The Long Hard Humidity Blues News

Celtic coach Gordon Strachan: "DC United blew us off the pitch with their energy."
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Steven Goff in today's Washington Post says that USA coach Bruce Arena has a meeting today with US Soccer Fed Pres Sunil Gulati, AND that Arena has been offered the head coach job of the New York Red Bulls.
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Another massive MLS blunder has come to my attention, and little if anything is being said about it by the league. Three players who were announced yesterday as being voted to the MLS All Star First 11 will not even be available to play in the game v Chelsea on August 5th. New England's Clint Dempsey & Shalrie Joseph, and Chivas USA's Ante Razov will be in LA instead of Chicago because MLS has them playing a regular season game on All Star Weekend. Chivas v New England is scheduled for Sunday Aug 6 in conjunction with an exhibition match between Barcelona and Guadalajara Chivas that they say could not be rescheduled! These morons will ruin the game in America yet.
-So in addition to the 7 reserves still to be named to the All Star team, the fact that those 3 above mentioned players will not be there will open even more spots on the roster. Then we could have injuries to replace too. Watch for many more names in the near future.
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MLS and other US lower division teams were involved in the Open Cup and International Friendlies last night-
-The US Open Cup 3rd Round match scores:
Chivas USA 0-0 Roma Dallas - Roma wins it 4-2 on pk's for probably the biggest upset in Open Cup history! Roma is a USASA amateur team.
Columbus 4-1 Michigan
Seattle 2-3 Carolina
Atlanta 1-2 Wilmington
Kansas City 2-1 Des Moines
Rochester 5-1 New Hampshire
Portland 1-3 Charleston
Salt Lake 2-1 Virginia Beach
-The 4th Round games to be played Aug 1 & 2 are:
DC United v Columbus
Houston v Carolina
New York v Wilmington
Los Angeles v Dallas Roma
Chicago v Kansas City
New England v Rochester
Colorado v Salt Lake
Dallas v Charleston
-Internationals:
DC United 4-0 Celtic - It poured rain, was 94 degrees, and the Scots had just flown in from Glasgow. Then the real pounding commenced.
Los Angeles 0-1 Necaxa - Brazilian Kleber Boas scored the games only goal. Necaxa is in pre-season training. LA rested almost all their starters, and played many reserve team players and trialists including much talked about 16 year old Canadian defender Kennedy Owusu-Ansah.
Chicago 1-2 Club America
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With Saturdays 8th edition of the LA derby headed our way, Chivas's Bob Bradley & Claudio Suarez and the Galaxy's Frank Yallop & Landon Donovan talk to Luis Bueno of the LA Soccer News about what will surely be the toughest clash yet between the two teams.
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LA's recent Canadian signing, left back Ante Jazic, is now waiting for his work visa. LA Soccer News talked to him about his future with the team.
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Things are getting really ugly in Salt Lake City over the stadium proposal. Owner Dave Checketts is naming names on who he says is plotting against him. Sounds to me like he is setting the stage for excuses to bolt town. Lame. He is a very rich dude, with deep connections to even bigger money. If he wants this deal so bad he should find out a way to do it privately. I understand his frustration, but I would personally never vote to give private sports owners public money for stadiums.
-And Checketts isn't just blowing hot air when he says there is interest elsewhere. Rochester confirms that they are talking.
-Another potential suitor is in St Louis and is well aware of the whole situation.
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Like most of his teammates, New England defender, and 2005 rookie of the year, Michael Parkhurst has struggled thru the first half of this season. The Boston Herald's Mike Biglin looks for the why and how.
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Here is the MLS line up for this coming weekends games-
Friday:
New York v Colorado - 1pm on Direct Kick
New England v Salt Lake - 6:30pm on Direct Kick
Saturday:
Chicago v Dallas - 3pm on ESPN2
DC United v Columbus - 6:30 on Direct Kick
Kansas City v Houston - 7:30
Chivas v Los Angeles - 9pm on Direct Kick & HDNet
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The 06-07 Champions League First Qualifying Round 1st leg matches launched this week. Yes. Already! (Return leg matches are next week.) Scores:
Pyunik (Armenia) 0-0 Sheriff (Moldova)
Sioni (Georgia) 2-0 Baku (Azerbaijan)
Dudelange (Luxembourg) 0-1 Rabotnicki (Macedonia)
Elbasan (Albania) 1-0 Ekranas (Lithuania)
Linfield (Northern Ireland) 1-3 Gorica (Slovenia)
TVMK (Estonia) 2-3 Hafnarfjordur (Iceland)
Birkirkara (Malta) 0-3 B36 (Faroe Islands)
Cork (Ireland) 1-0 Apollon (Cyprus)
Metalurgs (Latvia) 1-0 Aktobe (Kazakhstan)
Shakhtyor (Belarus) 0-1 Siroki Brijeg (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
MyPa (Finland) 1-0 The New Saints (Wales)
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And UEFA Cup First round action tonight.
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Another youngster from my city of Minneapolis is joining up with the USA U-17's. Striker Abdusalam Ibrahim of Richfield has been in Bradenton at the team's Residency School since last fall, and now another forward Archie Karpeh of Circle Pines will join the team in Georgia this week for a training camp. Very cool to see our local boys movin' on up!