Friday, July 27, 2007

Childlike News

USA & LA star Landon Donovan to Sky Sports News: "The older I get and the more I play, the more I'm yearning for that highest level I can play at and I think the Premiership would be the best place the play. At the moment I'm happy here, at least for the next few years with Dave here. I want to be a part of this too. Not many people get to be a part of this, so I want to live it." I LOVE that he calls David Beckham "Dave". (link to story below)

~and~

The folks who run Lambeau Field in Green Bay are looking to meet with US Soccer about hosting a USA match at the hallowed home of the Packers! From the Green Bay Press Gazette.


SuperLiga - MLS v FMF - Let's hope these next 4 games are as good as the first batch were.
-See all the matches En Vivo on TeleFutura.
You can also see all the matches live online at the website linked above. (thanks to everyone who gave me the heads up on that one)
Round 1 matches & scores:
FC Dallas 1-1 Chivas Guadalajara - Dal goal by Arturo Alvarez. Guad goal by Antonio Olvera.
Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1 Pachuca - LA goals by Alan Gordon & Landon Donovan. Pach goal by Rafael Marquez.
DC United 1-1 Morelia Monarchas - DC goal by Christian Gomez. Mor goal by Diego Martinez.
Houston 1-0 Club America - Hou goal by Nate Jaqua.
Round 2 matches:
-Sat Jul 28
FC Dallas v Pachuca - Pizza Hut Park, Frisco, Texas, 7:00 central
Los Angeles Galaxy v Chivas Guadalajara - The Coliseum, Los Angeles CA - 9:00 central
Sun Jul 29
DC United v Club America - RFK Stadium - Washington DC - 7:00 central
Houston Dynamo v Monarcas Morelia - Robertson Stadium - Houston TX - 9:00 central
-Round 3 matches are Tue Jul 31 & Wed Aug 1.
-Semifinals Tue Aug 14 & Wed Aug 15.
-Final Wed Aug 29.
Standings:
Group A
3-Los Angeles Galaxy
1-Chivas Guadalajara
1-FC Dallas
0-Pachuca
Group B
3-Houston Dynamo
1-DC United
1-Morelia Monarcas
0-Club America
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Don't expect to see David Beckham on the field for LA on Saturday v Guadalajara. I am not giving out a definite NO, but it does not look good.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This fall DC United will get a shot in another South American cup tournament - Sud Americana. In the first round they were drawn against Mexican team Guadalajara Chivas. The home leg is September 26 at RFK & the second leg on October 2 at Estadio Jalisco.
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MLS
Matches & scores this week:
-Thu Jul 26
New York 0-2 Chivas USA - Goals by Ante Razov & Sacha Kljestan.
Match report from MLSnet.
Match report by Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer.
Match report by Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger.
Match report by Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald.
Match report by Jane Havsy of the Bergin Daily Record.
-Sat Jul 28
Salt Lake v New England - 8:30pm central on FSC & FSE
-Sun Jul 29
Toronto v Chicago - 2pm central on TeleFutura & CBC
Kansas City v Chivas USA - 6pm central on Direct Kick
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My match notes from NYRB v CUSA:
-Chivas USA's Ante Razov scored his 104th MLS goal last night. That puts him third on the list and only 4 behind the two all time leaders, Jason Kreis (retired earlier this year from Real Salt Lake to coach the team) & Jaime Moreno of DC United.
-That was also the first time Chivas USA has ever beaten New York!
-Claudio Reyna is still yet to add anything concrete to his new team on the field. That makes him vastly overpaid right now.
-During the team introductions on ESPN two Chivas players gave themselves nicknames - Sacha Kljestan called himself "Hollywood", and Lawson Vaughn called himself "The Law". It was pretty funny.
-The kid who won the reality show contest to get a contract with Chivas actually traveled with the team to New York and was on the game day roster. I think that is kind of amazing.
-New York's best defender Carlos Mendes did not play cuz he had the flu.
-NY keeper John Conway totally botched the second goal. Kljestan hit it hard but right at Conway's feet, but the ball smacked off his hands and into the net. Terrible goal keeping.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune is reporting on his Red Card blog that the Chicago Fire deal to sign Costa Rican forward Paulo Wanchope is now a DONE DEAL. He will not play this weekend, but expect it to be the following weekend, Aug 4 at home v Columbus.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

KC's big time goals scorer Eddie Johnson is now being pursued by English club Blackburn. Will he be able to resist this one?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Another Zinedine Zidane to LA rumor popped up again today. No way to know how real it is.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Italian website Calciomercato says MLS teams have made new overtures to Milan about the availability of Ronaldo. They also say Barcelona's Brazilian midfielder Edmilson is in the same spot. Interesting.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sky sports News says LA's Landon Donovan is interested in a move to the EPL. Seriously.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Andrea Canales at Soccer 365 talks to LA forward Alan Gordon about his return to the field after a long injury layoff.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ives Galarcep at Soccernet writes more about the ongoing Freddy Adu transfer possibilities.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Larry Millson of the Toronto Sun with a story on the ugly injury pileup at TFC. Added Ronnie O'Brien and Marvell Wynne to the heap.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

How long will it be before Columbus midfielder Danny Szetela joins U20 teammate Sal Zizzo in Europe? Not long I think. Like Zizzo, Szetela has a "Z" in his last name, and has a EU Passport - Zizzo from Italy & Szetela from Poland.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

icScotland with an article about Houston midfielder Stuart Holden, who if he continues to play the way he has will soon be deciding if he wants to play for Scotland or the USA. He is a citizen of both countries.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mike Biglin of MetroWest Daily News on the New England Rev's search for a big name big buck player.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Frank Dellapa of the Boston Globe checks in on New England's mid-season progress as the league rolls on, and basically the same story about big names coming to the Rev's.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John Meyer of the Denver Post gets more quotes from Kyle Beckerman who is not pleased with being traded to Salt Lake, although he accepts it and will do his best for his new team. Plus, Colorado manager Fernando Clavijo makes some really stupid comments about Beckerman being the heart and soul of the team etc. Then why did you trade him????
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob Luder of the KC Star with an article on Kansas City defender Jack Jewsbury who has been converted from a midfielder. So how's that going?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Soccer 365 has a Q & A with former MLS keeper Mike Ammann.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Inside Bay Area with a story on the return of the San Jose Earthquakes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Sacramento Bee says that Lew Wolff should bring his new Earthquakes team a little further north to the state capital instead of the Bay Area.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Las Vegas Sun says Paul Caligiuri & Co. are still pushing forward with ideas to make an MLS team in the Atomic City a reality.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Washington Post says that stadium talk in DC is starting to make some people hot under the collar.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sports Illustrated talks to a lesser known English player who was in the old NASL for several years. His name is Tony Whelan and is now a youth coach for Manchester United. What does he think of soccer in America today? He also talks about the rough road England faces with developing great new talents right now.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Major League Soccer Magazine
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some dude named Will Leitch hates David Beckham and the New York Times gave him space on their opinion page to say as much. What load of crap that is.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

du Nord's MLS Rookie Of The Year Watch:
1. Maurice Edu - Tor
2. Dane Richards - NY
3. Adam Cristman - NE
4. Michael Harrington - KC
5. Ty Harden - LA
-As of right now this one is a no-brainer. It's clearly Edu.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MLS International Friendly's
Matches& Scores this week:
Sat Jul 28
Columbus v Aston Villa
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USL First Division
Matches & scores this week:
Thu Jul 26
Minnesota 1-2 California
Portland 0-0 Atlanta
Fri Jul 27
Vancouver v Seattle - live at 10pm central on FSC
Sat Jul 28
Carolina v Miami
Rochester v Minnesota
California v Puerto Rico
Tue Jul 31
Charleston v Miami
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USL 1D Standings:
37 Portland
31 Seattle
28 Montreal
27 Vancouver
27 Rochester
26 Atlanta
26 Puerto Rico
24 Miami
23 Charleston
19 Carolina
19 California
15 Minnesota
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There is still no new word on where USA defender Oguchi Onyewu may land for this season. Odds get stronger everyday that he will be back in Belgium at Standard Liege. Sheffield United were the latest to show interest, but apparently made quite a low offer.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Independent of London talks to American forward Brian McBride about the upcoming season at Fulham.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Independent of Ireland with a story on young forward American Ryan Guy, who passed up a chance to play for Dallas to try his luck overseas. Not exactly a top notch league, but he thinks that if he plays well, he will move up the food chain.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Reuters have a story from Chivas owner Jorge Vergara saying he believes there is a strong disagreement between some players on the Mexican national team and coach Hugo Sanchez.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Chicago Trophy
-The game will be played at Soldier Field, and feature 4 international club teams who are in their pre-season.
(both days are double header games):
-Fri Jul 27
Reggina v Wisla
Sevilla v Toluca
-Sun Jul 29
Reggina v Toluca
Sevilla v Wisla
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

German preseason Liga Pokal
-Final:
Sat Jul 28
Schalke v Bayern Munich - 11am central on GolTV.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Asian Cup
Final:
-Sun Jul 29
Iraq v Saudi Arabia - 7:30am central time on Setanta.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune wonders what will happen in Iraq on Sunday after their countries big match.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jeff Klein at the New York Times blog Goal with another good story on the Iraqi team. Includes a very interesting editorial cartoon from a Baghdad newspaper.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John Terry has signed a 5 year contract extension with Chelsea.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Looks like Roque Santa Cruz may be leaving Bayern Munich.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Moritz Volz, the great writer/footballer from Fulham has the latest entry to his "diary". Excellent as always.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Finally today, the Columbus Dispatch has a Q & A with Randy Lerner who owns the Cleveland Browns NFL team and Aston Villa of the English Premiership.

4 Comments:

Blogger Peter said...

Your take on the Will Leitch NYT article is, in short, wrong.

Does Will Leitch hate David Beckham? No. Does he think Beckham is the greatest player in the world? No. But that hardly suggests 'hate' - that suggests honesty, and accurate analysis.

There were actually a lot of good points Mr. Leitch made in a very short article. He even goes so far as to compliment u.s. soccer progress.

Beckham fanboy! :D

6:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder if Lew Wolff would consider putting the Earthquakes franchise in Sacramento.
Sac-town is very passionate about the basketball Kings.

Not that it isn't hot in Houston, Chicago, or New York during the summer, but a drawback for players would be that Sacramento gets very, very hot during the summer.

8:30 PM  
Blogger Preserve Vintage said...

Yeah, Bruce, I don't know if you really processed that Leitch article very well. I didn't agree with everything he said, but he by no means was hating on Beckham. It was a pretty level-headed article.

And for some background, Leitch runs the biggest sports blog on the internet that regulary has David Hirshey as a guest writer. They definitely give soccer it's fair share of attention.

You might've overreacted a touch on this one.

9:24 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Leitch's article is confusing. It starts out seemingly very anti-Beckham but then goes on to praise U.S. soccer and talk about how he'll elevate the game.

I don't think it's anti-Beckham so much as poorly written.

He has said on Deadspin that he thinks Beckham can only be good for MLS, for what that's worth.

11:36 PM  

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