Dancing On Graves News

Sorry for the inconsistency of du Nord lately, but my life has been anything but consistent. I won't go into details, but let's just say it's been over under sideways down.


I can only assume that Dallas forward Carlos Ruiz lost a bet and that is why he was sporting that insanely stupid hairdo last night. Part mohawk part racing stripes. I have seen better looks in the bottom of underwear after a weeks wear on the Vegas strip. (can someone out there please help us find a picture of this hilarious mess)
-ADDITION: A reader named Arelius sent us this link to a photo & video clip of Pescado's hair. This pic is OK, but the video gets us the full effect I was hoping for!! Thanks Arelius.

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One of the worst kept secrets among hardcore USA fans was confirmed today as the USA match in South Africa on November 17 became official. The game is part of a Nelson Mandela celebration.

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American Clint Dempsey talking to the Fulham website: "I’ve eaten a lot of European cuisines that I hadn’t tried because in the States I was stuck with the same things; Mexican food and traditional American food like barbecues, hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza, but here I can eat sushi, Asian Food, Indian food, and I’m eating more seafood in general." Clint sounds a little like a dumbass with a quote like that one. First of all, none of those cuisines he mentions are European, and secondly if you live in a city like Boston for more than a few years and can't find those things to eat, along with a whole lot more, then you just weren't looking my friend.

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Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post is reporting that DC United is very close to finishing a cooperative deal with Boca Juniors. What this means we don't really know yet, except that Boca are huge.


MLS
Matches & Scores:
-Wed Sep 19
Salt Lake 2-2 LA - RSL goals by Carey Talley(PK) & Javier Morales(PK). LA goals by Landon Donovan(PK) & Gavin Glinton.
-Thu Sep 20
Dallas 1-1 Chicago - Dal goal by Carlos Ruiz. Chic goal by Chris Rolfe.
Match report by Tobias Xavier Lopez of the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
Match report by Gabriel Cabarrouy of the Dallas Morning News.
Dallas player ratings from 3rd Degree.
-Sat Sep 22
Toronto v Columbus - 2:45pm central on Direct Kick & CBC
New York v New England - 6:30pm central on Direct Kick & HDNnet
Salt Lake v Colorado - 8:30pm central on FSC & FSE
Chivas v Kansas City - 9:30pm central on Direct Kick
-Sun Sep 23
Chicago v DC - 2pm central on TeleFutura
Los Angeles v Dallas - 7pm central on Direct Kick & HDNet
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Pablo Mastroeni of Colorado, Kurt Morsink of Kansas City, and Fred, Christian Gomez & Ben Olsen of DC will all miss games this weekend does do Yellow Card accumulation. While Facundo Erpen of Colorado is suspended due to a Red Card last weekend.
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Chicago's Daily Herald with an amazing story about new Fire defender Wilman Conde & Dallas keeper Dario Sala who were on a team together in Colombia where a teammate of their was struck and killed by lightning while another died a few days later from a heart attack suffered in the lightning strike. What a story.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle breaks down the Dynamo and assesses their chances of repeating as MLS Cup winners.
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Greg Seltzer at American Soccer Daily talks to New York Red Bull midfielder-turned-leftback Dave Van Den Bergh.
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Marc Connolly at Goal.com also does a Q & A with Van Den Bergh.
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Larry Millson of the Toronto Globe & Mail talks to TFC forward Jeff Cunningham about ending the team's 9-game-plus skid without a goal.
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James Edward of the Deseret Morning News on the hiring of Garth Lagerway as the new General Manager at Real Salt Lake. I like listening to Lagerway do DC United TV broadcasts, so I hope he does well at his new job, and if not I hope he goes back to the booth.
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Michael C Lewis of the Salt Lake Tribune talks to RSL's new forward Yura Movsisyan about himself and his challenges ahead.
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The Washington Post says DC United has promoted their long time Technical Director Dave Kaspar to General Manager. Whatever that title change means. But I hope he got a raise.
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Rich Thompson of the Boston Herald on the rise of New England midfielder Jeff Larentowicz.
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Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe on New England's other big center midfielder Shalrie Joseph.
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Dell'apa also writing for Soccernet says the MLS Designated Player Rule has yielded some good results, but its not the be all and end all.
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Jeff Bradley's MLSnet First XI column is Listless.
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Tino Palace in his MLSnet column The Clean Sheet calls the "Blanco Cam" used by ESPN2 last night an Abomination. Hahahahaha. You got that one right buddy.
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Actor Anthony LaPaglia told Martin Rogers at Yahoo Sports that he wants to buy an MLS team. No date or team set in stone yet.
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Conde Naste's Portfolio.com with an article on Joe Roth who is said to be the big money behind the Seattle Sounders bid for MLS.
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The San Jose Mercury News with yet another article telling us that Oakland A's GM Billy Beane is obsessed with soccer and is sorta-kinda helping to build the new San Jose Earthquakes team (of which he is part owner).
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USL First Division Playoffs
Semifinal Matches & Scores:
-Fri Sep 21
Atlanta v Portland
Puerto Rico v Seattle
-Sun Sep 23
Seattle v Puerto Rico
Portland v Atlanta
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The First Division have announced their leagues Best XI for 2007:
G:
Josh Wicks - Portland
D:
Gabriel Gervais - Montreal
David Hayes - Atlanta
Cameron Knowles - Portland
M:
Stephen Armstrong - Charleston
Andrew Gregor - Portland
Martin Nash - Vancouver
Zinho - Miami
F:
Dan Antoniuk - Atlanta
Hamed Diallo - Rochester
Sebastien Le Toux - Seattle
-And here is the 2nd XI, featuring Minnesota Thunder midfielder Brian Farber, who was also awarded Blue Sky Soccer player of the year for the team.
G:
Matt Jordan - Montreal
D:
Taylor Graham - Seattle
Steve Klein - Vancouver
Scot Thompson - Portland
Marco Velez - Puerto Rico
M:
Leonardo Di Lorenzo - Montreal
Brian Farber - Minnesota
Kupono Low - Carolina
Johnny Menyongar - Rochester
F:
Charles Gbeke - Montreal
Roger Levesque - Seattle
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It's a little late for this season, well not entirely, but John DiVeronica who covers the Rochester Rhinos for the Democrat & Chronicle has a pretty good blog covering their local team, and also some good scoops on other things in the First Division. Check it out now. (thanks to Peter for the link)
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The Fulham team website has an interview with their American forward Clint Dempsey.
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AP talks to American keeper Kasey Keller about the importance of the next few games for his London club Fulham.
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American Freddy Adu updated his blog earlier this week and gives us all an update on his new life at Benfica in Portugal. He has not been in game day rosters for the first team since they got a new coach, but he seems to be genuinely excited the future and not frustrated by his lack of chances. Maybe he will get in to some reserve matches soon and give us more info. Not bad reading, and its good to read something seeing as most American journalists seem to have already forgotten about him. (thanks to John for the link)
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Mexico had been scheduled to play China on October 17 in LA. But China has been replaced by Guatemala. Maybe China had a previous deal in place for Spanish language TV broadcast rights that Mexico could not come to terms with?
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Women's World Cup
Matches & Scores:
Group Stage Round 3-
-Mon Sep 17
Germany 2-0 Japan
England 6-1 Argentina
-Tue Sep 18
Nigeria 0-1 USA
N Korea 1-2 Sweden
-Thu Sep 20
Norway 7-2 Ghana
Australia 2-2 Canada
China 2-0 New Zealand
Brazil 1-0 Denmark
-Norway (C1), Australia (C2), Brazil (D1) & China (D2) have joined Germany (A1), England (A2), USA (B1) & N Korea (B2) in advancing to the Quarterfinals.
Here are the Quarterfinal Matches:
-Sat Sep 22
USA v England - match #26
Germany v N Korea - match #25
-Sun Sep 23
Norway v China - match #27
Brazil v Australia - match #28
Semifinals:
-Wed Sep 26
25 v 27
-Thu Sep 27
26 v 28
Final:
-Sun Sep 30
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Mike Biglin of the MetroWest Daily News is reporting that near-legendary USA Women's coach Tony De Cicco is going to coach and manage the new Women's league team in Boston.
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Jaime Clary has published "The First American Soccer Trivia Book". There is a cool quiz on the Women's World Cup on the site where you can pre-test your knowledge. And you can buy the book right there too. (Or you can get it at Amazon.)
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The awesome folks at EPL Talk and all their sister sites have been very very very busy putting together some of the best podcasts known on earth. Here's a sampling of the recent goodies:
-EPL Talk Podcast has interviews with Chuck Culpepper (LA Times), Graham Poll and Andy Houlihan.
-Major League Soccer Talk Podcast has interviews with Christopher Sullivan, Brant Parsons (Orlando Sentinel), Nick Webster, Sons of Ben and Major League Soccer Magazine).
-Serie A Talk Podcast has interviews with Paddy Agnew & Sheridan Bird from Football 365.
-La Liga Talk Podcast has an interview with Phil Schoen from GolTV.
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Russian Premier League
-Standings after 23 of 30 rounds:
43 Spartak Moscow
43 Zenit
39 FC Moscow
36 Dinamo Moscow
35 CSKA Moscow
34 FK Amkar Perm
34 Saturn Moscow
33 Lokomotiv Moscow
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Several of our Americans played in UEFA Cup (first leg) matches last night. Let's check in on 'em shall we:
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - Big Mike had a huge night scoring two goals and leading his team to a 5-3 win over Helsingborg. Bradley started and went the distance, netted his teams 1st and 5th tallies, but also followed the trend he has started with the USA by committing a foul in the box that led to a PK goal.
-Danny Calliff - Aalborg - started as always and played the full 90 in his teams promising 2-2 away draw at Sampdoria.
-Charlie Davis - Hammarby - did not dress as his team beat Braga 2-1.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - played the entire match as usual in the goal as they went to Greek team Larissa and lost 2-0.
-Tim Howard - Everton - did not dress for the game as they gave up an away goal to Ukraine team Metalist Kharkiv in a 1-1 draw.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Standard Liege - they went to Zenit is St Petersburg Russia and got run off the field 3-0. Gooch started and played 90 collecting a Yellow Card for his efforts. Does not look good for the second leg comeback.
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I think our friend Anthony has found the key to stopping Kerlon's "Seal dribble". From You Tube.
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UEFA has laid down a serious suspension on Portugal coach Big Phil Scolari for hitting a Serbian player after their last Euro 08 qualifier. He will be out of all their remaining matches after the 4 game suspension. Could this open the door for Jose Mourinho to take over?
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Let's not talk about Inter's Champions League game v Fenerbahce. OK?
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Big & Excellent Eurocentric matches not to be missed this weekend:
-Sat Sep 22
Barcelona v Sevilla - Barca came alive in the Champions League while Sevilla went to sleep, so what happens in a La Liga showdown?
-Sun Sep 23
Man U v Chelsea - a top dog slog, without the Special One. Could be a very interesting match.
Roma v Juventus - an old classic revived, and this time Roma is clearly the favorite.
ADDITION: Sampdoria v Genoa - the Genoa derby - I love intercity battles! (thanks to Daniele for the info)
AZ Alkmaar v Ajax - the newercomers v the old faithful.
PSV v Feyenoord - the team that has won the last 3 league titles and current sit #3 v the surprise early season top of the table team.
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Chelsea have hired their teams technical director Avram Grant as their new manager on a permanent basis.
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Have any of you heard the World Soccer Wrap podcast. I just learned of it, but have yet to listen.