Shiny Chrome News

Dave Denholm of 710AM ESPN radio in LA does one of my favorite weekly soccer podcasts. Each new episode comes out on Monday's and this weeks features a chat with yours truly. Yes! Yes! Yes! Me & Dave rockin the house. Luckily I don't think I came across as a complete idiot, although I must have said "any way you slice it" about a half dozen times. What is that? That's not one of my regular cliches... Take a listen now!

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US Soccer asks a question of DaMarcus Beasley - USS: Do you ever get tired of beating Mexico? DMB: “Never. Anytime we play them – home, away, in England – it doesn’t matter. There’s never a better feeling than beating Mexico. To beat them in a final and win something is even better. It’s always the highlight of my year when we play Mexico. I’m glad I was a part of it. And next time I won’t kick the ball over the damn net!”

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Amid all the craziness going on with big name MLS signings B******, Blanco, Guillesche, Angel, Wanchope etc, the one big name big money player who has kind of laid an egg is, I hate to say it, Claudio Reyna.


MLS
Matches & scores:
-Wed Aug 22
DC v New York - 6:30pm central on Direct Kick
Kansas City v Chicago - 7pm central on Direct Kick
-Thu Aug 23
Los Angeles v Chivas - 9pm central on ESPN2
-Sat Aug 25
Toronto v DC - 6:30pm central on FSC, FSE & CBC
NEw England v New York - 6:30pm central on Direct Kick
Houston v Columbus - 7:30pm central on Direct Kick
Chicago v Kansas City - 7:30pm central on HDNet
-Sun Aug 26
Colorado v Los Angeles - 6pm central on Galavision
Chivas v Salt Lake - 8pm central on Direct Kick
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New York forward Jozy Altidore has been named MLS Player Of The Week.
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A couple weeks ago we heard that New York teammates Sinisa Ubiparapovic and Dema Kovalenko were in a car accident. Sinisa was right back at work, and there was little word on the actual crash, so most of us didn't think any more about it. But since Dema has not returned to action it became a topic of interest - How bad was this accident? Sinisa ended up telling TV commentator Steve Cangelosi that the car rolled over a couple times. Whoa. But still no other word on Dema, and possible injuries. We all started to figure, it might be bad if he is still out. Michael Lewis at Big Apple Soccer finally talks to Kolvalenko and gets some scoop, but its pretty obvious there is more to this. And Dema actually sounds a more than a little freaked out. He has yet to return to even visit the team. I find this all kind of odd.
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Ives Galarcep of the North Jersey Herald News says the New York Red Bulls now have to capitalize on all those people who came out to see B****** and turn em into return paying customers.
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger writes about LA & USA long time great Cobi Jones who he calls a "class act." Hahahahaha. I wouldn't go that far, but I do love Jones as a player and would have him on my team any day.
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Mike Biglin of the MetroWest Daily News reports on the New England Revolution who had a terrible game last Thursday night in Denver, but turned it around Sunday and showed what they are made of.
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Chicago has made it official that they have signed 24 year old Colombian defender Wilman Conde. He was with new Fire coach Juan Carlos Osorio last season at Millonarios.
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Dean McNulty of the Toronto Sun says there is no problems inside the TFC locker-room between coach and players. Sure they are all pissed off about losing, but they are together in this.
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For the past two weeks the daily ESPN show Pardon The Interruption has been all over every move by B******, which is great, but they reported on the Saturday night game v New York and never mentioned all the other great players in that match. That is what I wanna see. They should have taken 10 seconds to rave about the performances of Juan Pablo, Jozy & Landon too. When that starts happening you know we are getting somewhere.
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Grant Wahl at Sports Illustrated writes about the things he is already seeing from the B****** effect.
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Somehow George Tanner at FC Rocky has gotten his hands on B******'s day planner. Here is Superman's schedule.
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Paul Gardner of the New York Sun see's the B****** appeal but walks away knowing that even the Super-One probably can't save the sorry Galaxy this season.
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The New York Times with a story on the media impact B****** has made some far for MLS. The TV ratings are quite good.
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du Nord's MLS Coaching Hot Seat:
1. Frank Yallop - LA
2. Fernando Clavijo - Colorado
3. Jason Kreis - RSL
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The St Louis Dispatch has an update on the potential plans for funding a stadium for an MLS team. It fascinates me to read an article and clearly see an agenda put forth by the author or editor of the story. This one is clearly meant to stir shit up. The first paragraph states: "...the decision-makers and the public likely won't know the details until just hours before the vote." Which is not good. I was thinking they meant literally "just hours" before voting. Turns out "just hours" actually means at least 48 hours. Now if you are writing as a neutral on this story I would think you would write "just 2 days", not "just hours". Then if you read a little further it turns out that the city council doesn't even know if they will have to vote at all at this meeting. So the "just hours" is purely hypothetical. Ahhhhh, now we see the real picture.
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USL Second Division - The Final:
-Sat Aug 25
Harrisburg v Richmond
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Mark Schulte of Cleveland City Stars was named Second Division Defender Of The Year - not to sound too cynical about this, but I think he damn well should have. This is a guy who was a top First Division defender several years back, went to Europe, Chile & MLS since then. So with his experience and skills I would think he could probably have a great chance to be First Division Defender of the Year much less Second Div. He played for my beloved Minnesota Thunder too.
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Fulham with official word that Brian McBride will need surgery to repair a dislocated Patella (knee cap).
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One of the daily English tabloids says Jay DeMerit wants a pay raise, and will leave Watford ASAP if he doesn't get it. Does DeMerit strike you as a guy to make these kinds of bold and rash decisions? Me neither. Chalk it up to tabloid fodder.
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Jack Bell of the New York Times with a story on American midfielder Benny Feilhaber who recently moved from Hamburg in the Bundesliga to Derby County in the Premiership.
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Yanks Abroad has reported that 18 year old American defender Neven Subotic has signed a contract extension at his German club Mainz through 2011.
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US Soccer has a Q & A with Rangers midfielder DaMarcus Beasley.
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet previews USA v Sweden tomorrow.
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Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise previews the USA v Sweden match too.
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Check this out - yesterday was the 91st anniversary of the first ever USA international match. And that game was against Sweden! Aug 20 1916 in Stockholm - USA won it 3-2. Goals by Charles Ellis, CH Spalding & Harry Cooper.
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US Soccer's blog for the senior team is always good, and recently its gotten even better.
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The latest notes from Team USA before tomorrows match.
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Swedish midfielder Freddy Ljungberg is out of the team with a sprained ankle.
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There have already been over 20,000 tickets sold for the USA v Brazil game on Sep 9 in Chicago. I can't believe how many of my friends passed on this one. I got my tix right away.
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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:
Matches & Scores:
USA 3-4 Tajikistan - USA goals by Mykell Bates, Greg Garza & Billy Schuler. Taj goals by Farkhod Vasiev, Samad Shohzukhurov, Nuriddin Davronov & Fatkhullo Fatkhuloev.
USA v Tunisia - Thu Aug 23 in Changwon 2:30am central time on ESPN2 & ESPNU
USA v Belgium - Sun Aug 26 in Cheonan 1:30am central time on ESPNU
-Team USA site
-USA U17 blog.
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Rumors from England suggest that Birmingham is going to sign 6' 7" Team USA Killing forward Jan Koller of the Czech Republic.
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The Independent reports that even with all the big names called in to the England squad this week, the big story is B****** having a chit chat with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. Figures.
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Paul Gardner of the New York Sun writes about his least favorite thing in all of soccer - Goalkeepers. (for whatever reason I ran this last week without the link to the article - and so many people were dying to read it that none one told me about it)
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For the 3rd straight year Petr Cech has been named the Czech Republic Player Of The Year.
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Milan has bought Brazilian "tough guy" (read as "cheap shot") Emerson from Real Madrid. He had formerly played for Juventus in Italy so he can resume many of his old wars.
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David Hirshey of Deadspin writes about the love for his "his team" Arsenal in the New York Times "Play" section. (I missed this one from Sunday)
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Tons of International matches Wed Aug 22:
Finland v Kazakhstan
Belgium v Serbia
Armenia v Portugal
San Marino v Cyprus
Estonia v Andorra
Northern Ireland v Liechtenstein
Norway v Argentina
Denmark v Ireland
Slovakia v France
Iceland v Canada
Romania v Turkey
Belarus v Israel
Latvia v Moldova
Bulgaria v Wales
Colombia v Mexico
Hungary v Italy
Montenegro v Slovenia
Scotland v South Africa
Ecuador v Bolivia
Tunisia v Guinea
Paraguay v Venezuela
Lithuania v Turkmenistan
Sudan v Libya
Tajikistan v Azerbaijan
Brazil v Algeria
El Salvador v Honduras
Macedonia v Nigeria
Russia v Poland
Togo v Zambia
Congo v Angola
Burkina Faso v Mali
Japan v Cameroon
Ukraine v Uzbekistan
Bangladesh v Cambodia
Costa Rica v Peru
England v Germany
Luxembourg v Georgia
Panama v Guatemala
Switzerland v Netherlands
Austria v Czech Republic
Bosnia-Herzegovina v Croatia
Sweden v USA
Albania v Malta
Greece v Spain