Wednesday, August 08, 2007

See Me Cry News

Oliver Tse has announced that he is selling SoccerTV.com and all it's accoutrement at an upcoming auction. No date has been set. It would be very sad if this service went away, cuz it's tremendous.

~and~

You wanna know what international tournament I want to see played next summer here the USA? It would be called the "du Nord, Come On, Let's Clean This God Damn Mess Up Cup" - Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, North Korea, Palestine, South Korea & USA. Seriously.


US Open Cup - Last night & Tonight!
Fourth Round matches:
-Tue Aug 7:
Carolina Railhawks 1-0 Richmond Kickers Goal by Connally Edozien.
Match report from the Cary News.
Charleston Battery 1-2 FC Dallas - in extra time - Char goal by Stephen Armstrong. Dall goals by Clarence Goodson & Arturo Alvarez.
Match report from the Charleston Post & Courier.
Post-games notes from FC Dallas Updates.
Seattle Sounders 5-0 Colorado Rapids Goals by Taylor Graham, Zach Scott, Ugo Ihemelu(Own Goal), Josh Gardner & Sebastien Le Toux.
Match report from the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
Match report from the Seattle Times.
Match report from the Tacoma News Tribune.
Post-game notes from George Tanner at the Rocky Mountain News blog FC Rocky.
-Wed Aug 8:
New England Revolution v Harrisburg City Islanders
Match preview by Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe.
Match preview by John Connolly of the Boston Herald.
Match preview from the Harrisburg Patriot News.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

-Semifinals are booked for September 4. Right now it's Seattle v Dallas and Carolina at New England or home v Harrisburg after from tonight's winner.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MLS
Matches & scores:
-Thu Aug 9
DC v LA - 6pm central on ESPN2
Match preview by Andrea Canales at Soccernet.
-Sat Aug 11
Dallas v Columbus - 7:30pm central on FSC & FSE
Colorado v Houston - 8pm central on HDNet
-Sun Aug 12
New York v Toronto - 4pm central on Direct Kick
New England v LA - 6pm central on Galavision
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So does Colorado coach Fernando Clavijo still have a job after getting crushed in the Open Cup 5-0 by Seattle last night? I sure hope not. Those fans in CO deserve a lot better than this. Get John Spencer on the phone fast.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob Luder at the KC Star says the Kansas City Wizards have finally completed a long talked about deal for Argentine forward Eloy Colombano from club Defensa y Justicia. (What a brilliant name for a team!)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Steven Goff of the Washington Post on his Soccer Insider blog about the Beckman press conference at RFK.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Toronto midfielder Ronnie O'Brien is set to have more surgery on his right knee. It will be minor this time and he should only be out a couple more weeks. They really need him if they have any shot at the playoffs.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune talked with new Fire forward Paulo Wanchope about his debut with the team.
-More from Arroyave on Wanchope on Luis's Red Card blog.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Shawn Mitchell of the Columbus Dispatch talks to Shep Messing, agent for young Columbus midfielder Danny Szetela about the players wishes. The rumors that Szetela has signed with Roma are not true.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kelly Whiteside of USA Today checks in on New York manager Bruce Arena.
-A side article on the relationship between Arena & young forward Jozy Altidore.
-What do a couple other players around the league think of Arena? (Yeah, right, like there is any chance they will say something other than the obvious compliments.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jack Bell at the New York Times with an article on young Dallas keeper Ray Burse who has had three big games already in just 3 starts. Burse seems to have something really special going on.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dave Lifton at the Screaming Eagles podcast site has the MLS standings broken down by Points-Per-Game. I always think this shows the current trends better than regular standings. Especially when 2 teams have played 20 games and another has only played 13. Interestingly though, the same 8 teams would make the playoffs.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jeff Bradley's First XI at MLSnet is all about Jeff's opinions on the season so far.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mark Ziegler of the San Diego Union Tribune with (as always) some excellent notes on Beckman's ankle, and the USA playing in Mexico City. Etc.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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

Two facts from MLS regarding playoffs, seeding and tiebreakers:
-If two teams are tied on points, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head results, the second tiebreaker is goal differential, and the third is goals scored for the season.
-If more than four teams qualify from one conference, those finishing lower than fourth in their conference will shift over to the other conference bracket. A team switching conference brackets will be seeded below all other teams in its new conference playoff bracket. (this one is a correction on what we previously thought was the rankings)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Vancouver Province with some news on a potential MLS team in BC.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Another major soccer match is taking place in Chicago this weekend, and it will not be played at Toyota Park in Bridgeview. The USA Women will play New Zealand on Sunday at Soldier Field. Why?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Adam Spangler at This Is American Soccer was on hand in Central Park yesterday when NBA star Steve Nash brought his soccer team over to play against some of New York's Red Bulls. What ensued was not what we would call a soccer match. Great casual pics too.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin McGeehan of the US Soccer Players Assoc compares the financial success of the LA Galaxy to the financial hole of the Kansas City Wizards.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

USL First Division
Matches & Scores:
-Thu Aug 9
Portland v Minnesota
-Fri Aug 10
Montreal v Miami
Rochester v Carolina
Atlanta v Puerto Rico
-Sat Aug 11
Charleston v California
Portland v Vancouver
Seattle v Minnesota
-Sun Aug 12
Rochester v Puerto Rico
Miami v Atlanta
Vancouver v Minnesota
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several of my pals are headed west today for 3 Minnesota Thunder matches in the great northwest. If you see them at the games in Portland, Seattle & Vancouver please say hi and be nice to them. Cuz if yer not nice they will unleash their mighty power on you!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A giant new soccer complex is being built in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac. It will also be the new home of the PDL Michigan Bucks.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

First Division Standings:
38 Seattle
38 Portland
34 Montreal
30 Puerto Rico
30 Rochester
29 Atlanta
29 Vancouver
27 Miami
26 Charleston
22 Carolina
19 California
16 Minnesota
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Brian McBride has been named captain of Fulham.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yanks Abroad has a very cool start to a series of articles from a young relatively unknown American trying to find a club in Europe. His name is Max Cream (wow, what a name) and this is the first chapter of hopefully many more.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Word from England is that Derby County is going to have to petition to get Benny Feilhaber a work permit in order to join the team.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

American Steve Cherundolo plays for Hannover in Germany and US Soccer has a podcast of him previewing the 07-08 Bundesliga season. Excellent!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

US Soccer also has a Q & A with Peter Nowak about his new job as coach of the USA Olympic Team.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DaMarcus Beasley scored the games only goal(here's a pic) as his Rangers team went to Zeta in Montenegro and won 1-0 in the second leg of the Champions League 2nd Round of Qualifiers. Rangers won 3-0 on aggregate. Reports from the game say that some Montenegrins taunted Beasley & teammate Jean-Claude Darcheville with racist abuse during the game. What a bunch of backward hillbilly fucks they are. The other fans of that team should take those idiots out behind the barn and teach them a lesson. Video clip of game highlights and DMB's winner via See All Goals.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The US Soccer Players Assoc has a Q & A with USA & Watford defender Jay DeMerit.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Omar Bravo has won the Golden Ball as the best Mexican player for 06-07! Congrats go out to him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

UEFA Champions League - The 2nd Qualifying Round - Second legs Aug 7/8 (with first leg scores included):
-Tue Aug 7
Zeta 0-1 Rangers - Rangers advance 3-0 on aggregate.
Beitar Jerusalem 1-1 Kobenhavn - Koben adv 2-1 on agg.
Levski Sofia 1-0 Tampere United - Tampere of Finland adv 2-0 on agg.
Dinamo Zagreb 3-1 Domzale - Dinamo adv 5-2 on agg.
-Wed Aug 8
Shakhtar Donetsk v Pyunick (2-0)
Elfsborg v Debrecin (1-0)
Steau Bucuresti v Zaglebie Lubin (1-0)
Sarajevo v Genk (2-1)
Sheriff v Besiktas (0-1)
Salzburg v Ventspils (3-0)
Rosenborg v Astana (3-1)
BATE Borisov v Hafnarfjordur (3-1)
Levadia Tallinn v Crvena Zvezda (0-1)
Slavia Praha v Zilina (0-0)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mario Gomez of Stuttgart was named Kicker Magazine's German Fussballer Of The Year. 2nd place went to Diego of Werder Bremen and third to Bernd Schneider of Bayer Leverkusen.
-Armin Veh was named Coach Of The Year.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The folks at EPL Talk today give us a new podcast, this one called La Liga Talk. They are just filling the airwaves with fun.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Times of London with an article on England & Newcastle forward Michael Owen who just can't get healthy. Now its a thigh injury.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin McCarra, one of the smart guys at the Guardian, lists his top 10 summer transfers in England. But you have to admit that all of these combined pale in comparison to the David Beckman to LA Galaxy transfer, which may be one of the best of all time, already.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Serbian Ratomir Dujkovic has been promoted from the coach of China's Olympic team to lead the national team.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Max Cream's father is an LA Riot Squader. He told us (in a nicer way than I'm about to say) Max had a tryout with the G's but Steve Sampson was a retard.

5:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Doesn't Feilhaber have Austrian citizenship? Why would he need a work permit?

5:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I first read the Max Cream story, I was impressed by the kid's gusto. However, the more I looked into it, I was put off by how he and his father seem to be pushing the boy on various media sources and criticizing coaches and teams when things don't go his way. I get the sense Max is a talented player with an attitude. However, perhaps an attitude is needed to succeed in the top-flight ratrace. Regardless, I wish him good luck and will be following his story.

Matt

6:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, but Oliver Tse is an idiot. I have no idea what he will get for that domain, but considering he has gone from "selling it" to "auctioning it" he's now looking for "obo".

Man, back in the days of MLS' start that guy would spend endless bandwidth predicting the end of American soccer, how FSC would never, ever happen (he swore it would end up a NASCAR channel) and how MLS would never see a 10 year anniversary.

I heard about his site sale first by stumbling on it in a media blog. Oddly he now is the agent to professional poker players(?) and apparently has taken his easy-to-dislike nature to that world. Funny, if you dig thru poker forums you will find posts and threads about him that are identical to ones posted on North American Soccer bulletin board way back when.

And FWIW, his website is without question the most user-unfriendly interface known to man... Dude, it's 2007 let's get past 1996 formatting.

6:51 PM  
Blogger brucio said...

i dont know oliver tse from olive stone
and you may not like the guy
thats fine, thats your thing
i respect that
but please dont direct anyone to firsttouch until they get something that even remotely resembles tv listings
they have a 15 games listed for this weekend only
england, germany and france
thats it
they seem to have forgotten about all the other games from around that world that we can see here in america
i understand if you might not like the layout of soccertv.com
but its simple and straight forward
here are the channels - here are the games they are showing for the next 14 games
i could care less about the "interface"
i dont need bells and whistles
i need the info, the facts
the games, the channels, the times
for that soccertv.com is invaluable

9:34 AM  
Blogger Matthew: said...

Hej, Bruce, what's the mascot of the Thunder? I assume you have one. If not, you should go with Thor, for what I like to think are obvious reasons.

Then, for the soccer nerds, you could have a reading from the Poetic Edda before every match.

Seriously, though, what is the mascot?

2:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In case Bruce doesn't get to it...Indeed, Thor is our mascot.

Not a great photo but you can see him coming into the stadium here.

http://tinyurl.com/3xc39b

4:01 PM  

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