Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Borg Wears Tight Glossy Yet Non-Greasy Underpants News

USA U20's advance 2-1 over Uruguay in the World Cup round of 16. They had to come from a goal down, tie it late, and win it in extra time on a goal by Michael Bradley.

~and~

What did USA U20 coach Thomas Rongen think of his teams performance: "Cojones Grande".

~and~

More on the U20 post-game from Canada's National Post: "Uruguay's coach refused to meet with the media following the game. There was also an unconfirmed report of a conflict between a Uruguayan player and a volunteer working at BMO Field."

~and~

Chicago Fire are lined up to have a new owner - Andell Holding is negotiating with AEG to buy the team. The company is run by Andrew & Ellen Hauptman. They are part of the Bronfman family from Canada who own Seagrams liquor company and many other large endeavors. From Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune.

~and~

Another one bites the dust - down goes United, down goes United. Harrisburg City became the third lower division team to knock a MLS team out of the Open Cup this week, winning 1-0 last night!!!


Copa America
Semifinals:
-Tue Jul 10
Brazil 2-2 Uruguay - Brazil wins 5-4 on PK's. Bra goals by Maicon & Julio Baptista. Uru goals by Diego Forlan & Sebastian Abreu.
-Wed Jul 11
Mexico 0-3 Argentina - Arg goals by Gabriel Heinze, Lionel Messi, and Juan Roman Riquelme(PK).

-The Final - Sun Jul 15
Brazil v Argentina - live at 4:00 central on GolTV & Univision.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I love it - Mexico got beat by Argentina worse than the USA did. Same goal difference, but at least our boys scored a goal!!!
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Luis Bueno at Sports Illustrated with an article on the end of Mexico's Copa run.
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My friend Andy just returned from his trip to the Copa America and is posting some of his thoughts and actions on line. The USA game reports at Blue Sky Soccer, and his travel journal at Winter World Cup.
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MLS
Matches & scores this week:
-Thu Jul 12
Chicago v Houston - 8:00 central on ESPN2
-Sat Jul 14
DC v Dallas - 6:30 central on Direct Kick
New York v New England - 6:30 central on FSC & FSE
Kansas City v Salt Lake - 7:00 central on Direct Kick
Chivas USA v Columbus - 9:30 central on HDNet
-Sun Jul 15
Houston v Toronto - 7:30 central on Direct Kick
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Match Previews for tonight's game:
Nick Firchau of Chicago's Daily Southtown.
Len Ziehm of the Chicago Sun Times.
Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle.
Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Houston has not allowed a goal in 515 minutes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some good stuff here from the Houston Chronicle - a video of Houston Dynamo fans asking questions, and then the teams players answering them.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle with an article singing the praises of players already in MLS, like DDR, over the new designated players.
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Several media outlets have quoted Galaxy maestro Alexi Lalas as saying the team has already sold over 250,000 new Galaxy shirts. The new shirt was released yesterday. I refuse to believe this is true. They may have made and shipped that many to stores and online sellers. But sold to the public, no chance.
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Andrew Rogers of Soccer 365 does a Q & A with Alexi Lalas. Good timing.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald News on his Soccer By Ives blog took in the New York Red Bulls practice session today has several chunks of info & opinionation.
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Dallas center back Adrian Serioux looks ready to play his first league minutes of the season. He is recovering from off-season knee surgery. He played in both legs of the just completed Rio Grande Plate.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ivan Orozco of the LA Daily News looks at what the Beckham arrival might mean for neighbors Chivas USA.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob Luder of the KC Star says forward Eddie Johnson is back in Kansas City and ready to rock 'n' roll.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

RSL coach Jason Kreis took the odd step this week of sending a letter to the Utah media. Here is the letter, from the Deseret Morning News.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

James Edward of the Deseret Mornings News with some Real Salt Lake news and notes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Toronto Star & coach Mo Johnston grade TFC at the midway point of the regular season.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

du Nord's MLS Rookie Of The Year Watch:
(alphabetical)
Andrew Boyens - Tor
Adam Cristman - NE - added by popular demand!
Maurice Edu - Tor
Robbie Findley - RSL
Ty Harden - LA
Michael Harrington - KC
Dominic Oduro - Dal - removed from list, cuz he is a 2nd year player, not first (thanks to all for the correction, its much appreciated)
Dane Richards - NY
-Should anyone be added or subtracted from this list?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ryan Hunt at Sports Illustrated with his weekly column - MLS Free Kicks
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jack Bell of the New York Times on the Goal blog talks to Pele about David Beckham and soccer in America & Brazil.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And the US Soccer Players Assoc has a Q & A with Pele.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Tacoma News Tribune has an update on MLS in Seattle prospects.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I wanted to toss out some completely frivolous non-football David Beckhamist things. Here is one on him and Vicki from Style.com. Oh, its fluffy alright. (thanks to Peteo for sending me this)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Starting tomorrow and leading up to the MLS All-Star game next Thursday, the league is holding their first U17 tournament at Dicks Sporting Goods Park in Denver. 11 of the leagues clubs are sending teams to play for this first title (Colorado Rapids being the hosts will field 2 teams to make it 12 teams). Great idea. The event is being run by the leagues marketing entity SUM.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rio Grande Plate
-International Friendly
FC Dallas 0-1 UANL Tigres - Tigres win the Plate for the first time on a 3-0 aggregate score.
Match report by Tobias Xavier Lopez of the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
-Brazilian Denilson was on hand at the game. He is in Dallas talking to them about possibly signing with the team.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

US Open Cup
Third Round matches:
-Mon Jul 9
FC Dallas 1-1 Atlanta Silverbacks - FCD win 4-3 on PK's after extra time. Dal goal by Carlos Ruiz. Atl goal by Dan Antoniuk.
-Tue Jul 10
Rochester Raging Rhinos 2-4 New England Revolution Roch goals both by Hamed Diallo. NE goals by Steve Ralston(2) & Taylor Twellman(2).
Richmond Kickers 1-0 Los Angeles Galaxy Rich goal by David Bulow.
Charleston Battery 1-0 Houston Dynamo In extra time. Char goal by Stephen Armstrong(PK).
Colorado Rapids 3-1 California Victory Colo goals by Jose Cancela, Herculez Gomez & Omar Cummings. Cali goal by Juan Epitie.
-Wed Jul 11
Harrisburg City Islanders 1-0 DC United Goal by Steve Fisher.
Match report from the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal
Match report from the Harrisburg Patriot News
Match report by Steven Goff of the Washington Post.
Match report from the Carlisle Sentinel.
Player ratings by Goff at Soccer Insider.
-Sun Jul 15
Carolina Railhawks v Chicago Fire
-Wed Jul 18
Seattle Sounders v CD Chivas USA
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bill Urban at the US Soccer Players Assoc with some ideas on how we can "save" the US Open Cup. I used the word "save" because if we aren't careful we just might have to do that.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USL First Division
Matches & scores this week:
-Thu Jul 12
Seattle v Vancouver
-Fri Jul 13
Carolina v Montreal
Puerto Rico v Charleston
Portland v California
-Sat Jul 14
Atlanta v Rochester
Vancouver v Miami
-Sun Jul 15
Puerto Rico v Charleston
Minnesota v Montreal
Portland v California
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USL 1D Standings:
27 Vancouver
27 Rochester
25 Seattle
24 Portland
24 Montreal
22 Atlanta
20 Charleston
19 Carolina
17 Miami
16 Puerto Rico
11 Minnesota
11 California
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The US Soccer site is now available in Espanol! Muy muy caliente!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

U20 World Cup
Knock out matches - Round of 16:
-Wed Jul 11
USA 2-1 Uruguay - Extra Time - Uru goal by Luis Suarez. USA goals from a Uruguay own goal & Michael Bradley.
Match report from US Soccer.
Match report from FIFA.
Match report by Doug McIntyre at Soccernet.
Match report by Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer.
Match report by Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America.
Match report from the Canadian National Post.
Match report from Top Drawer Soccer.
Match report from the Toronto Sun.
Post-game quotes by USA coaches & players from US Soccer.
Austria 2-1 Gambia
Spain 4-2 Brazil - Extra Time
Japan 2-2 Czech Republic - CR win 4-3 on Penalty Kicks after Extra Time.
-Thu Jul 12
Chile v Portugal
Zambia v Nigeria
Argentina v Poland
Mexico v Congo
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Post-game video from US Soccer.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Match photos from US Soccer.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We did not get any advance warning that USA keeper Chris Seitz would not play. He did seem to be injured last in the match v Brazil last week, but US Soccer kept the news under wraps until we saw Brian Perk walk on to the field.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After the match a couple of the Uruguay players rushed the celebrating Americans and a shoving/shouting match started. It did not look like anything serious went down, so lets hope none of our boys is punished. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if they were.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jozy Altidore left the match in the 51st minute after a serious kick to the back of his calf left him hobbling around and unable to run. He is listed now as day to day.
-Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer talks to Altidore after the game.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Toronto Star with an article on Freddy Adu's leadership of the team.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USA U20 team blog.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Celtic of Glasgow are said to be the first team in line to make a bid for Freddy Adu. (They are also supposedly interested in John Wolyniec of all people.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Asian Cup
-Group stage matches:
-Sat Jul 7
Thailand 1-1 Iraq
-Sun Jul 8
Australia 1-1 Oman
Vietnam 2-0 UAE
-Mon Jul 9
Japan 1-1 Qatar
-Tue Jul 10
Indonesia 2-1 Bahrain
Malaysia 1-5 China
-Wed Jul 11
Iran 2-1 Uzbekistan
S Korea v Saudi Arabia
-Thu Jul 12
Oman 0-2 Thailand
Qatar 1-1 Vietnam
-Fri Jul 13
Iraq v Australia
UAE v Japan
-Sat Jul 14
Uzbekistan v Malaysia
Saudi Arabia v Indonesia
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The great Fulham defender Moritz Volz goes gaga for Wimbledon in his newest journal entry.
-And I missed this last week, but Volz, writing for the Times of London, goes to Lords in Marylebone for cricket!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Wow! The first qualifying round of the 2008 Champions League starts next Tuesday. It's always fun to see if you know ANY of the teams on this list. And then there are the great names: BATE, Zeta, Elfsborg, Pyunik, Sheriff & Gbskno.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Liverpool has signed Dutch striker Ryan Babel from Ajax.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Early reports said Mexican youngster Andres Guardado was going to leave Atlas and sign with PSV. Turns out the club he is joining is instead Deportivo La Coruna in Spain. Even better move.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Finally today, some folks in Brazil are doing an about-face and are trying to make baseball popular in their country. From the International Herald Tribune.

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oduro is a second year player for rookie watch

5:04 PM  
Blogger Kinney said...

1. Anon beat me to it.

2. MLS Underground are now reporting that Celtic are interested in Altidore, not Woly. Which makes sense.

3. Lil' Bradley was kicked in the knee in the post US v. Uraguay kerfluffel. Also, there are reports of a volunteer being hit and a FIFA official being manhandled by a Uraguyan player in the hallway after the game.

5:28 PM  
Blogger Tim Froh said...

Hey dunord. Just wanted to let you know that the blog formerly called In Limbo is back (under a different name and at a different address - http://usafootie.blogspot.com/). I'm also writing weekly articles for scaryice at Climbing the Ladder. Be sure to check out today's article on the lives of MLS developmental players.

-Tim

5:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

bakary soumare

9:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rob Stone said it was $250,000 worth of Galaxy jerseys, not 250,000 jerseys.

10:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

dunord you are the man however your list of top rookies has a mistake in it because dominic oduro is not a rookie.

10:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bruce, you are the man- great blog!

just hoping to get some responses from my comment yesterday:

RE: the Uruguay vs. Brasil Copa America Semifinal...

Am I the only one who was shocked that the last penalty kick, taken by the Uruguayan captain, was not retaken because the Brazilian keeper was about 5 feet off the goal line before the the ball was struck?

Incredible! Where was the linesman on that?

When Riquelme took his penalty in the other semi-final you could see the linesman taking a very determined & careful look at the keeper- in response to the huge gift to the Brazilians?

I imagine that's what the other Uruguayan players were complaining to the refs about.

Sad. The blocked pk should've been taken again.

Trent

8:24 AM  
Blogger brucio said...

its up to the referee to make those calls on pk's
that last one is the only one they are showing over and over
who's to say that both keepers werent doing that the whole time
in some ways its spilled milk
in others its too bad the referee does not stand up and stop it
but imagine the pressure those referees are under
i would rather have players settle this than referees
but you are not wrong that it was a missed call

8:59 AM  
Blogger brucio said...

thanks to everyone for the oduro mistake
i appreciate it

8:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Guardado turns down a move to learn how to play total voetbal and you say it's a better move to be at the Riazor????

Bruce what the hell are you thinking? How many Euro Championships have Depor won? Oh yeah, so many more than PSV.

C'mon Bruce think before you speak.

10:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dunord you do great stuff here but how can you leave my Adam Cristman out of the MLS Rookie Watch. He leads all rookies in assists and points (3g, 4a). The kid can play.

11:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lalas said that the 250,000 shirts were mostly pre-orders from the MLS wesbite, pre-orders before the shirts were released. People ordered them without having seen them. So yes, the Galaxy HAVE sold 250,000 shirts.

12:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks.

Trent

1:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm with Anon on Cristman. It's a shocking omission! I have to say that right now he's an even favorite.

There's something about Nicol and Mariner that turns late round draft-picks into studs.

2:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One more voice in support of Adam Christman. Twellman - who's scoring loads in MLS, whatever you might say about the national team - left for a month, and NE scored twelve (12!) goals while he was gone. Christman is a lot of why - both with his scoring and his drawing defenders away from Noonan and Dorman. Excellent pick (again) from Nicol, and I would agree one of the favorites to win it.

3:45 PM  
Blogger G. Petrovic said...

What is the HellBets?

The Hellbets is online, supported by browser, totally free bet game. In the game, participate players from 145 different countries worldwide, and every country has own pyramid of leagues. The catch is to foresee the results of football matches, witch will be played next week. Players choose the matches for bet. The matches are from world well-known football leagues. You can login and bet before those matches start, and bet only on chosen matches.

The rules of the game:

A player bets on the first 5 of 20 offered matches, than they choose 6 of next 12 offered and 3 more reserved in case that some of prevised matches are canceled. The player who score more results than others in same round, gets 3 points, if it's deuce he gets 1 point, and for the lost match he gets 0 points. The allowed signs are: 1, X, 2, 0-1, 2-3, 4+ and one double-sign 1X, 12, X2 only for the host.

The leagues:

Each of 145 countries has its own pyramid of leagues. Every league consider 8 players, and every league has 4 sub-leagues with also 8 players. Two best teams from the 4 sub-leagues goes to the main league, and two teams from the mail league goes to the sub-leagues.
The pyramid of leagues look like this:

1 First division, (Super League)
4 Second division II (II.1, II.2, II.3, II.4)
16 Third division III (III.1, III.2, ..., .. III.16)
64 Fourth division IV (IV.1, IV.2,..., .. IV.64)
256 Fifth division V (V.1, V.2,..., .. V.256)
1024 Sixth division VI (VI.1, VI.2,..., .. VI.1024)
1024 Seventh division VII (VII.1, VII.2, ..., .. VII.1024)
2048 Eight division VIII (VIII.1, VIII.2, ..., .. VIII.2048)
2048 Ninth division IX (IX.1, IX.2, ..., .. IX.2048)
4096 Tenth division X (X.1, X.2, ..., .. X.4096)
4096 Eleventh division XI (XI.1, XI.2, ..., .. XI.4096)

The season:

For one season will be played 14 round, and each team will play two games with everybody from same league, one like host and one like guest. On the end of the season will be promotion of teams who goes from down to up leages.

Community:

Mail and conference. Each of leages leagues have own forum and post for exchange personal messages.

The registration:

Each registration will be verify by administration. By this we want to avoid automatic enormous registration and we want to make sure that players registration is from country where he want to play, because that is stringently. After administration verify player, he will get own place in league on the end of the pyramid leagues, or in the case that some of existing players exclude, new player will be put on his place, and he will continue game.


Sign up for free!!

10:13 AM  

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