Till It Happens Next Time News

Our 4 Americans at Fulham have a new manager in Roy Hodgson. He has quite the international pedigree for an Englishman. See his details via Wikipedia.

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I don't know how many of you listen to The Guardian's twice weekly football podcast, but if you are not then you should. Seriously. It's the best out there. By a country mile. This week they had a fine year end wrap up. Including a fantastic story about Real Madrid giving a Christmas gift to all the journalists who regularly cover them. Download or listen now.


The Glasgow Herald reports that Scottish Premier League club St Mirren of Paisley is very close to signing Andy Dorman from the New England Revolution. Too bad the Rev's couldn't have gotten something for him. Best of luck to Dorman though. Deep in my heart I hope he realizes how much he misses MLS and comes back soon, we need more players like him. St Mirren currently sit 11th in the 12 team league. (thanks to Bart for this
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The North County Times (of Escondido CA, north of San Diego) with an article on hometown boy Jovan Kirovski of the Colorado Rapids.
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The Norwich (England) Eastern Daily Press says midfielder Darren Huckerby of Norwich City is on the rumor list of players headed to the LA Galaxy.
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Andrea Canales at Soccer365 writes about the return of Cleetus (Clint Mathis) to LA.
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Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune is wondering if Matt Pickens will be back next season as the Chicago Fire goalkeeper, and will he get paid a starters salary?
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FC Dallas Updates with a behind the scenes video recap of 07.
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MLSnet with a review of the Houston Dynamo 2007 season. And 5 Big Questions for next year.
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Martin Rogers at Yahoo Sports with his 2008 New Year's soccer resolutions.
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Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise hands out Christmas gifts to the football world.
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I am not sure what The Bleacher Report is. And I am not sure who Dhaval Patel is. But he lists the top 5 foreign players he thinks MLS should go after. I agree with 1. 1! Brutal list dude.
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The folks at the Melbourne Herald Sun in Australia are still obsessed with losing Fred2 to DC United last season. Give it up dudes.
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The Deseret Morning New with the latest on the sale of naming rights for Salt Lakes new stadium.
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The Philadelphia Daily News has an editorial column that says the state, county, city etc should NOT be the ones paying for a soccer stadium.
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The Kansas City Star with a small article on a group who hope to stop the redevelopment of land for a soccer stadium.
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The KC Star business section also tells us how Wizards & USA defender Jimmy Conrad invests his money. Really.
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Buzz Carrick (of the 3rd Degree) writing for Soccernet, reviews the top defenders available for the 2008 MLS Superdraft.
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You wanna play for the Minnesota Thunder? Player combine info here.
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Interliga returns next Wednesday. It's the Mexican tournament to send teams to the Copa Libertadores. All the games are played in the USA, as always. Pizza Hut Park in Frisco TX, Robertson Stadium in Houston TX & Home Depot Center in Carson CA. The matches are set etc etc etc. All games will be shown on Fox Sports En Espanyol, unfortunately (cuz that is one of the few channels I don't get). The format is 2 groups of 4 teams who play round robin. The 2 best from each group meet up in the semifinals with the 2 winners advancing to the Libertadores.
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Americans In Europe
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - played all 90 minutes of a 1-0 road loss at Roda JC, (the goal came in the first minute) and then got himself booked in the 90th.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - went the full 90 as always (167 games in a row now!) and drew 2-2 at Man City. Former DC United defender Ryan Nelson did not help the Blackburn cause with an own goal.
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By the way, we read all the time about Michael Bradley being a midfielder. But in reality he is playing as one of three forwards for his club. Seriously.
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Ravi Ubha at Soccernet with an article on USA & Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann. It's not been the easiest 2nd season for Reading in the top flight.
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MLSnet has started running a video series about 4 of the leagues players trying to make the USA Olympic team: Arturo Alvarez, Maurice Edu, Stuart Holden & Sacha Kljestan. 3 parts available so far: Part One - Part Two - Part Three.
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Trinidad & Tobago's Newsday says that their pro league is headed in the right direction.
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Not much for big Euro games coming up this weekend:
-Sun Dec 30
Manchester City V Liverpool - If the Liverpeople want any chance of staying in the title race, then they MUST win this game over the team 2 points behind them in 5th place.
Most leagues are on a break of varying lengths:
-Spanish Primera aka La Liga takes 1 week off.
-Portuguese Liga with 1 week off.
-Italy's Serie A has a 2 week break.
-French Ligue Un has a 2 week break.
-German Bundesliga is off until February.
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2 Americans have fairly big games in Europe this weekend too:
-Tim Howard & Everton host Arsenal on Saturday.
-Michael Bradley & Heerenveen play at home Sunday versus first place Feyenoord, in Holland.
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The genius of Joey Barton strikes again. Let's see - he put a cigar out in a guys eye at a Christmas party. He beat up a kid that was taunting him in a hotel bar. He savagely beat a teammate at practice one day. And now he has been arrested in Liverpool for fighting, again. What a peckerhead. Am I missing anything? From the Guardian.
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Paolo Bandini of the Guardian on Inter's first half of the season domination in Italy.
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Sid Lowe of the Guardian on Ronaldinho's struggles at Barcelona.
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Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune on the brilliance of Brazil & Milan midfielder Kaka.
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Reuters with a story on Italian club Palmero's potential connections to organized crime. The club is denying it.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune writes about the Not-So-Merry-Go-Round of top managers.
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This article from the Observer proves that American athletes are not the biggest idiots in the world. Example: there is an English football player who thinks the word "zoo" is high scoring in scrabble. (On the other hand, how many American athletes even play scrabble? Maybe they are the bigger idiots.)
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The Telegraph of England checks in to see what Milan & Italy pitbull Gennaro Gattuso is doing the Serie A winter break - why, he's up in Glasgow training with Rangers naturally.
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The Telegraph also has an article (with video) of the worlds best of the current crop of free kick takers.
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And finally from the Telegraph, an article on the Premiership that must be geared toward American football fans - the first half of the season in stats.
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Jonah Freedman at Sports Illustrated with the year end World Club Power Rankings. Including a special feature - Players to watch in '08.