Clicking Bug News

Portsmouth keeper David James on what he and his England teammates thought of the fake grass they played on in Russia last week: "One interesting point about the game in Russia was how good the pitch was. After all that worry and speculation, it turned out to be fantastic."

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Again, I am screaming for some MLS team to go out there and sign Juan Roman Riquelme. He is dying at Villareal where for some reason the team will not even put him on the bench. Go spend the money. He is totally worth it.


MLS
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Oct 20
Toronto 2-2 New England - Tor goals by Collin Samuel & Danny Dichio. NE goals by Michael Parkhurst & Taylor Twellman.
DC 2-3 Columbus - DC goals both by Christian Gomez. Colu goals by Robbie Rogers(2) & Ale Moreno.
Dallas 0-2 Kansas City - both goals by Scott Sealy.
Colorado 0-1 Salt Lake - goal by Robbie Findley.
Chivas 0-0 Houston
-Sun Oct 21
Chicago 1-0 Los Angeles - goal by John Thorrington.
Match report by Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune.
Match report by Lacy Banks of the Chicago Sun Times.
Match report by Nick Firchau of Chicago's Daily Southtown.
Match report Chicago's Daily Herald.
Post-game notes from Arroyave on his Red Card blog.
Post-game analysis of LA from Jeff Carlisle at Soccernet.
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My notes from the weekend:
-Chivas winning the Western Conference is frankly quite amazing considering they are in only their third season. Especially when you look at their expansion partner Real Salt Lake who still stink.
-How about that Michael Parkhurst goal from just past the midfield line!!!
-New England signed both Shalrie Joseph & Jay Heaps to multi-year contracts. To me Shalrie was a must-do deal, but Heaps has been consistently getting torched this season, and I could have seen them letting him go in the expansion draft.
-Turns out the best trade Frank Yallop made all year for Los Angeles was sending Robbie Findley to Salt Lake so RF could score the goal on the last weekend that knocked Colorado out of playoff contention.
-Josh Gros of DC has been put on the shelf for the rest of the season. I am sure it had plenty to do with his headaches, but he also went ahead with a bone graft in his wrist. Get well Josh, and we hope to see you fit next season. (You don't mess around with head injuries.)
-It was amazing that John Thorrington of all people scored the winning goal for Chicago. He was released by the team after a series of injuries. And a series of injuries chased him out of Europe a couple years ago too. He was one of those young guys with a ton of potential that never panned out. How cool would it be if things came together for him now?
-Dasan Robinson showed some real speed yesterday as he continued to run down LA attackers. He had to cuz he was out of position a lot and had to react, but positioning can be taught, speed can't. He is way faster than I had ever noticed before.
-Troy Roberts had a really good game in the center of defense for LA too.
-Landon Donovan is a FORWARD. Does no one recognize this. He is not an out side midfielder. He could play behind the two front runners and be effective too. But there he was yesterday out on the wing in the one game LA needed the most. Brutal. Bradley keeps doing this crap to him at team USA too.
-Toyota Park set a new attendance record on Sunday of 21,374.
-One of my favorite moments of the Chicago-LA game - Blanco & Vagenas collide, Blanco stays down, Vagenas screams at him! Photo.
-George Tanner of FC Rocky said that former Colorado midfielder Kyle Beckerman sent a clear message to his old team Colorado by earning a yellow card just 3 seconds into their grudge match on Saturday night. Beautiful.
-Toronto not only had a streak of 822 goalless minutes at one point this season, but the ended the season with a record low of only 25 goals all season (30 games).
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MLS Golden Boot winner is: DC's Luciano Emilio with 20 goals.
Here are the other at the top of the list:
19 Juan Pablo Angel
16 Taylor Twellman
15 Eddie Johnson
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Steven Goff of the Washington Post with an article on Luci Emilio winning the Golden Boot.
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Yellow Card suspensions from the regular season do not carry over into the playoffs, BUT Red Card suspensions will. Those yellow card suspensions will be served at the beginning of next season.
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Steve Davis at MLSnet wraps up the 30th & last regular season round of MLS games.
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Frank Dell'apa at Soccernet writes about New England midfielder Steve Ralston and what his career says about midfielders in the USA.
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The Press Enterprise of Southern California asks the tough question: Why Doesn't LA Care About Chivas USA?
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New York goal keeper Ronald Wattereus has announced his retirement at the end of this season.
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MLS Commissioner Don Garber had a rude run in with some radio guys in Portland last week. "Portland's KXL radio station interviewed Don Garber Tuesday night. When the host didn't like what Garber was saying, he promptly hung up on Garber. Then potential Portland MLS investor, Timber's owner Paulson, then tells KXL he isn't coming on to talk to them." The Garber interview starts about 24 minutes into the show. (thanks to E for this info and link)
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Michael Lewis at Big Apple Soccer talks to Galaxy Exec Alex Lalas who says that today's players are pampered too much.
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Jaime Cardenas of the LA Times on the end of the season for B****** and looks at the chances of Frank Yallop returning as coach for the Galaxy.
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The Daily Breeze with an article on the end of B******'s first season in LA. They call it unsatisfying.
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Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports grades B******'s first MLS season.
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Jon Gilbert at the Daily Utah Chronicle looks at Real Salt Lake's Rocky Mountain Cup winning victory.
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James Edward of the Deseret Morning News on the return to health of RSL's young talented midfielder Nathan Sturgis.
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Edward also writes about RSL winning the Rocky Mountain Cup for the first time.
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John Meyer of the Denver Post on the end of the line for Colorado.
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George Tanner of the Rocky Mountain News' FC Rocky blog writes about Colorado's last match of the season, the teams post season awards and a few more thoughts on the season.
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Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe on the Michael Parkhurst miracle shot and other New England Rev's post-game notes.
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Larry Millson of the Toronto Globe & Mail looks at Danny Dichio, the TFC forward who has become a legend already in Toronto. How in the world did he pull that off?
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Slam Sports of Canada says Toronto FC needs to up their player talent level significantly next season.
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Morgan Campbell of the Toronto Star looks at the end of TFC's first season, and sees a love affair in the stands.
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Tobias Xavier Lopez of the Fort Worth Star Telegram says Dallas captain Carlos Ruiz needs to step up and deliver more for his team to succeed. (published before Saturday nights game)
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Soccer 365 has a Q & A with New England first year forward Adam Cristman. (from the end of last week)
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Goal.com has a light hearted Q & A with Columbus midfielder Eddie Gaven. (from late last week)
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The US Soccer Players Assoc has a Q & A with Columbus head coach Sigi Schmid. (from last week too)
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Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated talks to LA's Cobi Jones about his last days before retiring. From the Throw-In's blog.
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Steve Davis at Soccernet examines the 8 MLS playoff bound teams.
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Steven Goff of the Washington Post looks ahead to the DC v Chicago playoff series.
-More DC notes from Goff at his Soccer Insider blog.
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Michael C Lewis of the Salt Lake Tribune says more front office shuffling is going on at RSL. They really need to get some good people with MLS experience involved in this team. But experience alone is not enough, they also have to be top notch.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer with the latest on a possible new team in their city.
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And the latest developments in St Louis from the Belleville News-Democrat.
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Americans In Europe - how'd their recent matches go:
-Freddy Adu - Benfica - came on as a sub and scored a fine tying goal deep in stoppage time of a 1-1 League Cup match v Vitoria Setubal.
-DaMarcus Beasley - Rangers - came on as a 75th minute sub in his first Old Firm derby. His team won it 3-0, and 10 Celtic players were booked.
-Gregg Berhalter - 1860 Munich - played the entire match, but they were embarrassed 0-3 at home by Greuther Furth.
-Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham - did not start by came on at half time in a 0-0 home draw v Derby.
-Nat Borchers - Odd Grenland - did not dress for a 2-0 home win over Start.
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - went 90 in a 1-0 win over AZ Alkmaar.
-Danny Califf - Aalborg - played the whole match but could only draw first place Copenhagen 0-0 at home. They are in second place, two points back.
-Steve Cherundolo - Hannover - starts at right back as usual and plays the whole of a 2-2 home draw with Wolfsburg.
-Bobby Convey - Reading - still out injured as his team lost 4-2 at Blackburn.
-Charlie Davies - Hammarby - came on in the 54th minute of a 1-0 loss at Trelleborg.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - goes 90 in a 1-0 victory over Hull.
-Clint Dempsey - Fulham - played all 90 minutes of a 0-0 home draw with Derby.
-Benny Feilhaber - Derby County - did not dress for his teams 0-0 draw at Fulham.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - went the distance in a 4-2 win over Reading.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - played the full 90 in a losing effort, 4-2 at Blackburn.
-Tim Howard - Everton - played the whole match v rivals Liverpool but gave up to Penalty Kick goals to lose 1-2.
-Ian Joy - St Pauli - came on in the 13th minute to replace an injured teammate in a 2-0 losing effort at Freiburg.
-Kasey Keller - Fulham - did not dress for his teams 0-0 draw at home to Derby. The injury bug has bitten him. From the Fulham website: "Keller suffered a torn bicep tendon in training on Friday and could be out for three to four months". (thanks to BQ for the Keller info)
-Eddie Lewis - Derby County - played all 90 minutes of a 0-0 road draw with Fulham.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Standard - went the distance in a 1-1 tie game at Mons.
-Heath Pearce - Hansa Rostock - did not dress for his teams 1-1 draw with Schalke.
-Frank Simek - Sheffield Wednesday - out injured as his team wins one on the road 2-4 over Stoke.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - did not dress for his teams 3-1 win over Sunderland.
-Neven Subotic - Mainz - played the whole 90 and even scored his first goal which was the game winner in a 1-3 victory at Wehen.
-Brian West - Fredrikstad - dressed by did not play in his teams 2-0 win over Sandefjord.
-Josh Wolff - 1860 Munich - back from injury he started and went 58 minutes, but they were embarrassed 0-3 at home by Greuther Furth.
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American Soccer Daily says the horrible luck continues for Cory Gibbs at Charlton, as he broke three bones in his foot in a reserve match.
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Here's a video link to the Freddy Adu goal. (thanks to Brian De Sousa for this link) (LINK FIXED)
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Yanks Abroad look back with some post-game analysis from the USA's 0-1 win in Switzerland last week.
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Steve Goff of the Washington Post is reporting the USA U17 coach John Hackworth may be replaced.
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Big Euro matches this weekend:
Rangers 3-0 Celtic - the Old Firm derby
Roma 4-4 Napoli - a classic Italian battle - Il Derby del Sole
Everton 1-2 Liverpool - the Liverpool derby, The Blue half of the city v the Red half.
Fulham 0-0 Derby - not actually a big match, but we could see 5 Americans on the pitch at the same time in this one.
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Here are the 4 groups for next winters African Nations Cup:
-GROUP A
Ghana
Namibia
Guinea
Morocco
-GROUP B
Nigeria
Benin
Mali
Ivory Coast
-GROUP C
Egypt
Sudan
Zambia
Cameroon
-GROUP D
Tunisia
Angola
South Africa
Senegal
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UEFA Champions League Match Day 3
Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Tue Oct 23
Stuttgart v Lyon
Rangers v Barcelona
Dynamo Kyiv v Man United
Roma v Sporting
CSKA v Inter
PSV v Fenerbahce
Sevilla v Steau
Arsenal v Slavia
-Wed Oct 24
Besiktas v Liverpool
Marseille v Porto
Rosenborg v Valencia
Chelsea v Schalke
Bremen v Lazio
Real Madrid v Olympiakos
Benfica v Celtic
Milan v Shakhtar
-Here are the current standings going into this round.
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A frustrated fan of Mexico, la fresa on Big Soccer, takes out his anger on coach Hugo Sanchez. I would have to mostly agree with him, although he obviously follows the team a lot closer than I do.
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The Vancouver Sun on the development of young players in Canada.
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LA & USA legend Cobi Jones helps Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated rank this weeks best clubs in the world.
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Football Italia with their Spotlight column reviewing the best and worst from Serie A this past weekend.
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World Soccer has a Q & A with Roma & Italy star Francesco Totti. Via Sports Illustrated.
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Phil Ball at Soccernet revels in the little teams this week as they knocked off Spain’s big boys.
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FIFA has a Q & A with Boca Juniors star striker Martin Palermo.
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Milan appealed goalkeeper Dida's 2 game UEFA suspension from his faking to be injured after a Celtic fan ran onto the field and touched him. UEFA has reduced the ban to 1 game.
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Reuters talks to Maradona who is not pleased with the way his Argentina is playing futbol these days, even though they are winning.