Caged Monkey News

Regular reader Matthew sent me a note today saying that some NYRB fans are going to try to encourage everyone in the stadium on Saturday to: "...sing New York, New York at the top of their lungs, with scarves twirling overhead during kick-off and then again at the 90 minute mark. Please pass it on." Ok, I am passing it on.


MLS
Matches & scores:
-Thu Aug 16
Colorado 3-0 New England - Goals by Jovan Kirovski(2 - one via PK) & Omar Cummings.
Match report from the Rocky Mountain News.
Match report from the Denver Post.
Match report from MetroWest Daily News.
Post-game notes by George Tanner at FC Rocky.
-Sat Aug 18
Toronto v Chivas - 2:30pm central on Direct Kick
Columbus v DC - 6:30pm central on HDNet & Direct Kick
New York v Los Angeles - 6:30pm central on FSC & FSE
Salt Lake v Chicago - 8pm central on Direct Kick
-Sun Aug 19
Houston v Dallas - 6pm central on Galavision
Kansas City v New England - 7pm central on Direct Kick
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There are some really good games this weekend, especially Sunday - both those two games could be great!
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Tony Sanneh made his debut in Colorado last night replacing an injured Dan Gargan in the 23rd min.
-And the Rapids scored more than 2 goals in a game for the first time all year.
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Soccernet with a nice article on one of MLS's biggest surprise stars this season - Juan Pablo Angel. Admit it, you thought he would be fine, but not this fine.
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Larry Millson of the Toronto Globe & Mail on TFC captain Jim Brennan who has been playing through injury - broken ribs.
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Dean McNulty at the Toronto Sun talks about another TFC player, the best rookie of the season so far, Maurice Edu.
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Ives Galarcep says both Claudio Reyna & Dema Kovalenko are out of the picture for their Red Bulls v LA game on Saturday night. Is Dema hurt a lot worse than anyone has let on after the car accident. We never heard that he was hospitalized. But he is missing his second week now. There has even been talk of him being out for the season. Really? Ubiparapovic who was driving the car is training and seems fine. Wow.
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Diego Gutierrez of Chicago Fire, Claudio Suarez of Chivas USA, Marcelo Saragosa of FC Dallas & Chris Pozniak of Toronto FC will all have to sit out their matches this weekend due to yellow card accumulation or red card violations.
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The AP says new Chicago Fire coach Juan Carlos Osorio has bought a player from his former team in Colombia, Millonarios. He is 25 year old defender Wilman Code. Story via Sports Illustrated.
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John Lopez of the Houston Chronicle seems to be impressed with the way MLS is marketing themselves. You know what though, I wanna hear one of these guys like Lopez write about the quality of the game itself. I wanna know what he thinks about what he sees on the field. The humbugs need guys like Lopez to tell them it's quality. You and I already know it's getting better and better all the time.
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Some fans of Blackpool in England have "adopted" their fellow orange-clad Houston Dynamo in MLS as their second team to support!
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A couple of old faves are back this week from MLSnet:
-Jeff Bradley's First XI - Welcome To New Jersey
-Tino Palace's The Clean Sheet - Grade School
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It has been officially announced that Houston will have a second team next year. Houston Leones in the PDL. From the Chron.
-The official press release.
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Both Chicago goalkeeper Matt Pickens and Real Salt Lake forward Alecko Eskandarian are guest blogging this week on the Luis Arroyave's Red Card.
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I don't know how many of you saw the footage after the LA v DC SuperLiga game, but Beckman was in the tunnel and then took off his shirt and signed it to a girl who was standing there. I thought it was cool. Jamie Cardenas of the LA Times gives us the story behind it.
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Yesterday I mention that Adidas had band record "theme" songs for the MLS teams. I listened to all of em last night. THEY ARE TERRIBLE! Every single one of em. Holy Cow those are a rotten bunch of tunes. Some of the artists are decent, and like I said, I love Bad Brains. But, come on! Did any of you like any of em?
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AOL Sports known for their small-minded-giant-ego-driven-anti-soccer-rants actually has a smart dude on the payrole who looks at NHL Washington Capital's owner Ted Leonsis's diatribe against Sports Talk Radio that is always bashing soccer, and in the last two years or so taken to bashing hockey too, and makes logical sense of it.
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USL First Division
Matches & Scores:
-Tue Aug 14
Charleston 0-3 Carolina
-Thu Aug 16
Minnesota 2-2 Portland
California 0-2 Montreal
-Fri Aug 17
Carolina v Atlanta
Puerto Rico v Miami - 7pm on FSC
-Sat Aug 18
Minnesota v Rochester
California v Seattle
Vancouver v Montreal
-Sun Aug 19
Puerto Rico v Miami
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Jesse Erdmann of Blue Sky Soccer with this week's First Division Power Rankings.
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First Division Standings:
41 Portland
39 Seattle
38 Montreal
36 Rochester
35 Atlanta
31 Vancouver
30 Puerto Rico
29 Charleston
--Playoffs End Here--
28 Miami
25 Carolina
20 Minnesota
19 California
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Our Americans In Europe - how'd their mid-week matches go:
-Danny Califf - Aalborg - played the full 90 in his teams 2-1 road loss to Helsinki in the first leg of the UEFA Cup 2nd round of qualifying.
-Charlie Davies - Hammarby - his teams 2-1 home win over Fredrikstad in the first leg of the UEFA Cup 2nd round of qualifying.
-Gabriel Ferrari - Sampdoria - did not dress for his teams 0-1 road win over Hajduk Split in the first leg of the UEFA Cup 2nd round of qualifying.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - played the whole match in his teams 0-1 road win over MyPa in the first leg of the UEFA Cup 2nd round of qualifying.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Standard - did not dress for his teams 0-3 road win over Kaerjeng in the first leg of the UEFA Cup 2nd round of qualifying.
-Brian West - Fredrikstad - started in his teams 2-1 road loss to Hammarby in the first leg of the UEFA Cup 2nd round of qualifying.
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Eddie Lewis has found a way out of the sewer system known as Leeds Football Club and made the move to Derby County. Great great great for him! That makes 2 American's for the Rams.
-Here is one I did not now - Eddie was voted Leeds Player Of The Year last season. Wow. Why do we never seem to hear about this stuff in our brilliant American press? Even our decent soccer press writers missed this one.
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U17 World Cup
Starts in South Korea on Saturday - running Aug 18 to Sep 9.
-You can see all the games on ESPNU.
-The USA plays in Group E, and here are their first 3 matches:
Mon Aug 20 in Changwon v Tajikistan - 6am central time on ESPNU
Thu Aug 23 in Changwon v Tunisia - 2:30am central time on ESPN2 & ESPNU
Sun Aug 26 in Cheonan v Belgium - 1:30am central time on ESPNU
-Team USA site
-USA U17 blog.
-USA U17 roster:
G:
Josh Lambo (Middleton, Wis.)
Zac MacMath (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
Larry Jackson (East Palo Alto, Calif.)
D:
Sheanon Williams (Boston, Mass.)
Mykell Bates (Roseville, Calif.)
Tommy Meyer (St. Louis, Mo.)
Chris Klute (Grand Prairie, Texas)
Kofi Sarkodie (Huber Heights, Ohio)
Brandon Zimmerman (Pasco, Wash.)
M:
Daniel Wenzel (Federal Way, Wash.)
Jared Jeffrey (Dallas, Texas)
Kirk Urso (Lombard, Ill.)
Dane Shea (College Station, Texas)
Greg Garza (Grapevine, Texas)
Brendan King (Naperville, Ill.)
Alex Nimo (Portland, Ore.)
F:
Ellis McLoughlin (Seattle, Wash.)
Bryan Dominguez (Atlanta, Ga.)
Abdusalam Ibrahim (FC Dallas.)
Billy Schuler (Allentown, N.J.)
Daniel Cruz (Glendale, Ariz.)
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Andrew Rogers at Soccernet previews some of the top players to watch in this tournament.
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Luis Bueno at Sports Illustrated writes about North America's best team - Pachuca and their run to the SuperLiga finals.
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Italian Super Cup
-Sun Aug 19
Inter v Roma
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Eredivise - The Dutch league kicks off today!
-Fri Aug 17
Heerenveen v Willem II
-Sat Aug 18
NAC Breda v Groningen
AZ v VVV-Venlo
Excelsior v Twente
NEC v Roda
-Sun Aug 19
De Graafschap v Ajax
Utrecht v Feyenoord
Heracles Almelo v PSV
Sparta Rotterdam v Vitesse
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England names their team for next Wednesdays friendly v Germany at Wembley: (thanks to Joe for sending me this)
Robinson (Tottenham)
James (Portsmouth)
Carson (Liverpool, on loan at Aston Villa)
Richards (Manchester City)
Brown (Manchester United)
Ferdinand (Manchester United)
Terry (Chelsea)
Ashley Cole (Chelsea)
Campbell (Portsmouth)
Taylor (Newcastle)
Neville (Everton)
Shorey (Reading)
Beckham (LA Galaxy)
Gerrard (Liverpool)
Lampard (Chelsea)
Joe Cole (Chelsea)
Wright-Phillips (Chelsea)
Carrick (Manchester United)
Barry (Aston Villa)
Downing (Middlesbrough)
Dyer (West Ham)
Hargreaves (Manchester United)
Smith (Newcastle)
Owen (Newcastle)
Crouch (Liverpool)
Bent (Tottenham)
Johnson (Everton)
Defoe (Tottenham)
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Insanely stupidly funny Nike ad with Rooney and the Sanchez boys.
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More hilarity from England today. Early this week Sunderland manager Roy Keane had a tirade against players who won't sign with smaller teams outside of London because their wives and girlfriends don't want to live in hicksville. Those babes wanna shop London-style. So Keane gets no one. Well it turns out that Egyptian striker Mido heard about this and said the reason he left Tottenham this week to go play for Middlesbrough was exactly for the small town shopping. Genius.
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Pat sent me a fantastic bit of prose today from McSweeny's. It's a rather randy number about Pele, the god, and the true meaning of a Brazilian.
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Simon Kuper of the Financial Times writes about what at least one man refers to a the stupidity and crookedness involved in doing business with some English football teams.