All The Girls In Town Follow You All Around News

DaMarcus Beasley had a great weekend at Manchester City. It was absolutely thrilling to see him back in action. See below for details.

Frank Dell'apa at the Boston Globe says New England midfielder Clint Dempsey is just waiting for a work permit to make his move to Fulham reality!! The price is $2.9 million. I can live with that. Now let's hope there is no snafu.
-Dell'apa also reported that NE defender Avery John is headed to Queen's Park Rangers. But Andrew Hush at Soccer New England says the deal may not go through as originally thought.
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Team USA assembles today in Los Angeles at the Home Depot Center for the first training session of the Bob Bradley era. Stay tuned for everything.
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Dell'apa at the Globe also writes about New England defender Michael Parkhurst who is joining the USA team for the first time.
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The LA Soccer News Roundtable Team discuss who will and who won't step up for the US of A in the new year.
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LA Soccer News announced that they will also be covering the Mexican league in depth, in English. I think this is fantastic news, cuz it can be down right hard to get real info on our friends south of the border.
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Lil Fred speaks: Jemele Hill at ESPN.com Page 2 interviews Freddy Adu's little brother Fro!
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You should expect the USA to call in European based players for the Feb 7 game v Mexico cuz it's a FIFA sanctioned international date.
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We are only 15 days away from the USA U20 team's World Championship qualifying tournament in Panama. The roster was been released for the final training camp before the official team is picked. Read all about the details here.
-Several of those U20's made new years resolutions.
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The USA U16 team beat Real Madrid 3-0 at the just completed Disney Soccer Showcase in Florida. The Twin Cities own Abdusalam Ibrahim scored 2 goals for our young boys.
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Ives Galarcep at Soccernet with his 2007 New Years wish list.
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Ives also recaps 2006 for the North Jersey Herald.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle reviews the 2006 Houston Dynamo long, crazy and ultimately, championship season.
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Jeff Bradley at MLSnet with is latest First XI: New Year's Resolutions
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Michael Lewis writing for the New York Daily News has his Top 10 potential soccer stories for 2007.
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Mike Biglin at the Boston Herald reviews the 2006 New England Revolution season.
-He also makes a list of the seasons 5 highs and 5 lows.
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Bob Luder of the KC Star with a story on the new player search being conducted by the new Wizards duo of coach Curt Onalfo and technical director Peter Vermes.
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The Times of London with a story on new Dallas coach and former Arsenal player Steve Morrow.
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After missing out on Paolo Wanchope & Luis Figo, yet another major MLS target, Mexican Jared Borgetti, who is officially leaving Saudi Arabian club Al-Ittihad, will head home to Mexico and play for the cement mixers at Cruz Azul.
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And Houston had been chasing after Pachuca forward Bruno Marioni but Football Database has him listed as already transferring to Boca Juniors.
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You need to read this new blog called MLS Underground, written by an anonymous someone with serious insider knowledge and good sources. The site also boasts the best tag line around: "The Hottest Thing to Hit US Soccer since Veronica Paysse." Excellent humor. Check it out now.
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In other blogger land news, the professionals are coming for us amateurs. With Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune having the Red Card, and Ives Galarcep having Soccer By Ives, we are now being challenged by Andrea Canales of Soccernet, Soccer365 & LA Soccer News teaming up again with Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise, Sports Illustrated & LA Soccer News for Sideline Views. Lots of great insider stuff to read. Great to see.
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A very kind reader named Greg sent me this gem from last week. It is a VERY interesting story from the Yahoo Financial pages. Seems our friends at Chivas USA have gone to a bank for a LOAN. Wha? Why would they need a loan. Of course it could be something simple like building a new facility of some kind. Read it for yourself. Very odd/interesting.
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Adam Spangler of This Is American Soccer does a great interview with Robert Zeigler, the man behind the best American youth soccer website Top Drawer Soccer.
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet reports on the real chances of the WUSA making a comeback.
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Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree fame, surveys the midfielder crop for the upcoming MLS Superdraft, for Soccernet.
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Houston seems to be back in the muddled picture of the proposed MLS v FMF (Mexico) tournament for next summer. The list of MLS teams announced by the Mexican league is 3/4 different from the initial rumored list of MLS teams we got here in America. The initial list was: Dallas, Los Angeles, DC United & Chicago. But the new list looks like this: Chivas USA, Los Angeles, New York & Houston. Wow. The 4 Mexican teams remain the same as before: America, Guadalajara, Cruz Azul & Morelia. Stay tuned, it's bound to change some more.
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A poster at Big Soccer called Brahmafutbol bought a small soccer magazine in his hometown of Houston which contained this odd advertisement from a local architecture firm announcing a stadium project (with a diagram) for the Houston Dynamo.
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The Kansas City Star with a feature story on Lamar Hunt's son Clark. Who is taking over his fathers sports empire.
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I haven't found a good link written in English yet, but Red Bull has bought a third team. This one is from the eastern German city of Leipzig and is called Sachsen. They currently play in the 3rd division.
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The CONCACAF site has a run down of the regions top stories of 2006. Nothing special, but there are a few things I forgot about.
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Soccer365 has a quote from Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon from Spanish newspaper Marca about possible January signings at the club, but there is NO reference to USA and Liege defender Oguchi Onyewu: "At the moment we're also thinking of signing a defender like Alexis or Cristian Chivu." This could mean something. Then again it might not.
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Josh Wolff talks to Yanks Abroad about his first day at his new club 1860 Munich, which will be tomorrow. He will wear #11.
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Let's check in with our favorite Americans in Europe (England & Holland are the only ones playing) and see how their recent matches went:
-DaMarcus Beasley - Manchester City - Saw real action for the first time with Man City and it paid huge dividends for his team. On Saturday v West Ham he came on as a sub in the 65th minute of a scoreless game, took a pass, raced thru the heart of the West Ham defense and smashed home a right footed shot for the games only goal. It was the first time since Oct 05 that Man City has registered two wins in a row! Here is the story from the Man City website. Then on Monday he got the start v Everton. The first half was painful to watch with DaMarcus playing central midfield. To start the second half they moved him to the left wing and brought in striker Giorgio Samaras. The two took over the game at that point. Samaras led a counter attack down the middle, dropped a pass to his left for Beas who flew into the box, returned a deadly cross to Samaras who cracked it past Everton keeper Tim Howard. They went on to win 2-1. Welcome back to the highlight reel Mr DMB! The team have now won 3 straight.
-Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham - Started and went the whole way on Saturday and dramatically poked home a rebound of a Brian McBride shot to give Fulham a 2-2 come from behind draw v Chelsea on the road!! On Monday he again started and went the full match in a 0-0 draw with Watford. He has been playing fantastic lately!
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - Didn't get to start on Saturday v Utrecht but subbed in in the 26th minute and had a strong game despite a 0-0 draw. His team now has a 3 week break in games.
-Bobby Convey - Reading - Bobby is back to full fledged training after knee surgery. Yanks Abroad with details.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - Started Saturday's game v Wigan which was called off due to a water-logged pitch with the scored tied 1-1. No make up date has been set yet. DeMerit then went the full 90 on Monday v Fulham in a 0-0 draw.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - Boy, his team plays a style of football that is not very pleasant to watch. Brad played both matches as usual and beat Middlesbrough 2-1 on Saturday, then won 0-3 at Wigan on Monday. The good part is that winning ugly still counts for 6 points.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - Played both games. On Saturday they lost 3-2 at Man U but scored after having a man sent off, which probably gave them confidence for Mondays 6-0 absolute demolition of West Ham. Holy smokes it was a rout. Another clean sheet too.
-Tim Howard - Everton - Started two games over the weekend. Kept a clean sheet (his third in a row) in a strong win as they beat the bejesus outta Newcastle 3-0 on Saturday. But had a bad game on Monday v Man City. He committed a silly foul on Darius Vassel that led to a PK goal which was the game winner in a 2-1 loss. Not good for Tim-may.
-Eddie Lewis - Leeds - Eddie played both games, but they lost 3-1 to Stoke on Saturday. He and his teammates played a million times better in Monday's 2-1 win over Coventry City.
-Brian McBride - Fulham - Started and played 90 on Saturday v Chelsea. Had a great late shot saved by Hilario, but fellow American Carlos Bocanegra was on the spot for the rebound goal in a come back 2-2 draw. Went 70 minutes on Monday in a 0-0 draw with Watford.
-Claudio Reyna - Manchester City - still out with a hamstring injury. Missed both weekend games.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - Played the entirety of a the 1-0 loss to Man City Saturday, but (luckily for him) did not start in the 6-0 debacle at Reading on Monday. He came on at half time with his team already down 4-0. Oof.
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The readers of Football365 have voted our man Brian McBride as the 4th most under-rated player in the EPL! Kolo Toure was #1, followed by Tim Cahill and Jussi Jaaskelainen. Last January the site ran a great article on McBride that seems appropriate to link to. Thanks very much to Chris for sending us the story!!
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The web site Even Is On did an interview with young USA & Hamburg midfielder Benny Feilhaber.
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A very sick bastard sent Palermo general manager Rino Foschi a severed goat head as a Christmas present. He even put the wrapped package under the family tree, and his wife opened it!!! Holy shit, that is nasty.
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I don't know if you remember that massive Pele book that I linked to a month or so ago, but Big Apple Soccer has an excerpt from the book. This part was written by long time New York Cosmos executive Clive Toye, the man who first plotted to bring Pele to America.
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Werder Bremen midfielder Diego was named Best Player for the first half of the Bundesliga season.
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Chilean midfielder Matias Fernandez of Colo Colo was named Latin American Footballer Of The Year. He is set to sign with Villareal this week. He is only 20 years old. Keep your eyes & ears open for this name in the future.
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The African Football Confederation have named the three finalists for African Footballer Of The Year. Not surprisingly it's the amazing trio of Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast & Chelsea), Michael Essien (Ghana & Chelsea) and Samuel Etoo (Cameroon & Barcelona). I would vote for Drogba.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune writes about the old and the new for Portugal: As Ronaldo rises, Figo can see sunset
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Portugal named Cristiano Ronaldo as their Player Of The Year.
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James at James And The Giant Blog has a great link to Fenerbache fans throwing more streamers and confetti than I can even imagine. Many other great fan videos too, but I like the Fener one the best by a mile.
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Parma who currently sit in second to last place in Serie A will be auctioned off this month after 3 years in receivership.
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The Mexican InterLiga tournament kicks off tomorrow in Houston at Robertson Stadium. All 8 teams play over the next two days in a pair of double headers. You can see all the games on Fox Sports en Espanol. The tournament is split up into 2 groups of 4 teams who will play a round robin with the top two teams in each group advancing.
Wednesday - Group A:
Monterrey v UANL
Cruz Azul v Necaxa
Thursday - Group B:
Chiapas v Morelia
America v UAG
-The teams then move to Dallas's Pizza Hut Park for two more double headers on Sat & Sun, before moving to the final group stage games next Tue & Wed in LA at Home Depot Center. The top 2 teams from each group will play off at HDC for the title on Sun Jan 13. The winner gets a spot in the upcoming Copa Libertadores.
-Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle with a preview.