Put Your Hands Up For Nazareth, A Lovely City, News

MLS has announced their 2008 competition guidelines and calendar.

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A Fulham fan has put manager Laurie Sanchez up for sale on E-bay. Yes! Sad, but very funny. (thanks to BQ for this one)

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New York Red Bulls introduced Juan Carlos Osorio as their new coach today.

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US Soccer has begun their annual parade of year-end awards - today they announce Best "All Access" Video, Best Performance (Team), and Best Soccer Store.


Business Wire with the story on Univision who has won the bidding for the brand new CONCACAF Champions League Spanish language TV broadcasting rights in America. From the article we can glean a few facts that were previously unknown:
-Will start next August, and conclude in April.
-24 teams from the region will participate
-There will be Qualifying Rounds
-Followed by a Group Stage
-And finally Knockout Rounds
-Univision will show 52 games on their main channel and on TeleFutura
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Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune writes about Juan Carlos Osorio leaving Chicago for family reasons. What are those reasons? Does this story answer it?
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Arroyave also has more names and rumors for the open Chicago coaches spot, on his Red Card blog.
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger writes about new Red Bulls coach Osorio.
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Richard Snowden at Soccer365 with his thoughts on Osorio leaving Chicago, and Osorio taking over in New York.
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Jeff Bradley at MLSnet with his First XI: The Magic Number? - 11 New York coaches.
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Michael Lewis at MLSnet talks to Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira who once coached the Metrostars/Red Bulls and currently runs the South Africa national team. Good stuff.
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Ronnie Turner of the Houston Chronicle on the new contract for Dynamo head coach Dom Kinnear.
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Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe on the slew of players from Wake Forest in MLS. New England coach Steve Nicol has been particularly fond of Demon Deacons.
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Nick Green of the Daily Breeze in Southern California with an article on Rosetti, the architecture firm that designed Home Depot Center, Toyota Park, Real Salt Lake's new home in Sandy Utah and Red Bull Park in Harrison New Jersey (along with many others).
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The Philadelphia Daily News says that a look at the big picture is what's needed in stadium development. And when you look at it that way, you can't go wrong with building one.
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Andrew Dixon at the US Soccer Players Assoc looks at what MLS must do better if they try Miami again.
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Yanks Abroad talks to American Ramiro Corrales, currently playing for Brann in Norway (and in the UEFA Cup right now) about returning to play for a MLS team.
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Yanks Abroad also says that contrary to his own words 1 month ago, American Nat Borchers wants to leave his Norwegian club Odd Grenland and come back to play in MLS too.
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Real Salt Lake forward Alecko Eskandarian has had his one week try-out with Standard in Belgium extended.
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The Courier News with an article on New Jersey youth star Matt Kassel has to decide between Maryland & college, or going pro now. He is already with the Red Bull youth teams and could be brought straight in to the senior squad.
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Steve Davis at Soccernet looks at possible pitfalls for the USA in World Cup Qualifying.
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Metrofanatic is reporting that NY defender Hunter Freeman injured his knee while playing for the USA U23 team last weekend.
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Final entries on the China trip from the U23 official team blog. Including a trip re-cap from team captain Sacha Kljestan.
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Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America talks to USA U23 coach Petr Nowak as he returns from taking his team to China last week.
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Mexican forward Nery Castillo has been loaned out by his club Shakhtar Donetsk to Manchester City.
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Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise gives his thoughts on the just completed Club World Cup. It's in need of some serious changes.
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Chelsea captain John Terry could miss as much as 3 months with several broken bones in his foot.
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Jack Bell of the New York Times on new England boss Fabio Capello, plus other world soccer notes.
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Paul Gardner of the New York Sun on Capello's hiring by England.
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The Times of London has a big story on Arsenal & Spain young-star Cesc Fabregas.
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Reuters has an interview with young France & Lyon striker Karim Benzema. A nearly great one already at age 20.
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Reuters also has a story on struggling Valencia coach Ronald Koeman who today called out some of his "underperforming" players by name. Ouch.
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And Reuters Soccer Blog with an article asking the question - Can Eto'o make up for the loss of Messi? This weekend its Real Madrid v Barcelona, but Lionel Messi is out hurt.
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Paolo Bandini of the Guardian with a story on weird, whining, complaining, bull headed & talented Antonio Cassano. He went nuts last weekend while playing for Sampdoria.
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The Guardian with an article on another great player from this past year, Iran captain Younis Mahmoud.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune writes about the Brazilian sweep of FIFA Men's & Women's Player Of The Year awards.
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FIFA.com has a Q & A with Vitor Baia who retired from Porto after last season. He was the Portuguese keeper who was tortured by the USA in World Cup 2002.
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Virginia Quarterly Review with an in-depth article on football in the South American nation of Suriname. Suriname is one of three countries in South America that are not part of the CONMEBOL federation - Guyana & Guyane being the other two. (Not to mention Trinidad & Tobago which is only 10 miles off the coast of Venezuela) Why? I don't know.