Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Leopard In The Sand News

DaMarcus Beasley was injured in Rangers Champions League match at Stuttgart last night. Rangers coach Walter Smith comments: "DaMarcus Beasley looks like he has quite a serious (knee) injury, but we're not quite certain what it is yet."
-The Glasgow Evening Times fears its ligament damage to his right knee. With quotes from DMB.

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Portsmouth manager Harry "bobblehead" Rednapp has been arrested by London police as part of the investigation in to financial corruption in the English Football Association! Wow.

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The poster for the 2010 South Africa World Cup has been released. It's as classy as I had hoped, and much better than the stuff we have had at the last few WC's. (thanks to BQ for this)

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I have been very vocal in saying that MLS should double their salary cap. I am not saying they should go wild and take all the reigns off, because I firmly believe in steady-as-we-go, but they are only raising it 4% for next year. 2.25 Million per team for 2008. Simply not enough.


Frank Dell'apa at Soccernet says the idea of the style of head coaches is changing in MLS.
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Two more guest bloggers on the Red Card blog: USA & Watford defender Jay DeMerit with more of his always great stuff & some dude who works at the Chicago Tribune & suffers mightily as a Newcastle fan.
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Dave Lifton at the US Soccer Players Assoc does a Q & A with former USA & MLS great (now retired) Eddie Pope.
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George Tanner at FC Rocky reports that Colorado's Mexican international Daniel Osorno has retired. Didn't he do that before last season?
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Metrofanatic with a rumor that defender Jorge Francisco Vargas of Chile is headed to New York, via the sister club in Austria. Let's hope he is not as old and worn out as Marcus Schopp was.
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Metrofanatic also gives us the hotlist of candidates for the Red Bull coaching job, and there is a name on it that I had no heard before.
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Reuters talks to MLS goomba Don Garber about the Beckham deal, and what it has already brought to the league. [LINK CORRECTED] Plus he talks about what the near future holds for foreign signings. Good stuff. Too bad he didn't say these things at the Supporters Summit on MLS weekend - he was lame at that and looked like it was the last place on earth he wanted to be.
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Kenn Tomasch at kenn.com blog has a Q & A with Dr. Joe Machnik who is in charge of "On-Field Competition" for MLS. I think this means he deals with the referees.
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Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune looks at the fading chances of landing a MLS in that city [LINK CORRECTED].
-Plus his weekly Sidelines
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MLS/Generation Adidas team in Spain
Matches & Scores
-Mon Nov 25
Rayo Vallecano Reserves 0-1 MLS-GA
-Fri Nov 30
Real Madrid Reserves v MLS-GA
This is a team that is traveling across Spain playing matches right now. All the players are from the leagues special Generation Adidas program. (see Tuesday's edition of du Nord for team roster)
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MLS Off-season Friendlies
Matches & Scores:
-Fri Nov 30
T & T Pro League Foreign All-Stars v FC Dallas - Shaka Hislop Tribute tournament in Trinidad & Tobago
-Sat Dec 1
Wellington Phoenix v Los Angeles Galaxy - in New Zealand
-Sun Dec 2
T & T Pro League Local All-Stars v FC Dallas - Shaka Hislop Tribute tournament in Trinidad & Tobago
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FC Dallas Updates has the teams roster that will be traveling to play in T & T.
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The USA U23 team will gather in LA on Saturday to begin their first preparations for Olympic qualifying next spring. 22 players are on the roster coached by Petr Nowak, and they will conclude this camp with 2 games in China on December 13 & 16. Very few of the young Europe based players were called in because they are in season. So will any of them be released for the qualifiers? I bet it will be tough to get some of them.
-Roster:
G:
Zac MacMath - Clearwater Chargers
Chris Seitz - Salt Lake
D:
Hunter Freeman - New York
Patrick Ianni - Houston
Jon Leathers - Furman
Mike Randolph - Los Angeles
Nathan Sturgis - Salt Lake
Tim Ward - Columbus
Marvell Wynne - Toronto
M:
Arturo Alvarez - Dallas
Maurice Edu - Toronto
Eddie Gaven - Columbus
Michael Harrington - Kansas City
Stuart Holden - Houston
Sacha Kljestan - Chivas USA
Dax McCarty - Dallas
F:
Josmer Altidore - New York
Adam Cristman - New England
Charlie Davies - Hammarby
Robbie Findley - Salt Lake
Robbie Rogers - Columbus
Sal Zizzo - Hannover
-There is only 1 college player on this team, and interestingly enough he is the only one who I don't know. Can anyone tell us more about Jon Leathers, beside the fact that his name rocks!
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Former Wigan manager Paul Jewell has been named new boss at Derby for Americans Eddie Lewis & Benny Feilhaber.
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The Bermuda Sun talks to local talent Khano Smith of the New England Revs about his countries chances in World Cup qualifying.
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Champions League - Matchday 5
-Tue Nov 27
#Stuttgart 3-2 Rangers - Stut goals by Cacau, Pavel Pardo & Ciprian Marica. Ran goals by Charlie Adam & Barry Ferguson.
Lyon 2-2 *Barcelona - Lyon goals both by Juninho Pernambucano (1 via PK). Barc goals by Andres Iniesta & Lionel Messi(PK).
#Dynamo Kyiv 1-4 *Roma - Dyn goal by Ismael Bangoura. Roma goals by Christian Panucci, Ludovic Giuly & 2 by Mirko Vucinic.
*Manchester United 2-1 #Sporting - Man U goals by Carlos Tevez & Cristiano Ronaldo. Spor goal by Abel.
#CSKA Moskva 0-1 PSV Eindhoven - goal by Jefferson Farfan.
*Inter Milan 3-0 Fenerbahce - goal by Julio Cruz, Zlatan Ibrahimovic & Luis Antonio Jimenez.
*Sevilla 3-1 *Arsenal - Sev goals by Seydou Keita, Luis Fabiano & Frederic Kanoute(PK). Arse goal by Eduardo da Silva.
#Steaua Bucuresti 1-1 #Slavia Praha - Stea goal by Valentin Badea. Slav goal by Zdenek Senkerik.
-Wed Nov 28
Besiktas v Marseille
Liverpool v Porto - 1:30pm central on Setanta
Rosenborg v Chelsea - 1:30pm central on ESPN2
Valencia v Schalke
Werder Bremen v Real Madrid - 4pm central on ESPN Classic
Lazio v Olympiakos - 4pm central on Setanta
Benfica v Milan
Celtic v Shakhtar Donetsk
*Advance
#Elimidated
-So, Barcelona, Roma, Inter & Sevilla join Man U & Arsenal as the team qualified for the knock out stages, leaving only 2 spots left to fight over in these 4 groups.
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Did ya see that look on Cristiano Ronaldo's face when he nailed that free kick in stoppage time to with the CL match for Man U yesterday. Wow. What a shot. What an expression. Video clip here.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune with his views on yesterdays Champions League action. He was impressed by that young Serbian kid, Bojan Krkic at Barcelona.
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Two Americans are playing matches in the Champions League:
-Freddy Adu - Benfica - v Milan
-DaMarcus Beasley - Rangers - started and put in the corner for his teams second goal, but was injured in the 49th minute and replaced as they lost 3-2 at Stuttgart.
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Mexican Premiera Playoffs
-Semifinal Matches & Scores:
-Wed Nov 28
Guadalajara v Atlante - 9pm central on TeleFutura
-Thu Nov 29
UNAM Pumas v Santos Laguna - 9pm central on Galavision
-Sat Dec 1
Atlante v Guadalajara - 9pm central on TeleFutura
-Sun Dec 2
Santos Laguna v UNAM Pumas - 5pm central on Azteca America
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Argentine Apertura
With 2 games left in the season, three team battle for the title, and it could be all over by Wednesday night:
34 Lanus
31 Tigre
30 Boca Juniors
Matches & Scores:
-Wed Nov 28
Tigre v Boca Juniors
Lanus v Gimnasia
-Sat Dec 2
Boca Juniors v Lanus
Argentinos Juniors v Tigre
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UEFA Cup games tomorrow, and I will have details then.
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Saudi Arabian striker and national team captain Yasser Al Qahtani, who plays for Al Hilal in SA, was named Asian Player Of The Year.
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David Conn at the Guardian talks to UEFA Pres Michel Platini, who feels there is a serious crisis right around the corner for English football. Platini is also anti-big business/football. I understand many of the points here, but it’s like the record companies complaining about digitized music files. It’s too late to "fix" it. The genie is out of the bottle, there is no putting the cork back in.
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Mike Woitalla of Soccer America examines the South African team that just faced the USA (0-1 loss) & Canada (2-0 win) in friendlies.
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Finally some things are making some sense in the Juan Roman Riquelme transfer saga - he will leave Villareal for Boca Juniors in the January transfer window. So you can forget about him playing in the World Club Championship next month.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bruce,
I agree totally with the need to up the salary cap more. With the drop of the dollar, the salary cap has actually dropped quite a bit when trying to lure South American or European players.

4:57 PM  
Blogger sanskritg said...

"Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune looks at the fading chances of landing a MLS in that city."

Should be linked to: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/soccer/20071128-9999-1s28socpage.html

9:40 AM  
Blogger brucio said...

thank you sanskritg

10:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think any jacking up of the cap should be tied to a real increase in roster size and possibly the end of the Developmental Ghetto as we know it.

Salary increases for current players might want to be put off, as negotiations for the new CBA are not that far off.

Thank goodness for the switch at Derby,

3:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...although is Jewell really the sort to give Feilhaber a decent chance?

- NBS

3:06 PM  

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