Gilded In Bronze News

The hottest rumor of the day is that Philadelphia has sealed the deal to become the next MLS team, starting play in 2010.
-The Philadelphia Inquirer says the announcement date is set for Feb 28. That's still a week away though, and a lot can change between now and then.


MLS News

Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle reports that the mystery South American the Dynamo are trying to sign is Franco Caraccio of Arsenal in Argentina. I think Houston is gonna need more help up top then this.
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James Edward of the Deseret Morning News with an article on new RSL centerback Nat Borchers.
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Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune reports that Fire midfielder Cuauhtemoc Blanco really got into it with TFC youngster Maurice Edu during their friendly the other day. I love it, teams that hate each other even when it doesn't count.
-Arroyave with multiple Fire notes on his Red Card blog.
-Arroyave also chatted with actor Will Ferrell for an article that will run next week. Ferrell digs the futbol. He was at that USA-Italy game. Me too, broke my damn heart.
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Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree takes in a Dallas training session this week and gives us his analysis.
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SF at the Offside Rules has two Q & A's with MLS players for us : Anthony Wallace of FC Dallas and U-20's fame, And KC's Kurt Morsink aka EJ's old roommate at the US Residency Academy.
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Gary Singh of Metro Active with his latest soccer column, and he must be pretty damn happy to have a San Jose team back.
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RevsNet looks at 10 (11 actually) preseason questions that New England needs to address.
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Jeff Bradley at MLSnet with a First XI salute to guys who have now been in the league 10 years.
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MetroFanatic looks at Red Bulls youth team prodigy Matt Kassel and wonders if he will sign with the senior team (the first player in league history to do so) or go play college ball at Maryland?
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Here is a picture of Jack Jewsbury in the new Kansas City Wizards uniforms. And Jimmy Conrad sporting the second uniform.
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The San Jose Mercury News with the latest on potential stadium building in their city.
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MLS Preseason Friendlies

Matches & Scores:
-Wed Feb 20
Chicago 1-1 Toronto in Bradenton FL
Chivas USA v UC Riverside at HDC - Does anyone know the outcome of this game?
Bermuda National Team 0-2 New England in Bermuda
-Fri Feb 22
San Jose v Columbus Crew at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo
Colorado v Salt Lake in Fort Lauderdale FL
-Sat Feb 23
Columbus v Chivas USA in Santa Clarita CA
Dallas v West Texas A & M at PHP
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Match report from the New England Revolution website. It was a much closer match up than the previous game last weekend that ended 6-1 to the Rev's.
-And some more details of the game from the official team blog.
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Match report on Bermuda v New England from the Royal Gazette in Bermuda.
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The Rio Grande Plate - 1st leg:
UANL Tigres 2-1 Dallas - Tig goals by Jesus Palacios & Carlos Esquivel.
Dal goal by Ricardinho.
-I have not seen the date for the 2nd leg to be played at Pizza Hut Park. Is there a 2nd leg?
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Video from FC Dallas Updates on the teams trip to Monterrey (pregame).
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Pan-Pacific Championship

From Honolulu Hawaii, with all games to be shown on ESPN Classic. Here's the official website.
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Matches & Scores:
-Wed Feb 20
Los Angeles v Osaka Gamba - goal by Bare.
Houston 3-0 Sydney - goals by Dwayen De Rosario, Stuart Holden & Chris Wondolowski.
-Sat Feb 23 (actually early Sunday morning central time)
Osaka Gamba v Houston - live at 12:30am central time on ESPN Classic
Los Angeles v Sydney - delayed at 2:30am central time on ESPN Classic
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Reported attendance last night was 15,128. Brutal. There were more than that at the Tigres v Dallas friendly in Monterrey last night!
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The Sydney Morning Herald had a lot of big talk about their local team coming into this tournament, but now that they have been blown out by a team that has not played a game in 3 full months all they have is a wire report.
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Australian Four Four Two had the guts to admit defeat with mutiple articles:
-Minute-by-Minute game tracking
-Match report
-The Sydney coach blames his teams poor performance on the "end of long season". But dude, you got beat badly by a team who has not played in 3 months. I guess you could say they were fresh, but many would call it rusty.
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet with a report on both games last night.
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Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer watched the two matches on television and gives us his thoughts.
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The Honolulu Star Bulletin with a report on both matches.
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The Honolulu Advertiser reports on the atmosphere in the stands.
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The LA Daily News with an AP match report on the LA Galaxy.
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The Houston Chronicle with an AP match report of the Houston Dynamo.
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So, like Glenn Davis reported yesterday, the turf in Honolulu is old school Astro-turf. How can the people running this tournament - SUM? - subject players to that crap? Spend some money folks or continue to look half-assed.
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MLS Rumors - Don't Tease Me Bro

Quoting Bernardo Fallas on his Soccer y Futbol blog: "Dwayne De Rosario pulled something in his left leg. We will keep an eye on him." Not good.
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Yesterday there was a rumor about New England dropping money on a designated player - today one name is Luis Figo. Hmmmm. I like him, but, as Soccer By Ives says, the man wants way too much money. So the question remains - who is it.
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New England forward Kenny Mansally has a great nickname - Baby Scorpion!
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Landon Donovan's tendonitis is in his right knee. There were pictures of him (right here is one) at the USA training camp 2 weeks ago with a band around his upper right calf that people use to help with tendonitis. I have had problems with this, but my sister taught me a simple strech and the pain has never come back - as long as I stretch every day.
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Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated on his Throw-Ins blog has some very interesting news on Benny Feilhaber. I a huge fan of his skill but have talked to 2 fellow fans who encountered young Benny in the past few months and they told me that they were stunned by the size of his ego. Hmmmm.
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Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America reports that yes Joao Pinto has flown to Florida to meet with Toronto, but he refuses to go on a try out. He says sign me or move on. Good luck buddy.
-Dean McNulty of the Toronto Sun says Pinto is shopping himself around to several MLS teams beyond TFC, AND will not be available until the summer transfer window anyway.
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Shawn Mitchell of the Columbus Disptach on his Cover The Crew blog says the CC are lining up a friendly v the El Salvador national team at Crew Stadium in late March.
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And Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Fire are looking to set up "an exhibition against Blanco's old team, Club America, is in the works. That game will take place during the season at Toyota Park." Cool.
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An Avery John sighting? Dundee United in Scotland are reporting: "Also swelling the squad’s ranks was a trialist central defender. Although Alex wouldn’t reveal a name, he did confirm the man involved had been capped 60 times for his country and had been playing in America’s MLS as an import."
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W Connection (Trinidad & Tobago) defender Kern Cupid is getting a try out with an unnamed MLS team.
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USL First Division & PDL

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle with an article on a potential new owner for the Rhinos.
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Atlanta re-signed the leagues defender of the year David Hayes. Damn, I was really hoping that my Minnesota Thunder were gonna get a crack at him. The teams dangerous forward Machel Millwood is not going to sign with them again, and is looking for a new team. He is one big, fast dude.
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US Soccer News

Big Apple Soccer has named USA Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati as their 2007 Person Of The Year. The site also hands out other awards.
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Americans In Europe

American Soccer Daily talks to Reading midfielder Bobby Convey about his still lingering knee injury and playing this weekend against Aston Villa. Convey plans on having more knee work done this summer.
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ASD also reports that Frank Simek is back in training with Sheffield Wednesday after the ankle injury.
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CONCACAF News

ESPN Deportes got the rights to CONCACAF Olympic qualifying, which means that even less people will see the games than if they were on HDNet. Sad. More people watch Univision/TeleFutura/Galavision/Azteca infomercials than can even get ESPN D.
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FIFA.com has an article on the growth of Puerto Rican football at the hands of Colin Clarke, the former Dallas manager.
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Still no word on English language TV rights. Knowing CONCACAF we will find out about it 5 or 6 days before the games happen.
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Copa Libertadores

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Tue Feb 19
Audax Italiano 1-2 Sportivo Luqueno - Aud goal by Miguel Angel Romero. Luq goals by Roberto Servin & Luis Nunez.
Chivas Guadalajara 2-0 San Jose - goal by Edgar Solis & Sergio Santana(PK).
Coronel Bolognesi 0-1 Nacional - goal by Bruno Fornaroli.
-Wed Feb 20
Liga Universitaria Quito 0-0 Fluminense
Arsenal 1-0 Libertad - goal by Luciano Leguizamon.
America 2-1 Universidad Catolica - Amer goals by Salvador Cabanas & Federico Higuain. UC goal by Dario Botinelli.
Maracaibo 1-1 Boca Juniors - Mar goal by Miguel Mea Vitali. Boca goal by Sebastian Battaglia.
-Thu Feb 21
Atlas v Colo Colo
Deportivo Cuenca v Estudiantes
San Lorenzo v Cruzeiro
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Group Stage Standings

European News

In all competitions, Real Madrid have lost 5 games already in 2008. That does not smell like a repeat champion to me.
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UEFA Champions League

Round of 16 - 1st leg Matches & Scores:
-Tue Feb 19
Schalke 1-0 Porto - goal by Kevin Kuranyi
Liverpool 2-0 Inter - goals by Dirk Kuyt & Steven Gerrard.
Roma 2-1 Real Madrid - Rom goals by David Pizzaro & Mancini. RM goal by Raul Gonzalez.
Olympiacos 0-0 Chelsea
-Wed Feb 20
Arsenal 0-0 Milan
Celtic 2-3 Barcelona - Cel goals by Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink & Barry Robson. Bar goals by Lionel Messi(2) & Thierry Henry.
Lyon 1-1 Manchester United - Ly goal by Karim Benzema. ManU goal by Carlos Tevez.
Fenerbahce 3-2 Sevilla - Fen goals by Mateja Kezman, Lugano & Semih Senturk. Sev goals by Edu(OG) & Julien Escude.
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2nd leg matches will be played Mar 4, 5 & 11.
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Someone in the stands pointed a laser beam at Man U midfielder Christiano Ronaldo during warm ups and again during the game. It's being taken seriuosly.
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Arsenal defender Kolo Tourse suffered a calf injury that will keep him out of action for two weeks to a month. His coach blamed the African Cup of Nations for the injury. Of course. That tournament is responsible for the world's poor literacy rates too.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune writes about Barcelona' talents and other Champions League action on Wednesday.
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UEFA Cup

Round of 32 - 2nd Leg Matches & Scores:
-Thu Feb 21
Villarreal 2-1 Zenit - series tied 2-2 and Zenit adv on away goals tie breaker.
Bayer Leverkusen 5-1 Galatasaray - Lev adv 5-1 on agg.
Getafe 3-0 AEK - Get adv 4-1 on agg.
Everton 6-1 Brann -Ev adv 8-1 on agg. Wow.
Braga 0-1 Werder Bremen - Brem adv 4-0 on agg.
Spartak Moskva 2-0 Olympique Marseille - Mars adv 3-2 on agg.
Helsingborg 1-2 PSV - PSV adv 4-1 on agg.
Bordeaux 1-1 Anderlecht - And adv 3-2 on agg.
Panathanikos 1-1 Glasgow Rangers (0-0) - series tied 1-1 and Rang adv on away goals tie breaker.
Basel 0-3 Sporting -Spor adv 5-0 on agg.
Bayern Munchen 5-1 Aberdeen - Bay adv 7-3 on agg.
Hamburger 0-0 Zurich - Ham adv 3-1 on agg.
Fiorentina 2-0 Rosenborg - Fior adv 3-1 on agg.
Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Slavia Praha - Tot adv 3-2 on agg.
Atletico Madrid 0-0 Bolton - Bol adv 1-0 on agg.
Nurnberg 2-2 Benfica - Ben adv 3-2 on agg.
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Round of 16 - 1st leg Matches & Scores:
-Mar 6
Anderlecht v Bayern
Rangers v Werder
Bolton v Sporting
Leverkusen v Hamburg
Getafe v Benfica
Fiorentina v Everton
Tottenham v PSV
Marseille v Zenit
-2nd leg matches will be played Mar 12 & 13.
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Top 5 Teams in Euro's Big 5 Leagues

-Premiership- 26 of 38 played
63 Arsenal
58 Manchester United
55 Chelsea
47 Everton
44 Liverpool
-La Liga- 24 of 38 played
56 Real Madrid
51 Barcelona
43 Villareal
41 Atletico Madrid
39 Espanyol
-Serie A- 23 of 38 played
59 Inter Milan
48 Roma
47 Juventus
41 Fiorentina
38 Milan
-Bundesliga- 20 of 34 played
43 Bayern Munich
40 Werder Bremen
37 Hamburg
35 Bayer Leverkusen
35 Schalke
-Ligue Un- 25 of 38 played
49 Lyon
48 Bordeaux
41 Nancy Lorraine
38 Marseille
38 Nice
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World News

Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated with a new #1 in the World Club Power Rankings. But it's not the most confident #1 pick I have ever seen.