Coming To Grips With Crips News

The Champs are Dead. Long live the Champs. Champions League cup holders Milan were knocked out last night by Arsenal(see details below in Champions League section).

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And Fenerbahce have advanced to the final 8 of the Champions League. (see details below in Champions League section) The guys at the Fenerbahce-Mart in St Paul must be going crazy!! I gotta stop by and give them a big thumbs up!

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In the 30 games that Cristiano Ronaldo has played for Manchester United in all competitions this season, how many goals do you think he has scored? Can you believe, 30! Simply amazing!

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MLS is doing their best to use the excitement of supporters groups to promote their league - so what are they doing for supporters groups in return? Little to nothing. (see Soccer In America section)

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LA defender Abel Xavier drives a white convertible Bentley! Why am I not surprised?


MLS News

Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer reports that New York midfielder Dane Richards will be out of action for a month after suffering a sprained ligament in his right knee.
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Lewis and Jack Bell of the New York Times watched some Champions League football last night with New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio, in a pub in Austria. Good stuff.
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Lewis also sorts out the struggle between Chicago & New York over who has the rights to midfielder Lider Marmol. NYRB coach Osorio discovered the player while he was still the coach of Chicago. Now both teams want him, and he is training with New York. But it looks like he is the property of Chicago. In the end though, the player is asking for a lot of money and may not end up being affordable to either.
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Buzz Carrick of 3rd Degree poses 5 questions that he feels are key to a good season for Dallas.
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The San Francisco Chronicle on San Jose's search for a difference-maker type player.
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The San Jose Mercury News checks in with Earthquakes GM John Doyle on the teams roster building.
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The Arizona Republic talks to LA defender Greg Vanney about the latest (last?) stop in his career.
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Ridge Mahoney at USA Today with an article on Toronto's reigning Rookie Of The Year Maurice Edu. With a look ahead to Olympic qualifying later this month.
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3 players will get a shot at a new team after yesterdays Waiver Draft:
-Colorado picked fullback Brandon Prideaux
-DC picked centerback Jeff Curtain
-Houston picked forward Kyle Brown
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Bernardo Fallas on Houston's claiming of Kyle Brown from waivers.
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Steve Davis at Soccernet with another of the sites season previews - Colorado.
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The Times Herald News of Middletown NY with an article on local player Ryan Cordeiro who was signed by DC United this week. But the guy doesn't come across as too fired up about it.
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Pat Walsh of Goal.com calls Real Salt Lake his dark horse pick this season.
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Greg Lalas of Goal.com builds his own MLS team in his 3-5-2 column.
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Grahame Jones of the LA Times with a mostly all-MLS soccer news roundup.
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Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America looks at some of MLS's new power-player team owners. Via Sports Illustrated.
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MLS Preseason Friendlies

Matches & Scores:
-Tue Mar 4
Defensa y Justicia (Argentina) 0-1 Kansas City in Buenos Aires
Paranaense Reserves (Brazil) 2-2 Dallas at CAPTC in Curtiba Brazil
Necaxa (Mexico) 1-1 Chicago in Aguascalientes
Shanghai Hong Kong United (China) 0-3 Los Angeles at Shanghai Stadium in Shanghai China
Ipswich (England) 2-3 Colorado in London at the Arsenal Training Centre
-Wed Mar 5
Velez Sarsfield (Argentina) v Kansas City in Buenos Aires
Red Bull Salzburg (Austria) v New York in Salzburg
-Thu Mar 6
Atlante (Mexico) v New England in Playa del Carmen
Paranaense (Brazil) v Dallas at Kyocera Stadium in Curtiba Brazil
Blackburn Reserves (England) v Columbus in Blackburn
Arsenal Reserves (England v Colorado In London at the Arsenal Training Centre
-Fri Mar 7
Everton Reserves (England) v Columbus in Liverpool
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Tuesday Match Reports:
-Kansas City match report from Hillcrest Road, the official KC Wizards blog.
-Dallas match report from FC Dallas Updates.
-Chicago match report from the Red Card blog.
-Colorado match report from the teams website.
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All three LA goals last night were scored by El Pescadito!
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Texas Pro Soccer Festival

Preseason tournament March 3-9 in San Antonio TX. Here is the official website.
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Teams:
Chivas USA
DC United
Houston Dynamo
Toronto FC
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Matches & Scores:
-Wed Mar 5
Chivas v Toronto
Houston v DC
-Fri Mar 7
Toronto v DC
Chivas v Houston
-Sun Mar 9
DC v Chivas
Houston v Toronto
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MLS Rumors - Don't Tease Me Bro

Dean McNulty of the Toronto Sun on TFC's continued chase for Ross Wallace of Sunderland.
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Toronto are also chasing after a second Sunderland reject - this time it's Liam Miller, a one time prodigy at Manchester United.
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Kansas City may get a chance to play a friendly against River Plate on Friday. Cool.
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Former MLS Player News

The Daily Express in Scotland with a good story on former New England midfielder Andy Dorman who is tearing it up for his new team St Mirren.
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USL First Division & PDL News

Charleston has signed defender Marco Reda who played with Toronto in MLS last season.
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And Joey Worthen has re-signed with Carolina.
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USA Olympic Team

The team is in Florida training but we have heard almost nothing from there. But today via the Creighton University Athletics website we find out the team beat Creighton 4-0 yesterday. Goals were scored by Jozy Altidore(2), Chad Barrett & Eddie Gaven.
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Official team blog.
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And US Soccer gives us a little bit of video from the first couple days of training.
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Soccer In America

Tom Dunmore at Pitch Invasion with a very interesting article on a situation brewing with tickets and supporters sections who want to travel. Of course this a great new growing aspect of MLS. But while Toronto is going to be sending hundreds upon hundreds of fans to some away games, they will only sell 100 tickets to away teams supporters at BMO Field (I know they sell out every home game well in advance, but believe me, if they had 500 corporate schmucks wanting seats for ass-kissing they would get it done). And Toyota Park has decided to only sell 100 tickets to traveling Toronto fans. This problem will only grow, we all know that. So what is MLS going to do about it? So far they have chosen to ignore it. The old pretend-its-not-there-and-hope-it-goes-away trick. Just great. Slap a picture of El Battalion on the front of your website for sure, but help with tickets. Ah, no thanks.
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Dave Lifton of the US National Soccer Players Assoc compares MLS expansion to NHL expansion.
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Americans In Europe

Greg Seltzer of American Soccer Daily talks to a very happy Heath Pearce who is back in the Hansa Rostock team even though just over a month ago the coach said Pearce would never play for him again.
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American Soccer Daily looks at the state of teams in England featuring Americans.
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Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune with an article on goalkeeper Tally Hall who went to college at San Diego State and now plays for Esbjerg in Denmark.
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Mid-Week matches, how'd they do:
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - on the bench but did not play in a 1-1 home tie with Norwich.
-Cory Gibbs - Charlton - still did not make the gameday roster. Soon I hope. The team drew at home 1-1 with Bristol City.
-Matt Pickens - QPR - play at Coventry today.
-Frank Simek - Sheffield Wednesday - ankle injury still keeping him out of the line up. The team lost 0-1 at home to West Bromich Albion.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - play at Liverpool today.
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CONCACAF Champions Cup

John Haydon of the Washington Post talks to DC coach Tom Soehn about his teams preparations for the series against Harbour View.
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CONCACAF News

Mexico has a scheduled a game v China on Apr 16 in Seattle. Late last month they announced a match on Mar 26 v Ghana in London. And the rumor of a match on June 4 v Argentina in San Diego is looking like a very strong possibility.
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Copa Libertadores

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Tue Mar 4
Santos 1-0 Chivas Guadalajara - goal by Mauricio Molina.
Liga D Univ Quito 2-0 Libertad - goals by Patricio Urrutia & Joffre Guerron.
Cruzeiro 3-0 Caracas - goals by Guilherme, Ramires & Marcelo Moreno. (we ran a feature story on Moreno yesterday - check it out)
-Wed Mar 5
Danubio v Estudiantes
Fluminense v Arsenal
Sao Paulo v Audax Italiano
-Thu Mar 6
Atletico Nacional v Sportivo Luqueno
Nacional v Flamengo
Boca Juniors v Atlas
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Group Stage Standings
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European News

La Liga authorities handed out a joke of a suspension to Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos. In the teams win over Huelva on Saturday he was called for a foul earning a second Yellow Card and a sending off. He then went nuts, screaming obscenities at the referee. Ramos even aggressively grabbed the ref's shoulder. How many game suspension did he get? 2! Like I said, what a joke.
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The Guardian says Randy Lerner of Aston Villa is the kind of American owner they like.
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Martin Samuel of The Times with an article on the player agent/manager who seems to travel in a thick dark cloud - Kia Joorabchian.
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Jan Koller of Nurnberg has been suspended for 1 game after he spit on Altin Lala of Hannover as their game ended last weekend.
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UEFA Champions League

Round of 16 - 2nd leg Matches & Scores (with 1st leg scores included):
-Tue Mar 4
Barcelona 1-0 Celtic (3-2) - Barca adv 4-2 on agg. Barca goal by Xavi Hernandez.
Man United 1-0 Lyon (1-1) - Man U adv 2-1 on agg. Man U goal by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Sevilla 3-2 Fenerbahce (2-3) - series tied 5-5 on agg and on away goals tie breaker. Fener adv 3-2 on Penalty Kicks. Sev goals by Daniel Alves, Seydou Keita & Frederic Kanoute. Fen goals both by Deivid.
Milan 0-2 Arsenal - Arse advance 2-0 on agg. Arse goals by Cesc Fabregas & Emmanuel Adebayor.
-Wed Mar 5
Porto v Schalke (1-0)
Real Madrid v Roma (1-2)
Chelsea v Olympiacos (0-0)
-Tue Mar 11
Inter v Liverpool (0-2)
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Barcelona suffered a huge blow as Lionel Messi tore a muscle in his left thigh during the game and will be out for about 6 weeks.
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Paolo Maldini played his last game in European competition last night. He is retiring when this season ends. Amazingly he has won 6 Champions League titles!
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Paolo Bandini of the Guardian wonders if this is the end of the old guard at Milan.
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The Times talks to Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor about his teams capabilities.
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Richard Williams of the Guardian says Arsenal speed kills.
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Reuters with a story from Turkey on the massive party going on following Fenerbahce's big win.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune looks at yesterday's matches.
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UEFA Cup

Resumes on Thursday with Round of 16, first leg matches. We will post the match schedule on game day.
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The Times previews the matches featuring the 3 English and 1 Scottish clubs.
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World News

Ravi Ubha of the Seattle Post Intelligencer with his weekly world soccer news review.
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World Cup 2010 - South Africa News

The Guardian has a Q & A with Danny Jordan the head of World Cup planning for South Africa.
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Well, at least we know the Fat Cat's will be taken care of at the next World Cup. How us bluffers and malingerers will fare is a whole other matter.