I Am Totally Confused By What I Just Said News

As I walked around outside today (listening to the brilliant 70's German rock band Can) I was thinking to myself that if I was the coach of a MLS team I would do everything in my power to keep my General Manager from signing a blighted personality like Blanco to our roster. As a fan of course I love the villains. And I think the league needs em. But if I had to be responsible for one of those kinda guys...... I would probably kill 'em myself before the opponents even got a chance to! Bring him on!


US Soccer prepares for friendly's v Ecuador & Guatemala.
-The team will introduce a new jersey tomorrow. The color Royal Blue is the only thing we know right now.
-Yesterday I said that the USA only had 2 d-mids on the roster - Michael Bradley & Benny Feilhaber, but I forgot about Brian Carroll. This does not add any more experience to the position, but it is more depth.
-It's really too bad that the two Denver daily newspapers don't care about the Colorado Rapids, cuz if they did then maybe one of them could tell us why Pablo Mastroeni was not selected for the USA team. USA coach Bob Bradley has a press conference tomorrow, maybe one of the "journalists" will ask him about Pablo.
-Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald examines the list of players called into the camp.
-The official team blog is back in effect. It's kinda lame actually, but occasionally there is an interesting tidbit.
-Steve Cherundolo talks to the official team website. You can hear it via podcast.
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Toronto makes a very good move - they have acquired Richard Mulrooney from Dallas for a first round draft pick next season and some cold hard cash. I have no idea what this says about Dallas, or Mulrooney (but he is NOT the player he once was), but Toronto can use all the help they can get their hands on.
-And in case I have forgotten to mention this, Toronto also signed midfielder Andy Welsh from Sunderland. As one writer put it (sorry but I forgot who): His name is Welsh, he was born in England, but his passport is from Scotland, he is going to play for a team in Canada, but the league is American. Wow! Talk about yer Anglo-Saxon clusterfuck.
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Looks as though the LA Riot Squad have already selected their 2007 Player Of The Year - and he is one of their own (Thanks to James from the Giant Blog for sending me this): At the LA x Columbus pre-season match, an LA Riot Squader (Twigg) wandered down to the field and took a seat next to the players on the bench. The players had a good laugh and no one said anything until today, when Cobi Jones mentioned it in his retirement announcement. You can see the picture of Twigg on the bench here. This is my kinda jackassery!
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Andrea Canales at LA Soccer News gets the low down from LA Galaxy ownership executive Tim Leiweke on the first time he ever laid eyes on Cobi Jones. (It must have been dreamy.)
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Grahame Jones of the LA Times was at the Cobi retirement press conference. These are his words on the topic of the day.
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Do you think Rafa Marquez was made aware of the momentous occasion.
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A classic picture by Andrea Canales from the Cobi press conference.
-This one is kinda cool in a different way - It's Cobi meeting 16 year old Tristan Bowen who just became the first player signed to the Galaxy's new youth side - Galaxy Rios.
-There are a ton more great pictures and stories where those came from at Sideline View.
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Luis Bueno also of the Sideline View blog has been hearing a lot of rumors about Columbus signing a big name South American midfield playmaker this week. Let's hope it's not Sebastian Rozental pt. 2.
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Bueno talks to former Galaxy great Mauricio Cienfuegos for LA Soccer News.
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OK - Andrea and Luis and Cobi just got enough pimpin' for a month. Let's move on.
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Andrew Hush at Soccer New England talks more with Shalrie Joseph's agent & the teams Mike Burns about the players trade demand. Lot's of quotes.
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I had heard that New England defender Michael Parkhurst had suffered a shoulder injury last week during the teams training in Cancun, but I just found out that the problem is a dislocated shoulder injured while SWIMMING!
-The other dinged up Rev is Pat Noonan, who seems to have been injured in one way or another for just over a full year now. He has gone to Germany to have that special quick healing hernia surgery. The team will need him at full speed quite badly this season if they are to succeed.
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Jeff Carlisle at Soccernet begins their MLS team-by-team season previews with a look at the Los Angeles Galaxy. Including a quip from Eric Wynalda.
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Michael Lewis at Big Apple Soccer talks to Red Bulls midfielder Seth Stammler about the 07 season. Claudio Reyna quotes too.
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Kristian Dyer of Soccernet has more on the New York Red Bulls financial hubbub story.
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The Houston Dynamo will be honored tomorrow by the Texas state government. Which is pretty cool, I guess. Several players and management types will go to the state capital for some sorta hoopla. Congrats!
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Another episode of Jeff Bradley's First XI from MLSnet already: How's This For Starters?
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No surprise here: "Coming Soon" has now become BobbyBowell.com. Oh yeah oh yeah.
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Square Football with a nice ditty on the incomparable Ray Hudson!
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The latest ACTIM official statistics from the English Premiership are out and American Marcus Hahnemann is the top rated goalkeeper. Fellow American keepers in England Tim Howard & Brad Freidel rank #5 & #7 respectively.
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Someone yesterday requested some info on American and former Columbus Crew winger Brian West. Here is my report:
-Brian West - Fredrikstad - The most important thing I could dig up out about Brian & his team is that the 80's one hit-wonders A-Ha will be playing a concert at the Fredrikstad stadium in Norway on August 17th. It's apparently a really big deal in Norway, which is the bands home country, where I presume they are not one-hit wonders, but rather brilliant mega-hit artists. The team itself is in training after winter break and will start their new season on April 9 v Lillestrom. Late last month Yanks Abroad ran a story on Brian's series of injuries that have kept him sidelined for the past year. He is currently in the USA rehabbing. We at du Nord wish Brian and A-Ha the best of luck.
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The USA U20 team will train together for a week in Dallas starting Thursday. Coach Thomas Rongen has called in striker Gabe Ferrari from Sampdoria for his first stint with the team.
-Yanks Abroad with a full list of all the players called in.
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Mexico is also playing two friendly's during this international break:
Sunday March 25 v Paraguay in Monterrey California
Wednesday March 28 v Ecuador in Oakland
-Does this team play in Mexico anymore? Or do they only play at Azteca for their World Cup qualifiers?
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Copa Libertadores - here are the week's matches:
Mar 20
Cerro Porteno - Cucuta Deportivo
Real Potosi - Maracaibo
Caracas - Colo Colo
Mar 21
Flamengo - Parana
Banfield - America
Necaxa - Sao Paulo
Mar 22
Libertad - El Nacional
Boca Juniors - Toluca
Gimnasia - Santos
Emelec - Nacional
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English FA Cup last night:
Tottenham 1-2 Chelsea - Chelsea goals by Andre Shevchenko & Sean Wright-Phillips. Tottenham goal by Robbie Keane on a PK.
-How about that Shevchenko goal! Wow! He blistered a shot to the back post from about 25 yards out that the Tot keeper had no chance to save.
Manchester United 1-0 Middlesbrough - goal by Cristiano Ronaldo on a PK
-I wonder what Middlesbrough's Yakubu said to Cristiano Ronaldo right before CR took the winning PK. On TV you could see Yakubu walk up behind CR and say something, smile, and then walk away. I can only assume Yakubu said something like this, "Being one of the world's most brilliant penalty kick takers, would you like some advice? Did you see the TWO pk's I missed in the last round of the FA Cup before my teammates bailed me out by making their's. I missed one in regulation and a second after extra time. Don't take em like I did. None the less, I am a brilliant player so I am going to give you a hard time now and then chuckle at my own chicanery. Thank you. Oh, and congratulations on your soon to be win today." By the way, Ronaldo didn't even bat an eye at this crap. He just slammed it home.
-As far as CR's PK goes. He did not take a dive this time. He blew past Jonny Woodgate in the box and then as he felt JW coming in for a tackle CR just let his right leg stretch back so that JW could do nothing but hack him to the ground. Again, CR did not dive, but he sure went into that tackle looking to get fouled and draw the PK. Which I suppose is slightly less pathetic. Calculating player isn't he. I can understand why players on other teams want to viciously foul him. They are totally out of line for doing so, but I can fully understand where they are coming from.
Semifinals:
April 14 - Watford v Manchester United at Villa Park in Birmingham
April 15 - Blackburn Rovers v Chelsea at Old Trafford in Manchester
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Rob Hughes at the International Herald Tribune checks in on Zidane - where is the dude, and what is he doing when not going to Knicks games?
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UEFA.com looks at former German star Bernd Schuster who is coaching Getafe up the ranks of respectability and beyond in Spain.
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And Rikki Kaka's latest diary entry from UEFA.com. He talks about his teams chances in the Champions League, where they next face Bayern Munich. Among other things.
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India has a national soccer team, and they are coached by an Englishman named Bob Houghton. He is interviewed by FIFA.com.
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Phil Ball's weekly La Liga column for Soccernet focuses on the teams in Spain's second division who are looking to join the top flight via relegation for next season.
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Inter's Adriano is out on the town partying again. And this time he is with Brazilian buddy Ronaldo. And this time he got into a fight. And with not just anyone, but a fight with an American who plays basketball for Varese! Special.
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Can someone explain this to me - Why is Watford's nickname the Hornets, when they have a Moose on their logo?
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You wanna see something really funny (in a beautifully subtle way) - Southampton have put up a bronze statue of former great Ted Bates outside their stadium. But there is a problem with the proportions of the great man. It went up last week, and word is already going around that it is coming back down. It is horribly funny! I feel bad for the guy. But I still laughed really hard.