Monday, April 02, 2007

Glue Is for Gluing Stuff News

One of my favorite people in all of football journalism, Simon Kuper, is the guest on this weeks podcast at EPL Talk! Fantastic! And a note from The Gaffer at EPL Talk: "Wednesday we'll be publishing a special interview with Oliver Tse, the man behind SoccerTV.com who will be making a major announcement on the EPL Talk Podcast which will have an impact on soccer fans in America."


Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer talks to Clint Mathis about his return to the team in the Meadowlands.
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Sulaiman Folarin of Soccernet does a Q & A with New York midfielder and Team USA legend Claudio Reyna.
-Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated gets some time alone with Captain America too.
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Metrofanatic has the latest rumor of a striker headed to the Red Bulls - really old and worn out Chilean Marcelo Salas. Please no. This guy was one of my heroes in the late 90's when he teamed up with Ivan Zamorano, but that was a very long time again.
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Dallas lost to Paranaense of Brazil 1-0 at home on Saturday and 4-1 on aggregate in the USA-Brazil Challenge Cup.
-Match report from Tobias Xavier Lopez of the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
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Dallas has officially named striker Carlos Ruiz as their team captain. Are they asking for trouble?
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The Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City has their Real Salt Lake season preview, with many many articles. Let's start here with Building From Ground Up, RSL Has Third-Year Goal Of 'Playoffs Or Bust', then read about 8 more stories linked in the left hand column of that story.
-There is a pretty cool graphic image to go with the preview!
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Bob Luder of the KC Star reports that Kansas City has formed a partnership with Mexican club Atlas.
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Andrew Hush of Soccer New England looks at the end of the Rev's preseason to see where they stand for the 07 campaign.
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New England fans got to meet with coach Steve Nicol on Saturday and ask questions about the upcoming season. Poster rkupp from BigSoccer summarized the events topics quite nicely.
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The Denver Post previews the 07 Colorado Rapids team, and their new home stadium.
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Andrea Canales of LA Soccer News on the newest Los Angeles defender Shavar Thomas.
-Luis Bueno of LASN talks to Thomas's new teammate and fellow Jamaican Tyrone Marshall.
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A little mini-Q & A with LA midfielder Cobi Jones. From the New York Times.
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And yes, the Galaxy will play a friendly v Rangers on Wed May 23 at the HDC.
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After giving us the 100th reading of the "Edson Buddle was named after Pele" story, the Toronto Star gives us the slightly less threadbare "Ronnie O'Brien used to play for Juventus" chestnut.
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MLS CBW Don Garber announced several small changes to the "competition format" in MLS for the upcoming season today. The only thing of real interest to fans is that players will be asked NOT to put the ball out of play when someone is injured, the stoppage will be left up to the referee to handle. Here are the rest of the "initiatives".
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Bill Urban at the US Players Assoc calls out the 2006 MLS draft picks, cuz most of em were no shows last season. Time to deliver boyo's.
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Sports Illustrated with pictures and text on 13 MLS Players To Watch in 07. There are a few obvious choices, a couple of inspired picks, and a couple of head scratchers in this bunch.
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CONCACAF Champions Cup Semifinal second leg matches are this week!
Tuesday-
Guadalajara v DC United - live at 8:30pm central on Fox Soccer Channel
Thursday-
Pachuca v Houston - live at 8:30pm central on Fox Soccer Channel
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The Carolina Challenge Cup was won by Houston for the 2nd straight year, and by the same team who had played in San Jose for the 3rd straight year!
1st round scores:
Houston 2-0 Toronto
Charleston 0-1 New York
2nd round scores:
Toronto 2-1 New York
Houston 1-1 Charleston
3rd & final round scores:
Houston 2-1 New York
Charleston 0-3 Toronto
-Final Points:
7 Houston
6 Toronto
2 New York
1 Charleston
-MLSnet with a report from the final round.
-And a report from the Charleston Battery's (the host team) website.
-USA & Reading midfielder Bobby Convey was in attendance. He is having knee surgery.
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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 - did not dress for his teams 0-1 win over Newcastle.
-Gregg Berhalter - 1860 Munich - served the last of a 3 game suspension. His team won 0-2 at Rot-Weiss Essen.
-Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham - went the full 90 at center back in his teams 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - did not dress in his teams 2-2 draw with Sparta Rotterdam.
-Danny Califf - Aalborg - was suspended and did not play in his teams 1-1 draw with Odense.
-Steve Cherundolo - Hannover - went the distance at right back but were beaten 2-0 by Bochum.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - went the distance and played very hard but lost 0-1 to Chelsea. His fruitless efforts did earn him a spot on the Soccernet EPL Team of the Week.
-Clint Dempsey - Fulham - did not make the bench for his teams 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - his team took the early lead but still got drubbed 4-1 by Man United. Friedel played the entire game in goal as usual.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - started but came out at half time with a hip injury. The team went on to lose to Tottenham 1-0. No word on the extent of the injury.
-Kamani Hill - Wolfsburg - dressed but did not play in a 1-0 loss at Hamburg.
-Tim Howard - Everton - play Aston Villa today.
-Kasey Keller - Monchengladbach - played the whole 90 minutes but drew 1-1 at home with Frankfurt.
-Eddie Lewis - Leeds - started on the left wing and had a good game in a 2-1 win over Preston. They moved themselves to within 2 points of safety from relegation with 6 games to play.
-Brian McBride - Fulham - started and played the first 65 minutes in his teams 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Newcastle - was a 73rd minute sub, but the team lost 0-1 to Man City.
-Heath Pearce - Nordsjaelland - was injured at the USA camp last week and did not dress for his teams 4-1 win over Viborg.
-Frank Simek - Sheffield Wednesday - did not play due to suspension.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - dressed but did not play in a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough.
-Josh Wolff - 1860 Munich - after missing 2 games due to a thigh injury he subbed on at half time and scored the first/winning goal in a 0-2 win at Rot-Weiss Essen!!
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Luis Bueno with his weekly Mexican league review from LA Soccer News: Jornada 13 Roundup.
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Champions League quarterfinals - Matchday 9 starts tomorrow!
-Tuesday:
Milan v Bayern Munich
PSV v Liverpool
-Wednesday:
Roma v Manchester United
Chelsea v Valencia
-Matchday 10 on April 10 & 11.
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Copa Libertadores - here are the week's matches:
Mar 30
Colo Colo 2-1 Caracas
Apr 03
Nacional - Emelec
Colo Colo - LDU Quito
El Nacional - Banfield
Apr 04
Cienciano - Boca Juniors
Sao Paulo - Necaxa
Maracaibo - Flamengo
Apr 05
Caracas - River Plate
Defensor Sporting - Santos
Deportivo Pasto - Gimnasia
-With 2 rounds of the group stage still to be played both Santos & Flamengo have already qualified for the knock out stages.
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Bordeaux beat Lyon 1-0 on Saturday to win the French League Cup.
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Simon Kuper of the Financial Times writes about the Dutch factory team that has become the best little football club in Europe - PSV Eindhoven, brought to us by the Phillips company.
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Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic has suffered a broken collar bone and will be out of action for about a month.
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FIFA.com has a Q & A with England & Liverpool goal scoring preying mantis Peter Crouch.
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The new movie about Maradona gets slammed, and the Guardian wants to know why football movies are so bad.
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Due to Roma's 1-1 draw with Milan, Inter are now 20 points clear of second place with a 2-0 win over Parma on Sunday. There are 9 games to go in the season.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune with a feature on England & Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney who is having a tough time taking that next step up the superstar ladder.
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Roy Maakay bagged his 100th Bundesliga goal in Bayern's 2-0 win over Schalke.
-The top of the Bundesliga table looks like this:
53 Schalke
51 Werder
49 Stutgart
47 Bayern
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Carlos Tevez, a huge du Nord fave, has strapped West Ham on his back and is attempting to drag them out of relegation. He scored for the third straight match, and they won their second in a row. But they still sit 6 points from clearance with 7 games to play. His task has a Sisyphus feeling to it.
-The bottom of the Premiership table looks like this (the last 3 go down):
33 Wigan
31 Sheffield United
30 Charlton
26 West Ham
20 Watford
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Phil Ball of Soccernet writes about Spain's Euro qualifiers last week.
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Chelsea midfielder Arjen Robben will miss the rest of the season due to a knee injury that needs surgery to repair.
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Sepp Blatter is running uncontested for his third term as FIFA President.

9 Comments:

Blogger Colin said...

Marcelo Salas is "really old" at 32?

10:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Shaolin Soccer" was a masterpiece.

11:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is too bad about the 'continue play when there is a injury and let the ref stop it...' policy. I understand the need for it with the delay tatics and floppy that continue to get worse...but it takes away a nice piece of sportmanship that soccer had over many other sports....I believe they have the same policy in the EPL but I like the fact some teams/players will still play it out sometimes. With all the crap going on on and off the pitch these days it is sad that such a tradition has to be given up.

5:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Real Salt Lake's graphic would have been even better had it been a house of cards...

6:19 AM  
Blogger brucio said...

"Colin said... Marcelo Salas is "really old" at 32?"

i am frankly stunned to find out he is that young
he plays like he is 52 these days
i saw him play last fall and it was like my dad was out there

8:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

is it me or is PSV the most likable team in soccer?

Oh wait...they are now a pipeline serving Chelsea. Never mind.

3:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Salas is only 32!?! That's astonishing.

In other news, I think I've heard those same Clint Mathis quotes three times now, just a few years apart.

3:16 PM  
Blogger Matías Manna said...

I too read all time a Simon Kuper. I´m from Argentina. ¿Can you write the interview and give me?

Thanks very much!!!
Write me a email: matiasmanna@hotmail.com

3:41 PM  
Blogger brucio said...

sorry matias, but i dont have the time to transcribe something like that
its 30 minutes long
just download and listen senor!

by the way - i love argentina!

11:33 AM  

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