Bears Just Want To News

MLS News

Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe reports that New England forward Taylor Twellman did not travel with the team to training camp in Bermuda due to his groin injury. And two Costa Rican players will be joining the team for a try out.
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Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree gives a rave-up on the Brazilian FC Dallas just signed from Paranaense - Andre Rocha.
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American Soccer Daily says American defender Nat Borchers has returned from Odd Grenland in Norway to sign with Real Salt Lake. The question not answered in this article is how RSL got his rights.
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Toronto midfielder Carl Robinson writes an article [LINK FIXED] about his career these days with TFC for The County Times in his native Wales. I like to see players write articles.
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The Newcastle Chronicle (of England) with an article on Toronto's new coach John Carver. One funny note from this article - the claim that games at Giant Stadium and RFK are enticements to coach in MLS. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. They obviously are still stuck in 1974.
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Shawn Mitchell of the Columbus Dispatch with an article on Crew "veteran" midfielder Brain Carroll.
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Mitchell on his Covering The Crew blog gives us the skinny on trialist Lars Ricken of Borussia Dortmund.
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The San Jose Mercury News and the Houston Chronicle on the sale of left back Ramiro Corrales from the Dynamo to the EQuakes.
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Nick Green of the LA Daily News gives us one of the only looks we have had so far of new LA Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit.
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The Associated Press with a story on the future of USA soccer - Jozy Altidore. Via USA Today.
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger writes about the Amazing Altidore too.
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Soccer By Ives is reporting that New York has signed forward Oscar Echeverry. He is a Colombian player who, according to Wikipedia is signed with NYRB coach Juan Carlos Osorio's former club Millonarios, but that he only just arrived there and possibly never had a deal with them. He last played for Atletico Nacional.
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Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer talks to Red Bulls midfielder Dema Kovalenko about the teams goals for this season. And he also talks to Dema about the departure of former coach Bruce Arena.
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The Salinas Californian newspaper with a story on young exciting San Jose Earthquakes player with a familiar name - Shea Salinas.
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Sports Illustrated Latino has a story on Jorge Flores who won a contract with Chivas USA last year during their reality TV show tryouts. And this kid has turned out to be the real deal! Amazing story if you ask me.
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Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports ranks his Top 20 MLS Players. I have some fairly strong disagreements with parts of this list. Do you?
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Jeff Bradley at MLSnet gives us the people no longer on the scene that he misses most from the first 12 years of the league - First XI: Missing You
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Steve Davis at Soccernet writes about the quickly evolving Technical Director position at MLS clubs.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer says MLS is close to awarding their city with an expansion team. Very close.
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Dave Lifton of the US Soccer Players Association does a Q & A with the MLS exec in charge of broadcasting. Some pretty interesting things here.
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Andrew Dixon also at the USSPA looks at the possibility of the return of MLS to Miami.
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MLS Preseason Friendlies

Matches & Scores:
-Wed Feb 13
San Jose 0-1 Houston at PAL Stadium in San Jose
Chicago 3-2 Columbus in Bradenton FL
-Thu Feb 14
Columbus v USA U17s in Bradenton FL
Toronto 1-2 Odense Boldklub (Denmark) in Bradenton FL
-Fri Feb 15
New York v Hammarby (Sweden) at HDC
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The San Jose Mercury News with a report on the new Earthquakes first exhibition match last night against their former selves - the Houston Dynamo.
-An interesting comment from a reader was left on the SJMN site about the place where the game was held: "Nothing said about the deplorable conditions of PAL Stadium? No comments about the food lines, or the parking lines? No comments about playing in a stadium with a small field and a running track? No comments about the horrible bathroom conditions?" Probably not the way New Quakes should launch their team.
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MLS Rumor City

Are things finally turning around in the stadium building hunt for DC United in the District itself? Could be.
-The Washington Post with an update.
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Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle is insinuating that something interesting is coming from the Dynamo very soon. Could this be the Benny Feilhaber news?
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Houston forward Paul Dalglish is in Leeds on a try out.
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Toronto & Columbus are going to encourage a growing rivalry by coming up with a trophy for the two teams to play for this season. Let's hope this fake intensity becomes real.
-Ben Knight of the Toronto Globe & Mail On Soccer blog wonders what this is all about.
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Goalkeeper Josh Wagenaar of Dutch team ADO Den Haag is on trial with TFC. He is a Canadian citizen.
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W Connection defender David Attiba Charles is trying out with the New York Red Bulls. He is from Trinidad & Tobago.
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Diego Aparicio of the Dallas Morning News says that in the end Dallas passed on Guatemalan defender Gustavo Cabrera. Plus info on another player they are possibly chasing.
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Nick Green of the LA Daily New says French midfielder Marko Muslin is getting a tryout from Chivas USA. He last played for Lierse in Belgium.
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USL First Division & PDL

The Vancouver Whitecaps have officially booked their friendly v Los Angeles in Edmonton for May 13. And there is also a rumor that they will play a Premiership team in mid-summer. The teams being mentioned at this time are Aston Villa, Blackburn, Everton & West Ham United.
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Portland announced that they re-signed goalkeeper Josh Wicks, and with it comes his amazing head of hair.
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Seattle is beginning to fill out there roster for 08. They had already signed Ben Dragavon, Sebastien Le Toux, Noah Merl, Colin Rigby, Kevin Sakuda, Andre Schmid, Zach Scott & Adam West (yes, Batman). Now they have announced the signings of Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar, Taylor Graham, Danny Jackson, Roger Levesque (the Face Kicker), Leighton O'Brien & Kenji Treschuk. And they hope to have goalkeeper Chris Eylander signed soon.
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Americans In Europe

Fox Soccer talks to Freddy Adu about Then, Now and Next.
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Tango TV in Norway has a video clip of Adin Brown interviewing new teammate Pat Noonan at Aalesund. (thanks to Terry for this link)
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CONCACAF News

Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle says that CONCACAF teams need to up their level of opponents in friendlies etc. The USA is the only one currently making real strides in the right direction.
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Fallas on his Soccer y Futbol blog has some quotes from Dynamo midfielder Dwayne De Rosario, calling out the Canadian Soccer Association for their incompetence. Great stuff.
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These things have a way of snowballing too, and several dedicated fans of soccer in Canada are taking it upon themselves to stand up to the official Canadian Soccer Association and say: We have had enough - we need change now. I love people who stand up for themselves. Good luck to our Maple Leaf friends.
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Our beloved CONCACAF leader Jack Warner has turned against the USA and said he will support England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup. Last year he dogged England viciously, but now that his home country of Trinidad & Tobago want to host England in a friendly he has changed his tune 180 degrees. Anything for a buck, right Jackie boy?
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The Royal Gazette of Bermuda talks to one of their most famous football players of the past Shaun Goater about the current horrible state of Bermuda football. Especially after they could only muster a tie in the World Cup qualifier v the Cayman Islands.
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The RG also has an article with a recently fired national team assistant coach who has nothing good to say.
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The Bermuda Sun talks to Keith Tucker, their national team coach, as he prepares his team for an exhibition v the New England Revolution this weekend.
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Copa Libertadores

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Feb 12
Deportivo Cuenca 1-0 Estudiantes
Caracas 2-0 San Lorenzo
-Feb 13
Cucuta Deportivo 0-0 Santos
Dep Univ San Martin 2-0 River Plate
Coronel Bolognesi 0-0 Flamengo
Cruzeiro 3-0 Bamin Real Potosi
-Feb 14
Cienciano v Nacional
Lanus v Danubio
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Group Stage Standings
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Gregory Sica of Sports Illustrated gives us his look at how Libertadores could unfold this year. Some big name players have joined up.
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The Guardian with a story on Brazil's best chance at Libertadores gold this year - Cruzeiro.
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European News

du Nord's favorite player has suffered yet another extreme set back. The real Ronaldo has blown out his left knee tendons again. He will need surgery that will keep him out of action for at least a year. Could this be the end? He has never been the hardest worker in training, but has come back from similar injuries twice before (to his other knee). I hope this is not the way he goes out.
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Jeffrey Marcus of the New York Times Goal blog gives us the low-lights of Ronaldo's amazing career so far.
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Ronaldo's team AC Milan also missed out on a prime chance to move into a 4th place in Serie A by only managing a 1-1 tie at home with Livorno. This was their final game in hand over the rest of the league.
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Marcela Mora y Araujo of the Guardian with a cool story on 2 Argentine trailblazers into English football 30 years ago.
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Another Guardian story, this one on the source of inspiration for Arsenal forward Emmanuel Adebayor's goal scoring magic (he leads the Premiership with 20) - it's text messages from Thierry Henry!
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UEFA Cup

Round of 32 - Knockout - 1st leg Matches & Scores:
-Wed Feb 13
Zenit St Petersburg 1-0 Villarreal - goal by Pavel Pogrebnyak.
Galatasaray 0-0 Bayer Leverkusen
AEK Athens 1-1 Getafe - AEK goal by Ismael Blanco. Get goal by Ruben De la Red.
Brann 0-2 Everton - goals by Leon Osman & Victor Anichebe.
Werder Bremen 3-0 Braga - goals by Naldo, Daniel Jensen & Hugo Almeida
Olympique Marseille 3-0 Spartak Moskva - goals by Benoit Cheyrou, Taye Taiwo & Mamadou Niang.
PSV Eindhoven 2-0 Helsingborg - goals by Timmy Simons(PK) & Danko Lazovic.
Anderlecht 2-1 Girondins de Bordeaux - And goals by Jan Polak & Mbo Mpenza. Bord goal by Jussie(PK).
Glasgow Rangers 0-0 Panathanikos
Sporting Clube de Portugal 2-0 Basel - both goals by Simon Vukcevic.
-Thu Feb 14
Aberdeen v Bayern Munchen
Zurich v Hamburger
Rosenborg v Fiorentina
Slavia Praha v Tottenham Hotspur
Bolton v Atletico Madrid
Benfica v Nurnberg
-All 2nd Leg Matches on Thu Feb 21
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Bremen keeper Tim Wiese stopped not one, but two Penalty Kicks by Braga!
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World News

There is an unintentionally hilarious article making the rounds today via wire service reports entitled: "Casillas and Raul commit to Real Madrid for life." My question is this - Did Real Madrid make a "For life" commitment back to those player in writing? Or is this just a complete waste of an article? Yeah, I thought so.
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Grahame Jones of the LA Times with his world soccer news roundup - Corner Kicks.
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Ravi Ubha of the Seattle Post Intelligencer with his world soccer news recap.
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Jack Bell of the New York Times with an article on UEFA pres Michel Platini and his push for changes in the game in Europe. Plus other news from around the world.
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The BBC says FIFA goomba Sepp Blatter has a plan to have the 2010 World Cup in South Africa played on artificial surfaces. Wow. How much did Field Turf stuff in his pocket to get him to say something that inane.
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And Pat Walsh of Goal.com thinks Blatter's turf plan is not the worst he has heard. Ok ok, I will check it out.
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Lastly

I stole this one directly from Luis Arroyave on his Red Card blog - I know its pretty corny and sappy and everything I am not, but I like this article from the Chicago Sun Times about Valentines day. Yes, you read that correctly, I liked it. Scroll down and you will see story from Fire midfielder Diego Gutierrez and Sun Times soccer writer Lacy Banks about the loves of their life. (I am not the complete monster some people say I am.) I know that I need to get busy and find the love of my life, cuz I am seriously lacking in that department.