Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Is This Thing On News

So so sad. Sevilla defender Antonio Puerta who collapsed on Saturday during the teams game v Getafe has died. He had been in an intensive care unit in an induced coma. It was originally thought that he was having a seizure, at least that was I saw while watching the game. It was later determined that he was having a massive heart attack. Reports have said he had 5 heart attacks. Although I don't know how accurate that is. A very sad day. RIP Amigo.
-Sevilla's Champion's League game today at AEK has been postponed.


~and~

For months I have been trying to figure out some sort of gauge to know when American soccer has truly "arrived" at the top of the game. And this is my conclusion - We will have arrived when we have one of those players that is in the elite of the elite. A Ronaldinho, Christiano Ronaldo, Totti, Ballack, Giggs, Henry etc. Then we will know, and the game will be very big in America. I know that's a lot to ask, but until then, we will be in that second tier.

~and~

With the signing of Denilson in Dallas there have been more articles written about the success so far this season of MLS teams using the Designated Player rule to bring in strong foreign talent. They all name check the quality of Juan Pablo Angel, Blanco & B******. But none of them mention the relative thud from Claudio Reyna. And Reyna has a contract guaranteed for next season. Oof.


Don't Forget - Tomorrow Night - SuperLiga
-Final - Wed Aug 29
Los Angeles Galaxy v Pachuca Tuzos - at the Home Depot Center time TBD.
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LA has a long injury list - B****** will not play, neither will Kelly Gray, Ty Harden & Ante Jazic. Both Landon Donovan & Abel Xavier as dinged up, but expected to play.
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Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise looks at how the initial SuperLiga has gone.
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Grahame Jones of the LA Times reports on the mighty Pachuca, and their rise to North American dominance.
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Billy Witz of the Daily Breeze with a story on LA's SuperLiga build up, young defender Mike Randolph and other team notes.
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MLS
Matches & scores:
-Wed Aug 29
Salt Lake v Kansas City - 8pm central on Direct Kick
-KC midfielder Davy Arnaud will miss this game due to Yellow Card accumulation suspension.
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Chivas USA forward Maykel Galindo was named MLS Player Of The Week.
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Dallas coach Steve Morrow writes on the FC Dallas Updates blog about the Denilson signing saga. I love it when we get the word right from the coach.
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Both the Gabriel Cabarrouy of the Dallas Morning News and Tobias Xavier Lopez of the Fort Worth Star Telegram have stories on the Denilson signing.
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Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree heads to FC Dallas practice session as usual and is met with a brand new hurdle. Full training report.
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Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald News tries to figure out if New York really is suffering from the Caricola Curse.
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Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune is reporting on this blog that Fire midfielder Justin Mapp has a bad ankle injury and will be out of action 5-7 weeks. Not good. In another post he reports that the team has released midfielder Tiago to make room for new defender Wilman Conde. So now they are down 2 midfielders. Lastly the new owners of the Chicago Fire are supposedly taking over on Sep 1.
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Mike Biglin of MetroWest Daily News looks at what New England are going to have to do to tighten up their ship down the stretch. They may be on top, but its far from perfect.
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Morgan Campbell of the Toronto Star with a story on the real lack of depth that is killing Toronto FC right now with the injuries piling up big time.
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Canada's National Post talks to a Toronto FC executive who gives coach Mo Johnston the dreaded double edged sword known as "the vote of confidence".
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I see where many articles are quoting LA Galaxy Pres Alexi Lalas today where he complains about the brutal schedule his team is having to play, and the heavy toll it is taking on his players. To this I say " WILL YA JUST SHUT UP!" Lalas could have gotten his owners at AEG to help with their schedule before it ever got this out of hand. He knew the card being dealt and never said a word until now. It's too late to complain dude! The rest of us all saw this coming and said something then, why didn't Lalas?
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Emlyn Lewis of Soccer New England rates the Rev's chances of winning the Supporters Shield, the Open Cup and MLS Cup. The triple!
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Pete Gratoff of the Kansas City Stars reports on the KC Wizards continuing search for a home next year while Arrowhead Stadium is rebuilt. And many other KC, MLS & soccer notes.
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American Soccer Daily is reporting that Danny Szetela is most likely leaving Columbus for a European club before the transfer period ends on Friday.
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John Haydon of the Washington Times looks at the MLS strikers most likely to surpass Jamie Moreno's new all time goal scoring tally.
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Two of the really great people in the American soccer scene wrote guest blog entries at Red Card after I did last week. They are Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated, and the unstoppable Peter Wilt, the man who built the Chicago Fire & is always on a mission - this times its a new professional womens team in Chicago.
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Greg Lalas with his weekly column for Goal.com - 3-5-2. His favorite news topics from around the globe.
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Soccernet's MLS Power Rankings.
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U17 World Cup from South Korea.
-All games on ESPNU.
-USA U17 blog.
Knock Out Round Matches & Scores:
-Wed Aug 29
Tunisia v France
Spain v North Korea
Peru v Tajikistan
Ghana v Brazil
-Thu Aug 30
Argentina v Costa Rica
Nigeria v Colombia
USA v Germany - 5:45am central on ESPNU
England v Syria
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger writes about the path the USA U17's have taken to get to the knock out rounds.
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The Sons of Ben website has a Q & A with USA & Reading midfielder Bobby Convey.
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Ian Plenderleith of the US Soccer Players Assoc attended last weekends Soccer Hall of Fame induction that saw Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and other pioneers honored. But he still comes away under-whelmed at the effort being put forth by the leaders of the game in America. I agree with him. And I would add that it's sad to see the US Open Cup has again become second rate.
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Colin Linford the President of the Canadian Soccer Association has unexpectedly stepped down from his post. He said he did so due to a "lack of support from a majority of the executive and the board". Ouch. The Canadian Federation is a real mess. Let's hope they get it together, because you can clearly see that they have some good players, which will only help all of CONCACAF grow stronger.
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UEFA Champions League
Third Qualifying Round matches - Second leg matches (first leg scores included)
-Tue Aug 28
Dinamo Bucuresti v Lazio (1-1)
AEK Athens v Sevilla (0-2)
- this match has been postponed due to the sad death of Sevilla defender Antonio Puerta. They will play the match next Monday, Sep 3.
Liverpool v Toulouse (1-0)
Crvena Zvezda v Rangers (0-1)
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Sevilla will however play Milan on Thursday night in the UEFA Super Cup. This yearly match pits last seasons Champions League winner v the UEFA cup winner. The match will be held in tribute to Puerta.
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Valencia have signed much sought after Benfica midfielder Manuel Fernandes.
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Ah, now here is an instant classic from Italy. Parma manager Domenico Di Carlo had been sent off by the referee but was taking a long time to live the area. Catania coach Silvio Baldini got sick of the antics and wanted to get the match rolling, so he confronted Di Carlo, and as the two argued Baldini kicked Di Carlo in the ass. Hilarious video from You Tube. (I just learned that Baldini has been given a one month ban from the sidelines! Wow!)
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Manchester United forward Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has announced his retirement from football. He has been plagued with a serious knee injury over the past 3 years and has never fully recovered. He is already a legend at Man U for scoring the miracle winner v Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final.
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There are stories coming from Middlesbrough that Newcastle fans taunted Boro's Egyptian striker Mido with anti-Muslim chants. Stay tuned.
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Twice in the past week Inter has tried to loan out forward Adriano but he has refused to go. He has now asked to be straight-out transferred. Expect this to happen.
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Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung last Saturday in the match v Sunderland.
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Paul Gardner of the New York Sun with an article on the referees in the Premiership.
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Yeah they're from last week, but its 2 new diary entries from Fulham's resident renaissance man Moritz Volz. He went to the England v Germany game wearing a disguise and sat in the stands with the fans! What a guy.
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Jonathan Wilson at the Guardian gives us a rare look at the Ukrainian league. It's more than just Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk.
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FIFA.com has a Q & A with Paraguay coach Gerardo Martino.
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Oceania has already begun their World Cup qualifying. I am not gonna post the scores so you will have to go track them down for yourself if you are just dying to see how Tuvalu did.
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Despite Nike offering the German National Team half a billion dollars to become their new shirt sponsor, Adidas will remain the sponsor for half that amount. Adidas is a German company, hence the loyalty.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The anti-Beckham stuff is getting tiresome. Otherwise, the blog is fantastic as always.


Chris

10:25 PM  
Blogger Johnny Centreback said...

Yep. Signing current or rising stars at market rates will be one of the true measures of the sport in North America.

6:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

is peter wilt still working with (stand up if you hate) Milwaukee's bid for MLS?

11:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i am not anti-B******

1:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beckham! Beckham!Beckham! Beckham!Beckham! Beckham!Beckham! Beckham!Beckham! Beckham!Beckham! Beckham!

Becks. Becks. Becks.

Posh.

-Chris

:)

3:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think the B*****m thing is funny. But I also thought it was funny when he was refered to as Beckman too.

I just can't wait until the Wolf calls him Becker cause what'll stop the Wolf from calling B*****m Ted Danson.

smatthew

4:19 PM  

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