Cup for their first time, beating Norway 0-1 again for a 2-0 total. Tomas Rosicky scored for CR and Petr Cech kept another clean sheet.
*Spain settled for a 1-1 draw in Slovakia and easily won 6-2 on agg.
*Turkey & Switzerland drew 4-4 on aggregate, but the Swizzz had the 2 away goals to clinch their birth. The real bad news for Turkey came after the match, when their fans started pelting the Swizzz players with garbage in supposed retaliation for curses & obscene gestures that Sui players made after the first leg Saturday. The Sui ran for the tunnel only to be met by Turk players who started to pound on them, then the Turkish police, who were supposed to be acting as security, got in on the act of beating the Neutrals. I have seen lots of video footage and its impossible to know who did what first. There is a clip of a Swiss player kicking a security person as he left the field, then lots of Turkish players kicking the crap out of a Swiss player in the tunnel. I love the passion of the Turks, and I know it's a cliche, but what the hell is up with the anger and violence that seems to pour from that nation. It's not always someone else's fault when you are constantly involved. But.....
-The draw for groups will be held Dec 9 at 1pm central time. See it live on some ESPN attribute.
-MLS will hold its annual pre-draft combine Jan 12-15 in LA at the HDC, and then the Superdraft on Jan 20 in Philly.
-A couple more highlights from my weekend in Dallas. These two are both a little sappy, which is not my usual style, but real nonetheless:
*On Saturday afternoon we were near downtown Dallas so we got directions to the area known as Dealy Plaza where President John Kennedy was assassinated in '63. We found the place easily enough, and great parking too. As we walked over to the street corner were Kennedy's motorcade had to slow down that day and make a sharp left turn toward the infamous grassy knoll, I felt a huge chill go thru my body and got goose bumps all over. It was pretty heavy standing there. Intense.
*The second incident was at the actual game, just before kickoff they had all kinds of ceremonial stuff like introducing the all time league best 11, having some parachuters drop into the field and the national anthem. But the one that struck me is when they had 2 massive fighter planes fly really low right over our side of the stadium. Those things were impressive.
-I was glad to see the two teams in the Cup play in their full colors. Blue for New England. Gold & Green for LA.
-MLS commish Donny "I Love The Clash" Garber headed to Germany today to speak with Bundesliga teams about doing business with MLS. Even if you don't agree with everything that this league does, you have to admit that the top people work very hard, and are always looking for new angles. I like that.
-Our southern friends the Mexicans cried a little tear last night as their Tricoloures were pounded 3-0 by Bulgaria in Houston. Ferchristsakes BULGARIA! What happened Ricardo?
-Mexico continues their games on US soil with a match on Dec 14 v Hungary in Phoenix at Chase Field (which used to be called Bank One Ballpark).
-Robert Wagman of Soccer Times give his thoughts on the MLS All-Time Best 11.
-Ronaldinho won France Football's Ballon d'Or. (aka the Euro Player of The Year.) Who else ya gonna pick? My only other thought is Frank Lampard.
-You wanna see a scenario where 2 MLS teams decide to swap players and they both lose? Of course it would have to involve Chivas and Salt Lake, cuz last year they proved that they just don't get it. Yesterdays swap: Brian Duseth for Douglas Sequeira. Ugh. You can have 'em both if you want 'em.
-Word is that DaMarcus Beasley tweaked his hamstring in the USA match v Scotland. But there was no mention of the injury on the PSV website where they are usually pretty up to date with mentioning even little injuries.
-Ronaldo is ready to play for Real Madrid this weekend in their huge matchup with Barca on Saturday. See the match live on GolTV at 10am central time from the Bernabeu.
-Grahame Jones of the LA Times ranks the 32 teams who are now in the World Cup.
-Two from Rob Hughes: Australia squeezes into World Cup -and- World Cup turns ugly
-Todd Dunivant is the least known defender for the champs from LA. Read a feature story on him at Soccernet.

Does Anyone Have Any Idea What To Call The Flavor Of This News?

-In the past 24 hours I have read countless articles on "What happened to New England?" in the MLS Cup final Sunday. Here is what I think went down: Shalrie Joseph, Steve Ralston, and Pat Noonan were all so hobbled by injuries that they could only provide their team with a name in a shirt. And I know he didn't light up the season, but not having Khano Smith as a sub really hurt as well. I mean, come on here folks, Ryan Latham (who or what is that?) played in the MLS Cup final! Jose Cancela looked good again as a sub for Noonan, but another banged up player, Andy Dorman added little. They lost Daniel Hernandez during the match to injury too. In the end they could not get the ball in to Taylor Twellman much at all, thus no scoring chances threatened. The other key factor was Albright-Ihemelu-Marshall-Dunivant & Nagamura. Those five defenders for LA played fantastic. There is your answer from me.
-The NCAA Tournament kicks off this weekend. All the seeded teams (the best of the batch) get buys in this first round. Here are the games on the slate:
NCAA Tournament - FIRST ROUND
Nov 18
St Johns v Marist
Yale v Stony Brook
SMU v San Francisco
UNC Greensboro v James Madison
South Florida v Stetson
Hofstra v Providence
Notre Dame v Western Illinois
Clemson v Coastal Carolina
Creighton v Lafayette
Santa Clara v Ohio State
Wake Forest v South Carolina
Bradley v UW Milwaukee
Nov 19
Brown v Rhode Island
West Virginia v Robert Morris
Seton Hall v Hartwick
UC Santa Barbara v San Diego State
Second Round matches are played Nov 22, the winners of all these matches go on the road to face the seeded teams.
-Here are those top 16 seeded teams:
1 Maryland
2 New Mexico
3 Indiana
4 North Carolina
5 UCLA
6 Duke
7 California
8 Connecticut
9 Akron
10 Old Dominion
11 Penn State
12 Virginia Tech
13 Virginia
14 NC State
15 Cal State Northridge
16 Dartmouth
-Freddy Adu's people are really working the back channels hard now to get him out of DC. They sent their bobo, world renowned sprinter Michael Johnson, to write an article in a UK newspaper about what a terrible job MLS and DC have done raising Freddy. What the fuck does Michael Johnson know about soccer anyway??? Nothing! Exactly 100% of Nothing! What a fool.
-Seattle Sounders forward Roger Levesque has been on loan from San Jose the past two years, and today was released from his contract by San Jose. Where he will play next year is anyone's guess, although Seattle would seem the most likely. It must also be said that Levesque is a pinhead, and is best known this past season for kicking Minnesota Thunder keeper Joe Warren in the face while Warren was on the ground covering a loose ball. The referee in that situation saw no trouble with the face-kicking and the loosened ball ended up in the back of the Thunder net. Punks!
-Eric Quill & Ryan Suarez were cut loose by Metrostars.
-Here are other big names released by MLS clubs before yesterdays contract deadline:
Hector Cuadros - Chivas
Isaac Romo - Chivas
Wolde Harris - Colorado
Alain Nkong - Colorado
Diego Serna - Colorado
Kenny Arena - DC
Nana Kuffour - DC
Michael Umana - LA
DJ Countess - Salt Lake
Rusty Pierce - Salt Lake
Dante Washington - Salt Lake
-Clint Dempsey of New England is heading to Everton to train prior to the next USA training camp which will take place in January.
-The second leg of World Cup Playoff Qualifiers are today:
In a distant timezone, Australia has pulled off a huge upset and gained their first World Cup birth in over 30 years, knocking out Uruguay. Aust won the match 1-0, tying the series at 1-1, then won 4-2 on PK's. Coach Guus Hiddink proved that he has magic in his fingers by getting them qualified! He should be the next USA coach for sure!!!!
In Bahrain our neighbors to the south from the island nation of Trinidad & Tobago had a glorious day, winning 1-0 and advancing 2-1 to the final as well! Hooray T&T! Hooray Beer! Hooray Beenhakker! Hooray Dwight York! That makes it 4 CONCACAF teams in the World Cup! Pretty cool huh?!?!?!
Czech Rep v Norway (Czech up 1-0)
Slovakia v Spain (Spain up 5-1)
Turkey v Switzerland (Switz up 2-0)
-I am gonna go ahead and assume that the deadline MLS put on Toronto to get a stadium deal done worked exactly as they had hoped it would. They got their stadium package done, and now the team is preparing to roll. So yesterdays announcement by MLS that owners AEG are free to move their team in San Jose to a new city, and set a date for it, is designed to get the good folks of the Bay Area to step up NOW. Last call, as they say. Houston is looking more and more like the city they want to move the team to. Both the San Jose Mercury News, and the Houston Chronicle have stories on the topic again today.
-Graham-Cracker-Crust Jones on the importance of Cobi Jones to LA winning the Cup again.
-Four FC Dallas players are going to England to train:
Arturo Alvarez & Alex Yi to Middlesbrough.
Drew Moor & David Wagenfuhr to Man City.

I Missed A Ton, But Here's Some News

-I was down in Dallas at MLS Cup for the last 4 days with several of my Thunder Faithful friends. We had a very excellent time, even though we were driving around lost for most of those days. The game was great (except for the pinheads sitting behind us who bitched during the entire match), and Papa Donovan scored us amazing first row seats in one of the corners. The weather was gorgeous, the stadium rocked, and immense fun was had by all.
-Easily the biggest shock to every American soccer fan is the fact that Pando Ramirez was the hero for LA. All season long he elevated himself into the highest of rankings for the leagues all-time biggest goat. No doubt Lothar Matteus still holds the title and will be hard to dethrone, but over the past 8 months Pando had possibly bypassed Luis Hernandez into the number 2 spot, not because he was despised (cuz I get the feeling he is a very very nice fella), so much as he was just plain lousy. Him scoring that winning goal was a thing of pure soccer beauty. Good for him. See that goal again right here.
-The MLS First Decade Best XI was named at the championship match:
G:
Tony Meola
D:
Eddie Pope
Jeff Agoos
Marcelo Balboa
M:
Marco Etcheverry
Landon Donovan
Carlos Valderrama
Preki
Peter Nowak
F:
Jamie Moreno
Brian McBride
Their are three things I disagree with on this list. Carlos Ruiz should be on there before Brian McBride. He is the just that good. I love McBride, but the little fish is better. Also, I don't care what anyone says, Landon Donovan is a forward in my book. All his best success has come at that position in the league. I would move Landon to forward in this best 11 and call it a 3-4-3. I also question Peter Nowak's selection. I know he was amazing in helping Chicago make an immediate mark, and helped inspired quite a few of his young teammates, but I am not so sure he was best XI. Mauricio Cienfuego would have been on that list instead of Nowak for me.
-Things overheard this weekend, whether fact or fiction is still unknown, but I think most of this is actually fact:
*Barcelona are very interested in a team in NYC, but not Metrostars - it would be a new team.
*Chelsea will play LA at HDC, in a possible 3 team "tournament" also starring Club America.
*Chelsea will also play the MLS All-Stars.
*Toronto is the newest MLS team (lucky 13) and will begin play in 07. Their team nationality will be Canadian, (as opposed to all the other MLS teams who are obviously American), but they will have 3 extra International spots on their roster that can only be used on American players. (So they will have 7 in total, instead of the ususal 4.)
*"It is inconceivable that San Jose will not be in the league next year," said Don Garber to the supporters on Saturday afternoon. Then today (Wed) he releases this statement: "At the recent MLS Board of Governors meeting in Frisco, Texas, the Anschutz Entertainment Group was granted approval by the Board to move the San Jose Earthquakes to a number of potential cities, including Houston, Texas.
*Lamar Hunt is very close to finishing a deal to sell his Kansas City team to still unnamed local investors, who will then announce a stadium deal. Those new investors will probably run the team for the next couple seasons at their current home Arrowhead Stadium.
*There are serious ideas being kicked around to go to a split season like Mexico and Brazil play. 2 months off in summer, and 2 months off in winter.
*The playoff format will not change for next year.
*5 cities are lining up to battle for the potential 14th team in the league: Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, & Tulsa. Atlanta was not included in the list Garber rattled off to us, despite what other reports said.
*The league signed a long term high profile television deal with ABC/ESPN & Univision. This deal will pay the league money, and have the networks actively promoting the games, which are both new concepts for MLS.
*The game of the week may be moved to ESPN, from ESPN2, and maybe be played on Friday night instead of Saturday afternoon.
*This years Reserve Division was a huge success, and will be better organized, financed and promoted next year.
*The team salary cap will rise the largest amount ever for the league next year. But the cap number is still unknown. It currently sits around 2 million per team.
*All the teams are in the process of setting up official youth systems, and in the future all players who come up through that system will remain with that club and not enter the Superdraft, unless they are released.
*MLS and the Mexican Primero Division are in discussions to form an inter-league tournament pitting all teams against each other.
*MLS does not want to leave the US Open Cup.
-As part of their bonus for winning the double - MLS Cup & US Open Cup - the LA players received Lakers NBA season tickets in a suite of their own.
-Did anyone out there see the 1/2 hour special that Fox Soccer Channel was promoting called MLS Pictures? It looked like one of the those NFL films type things that are of very high quality.
-The four teams who did not make the playoffs - Chivas USA, KC, Columbus & Salt Lake - will each receive a special player allocation (in the form of salary cap budgetary exemptions) to sign new players, and KC received yet another one to try to replace the retiring Preki.
-Two different pubs in Dallas treated us royally. We watched Scotland v USA at Trinity Hall, and Trinidad & Tobago v Bahrain at the Londoner. We ate and drank a lot at both those places. If you find yourself in Dallas, go give them your money.
-VIP's I saw at MLS Cup:
Paul Caliguri
Craig Waibel
Freddy Adu
Eric Wynalda
Brian Hall
Brandi Chastain
JP Dellacamra
Frank Dell'apa
Phil Anschutz
Lamar Hunt
Bob Kraft
Dwayne DeRosario
-The Hut was nice, but during the match they ran out of pizza. It's called Pizza Hut Park! How do you possibly run out of pizza?!?!?!?!
-Down in Dallas we talked about where next years Cup Final might be played. Several people said they hope for Chicago's new home in Bridgeview. I figure it will be LA again, or maybe even Dallas. As for Chicago, I think the time of year and potentially bad weather may keep that from happening. Some of my fears of bad weather in that town were confirmed while watching some Sports Center last night. I saw the football highlights from Chicago, where the game was played at almost the exact same time as MLS Cup. The wind in the stadium was a constant 40+ mph! It looked insane as they tried to play. They could not throw a pass or kick a field goal because the wind would just take the ball anywhere it felt like. It was pretty hilarious to watch, but would make for a horrible final soccer match of the year. I know yesterday was only one weird-weather day, but it's also pretty damn typical to have crazy weather in Chicago in November.
-Another rumor going around last week was that the Rochester Rhinos are heading up an effort to place a USL First Division team in Cary, NC at SAS Stadium. The place holds about 7000 and is right in the area of Durham, Chapel Hill & Raleigh aka The Triangle. Rochester was responsible for setting up their match v DC United in Cary last summer. They hope to start play in the league in 2007.
-A hilarious article from Yanks Abroad shows what idiots the Scottish newspapers were about the USA match. They did little if any research on the USA team, know little of the current team players/history, and revert to tabloid bozo-isms to tell their stories.
-Steven Goff of the Washington Post reports that DC midfielder Brian Carroll will train with Blackburn starting this week.
-Quotes from USA players and coaches following the draw in Scotland.
-The Sunday Herald in Scotland had this article after the match.
-US Soccer has plenty of post-game audio and video from the Scotland match. And video interviews with Benny Feilhaber, Heath Pearce & Chris Rolfe, and Jonathan Spector.
-During the match TV had shots of USA players not in action sitting in the stands: Claudio Reyna, Brad Friedel & Brian McBride.
-Who did you think played well for USA? I thought the best were Brian Carroll, DaMarcus Beasley & Ben Olson.
-The Scots were at full strength and after reading several of their newspapers yesterday they seemed to think they did pretty well, and are getting back on solid footing. I would tell them not to get too excited seeing as that was not the best US team they met, with only 4 players being what I would consider starters on the field.
-The Daily Record in Glasgow called Jonathan Spector the best USA player in the match. Really?
-Salt Lake owner Dave Checketts is no longer negotiating to buy the St Louis Blues hockey team. And here I thought he had already bought them.
-Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Juve was voted Sweden's Player Of The Year.
-World Cup Qualifying Playoff - first leg - scores from Saturday:
Trinidad & Tobago 1-1 Bahrain
Norway 0-1 Czech Republic
Spain 5-1 Slovakia
Switzerland 2-0 Turkey
Uruguay 1-0 Australia
Return leg matches will be played Wednesday, and then we will know the full 32 team field for Germany 06.
-George Weah lost his bid to become the new President of Liberia.
-Clarence Seedorf was robbed in his own home. What a frickin drag.
-Rob Hughes of International Herald Tribune: Clubs want nations to pay for pain
-Simon Kuper on the disastrous attempt to blend races in France: Racism lives on in France as World Cup win fades
-A dude who writes for Sports Illustrated has called the LA v San Jose derby the 5th best rivalry in world club football. I love the games too, but the worlds 5th best? Hmmmmmmmmm. Read the whole dealio here.
-Rumor from today's edition of The Sun in London: DAVID MOYES is closing in on USA striker Josh Wolff. The American hitman scored against Scotland on Saturday before heading south for talks with Everton boss Moyes. It will be second time lucky for Wolff, 28, whose earlier dream of playing in the Premiership was scuppered by red tape. But he is now a fixture in the US side and the fact FIFA’s rankings have them in the world’s top 10 means he is now eligible for a work permit. Wolff, of the Kansas City Wizards, is one of the quickest players in the MLS and is available for around £500,000.
-In Copa Sudamericana last Thursday night, Boca Juniors whipped Internacional 4-1 and advanced to the Semifinals 5-1 on aggregate.
The Semifinal match-ups look like this:
Nov 24 - Boca Juniors v Universidad Católica in Buenos Aires. (2nd leg, Dec 1 in Santiago)
and
Nov 23 - Velez Sarsfield v Pumas UNAM also in Buenos Aires. (2nd leg, Nov 30 in Mexico City)
The Finals will be Dec 7 & 14

Another Road Trip

Dear Friends,
You might now hear much from me over the next few days, cuz myself and 8 other pals are heading to Dallas today for the MLS Cup final on Sunday!!!! I will attempt to check in at some point, but no guarantee. If you are gonna be there, I hope to meet you. Until next time then.....
Adios Amigos & Mutantes,
Bruce

What Is This That You Speak Of? This.....News?

-Brian McBride is OUT of the USA match v Scotland due to a groin strain. Shit!
-I will admit that Dwayne DeRosario scored a sweet goal in the last week of the season for San Jose, but it was NOT MLS Goal Of The Year! It was a free kick you peckerheads (directed at everyone who voted for it)!! I don't even think free kicks should be allowed in the voting. The Freddy Adu sombrero and drive to the goal on RSL was easily the best thing seen on an MLS field this season, and one of the best in the league ever. How many people in the world can actually do what he did. Not many my friends. There is a goal hit like DeRosario's every week somewhere in the world. Not to say it wasn't fab, it's just not that amazing.
-Now here is some real magic: I have been hearing about this Ronaldinho footage floating around the internet for about a week now, and I finally saw it today. Consensus seems to be that it's footage from a future Powerade commercial. Anyway you slice it (ie digital editing) it's amazing to watch. Thanks to ADSL for the link!
-There has been some rumblings about the fairly poor attendance so far at brand new Pizza Hut Park in Dallas, and discussions about whether or not anyone will show up for MLS Cup Sunday. Well, word is, that only standing room tickets are left and it will be a packed house. Excellent news!
-Just wanna say hi to yesterday's visitors from the Oregon Historical Society & the US Senate.
-Stern John talks to the FIFA website about his dream of qualifying Trinidad & Tobago for the World Cup.
-According to the Glasgow newspaper "The Daily Record", the USA will be without ...first-choice stars Eddie Pope, Bobby Convey, Eddie Lewis and Chris Albright. They might want to take a closer look at the USA squad before Saturdays match if they think those are the missing stars. Eddie Lewis is a starter on my team any day. The other three are not, and Albright wouldn't make my bench.
-2 more teams advanced to the semifinals of the Copa Sudamericana last night. In Santiago Chile, Universidad Catolica defeated Fluminense 2-0 to win 3-2 on aggregate. And in Mexico City, Pumas UNAM beat Corinthians 3-0 to advance 4-2 on agg. The only game left in the Sudamericana quarters will be played tonite in Salta as Boca Juniors takes on Internacional trailing 0-1. The winner joins Pumas, Catolica and Velez.
-The first of a 2 part interview/feature on Jonathan Spector from Yanks Abroad.
-USA Today previews MLS Cup with a feature on New England coach Steve Nicol.
-Quotes from USA coaches and players as they prepare for Scotland via US Soccer.
-US Soccer also has a video feature of a Scotland v USA match preview.
-Q & A with Jay Heaps by Snuggly Don Cuddy at Soccer365.
-More from Soccer 365 - Footnotes Before the Final by Andrea Canales
-Two great bits of info from Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune:
1. The deal by ABC/ESPN to show the next 2 World Cups that was reported last week, will also include rights to the next 2 Women's World Cups & the next 2 FIFA Confederations Cups.
2. This Uruguay v Australia World Cup Qualifying Playoff match has seen its share of back room scheduling shenanigans going down. Check this scenario out: Uruguay wanted to play the first leg (home for them) on Friday instead of Saturday so they had the extra travel day (to compensate for the 13 hour time shift) before the second leg in Aussieland. Australia declined. Uruguay got nasty then and countered by changing kick off on Saturday to 9pm from its original 4pm, so that Australia could not leave the country on a commercial flight after the match, forcing Aus to hire an expensive charter to take them home. Uruguay planned to do the same but now can't afford one, so they asked FIFA to reset the match at 4pm again. No word yet on if they are successful, but FIFA looks to be resisting a second time change. The difference between leaving Uruguay Sat night as opposed to Sun morning is a 23 hour later arrival in Australia.
-Costa Rica took at 2-0 half time lead over France in Martinique last night with goals by Alvaro Saborio & Danny Fonseca, but France stormed by with 3 goals by Djibril Cisse, Nicolas Anelka, and Thierry Henry for the win.
-Dallas gave coach Colin Clarke a 1 year extension on his current contract, which will carry him through next year.
-Ronaldo is now a citizen of Spain, as well as Brazil. This really just means that he will no longer count as a foreigner on the Real Madrid roster.
-People in Scotland are pretty excited that their boy Mo Johnston is the new coach of Metrostars!

And Now I Will Send You Over To The News

-Frank Giase of the Newark Star-Ledger is reporting that Mo Johnston has been officially named head coach of Metrostars!! All right Mo!
-The new stadium in Rochester looks just about set to go. PAETEC Park, as its known, had the playing surface laid the other day (picture), and all the lighting rigs hung (another picture). In other Rochester news, they announced the signing of Minnesota Thunder star forward Johnny Menyongar to their roster (booooooooooo!). And also, like the Thunder, Rochester will field a women's team next spring.
-Yuri Semin resigned as coach of Russia, before they gave him the boot.
-2 matches tonite in the Copa Sudamericana:
Universidad Catolica V Fluminense (Flum leads 2-1)
Pumas UNAM - Corinthians (Corin leads 2-1)
-The US National Team Players Association website is asking, "Why is MLS expanding to Canada?" (I have been asking the same exact question, and I really wish MLS would explain how rosters will work on a team outside the USA). They explore the good, the bad, and the Canadian. They get around to answering their own question with another article titled: Red Card - No Canada
-The featured guest on the next La Noche del 10 with Diego Maradona is none other than Mike Tyson. So let's get this straight....Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Mike Tyson. Those are three people you want to talk to. But you also don't really wanna talk to. Next season: The Pope. In the interview with Castro, this was reportedly said: "There was illiteracy, the workers were being expelled from the factories, and the best lands where in the hands of the rich," Castro said. "That's why the revolution triumphed."
OK. I can agree with those words, cuz they are all very noble ideals. But what about free elections? What about not putting your political enemies in jail? What about teaching only communism in your schools? What about no freedom of religion? I have a real problem with all of that. And I think Maradona looks like an idiot standing next to that loud mouth from Venezuala. Chavez, like Castro talks a good game. But his delivery is massively underwhelming, and doing as much damage to the people of his country as was done by the people who came before him, and he hurls so much hatred toward.
-Barca midfielder Mark Van Bommel tore up his ankle during practice for Holland's friendly with Italy. He will be out at least 2 months.
-Tonite in San Jose's Spartan Stadium you can see Cruz Azul v Morelia in a friendly.
-Master Grahame E. Jones of the LA Times has his MLS Mood swing back to grumpy, this time over the league's opacity and Alain Nkongs red card.
-The Kraft Family who own the New England Revolution (and the NFL's New England Patriots) are again talking to Liverpool about investing in the club, and especially in helping them get a new stadium built. Some rumors go so far as to say that the Krafts are trying to buy Liverpool outright.
-Hannover 96 has fired their coach Ewald Lienen after just 14 matches this season.
-Andrea Canales via ESPNSoccernet on the Hercules-Landycakes combo platter: The Odd Couple (editors note: They're not that odd. In fact both of them are quite cute lil fellas)
-Soccernet also has a story on Indiana's rise to the top AGAIN. And their wonderboy Lee Nguyen is proving to be the real thing too. In the last week, Indiana came from 3-0 down to draw at Maryland, then beat the #1 and unbeaten Zips de Akron.
-Ronaldo & Zidane will each captain a team in the annual Game Against Poverty on Dec 22 in Dusseldorf. The game is a benefit for The United Nations Development Programme. Teams will be announced later. And Pierluigi Collina will referee with match.
-I am going to make a prediction that prior to the English season would not have seemed very bold, but right now is chancy. Everton will finish the season above Wigan.
-Defender Robin Fraser who last played for Columbus, and previously Los Angeles & Colorado, has announced his retirement. Go Rockin' Robin!

My Name Is News

-There were more people then I expected named to the USA squad for Saturdays match in Glasgow:
Goalkeepers:
Tim Howard
Kasey Keller
Defenders:
Gregg Berhalter
Carlos Bocanegra
Steve Cherundolo
Jimmy Conrad
Oguchi Onyewu
Heath Pearce
Jonathan Spector
Midfielders:
DaMarcus Beasley
Brian Carroll
Benny Feilhaber
Eddie Gaven
Ben Olsen
Santino Quaranta
Kerry Zavagnin
Forwards:
Brian Ching
Brian McBride
Chris Rolfe
Josh Wolff
Some genuine surprises on that list!!! And most people will be asking, "Who the hell is Heath Pearce???" (More on him later) Fielhaber, Gaven & Rolfe all not expected by me. Zavagnin a bit of a surprise too. No Pablo Mastroeni or Eddie Lewis though? I find that odd. Kinda thought we would see more MLS defenders and midfielders too. We already knew Bobby Convey and Marcus Hahnemann weren't gonna get the call. Not to mention the players from Los Angeles and New England playing in the MLS Cup on Sunday.
Who will be the 18 on the game day roster is the real question though.
-So the deal with Clint Dempsey's goal celebration was this: He stopped, dropped, and rolled, to "put out the Fire"! Clever huh?
-The five nominees for the African Footballer of the Year award (the winner will be announced on January 9):
Samuel Eto'o - Barcelona & Cameroon
Didier Drogba - Chelsea & Cote d'Ivoire
Michael Essien - Chelsea & Ghana
Emmanuel Adebayor - Monaco & Togo
Marouane Chamakh - Bordeaux & Moroccan
-Former New Eng Rev keeper Adin Brown played the year in Norway for Aalesunds, but unfortunately there were relegated last weekend. He is now looking for a new club.
-Christian Gomez of DC United will miss the first game of next season as punishment for his red card (spitting on CJ Brown) in DC's humiliating 0-4 loss to Chicago in their last game of the season. He was also fined $1000.
-Here's a partial transcript of a radio interview with former Salt Lake player Brian Kamler, who is now in charge of player development for the club.
-Feature story on the regeneration of Fiorentina, led by Stefano Fiore & Luca Toni from the UEFA Magazine.
-Steve Davis of the Dallas Morning News has published his own 10 Most Powerful People In American Soccer. Good reading.
-An excellent quote from Juve forward Adrian Mutu on Italians who dive, which he sees as a big problem in Seria A: "...you have players who have great physical strength, like Totti and Alberto Gilardino, who go down in the first contact when they could remain on their feet."
-JEF United Chiba won the J-League Cup by beating Gamba Osaka 5-4 on penalties after finishing the match tied 0-0.
-See DaMarcus Beasley score (along with the other 2 goals)from last Saturday's 3-0 by PSV over Sparta Rotterdam.
-Romanian superstar Gheorghe Hagi was named coach of Hungarian club Poli Timisoara.
-Official Groups and Match Schedule for 2006 Interliga tournament - which qualifies 2 Mexican teams for Copa Libertadores:
Group A
Monterrey
Morelia
Pachuca
Veracruz
Group B
Guadalajara
Necaxa
UANL
Toluca
INTERLIGA 2006 SCHEDULE (All doubleheaders / all local times)
Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - Reliant Stadium (Houston)
Game 1 - Group B - Toluca v Necaxa - 7pm
Game 2 - Group B - Tigres v Guadalajara - 9:30pm
Thursday, January 5, 2006 - La Joya Stadium (La Joya, Texas)
Game 3 - Group A - Pachuca v Veracruz - 7pm
Game 4 - Group A - Monterrey v Morelia - 9:30pm
Saturday, January 7, 2006 - Pizza Hut Park
Game 5 - Group B - Necaxa v Tigres - 6pm
Game 6 - Group B - Guadalajara v Toluca - 8:30pm
Sunday, January 8, 2006 - Pizza Hut Park
Game 7 - Group A - Morelia v Pachuca - 4pm
Game 8 - Group A - Veracruz v Monterrey - 6:30pm
Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - The Home Depot Center
Game 9 - Group B - Tigres v Toluca - 6:30pm
Game 10- Group B - Necaxa v Guadalajara - 9pm
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - The Home Depot Center
Game 11 - Group A - Morelia v Veracruz - 6:30pm
Game 12 - Group A - Monterrey v Pachuca - 9pm
Sunday, January 15, 2006 - The Home Depot Center
Final 1 - 3pm
Final 2 - 5:30pm
-Pavel Nedved is definitely playing for his Czech Republic on Saturday and Wednesday in the World Cup Qualifying playoff v Norway
-Salt Lake's Eddie Pope in on-line chat. The 2 best questions were:
Karen from North Carolina Who is your favorite older sister?
Eddie Pope Stop clogging up the chat Sis.
George from North Carolina What role did your father play in your soccer development?
Eddie Pope Hey Dad, stop clogging up the chat
-Marc Connally on how the Rev are feeling going into Sundays MLS Cup final.
-My Minnesota Thunder have announced that next spring they will be fielding their first ever women's team, which will play in the W-League. My guess is that they will play in the Midwest Division of the 5 geographically divided Divisions. The team is looking for a nickname. Got any suggestions?
-Alexi Lalas says he still hopes to name a new Metrostars coach this week.
-Avery John will not be available to New England for the Cup final on Sunday. He has chosen to go play for his country Trinidad & Tobago in their World Cup Qualifying playoff with Bahrain.
-Houston Chronicle Week In Review
-Rob Hughes writes in the International Herald Tribune about the country that is burning: France's team flies far in pursuit of harmony
-Jonsey on Hercules. From the LA Times.
-Question of the day? Who is Heath Pearce?
Left Back
5' 10' - 175 lbs.
21 years old
Brandenton Academy grad
University of Portland - 3 years (left early)
USA U17 & U20 team member
Starts for Norjaelland in Denmark SAS Ligaen - currently 5th in 12 team league - other teams you may have heard of in that league: Brondby & Aarhus.

Paradise By The Dashboard News

-ADDITION: OK, so US Soccer pushed back the announcement of the names of players to face Scotland from today until tomorrow.
-The MLS Semifinals skinny: The games were pretty intense, and I think the two better teams won.
On Saturday night it was Colorado 0-2 Los Angeles - Our lil lovebird Landycakes got both goals to continue his incredible record of playoff goal scoring. He now has an MLS record 14 goals in hi short playoff career. That's simply amazing. His second goal was described by Dan G (who I watched the match with) as, "...like a Drunken Master goal"!!!! What a brilliant description. See it here to know what he meant. Actually no. Watch the full game highlights and see the build up to Donovan's clinching goal.
And On Sunday afternoon New England 1-0 Chicago - the man who was many peoples first half of the season MVP, Clint Dempsey scrambled in a goal off a free kick where Chicago was completely asleep after just 4 minutes. At the end of the match there appeared to be a fight or serious amount of pushing and yelling between the two sides. I don't really know what happened to trigger it, besides the fact that both teams delivered about 20 really hard tackles throughout the match. And catch the highlights here.
-Did any of you get a good view of Clint Dempsey's goal celebration? I didn't, but it looked quite elaborate and I really want to know what was going on. Clint is easily MLS Goal Celebration MVP!
-The other thing that this game will mean is that since the MLS Cup final is next Sunday in Dallas, then no players from either New England or Los Angeles will make the trip to Glasgow for USA v Scotland next Saturday.
-DaMarcus Beasley scored for PSV in their 3-0 win over Sparta Rotterdam. DMB also scored another goal that was disallowed for offside. Replays showed he was NOT offside. He's just that fast. Our boy has really been tearing it up lately! Can't wait to see what he does to Scotland.
-On Friday the last BASA for 2005 was handed out to the MLS Player Of The Year. Here are the top 5 I voted for:
1- Dwayne Derosario
2- Shalrie Joseph
3- Taylor Twellman
4- Christian Gomez
5- Jamie Moreno
-Yanks Abroad is reporting that neither Bobby Convey or Marcus Hahnemann of Reading will be on the USA squad in Scotland on Saturday. You can read the "why" right here. Their team beat QPR 2-1 on Saturday to remain in 2nd place.
-Also in England Jonathan Spector started for 3rd place Charlton, but they got demolished by Brad Friedels Blackburn 4-1! The loss dropped Charlton all the way down to 8th. Leeds 0-0 Preston - Lewis played as usual for the Sheepshaggers. McBride and Bocanegra both played the entire match as Fulham beat Man City 2-1.
-I sat at The Local in Downtown Minneapolis on Sunday morning watching Man U end Chelseas EPL unbeaten streak at 40, by the score of 1-0! The game was intense, and Man U fully deserved the win. I heckled fans of both teams. It's very fun to give them shit, and watch em get all worked up about it.
-An informal Q & A with Colorado coach Fernando Clavijo from the US National Team Players Assoc.
-Primera Division de Mexico Round 15 scores:
Saturday:
Toluca 2-2 Sinaloa
Chiapas 1-1 UANL
Monterrey 1-1 Veracruz
Morelia 3-4 Necaxa
Atlas 2-2 Guadalajara
Sunday:
UNAM 2-3 Atlante
Pachuca 0-0 San Luis
UAG 1-1 Santos
America 1-0 Cruz Azul
-In Jonathan Woodgate news: he injured his hamstring on Sunday. Its not known yet if its a re-injuring of the thigh muscle that kept him off the field for over a year. He also will not suit up for England next weekend as he had planned.
-3 big name Americans played in Germany this weekend. And all three got 1 point apiece. Cherundolo & Hannover tied 2-2 with Mainz, Berhalter & Cottbus tied 0-0 with Ahlen, and Keller & Gladback tied 0-0 with Hamburg. I guess that is better than 3 losses.
-Si Se Puede - Andrea Canales of Soccer365 reviews the new Chivas USA documentary film.
-Mark your calendars now! Real Madrid v Barcelona on Sat Nov 19!
-International Herald Tribune has a feature story on how Real Madrid are trying new methods to reach more and more new fans.
-And that papers Rob Hughes tells us about Osasuna & Wigan: The newly mighty roar rather quietly. (And in case you didn't know this, Osasuna are coached by former Mexico head coach Javier Aguirre!)
-More on Osasuna, this time from Spanish football expert Phil Ball: Rising and Shining
-Jeff Rusnack of the Florida Sun Sentinel gives us more info on the newest USL First Division team - Miami FC.
-As does Michelle Kaufman of the Miami Herald.
-Before Manchester United bitch-slapped Chelsea, Simon Kuper in the Financial Times lamented their demise: Man Utd start to look played-out. So let me ask you dear reader, after this big win, are they still finished? Or are they revived?
-John Carew of Lyon was named Player Of The Year in Norway.
-A feature on Michael Parkhurst, central defender for the New England Revolution & MLS Rookie Of The Year, in the Boston Globe.
-And from nowhere, England is slightly more interesting this morning. Chelsea only lead WIGAN(!!!!!!!!) by 6 points, and have played 1 more game! Can this be real? And Everton have removed their carcass from the relegation zone. Here is the table:
31 Chelsea (12 games played)
25 Wigan (11 games played)
21 Man U (11 games played)
20 Arse (11 games played)
20 Tottenham (11 games played)
20 Man City (12 games played)
20 Bolton (11 games played)
19 Charlton (11 games played)
18 West Ham (11 games played)
18 Newcastle (12 games played)
17 Blackburn (12 games played)
16 Liverpool (10 games played)
15 Middlesbrough (12 games played)
12 Fulham (12 games played)
10 Portsmouth (12 games played)
10 Everton (11 games played)
9 Aston Villa (12 games played)
8 West Brom (12 games played)
6 Birmingham (12 games played)
5 Sunderland (12 games played)

The Green River News

-Two massive MLS games this weekend - AKA The MLS Cup Semifinals:
Saturday
Colorado v Los Angeles 8pm central on Fox Soccer Channel
Sunday
New England v Chicago 2pm central on ESPN2
-US Soccer last night announced a new friendly for Team USA. The details are as follows:
USA v Norway
Sunday, January 29, 2006 - 2pm Pacific Time
Home Depot Center in Carson, CA
If you happen to be a member of US Soccer, you can get tickets starting the morning of Monday Nov 7 using a special code provided to you by US Soccer. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Wed Nov 9.
-There is an article at a New England Revolution fan site about the possibility of a new stadium for the team.
-Feature story on my guy Dedi Ben-Dayan in todays Denver Post.
-RSL keeper DJ Countess had surgery yesterday to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.
-I am not convinced that this story is true yet, but reports say Pavel Nedved has agreed to play for his Czech Repulic v Norway in the World Cup Qualifying playoffs coming up. I had earlier read quotes from him saying he would consider un-retiring IF they won the playoff. We shall see. They could certainly use someone that good.
-Big Euro-centric matches this weekend
Getafe v Barcelona - The surprising #4 v the underachieving #2. (Can you be #2 and underachieve? Yes!)
Milan v Udinese - The once unbeatable defense v Serie A's biggest surprise in the Champions League.
Bayern Munchen v Werder Bremen - Top of the table warfare! Always excellent. Bayern leads the Bundesliga by 2 points over Bremen.
Borussia Monchengladbach v Hamburger SV - Two early season upstarts try to step on each others throats.
-Interliga news direct from the Dallas Morning News: Pizza Hut Park will host four matches in January's InterLiga, the eight-team tournament that determines Mexico's two automatic entrants into South America's prestigious Copa Libertadores. Doubleheaders Jan. 7 and 8 will feed into the Jan. 15 finals in Los Angeles.
-Unfortunately for regular reader KeeperKen, his top ranked Akron lost their last regular season match to perennial grandmasters Indiana 1-0 last night in Bloomington. Here is a recap of the match. Akron sits at 16-1-1 now.
-Primera Division de Mexico Round 15 matches upcoming:
Saturday:
Toluca v Sinaloa
Chiapas v UNAL
Monterrey v Veracruz
Morelia v Necaxa
Atlas v Guadalajara
Sunday:
UNAM v Atlante - live at Noon central on Univision
Pachuca v San Luis
UAG v Santos
America v Cruz Azul - live at 5pm central on TeleFutura
The last game there is THE BIGGIE!! If Cruz Azul can win it, they would be even at the top of the table with only 2 rounds left to play!
-Yesterday readers of du Nord came not only from the USA but also: England, Netherlands, France, Ireland, Germany, Turkey, India, Poland, Israel, Spain, Canada & Uruguay. Thanks everyone!
-A head nod in the direction of Wendy Parker's Off The Ball in the Atlanta Constitution Journal for her repeated mentions of du Nord.
-Breck won the Minnesota State High School Class A Soccer Tournament 1-0 over Saint Louis Park. Woodbury was buried 0-2 by Wayzata for the Class AA title.
-Scores from yesterdays UEFA Cup matches:
Hamburg 2-0 Viking
Slavia 4-2 CSKA Sofia
Brondby 2-0 Maccabi Petach-Tikva
Palermo 0-0 Lokomotiv Moskva
Lens 5-0 Halmstad
Sampdoria 0-0 Steaua
Litex 2-1 Grasshoppers
Middlesbrough 3-0 Dnipro
Crvena Zvezda 1-2 Basel
Strasbourg 2-0 Tromso
Levski 1-0 Dinamo Bucuresti
Heerenveen 0-0 CSKA Moskva
Rapid 2-0 Rennes
Stuttgart 0-2 Shakhtar
Bolton 1-0 Zenit
Sevilla 3-0 Besiktas