Monday, October 09, 2006

Enough To Make Your Eyes Water News

Macedonia midfielder Artim Sakiri: "England are easier opponents than Andorra."

Former USA assistant coach Glenn Myernick has passed away after suffering a heart attack last Thursday, slipping into a coma, and never recovering consciousness. He was removed from life support early this morning. He was 51. RIP Mooch.
-Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated with a nice remembrance.
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We now know who is going to buy DC United - From the Memphis Commercial Appeal comes this sentence from an interview with former Duke basketball player Brian Davis who is leading a group who just bought the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team: "It will be announced this month. ... We're buying the team (DC United) for $33 million." John Hendricks of Discovery Communications is also rumored to be a part of the ownership. He was one of the leading financiers of the defunct WUSA.
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Scores from MLS Soccer Saturday:
DC 1-2 New England - DC continues the slumping woes, and New England is building fast! DC scored first again on great passing and another Christian Gomez goal, but Clint Dempsey and Taylor Twellman counterpunched to victory. Daniel Hernandez came in late for NE, his first appearance since May. They will need him if they are gonna win it all. NE also climbed to 2nd in the East. Alecko Eskandarian came on late for DC making his first appearance in at least a month. He also doled out two ugly cheap shots at NE players and was lucky to only get one yellow card, both fouls could have drawn straight reds. Steve Ralston played the game at right back for New England and did a great job, especially in shutting down Freddy Adu completely.
Dallas 2-1 Los Angeles - The win gives Dallas home field throughout the playoffs, and the loss elimidates Los Angeles from the advancing to the playoffs for the first time ever. Ever! Carlos Ruiz and Kenny Cooper continued to strongly lead the Dallas offense, while Landon Donovan got a late one to try and salvage anything for LA, but no go amigo.
Kansas City 2-1 Chivas USA - Even though they lost, Chivas made the playoffs, cuz LA lost too. KC kept their dream alive with goals by Dave Van Den Bergh & du Nord defender of the year Jose Burciaga! Claudio Suarez got a PK back for Chivas.
Chicago 1-4 Columbus - Why did Sigi's boys wait so late to get healthy and start scoring? It does bode well for next year. Chicago are on cruise control, but slipped to third in the East. Chicago even scored first in this one on a goal by Chris Rolfe. Lumbus answered back with 4 straight goals by Eddie Gaven, Jason Garey, Ricardo Virtuoso & Joseph Ngwenya.
Colorado 1-1 NewYork - Both teams are brutal to watch, but stayed alive for potential post season births. Jacob Peterson (Colo) and Amado Guevara (NY) got the goals.The Rapids Mike Petke got a second yellow card 4 minutes into stoppage time and will miss the season finale. What an dumb move that was.
Salt Lake 1-1 Houston - Goals by Paul Dalglish for HD and Mehdi Balouchy for RSL, keeping Salt Lake's slim chances of making the playoffs alive.
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114,584 people saw the 6 MLS games this weekend. An average of 19,097.
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Here are your MLS top goal scorers going into week 32:
16 Jeff Cunningham
14 Ante Razov
13 Carlos Ruiz
12 Christian Gomez
11 Jaime Moreno
11 Dwayne De Rosario
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This coming weekend will see the final regular season games. Columbus and LA have been elimidated. While DC and Dallas have clinched home field in the East and West respectively. And DC winning the supporters shield.
Saturday:
New England v Columbus - 6:30pm Direct Kick
*New York v Kansas City - 6:30pm Direct Kick
*Houston v Colorado - 7:30pm HDNet
Los Angeles v Dallas - 9:30pm Fox Soccer Channel
Sunday:
DC v Chicago - 4pm ESPN2
*Chivas v Salt Lake - 6pm Fox Soccer Channel
-*involves team(s) still trying to get into the playoffs
-Winner of NY v KC gets in, if tied then KC gets in
-Colorado gets in with win or tie v Houston
-Salt Lake needs Colorado to lose, then they have to win v Chivas to get in
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Colorado have claimed the 2006 MLS Reserve Division title.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle on the rising skills of Freddy Adu.
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The US Players Assoc has a Q & A with Colorado goalkeeper Joe Cannon.
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The Soccer Roundtable from LA Soccer News brings together soccer writers Andrea Canales, Luis Bueno, Larry Morgan & Matt Zimmerman to talk about their visions for the future of MLS. The previous roundtable chats have been excellent.
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The Columbus Dispatch looks at what the Crew have to build on for next season. I think its decent, and not nearly as bad as some think it is.
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Jim Dow of RevsNet talks to New England asst coach Paul Mariner about the upcoming playoffs.
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In Cleveland the proposed plan for a new MLS team would include: "$180 million stadium with a retractable roof." From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. Wow!
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Ian Plenderleith dogs DC United in his post game analysis of their loss to New England, for the Mid-Atlantic Soccer Report.
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Very few executives in MLS history have taken the verbal beating that former Metrostars Pres Nick Sakiewicz has taken. But now that he is no longer with that team, and his dream of building a stadium for the team are fully green lighted, he must feel massive relief. And he deserves some respect too. Kristian Dyer of Soccernet and Jason Endres of Yanks Abroad & NyNjSoccer talk to him for Metrofanatic.
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When former USA head man Bruce Arena called US Soccer Fed Pres Sunil Gulati a "Superfan" it was not meant as a compliment, but Andrea Canales at Soccernet says Gulati is going to run with it as a positive.
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Joey Gjertsen of Vancouver was awarded the USL First Division Most Valuable Player.
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The Minnesota Thunder announced their post season awards as well:
-Matt Schmidt - Most Valuable Player - I agree completely.
-Chad Dombrowski - Defender of the Year - It's a toss up for me with him and Dustin Branan.
-Terry Alvino - Rookie of the Year - OK, but let it be known that I don't like "rookie" awards, yet if I had to pick one it might go to a guy who only played the second half of the season, Ansu Toure. No offense to Alvino who played very good at times too.
-Kiki Lara - Humanitarian of the Year - I don't know the criteria for this award, but he is an exceedingly nice and friendly guy. Good for him.
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Yanks Abroad has an editorial on why more Americans seeking European opportunities should look beyond just England and Germany.
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YA also has any article with their USA player picks for next summers U20 World Championship team.
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Reuters has an article confirming that Jurgen Klinsmann has been offered both the USA and Mexico manager jobs. If he picks Mexico I am gonna puke.
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Some big upsets in last weekends Euro 08 qualifiers! Here are select scores. (More matches coming on Wed):
Russia 1-1 Israel
Italy 2-0 Ukraine
Wales 1-5 Slovakia
England 0-0 Macedonia
Scotland 1-0 France
Cyprus 5-2 Ireland
Sweden 2-0 Spain
Portugal 3-0 Azerbaijan
Netherlands 1-1 Bulgaria
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Jonathan Woodgate has suffered another unspecified leg injury and will miss games for England and Middlesbrough. He must be John O'Brien's genetic cousin or something.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune on who's at fault for the lack of top notch results at some of Europe's supposed super-soccer-powers: Losing? Blame it on the rain
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And Phil Ball of Soccernet looks at Spain's "tradition of shortcomings" internationally: Flying the flag
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Sometime over the past weekend du Nord passed the 100,000 visitor mark! Thanks so much to everyone for reading along, and to my friends for their support. It's been an honor having you here every day.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the blog. Since I discovered it this past May, it has helped me broaden my soccer horizons and become a better fan. A question for you...I was wondering why you don't cover the U.S. Women's Team or anything related to women's soccer? (Not meant as a criticism...just curious)

4:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congrats Brucio- Thanks for all the hard work and even more so the constancy. Excellent job buddy.

And here's to Mooch. There is no doubt in my mind that he was one of the brightest soccer minds in this country. I never had the opportunity to meet him personally but I have friends that have met him and have listened to his scouting reports and analysis of games and the guy was top drawer. Make no mistake about that. A class act and a good family man. His family mourns but so does the U.S. Soccer community. We will miss you Mooch.

4:50 PM  
Blogger brucio said...

thanks as always to lukacs & bq for their insight and inspiration

to bigal - i dont have a great answer for not covering the usa women etc
i guess i am just not much of a fan
i have been to their games and watched many on tv, been to girls high school games, u of m womens games and seen the new minnesota lightning 3 times in their inaugural year
but it just doesnt fire me up
i have kept going more out of support than love
and i will always support it with my feet & $
but for now thats about it
everyone who reads this is free to contribute anything they want to du nord
so if you or anyone else wants to send me links i will always post them along with your comments
thanks for asking, and of course for reading

2:47 PM  

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