Go Back Now News

France Football's Ballon d'Or or Golden Ball award was announced today, and the winner, not surprisingly, is defender Fabio Cannavaro of Italy, and for many years Juventus, and now Real Madrid. Big du Nord congrats to him. But I don't think he should have won this award. I think he got the sympathy vote because he should have won the similar award at the World Cup. To my way of thinking, Thierry Henry or Ronaldinho probably should have won this.
-Greg Lalas at Sports Illustrated scrutinizes the winner.
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UK rumor mongers The Mirror are reporting that the Glazer family are going to buy the Los Angeles Galaxy and tie them to Manchester United! This does not sound good to me at all.
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Grahame Jones at the LA Times is convinced that Juergen Klinsmann is going to be named USA coach. And here is how Jonesy thinks things will move when this happens.
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Big Apple Soccer has reported that New York Red Bulls star midfielder Amado Guevara is gone. The team shipped him to the west coast and Chivas USA, in exchange for the goats Designated Player allocation, giving NYRB 2 of those coveted high priced slots on their roster for next season. New York also get a 3rd round selection in the Superdraft for him.
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And rumors out of Mexico say Chivas USA striker Paco Palencia is all set to return to his home country and sign with UANL Tigres for next season.
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The Kansas City Wizards announced former USA assistant coach Curt Onalfo as their new head man today. From the KC Star.
-Marc Connolly of the US Players Assoc comments on the hiring.
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The USA women beat Mexico last week in the CONCACAF Gold Cup semi finals to secure their place in next summers World Cup. They then beat Canada in the Cup final last night 2-1.
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DC United midfielder Brian Carroll is on to his second European club trial session, this time with Olympique Marseille in France. He had been on trial at Alemannia Aachen in the Bundesliga but no deal was offered.
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New England defender Avery John is on a trial with Leeds.
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New England also declined to extend the contract of Mexican forward Jose Manuel Abundis. Abundis was deeply offended when he did not see the pitch in the MLS Cup final.
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Former Chicago Fire star Lubos Kubik has been named manager of tiny English team Torquay United. They play in League Two, and currently sit in last place. Someone can correct me, but I think that this is the very bottom of the barrel in the English Football Association hierarchy.
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The matchups for next years CONCACAF Champions Cup have been set. Houston go on the road for the 1st leg to face Puntarenas of Costa Rica, and DC United go on the road first to meet Olimpia of Honduras. First leg games will be played Feb 20-22, with return legs Feb 27-Mar 1. Here is the full bracket. (Some spots are still not filled.)
-The Chronicle is reporting that Houston won't have their regular stadium available for their home leg.
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A small town Canadian newspaper has a Q & A with one of Canada's premier soccer analysts, Dick Howard. It's quite good, and nice to hear from one of our northern opinionators. Maybe one of our Canadian readers can fill us in on exactly who Howard is.
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The New York Red Bulls have signed former Colorado defender Eric Denton from the league's waiver pool (ie. players released by a team, but still under contract to the league).
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The Toronto Globe & Mail talks to Toronto FC coach Moey Johnston about his newest and lesser known players.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle looks at soccer fans from around the world and see's a lot of troubles.
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Marcus Hahnemann has signed a new contract with Reading that will keep him with the club until the end of the 2008 season.
-Hahnemann also does a Q & A with Soccer365.
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The CONCACAF qualifying round draws have been determined for both the U17 & U20 World Championships. The USA U20's will be paired with Guatemala, Haiti & Panama. Two teams from that group will advance to the world finals in Canada in July. The qualifiers will take place in Panama on January 17-21. As for the U17's, the will be placed in a group consisting of Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. Those qualifying matches will take place in Jamaica on April 18-26. Three teams from that group will advance to the finals in South Korea mid-August.
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NCAA quarterfinals. Single elimidation. Here are the results:
Virginia 3-2 Notre Dame
Wake Forest 3-1 Santa Clara
Northwestern 3-2 Santa Barbara
Duke 3-2 UCLA - in overtime
-The Semifinals & Finals will be played Dec 1 & 3 in St Louis.
-Here are the semifinal matches on Friday the 1st:
UCLA v Virginia - 5pm central - shown live on ESPN2
UC Santa Barbara v Wake Forest - 7:30pm central - shown delayed at 1am central Saturday morning on ESPNU.
-The final will be shown live Sunday the 3rd at 2pm central on ESPN2.
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The names of the 3 finalists for College Soccer's Hermann Trophy (Player Of The Year) have been announced. The winner will be named on Saturday Dec 2:
Jay Needham - SMU - defender
Charlie Davies - Boston College - forward
Joseph Lapira - Notre Dame - forward
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Let's check in with our favorite Americans in Europe and see how their weekend matches went:
-DaMarcus Beasley - Manchester City - still out injured as his team lost to Liverpool 1-0.
-Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham - came on as a sub in central defense after going down to 10 men, played their asses off, but lost to Reading 0-1.
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - got the start in the midfield but lost to AZ Alkmaar 1-3.
-Steve Cherundolo - Hannover - played the full 90 at right back as his team beat Mainz 1-0.
-Bobby Convey - Reading - still out with the knee injury but his team beat Fulham 0-1.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - did not play a match this weekend, but are at home to Sheff U on Tues.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - the team did not play a match this weekend.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - got a huge win while being outplayed by 10 men in beating Fulham 0-1.
-Tim Howard - Everton - in goal but drew 1-1 at Charlton.
-Kasey Keller - Monchengladbach - out with the shoulder injury as his team lost to Stuttgart 1-0.
-Eddie Lewis - Leeds - got the game winning goal while playing the full 90 back in midfield in a 1-2 win at Plymouth. He also got the assist on their first goal. Was named MOTM. The points also get them out of the relegation zone. Awesome for Eddie!
-Brian McBride - Fulham - played extremely hard for team with only 10 men but lost to Reading 0-1.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Standard - played the full 90 and won at Germinal Beerschot Antwerpen 1-3.
-Claudio Reyna - Manchester City - went the full 90 in midfield while losing to Liverpool 1-0.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - started again and beat Sheffield United 1-0.
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The Mexican Apertura playoffs, quarterfinals round (2 legs):
First Legs-
Guadalajara 2-0 Cruz Azul
Monterrey 0-0 Toluca
Atlas 1-3 America
Pachuca 1-1 UNAM
Second Legs-
Cruz Azul 2-2 Guadalajara - Guada win 4-2 on agg.
UNAM 0-1 Pachuca - Pachuca win 2-1 on agg.
America 3-3 Atlas - America win 6-4 on agg.
Toluca 2-1 Monterrey - Toluca win 2-1 on agg.
-So the Semifinals will be (exact dates and times still to be set):
Pachuca v Toluca
America v Guadalajara
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Midfielder Alexander Hleb has been named Player Of The Year in his native Belarus. He plays his club ball for Arsenal. This is the 4th time in 5 years he has won the award. So who won it that other year?
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2 big Euro matches from this past weekend:
-Manchester United 1-1 Chelsea - nothings changed at the top spots then in England.
-Palermo 1-2 Inter Milan - a massive road win for #1 Inter over #2 Palermo. Astonishingly Inter have not lost in 34 straight league games, and their lead in Serie A is 4 points over new #2 Roma.
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Matchday 6 in the Champions League, the final day of the group stage, takes place on Dec 5 & 6 with only 6 of 16 spots left open for the knockout stage. Inter Milan & Chelsea both went through on Matchday 5 joining Bayern Munich, PSV, Celtic, Liverpool, Valencia, Lyon, Real Madrid & Milan.
The big games include Manchester United v Benfica with Man U only needing a tie to move on. Porto v Arsenal with both sitting on 10 points and CSKA Moska at 8.
Barcelona v Werder Bremen battling for the second spot in their group.
Should be some great stuff. Let's hope we get decent games to watch here in America. I am really not interested in seeing any of the teams who are already thru.
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Milan's season just hit a deeper hole as goalkeeper Dida injured the quad tendon in his left knee & will be out for around three months. And their back up is dodgy at best.
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Matt Hermann at the Guardian reports on the brutal season being undertaken by Hamburg in the Bundesliga. They were supposed to be really good if not great this season. But mostly they stink. And when they don't stink they have terrible luck.
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Another European team has had to hop the subway to the match after their team bus got stuck in traffic. This time it happened to Coventry City in London on the way to play QPR. Kinda surreal, but I love it.
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As much as I love the play of Argentine Carlos Tevez he has proven beyond a doubt that he is a spoiled brat. Several times over the past two years at his old club Corinthians he stormed out of team practices or just didn't show up for games or training. He has now gone and done it again at his new club West Ham. He got subbed off on Saturday, so he threw a fit and went off the field, into his car and drove away. He will get hammered for it by the team too (all pun intended). He has since apologized, but...... what's the deal dude?
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Did ya see the new haircut on Portsmouth keeper David James? (The BBC expertly shows his long series of really bad looks.) Come on buddy, you can do better than this. I'm thinking he must have lost a bet of some sort, and was forced to sport it in public. Why else would anyone do it. His new look will certainly give the hairdo's of Chelsea's Drogba & Palermo's Amuari a run for worst of the season.
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Simon Kuper of the Financial Times looks at the way teams hire their managers. In terms of business, he calls their methods moronic. Excellent. I will read that.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune looks at the crazy & bad news coming lately from Paris St Germain, then looks at one of their most prodigal sons, the also troubled Nikolas Anekla, who burned his old club Arsenal on their arse this weekend for his latest team Bolton.
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Lastly, did you see the insane goal Ronaldinho scored against Villareal Saturday. This is why he is the best. Awesome!