Thursday, February 23, 2006

Never Mind Me News

The CONCACAF Champions Cup 2006 launched last night and continues tonight. You can see all but 1 match of the whole tournament on Fox Soccer Channel. Here are the 8 teams first leg schedules, scores, and TV times:
Last night scores:
Olimpia 0-2 Toluca - Rodrigo Diaz y Jose Cruzalta scored for the Mexican Clausura champs.
Portmore United 1-2 Club America - Remeel Wolfe opened the scoring for Portmore, but Christian Gimenez & Aaron Padilla tied & won it for los Aguiles.
New England 0-0 Alajuelense - no goals
Tonight
Los Angeles v Saprissa - 10:00PM Central
~ ~ ~
Frank Dell'apa was in Bermuda covering New England for the Boston Globe. He had two articles one on the game itself & the second on Pat Noonan's injury.
Soccer New England has post-game quotes from NE coaches and players.
The local Bermuda Royal Gazette had their writer on the scene too.
The Gazette also have a story on their homeboy Khano Smith who is a reserve forward for NE.
~ ~ ~
Grahame Jones of the LA Times has a preview of the LA Galaxy v Saprissa game tonight.
So does Soccernet's Jeff Carlisle.
Same goes for Larry Morgan of the LA Daily News.
~ ~ ~
20 USA players were named to the roster for the team that will take on Poland next Wednesday in Kaiserslautern Germany. Here they are, by position:
G: Tim Howard, Kasey Keller
D: Gregg Berhalter, Carlos Bocanegra, Steve Cherundolo, Todd Dunivant, Eddie Lewis, Oguchi Onyewu, Jonathan Spector
M: DaMarcus Beasley, Bobby Convey, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Chris Klein Pablo Mastroeni, Kerry Zavagnin
F: Eddie Johnson, Brian McBride, Taylor Twellman, Josh Wolff
Some things to note about this roster:
No Marcus Hahnemann. I bet the Reading coach asked Arena to let the man rest.
But Reading's Bobby Convey is not rested.
Eddie Lewis is listed as a defender.
Defenders Todd Dunivant and Jonathan Spector make the squad. That is very big for both of them.
No Cory Gibbs. I would think that him just returning from injury probably played a part in him staying with his club ADO Den Haug.
Pablo Mastroeni is healthy and on the team. Excellent.
Kerry Zavagnin's recent performances got him this shot.
Deuce Demspey makes the grade. Very cool.
Pat Noonan was originally on this list, but got hurt last night v Alajuelense and has been replaced by Chris Klein.
And the four forwards that I expect to be at the World Cup are all here.
~ ~ ~
Associated Press says that Big Time Scumbag Jack Warner is now being investigated by the Trinidad & Tobago government for more fraud beyond the World Cup ticket scam he tried to pull. Being a FIFA executive has given him a lot of unearned power and the latest investigation is about stadium building contracts that were awarded to Warner’s buddies at twice the cost of a normal stadium. I would love to see some international regulators get involved and rip FIFA apart too. These people all stink.
~ ~ ~
Marc Connolly of US Players Assoc has a classic moment from the Olympics on his weblog yesterday: American Carl Swenson miraculously upsets German favorite Tobias Angerer to win the Gold in the 50-kilometer cross-country event on the final day of the Olympics. His breathless interview with an NBC correspondent immediately afterwards starts out with this: "That was for the hand ball in '02."!!!!!!!!!!!!! Carl you are a genius! All hail Carl Swenson. Hooray Carl, Hooray Beer. American Beer, not German Beer. (CORRECTION: Now you get to see my true boneheaded side come shining through. Somehow when I read Marc's column I missed the sentence when he said "There's still time for the Winter Olympics to make an impact back here in the States. As long as these five things happen..." So this whole thing is a fantasy. Damn, I so wish it was true. I've been had again. Thanks to the kind souls who helped me screw my head back on straight.)
~ ~ ~
Columbus has signed defender Rusty Pierce who played (would you classify what he did as playing?) with Salt Lake last year.
~ ~ ~
The Nashville City Paper is reporting that Team USA will play the first of their 3 World Cup warm up matches on May 23rd in Nashville at the Coliseum. No opponent was named. Rumor has it that the team will also play matches on May 26 and May 28, which will mimic the turnaround time between the 3 group stage matches in Germany.
~ ~ ~
The Metrostars have announced that they will open The Pride & Passion pub at Giant Stadium for this season. It will be interesting to see what kind of place this really is. Will it be a real pub? You will have to be a season ticket holder to get in. The pub will host a Grand Opening party on Feb 25 for everyone to check the place out.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle talks to Man U striker Ruud Van Nistlerooy.
~ ~ ~
Jeff Bradley restarts his First XI column at MLSnet with a Josh Wolff sit down.
~ ~ ~
Jamaican International Robert Scarlett was cut loose by Salt Lake.
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UEFA Champions League action last night, - the 2 legged knockout matches (return legs played March 7 & 8). Here are the match-ups, and some scores:
Last night:
Chelsea 1-2 Barcelona - I saw this one and it was wild. Chelsea controlled the first half, but a terrible call by the referee changed everything. He sent Del Horno off for Chelsea on a hard deliberate "professional" foul that should have been yellow. As Demko would say, "These referees giving out red card for questionable calls just ruin the whole game." Agreed. The second half started with the 10 Chelsea players dominating Barca and finally getting their goal at the hour mark. It came from a free kick that ended up being an own goal by Motta. 10 minutes later though Barca had the favor returned as they got an own goal from John Terry to even the score. Then the virtual rain came down on Chelsea's head as Barca turned up the pressure immensely looking for the win. 10 minutes later they had it with Eto'o doing his magic for sweet road victory. Lionel Messi had a great game for Barca. I think this kid might steal the show at the World Cup for Argentina. Look out.
Rangers 2-2 Villarreal - Juan Roman Riquelme returned for Villa after two months downed by injury to score one and set up the other, but Rangers got an own goal in the closing minutes for the draw. Villa's 2 road goals will probably be enough to make a difference though.
Bremen 3-2 Juventus - The German underdogs stuffed the big dogs, with Johan Micoud getting the winner for Werder in added time, after Borowski had tied it with 3 minutes of regular time left. Nedved and Trezegut had scored to give Juve the 1-2 lead. I really thought Juventus would walk away with this.
Ajax 2-2 Inter - The home side were up by 2 in the first 20 minutes of the match and seemed to be cruising to a stunning win. But Inter got their act together, sent the fat lady back to her dressing room, and took over the second half of the game, Cruz, Stankovic and Figo dominated Ajax and got the draw, not to mention the important away goals to take back home.
~ ~ ~
Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune watched the same game I did: Messi mesmerizes, Mourinho moans
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Phil Ball's weekly column for Soccernet focus's on the Spaniards & Brits in the Champions League: Britain v Spain (sort of)
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Copa Libertadores Group stage!! This weeks matches and scores:
Tue Feb 21
Estudiantes LP 4-3 Sporting Cristal - Grupo 2
Newell's Old Boys 2-0 Unión Española - Grupo 3
Tigres UANL 5-4 Deportivo Cali - Grupo 4
Wed Feb 22
Goiás EC 2-0 The Strongest - Grupo 3
Corinthians 2-2 Universidad Católica - Grupo 4
Pumas UNAM 0-1 UA Maracaibo - Grupo 6
Thur Feb 23
Internacional - Nacional - Grupo 6
Rosario Central - Cerro Porteño - Grupo 7
~ ~ ~
Soccernet has a round up of Wednesday's Libertadores matches.
~ ~ ~
UEFA Cup knock out stage second legs today (first leg score in parenthesis):
Palermo v Slavia (1-2)
Rapid Bucuresti v Hertha (1-0)
Levski v Artmedia (1-0)
Hamburg v Thun (1-0)
Shakhtar v Lille (2-3)
Steaua v Heerenveen (3-2)
Strasbourg v Litex (2-0)
Middlesbrough v Stuttgart (2-1)
Zenit v Rosenborg (2-0)
AZ v Betis (0-2)
Lens v Udinese (0-3)
Marseille v Bolton (0-0)
Monaco v Basel (0-1)
Roma v Club Brugge (2-1)
Sevilla v Lokomotiv Moskva (1-0)
Espanyol v Schalke (1-2)

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That quote from Carl Swenson is freaking fantastic.

2:35 PM  
Blogger D said...

Er, you do know that Marc was imagining that moment... As in, wouldn't it be nice if Karl Swenson said this...

2:36 PM  
Blogger hartley said...

You failed to mention the one EPL match from last night -- Charlton Athletic at Newcastle United. This was a make up of the snowed out/iced over/for safety reasons postponed match originally to be played 28 December.

Not much of a match, really. Nil-nil. No goals. No Shearer. No Dyer. No Owen. No Thomas. No Rommedahl. No Smertin.

But Jonathan Spector got the start agains and went the full 90. And at least the Addicks didn't lose another road game. A point is a point is a point. Go you Addicks!

-------

Wizards announced Eddie Johnson today. Photo op with new shirt. Conrad and Zavagnin also on hand to speak about the excitement of Eddie in KC, the upcoming season, and the possibilities of a working trip to Germany this summer.

3:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The race that Marc Connelly was talking about doesn't take place until Sunday. So Carl will make the quote then.

3:43 PM  
Blogger brucio said...

hahahahahahaha
i am such a fool sometimes
i need to read the whole column not just part!!!!!!!
thats way too funny
thanks for outting my stupidity

4:15 PM  
Blogger Brian Quarstad said...

Two things concerning the Chelsea Barca match.

I know just about everyone will disagree with me on this one including my son. (We have just gone round and round on this already) But as far as the red card is concerned, if Del Horno comes in fairly and tries to play the ball and not take the player out because Messi outskilled Robbin and Del Horno then there is no card and no argument. The fact of the matter is, Del Horno cheated to gain an advantage which is not within the rules of the game. Call me naive or I can call you cynical. Call it whatever you would like but if there was no foul there may have or may not have been a play on goal. We will never know. That's all we know is there was a foul and ref. called if from where he was, in real time to the best of his ability.

Lastly, you could choose to blame whomever you would like for the two own goals, but the bottom line is something I have been coaching for years. If you put quality balls into the box. That is...balls with pace that go over the heads of defenders and behind defenders, good thing WILL happen. Such was the case of both own-goals.

5:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sure, it was a foul. i think even jose would agree with that. but why a red card? why destroy the entire match over what was at worst a clumsy, hard challenge?

9:21 AM  

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