Cherish The Mental Image News

The big question facing the USA in the Mexico match on Wednesday is, who is going to play right back? Drew Moor? Really? There isn't even any cover on the roster.

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Did Michael Bradley score AGAIN for Heerenveen? Why, yes he did, giving him 12 league goals. See details below.

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Frederic Kanoute of Sevilla & Mali has been named the African Footballer Of The Year. Awesome! But today controversy erupted as Didier Drogba came forward to say that he was told he would receive the award but only if he would leave the African Cup of Nations tournament and come to the awards ceremony in Lome, Togo. Drogba refused to interrupt this tournament.

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Steven Goff at the Soccer Insider has confirmed the Mexican left wing Andres Guardado will NOT play on Wednesday.


MLS News

Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle on the champs glaring hole - Forward!
-A couple of quick training camp notes.
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The Cape Cod Times on New England's grand old man Steve Ralston.
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Mike Biglin of the MetroWest Daily News has lots of questions for the Revs as they start the preseason off.
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Jim Dow at RevsNet on what he feels we can expect from the New England team in the future.
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Ben Knight from the Toronto Globe & Mail's On Soccer blog looks at the new roll of TFC GM Mo Johnston and wonders if this will lead to improvements. Sadly I predict no.
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The Toronto Sun tries to figure out just who TFC is looking to sign.
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MeriNews of India (I am not kidding) with a very nice article on the career of now retired Eddie Pope.
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Kyle McCarthy at Goal.com believes he sees something positive happening in Salt Lake. Is he right? Or is he drinking the purple Kool-Aid? (Or is it grape Xango? Eric?)
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Martin Rogers of Yahoo sports says America is definitely now on the radar of European teams looking for talent, especially at these cheap prices.
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The Kansas City Star says one of the last hurdles (more like a boil on an ass) was eliminated and very soon they can get to work on building a stadium in KC!
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MLS Rumor City

2 juicy rumors from Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune on his Red Card blog: 1. Matt Pickens has signed with QPR in England. 2. Diego Guitierez will retire from the Chicago Fire at seasons end. How in the world could Pickens get a work permit if Brad Guzan cannot?
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Shawn Mitchell of the Columbus Dispatch explains why Celtic forward Maciej Zurawksi switched his transfer team to Larissa at the last moment.
-More detail from Mitchell at the Covering The Crew blog.
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Is the owner of the Atlanta Falcons NFL team looking to get into MLS? Is he the guy they are talking about whenever Atlanta gets tossed into the list of expansion cities?
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The word is spinning around fast for the 2nd year in a row that Swiss midfielder Raphael Wicky is signing with Chivas USA. He was last with Sion in Switzerland.
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Is Lars Ricken now headed to Columbus? He played his whole career at Borussia Dortmund on the right wing. He retired last fall, and had his best seasons 10 years ago. Whatever?
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They say that San Jose has sold 3500 season tickets.
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USA v Mexico

Training in Houston TX in preparation for next weeks match v Mexico - Wed Feb 6 at 8pm central from Houston TX on ESPN2.
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Official team blog.
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US Soccer has an audio interview with USA coach Bob Bradley - and he says all the right things leading up to Mexico. Download or listen.
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FIFA.com has a Q & A with Landon Donovan.
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The PA Sports Ticker with an article on dynamic father-son duo Bob & Michael Bradley.
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Steve Cherundolo, Taylor Twellman and Jay Demerit were all left off the team due to strained groin muscles suffered this past week.
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No word on why Jonathan Spector was not called in for the Mexico match.
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Andrea Canales at Soccernet writes about the amount of pressure piling on top of the head of Mexicoach Hugo Sanchez.
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Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle begins the match previews.
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Steve Davis at Soccernet previews the game, which is never ever friendly.
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet traces the current USA dominance over Mexico back to 1991.
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Nike presents... Wake Up America
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USA U23/Olympic Team

Training in Bradenton FL has now ended. The team will re-group on Mar 1 to get ready for qualifying which begins on Mar 11.
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Official team blog.
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The blog has a Q & A with Kamani Hill. Coach Petr Nowak has a forward playing fullback!
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US Soccer has an article written by goalkeeper Tally Hall about his experience in training camp.
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I am not completely sure of the origin of this, but Big Soccer poster Diceson has a Q & A with USA U23 coach Petr Nowak.
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The boys beat DC United 2-0 on Saturday to end camp. Details here.
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Soccer in the USA News

Adam Spangler of This Is American Soccer bring us part 2 of his Q & A with Robert Ambramovitz, long time soccer journalist and commentator.
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CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying

Matches & Scores:
-Sun Feb 3
Bermuda 1-1 Cayman Islands - Berm goal by Tyrrell Burgess. Cay goal by Allaen Grant.
-Wed Feb 6
Dominica v Barbados
Belize v St Kitts & Nevis
Nicaragua v Netherlands Antilles
El Salvador v Anguilla
Turks & Caicos v St Lucia
Aruba v Antigua & Barbuda
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It has to be seen as a huge stunner by the Caymans going to Bermuda and coming away with a 1-1 draw! They got the tying goal in the 87th minute!
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Other CONCACAF News

England just might be up for going to Trinidad & Tobago to play a match if Jack Warner apologizes for insulting them, and a few other things.
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The AP has a story on NBA Steve Nash who is showing his support of the new Women's Professional Soccer League.
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Copa Libertadores

The final qualifying round.
1st leg Matches & Scores:
-Thu Feb 7
Chico v Audax Italiano
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2nd leg Matches & Scores (with first leg scores included):
-Tue Feb 5
Mineros v Arsenal (0-2)
Lanus v Olmedo (0-1)
-Wed Feb 6
La Paz v Atlas (0-2)
Cerro Porteno v Cruzeiro (1-3)
-Thu Feb 7
Montevideo Wanderers v Cienciano (0-1)
-Tue Feb 12
Audax Italiano v Chico
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Americans In Europe

How'd their recent matches go:
-Freddy Adu - Benfica - watched from the bench as his team could only manage a 0-0 tie at home v Nacional de Madeira.
-Bryan Arguez - Hertha Berlin - no time wasted getting him into the game, as he made his debut in the 63rd minute, but they lost 3-0 at Eintract Frankfurt.
-Gregg Berhalter - 1860 Munich - played the full match but lost at home 0-3 to Augsburg.
-Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham - watched from the bench as the team beat Aston Villa 2-1 at home.
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - started but only played 63 minutes as they rolled again, he scored again(!) and they destroyed Vitesse Arnhem 7-0!
-Steve Cherundolo - Hannover - played all 90 in a 1-1 road tie at Hamburg, but came away with a groin injury.
-Bobby Convey - Reading - did not even dress due to an injured shin, while his team lost 0-2 at home to Bolton.
-Clint Dempsey - Fulham - started and played 79 minutes of a 2-1 home win over Aston Villa.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - strained a groin muscle on Thursday and so he did not dress for his teams 3-0 home win over Wolverhampton.
-Benny Feilhaber - Derby County - was not on the bench for the teams 1-1 tie game at Birmingham.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - played all 90 in a 0-0 home draw with Everton.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - played the entire game and saved a PK but lost 0-2 at home to Bolton.
-Tim Howard - Everton - played the full match in a road draw at Blackburn, and picked up a Yellow Card in the 89th.
-Eddie Johnson - Fulham - did not dress for his new team, as they beat Aston Villa 2-1 at home.
-Kasey Keller - Fulham - was back on the bench, but did not play in his teams 2-1 home win over Aston Villa.
-Eddie Lewis - Derby County - was not on the bench for the teams 1-1 tie game at Birmingham.
-Clint Mathis - Ergotolis - made his debut in the 59th minute of a 2-0 road loss to Aris Salonika.
-Brian McBride - Fulham - came on for the last 20 minutes in a big 2-1 home win over Aston Villa.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Standard - played the full 90 in a 0-0 road draw at Cercle Brugge.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - did not leave the bench for his teams 1-0 loss at Wigan.
-Neven Subotic - Mainz - played the entire match in a 1-1 road tie at Koblenz.
-Danny Szetela - Brescia - did not take part in his teams 4-1 home win over Grosseto. Was just officially introduced by the team today. They sit in 6th place in Serie B, 8 points behind league leaders Bologna.
-Josh Wolff - 1860 Munich - came on in the 75th minute of a 0-3 home loss to Augsburg.
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Michael Bradley's Heerenveen are now in 3rd place in Holland's Eredivisie and only 1 point behind 2nd place Ajax. Wow. Bradley got his 12th league goal of the season for his team!
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Yanks Abroad talks to midfielder Andrew Jacobson who signed with Lorient in France rather than DC United.
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Big Euro Matches This Weekend

-Sat Feb 2
Manchester City 1-3 Arsenal - Man City can't remotely keep up with the big boys.
-Sun Feb 3
Fiorentina 0-1 Milan - Milan tries to catch the last Champions League spot for next season, and they now sit 4 points out with a game in hand.
Ajax 3-0 Feyenoord - Ajax with their second big game in 5 days gets the win this time. Still in 2nd place.
Cercle Brugge 0-0 Standard Liege - nothing changes for #3 & #2 in Belgium.
Schalke 4-1 Stuttgart - historic rivals always means great bad blood, but this one wasn't even close.
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European News

Simon Kuper of the Financial Times compares the globalization of sports from British and American points of views. (thanks to Mr G for this)
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The Telegraph on the power of the really big Euro derbies.
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Many from the Guardian:
-Sid Lowe on the amazing Almeria win over Real Madrid in Spain.
-The 10 best players in English leagues besides the Premiership.
-A look at Serie A, and why Inter are dominating.
-Raphael Honigstein on Bochum who won at Werder Bremen for the first time in 37 freakin years.
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Paul Wilson of the Observer says that Man U & Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo is far from his peak.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune on that horrible day in 1958 when genuine tragedy struck Manchester United.
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The Independent tries to explain the dearth of great English managers.
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African Cup of Nations

Quarterfinal Matches & Scores:
-Sun Feb 3
Ghana 2-1 Nigeria - Ghan goals by Michael Essien & Junior Agogo. Nige goal by Yakubu(PK).
Ivory Coast 5-0 Guinea - Ivo goals by Abdulkader Keita, Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou(2) & Bakari Kone.
-Mon Feb 4
Egypt 2-1 Angola - Egy goals by Hosni Abd Rabou(PK) & Amr Zaki. Ang goal by Manucho.
Tunisia 2-3 Cameroon - Tun goals by Chouki Ben Saada & Yassine Chikhaoui. Cam goals by Stephane Mbia(2) & Geremi.
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Semifinal Matches & Scores:
-Thu Feb 7
Ivory Coast v Egypt
Ghana v Cameroon
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You can watch all the games for a fee or see video highlights for free at Telesud.
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Paul Doyle of the Guardian on how German manager Berti Vogts has destroyed Nigeria.
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Doyle also tries to get a peak inside the Ivory Coast teams secret world.
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Greg Lalas at Sports Illustrated says Ghana is going crazy for Junior Agogo. I am stunned at how well he has played.
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Other African News

Brian Oliver of the Observer on one of the many amazingly talented players from Africa that went to Europe and saw it all go wrong.