Catastrophy Can Be Overcome News

I was talking a little soccer with my mother on Saturday night, and she did it again, she called him Beckman! "Beckman scored a nice goal on Thursday." I am so proud of her.

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"I think the clams have been tainted."

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Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner on his blog The Pitch: "Spoke with Ben Olsen, who visited the doctor yesterday afternoon. Verdict: things not getting better." Not good


MLS Scoreboard

Week 2 Matches & Scores:
Chicago 4-0 New England - Chic goals by Chad Barrett, Tomasz Frankowski(2) & Cuauhtemoc Blanco(PK).
Attendance - 15,553
(See last Friday for match reports)
Los Angeles 2-0 San Jose - LA goals by David Burzum & Landon Donovan.
Attendance - 27,000
(See last Friday for match reports)
Kansas City 3-2 Colorado - KC goals by Jimmy Conrad(2) & Scott Sealy. Colo goals by Jose Burciaga & John DiRaimondo.
Attendance - 8,731
Match report by Bob Luder of the Kansas City Star.
Match report also by Luder for the Denver Post. This version has been Rapidsized.
Post game notes from FC Rocky.
New York 2-0 Columbus - NY goals by Dave van den Bergh & Kevin Goldthwaite.
Attendance - 17,119
Match report by Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer.
Match report by Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger.
Match report by Stefan Bondy (the new guy) at the Herald News.
Match report from the New York Times. Yeah I know, I almost had a stroke when I saw a match report by an actual NY Times writer!
Match report from MetroFanatic.
Post game notes from M Lewis.
Post game notes from the Columbus Dispatch.
Post game analysis and more analysis from Brian Lewis at the New York Post blog Extra Time.
Red Bull player ratings from B Lewis.
DC 4-1 Toronto - DC goals by Luciano Emilio, Santino Quaranta, Marcello Gallardo & Jaime Moreno. Tor goal by Maurice Edu.
Attendance - 20,161
Match report by Steven Goff of the Washington Post.
Match report by John Haydon of the Washington Times.
Post game notes, quotes and DC player ratings from Goff on his Soccer Insider blog.
Post game analysis by J Hutcherson of the US National Soccer Players Association.
Post game notes by Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner on his blog The Pitch.
Chivas USA 3-1 Salt Lake - Chiv goals by Sacha Kljestan, Attiba Harris & Alecko Eskandarian. RSL goal by Kenny Deuchar.
Attendance - 17,251
Match report by Jaime Cardenas of the LA Times.
Match report by Luis Bueno at the Press Enterprise.
Match report by Michael C Lewis of the Salt Lake Tribune.
Match report by James Edward of the Deseret Morning News.
Match report from the Daily Utah Chronicle.
Post game notes and RSL player ratings by Edwards on the Deseret blog.
Houston 3-3 Dallas - Hou goals by Franco Caraccio, Brian Ching & Geoff Cameron. Dal goals by Kenny Cooper(2) & Arturo Alvarez.
Attendance - 20,102
Match report by Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle.
Match report from the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
Match report from the Dallas Morning News.
Post game notes and more notes from Fallas.
Even more notes from Fallas on his Soccer y Futbol blog.
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Red Cards:
-Jeff Larentowicz - NER - Red Card for bad tackle
-Jeff Parke - NYRB - 2 Yellow Cards
-Kevin Harmse - TFC - Red Card for bad tackle
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My Notes From the weekend Games:

-That Echeverey kid for NY looks pretty feisty. Imagine if they can get him and Dane Richards and Jozy Altidore all out there together.
-I was amazed at how invisible Eddie Gaven, Brian Carroll and Guillermo Barros Schelotto were in the Columbus midfield. Did those three even play? Not good for Big Sig and his team.
-Will Hesmer saved a PK for the second week in a row for Columbus! His hair looks like he stole it from a sheep, but boy can he stop Penalties.
-Columbus centerback Danny O'Rourke is terrible. Get him out of there right now before he does more damage. Will Hesmer can't save every Penalty Kick this season.
-Columbus do not look any better than last season.
-I have said it a lot of time already, but I have to keep banging this one home - how did Toronto not go out and get some real defenders during the offseason??
-FC keeper Greg Sutton fluctuated between great and terrible. One minute he is out of position and useless, the next he is flying all over the place using his huge body to stop shots. I bet he does not have a lot of confidence behind those defenders.
-DC needs to play just like that against Pachuca on Wednesday and hope that Zach Wells does not make any idiotic goalkeeping mistakes this time.
-In Houston back up keeper Tony Caig came in for Pat Onstad who suffered a soldier injury, and was just brutally bad. Wow! He quickly gave up two goals on two shots. I have no idea why Dallas didn't shot at him from every distance when ever they had a slight opening. They blew it. He did make a nice save late, then gave up a third.
-Was Ryan Cochrane really that big a part of the Houston defense last season. Or is the combo of not having Ricardo Clark and Brian Mullan in midfield allowing attackers to get deep on Houston?
-That Cameron kid was a decent right midfielder, and his crossing was much better than that of his opposite side player Cory Ashe.
-I like a whole lot of those players on Dallas - Richetti, Alvarez, Toja, McCarty, Thompson, Oduro, Moor, etc. They are just fun to watch. I wish they were more consistent. But I am not sure they are going to be any better this year than last.
-Claudio Lopez and Juan Trujillo have been a lot of fun to watch these two opening weeks.
-And who doesn't love it when players jump in the stands after scoring!
-With stadium capacity of just over 10,000 KC was still only able to draw 8,731 to their game after a big season opening win over DC. What does this say?
-Average attendance was 17,988, but if you take out KC its 19,531.
-Personal note to TV announcer Bruce Arena - please shut up about irrelevant soccer banter when attackers are swarming toward goal and the action is peaking!
-It is amazing to me how much better Colorado look with one quality attacking player, Christian Gomez, added to the attack.
-When Colorado subbed in Gomez #2 and Gomez #3 thing got wild and weird out there - did you see the long curly crazy hair on those two dudes?!?!? I loved it.
-FSC announcer Christian Miles pronounces the name of Chivas USA supporters group Legion 1908 as "Lay-He-Oh-N Nyn-teen Oh Ate". So he way over-pronounces the first word in Spanish and then the date in American English. What gives dude? Spanish or English? Which one is it gonna be, you frickin POSER!
-RSL could just have easily tied 2-2 as lost 3-1. That's life on the road.
-2 guys RSL got rid of in the offseason came back to bite them on the ass - Attiba Harris and Alecko Eskandarian both scored for Chivas USA in the their 3-1 win over RSL.
-Yura Movsisyan was great for RSL coming off the bench and pouring pressure on the Chivas goal, all for naught.
-I am sorry, but with all those midfielders on the roster RSL has to be able to fine one with more talent than Carey Talley. I know he is a leader and very experienced, but one thing no one has ever accused him of being, even at his peak, is talented. He is a liability for them.
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du Nord MLS Player Of The Week

El D + Beckman
You ever seen 2 guys win a game by themselves like that. TWO GUYS and 9 stiffs, well Chris Klein & Sean Franklin were decent, but the other 7, come on. Landon Donovan & Dave Beckman set each other up for fantastic goals that beat a good goalkeeper in Joe Cannon. Beckman got him on the old nutmeg, and El D chipped him. Fantastic stuff. Watch both goals here.
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MLS News

CD CHIVAS USA

Grahame Jones of the LA Times with an article on Jesse Marsch. Plus other MLS notes. (article ran on Saturday before the game)
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DC UNITED

Steven Goff of the Washington Post with an article on Devin McTavish. (article ran on Saturday before the game)
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

Midfielder Ricardo Clark has now served the last of his 9 game suspension for kicking Carlos Ruiz late last season.
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NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION

Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe reflected on New England's beatdown in Chicago.
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger with an article on the all-but-sure sale of Jozy Altidore to a European team in the very near future. This summer? Probably.
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Are you like me and wondering who that guy starting at right midfield for the Red Bulls was. Luke Sassano? Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer wrote this about him on game day.
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TORONTO FC

Word from Honduras is that Amado Guevara has already said his goodbyes and left for Toronto. Stay tuned. They sure could use him. I wonder if he can bring 4 defenders with him?
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GENERAL

MLS has named David Bachman (of Bachman-Turner Overdrive fame) as the Player Of The Week.
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Steve Davis at Soccernet: Ten Things to Note from Week 2.
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Kyle McCarthy of Goal.com with his MLS weekend match recap.
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Jeffrey Marcus at the New York Times Goal blog gives us some of his thoughts from the MLS weekend action.
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Thomas Dunmore at Pitch Invasion looks at the mass of Toronto fans who traveled to Columbus two weekends ago, and what that means in the bigger picture for MLS.
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Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune has a guest writer on his Red Card blog. A fellow Tribuner gives a breakdown & analysis on the MLS player salaries that were just leaked to the public.
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MLS Friendlies

-Tue Apr 8
San Luis (FMF) v Chicago in Mexcali, Mexico at Estadio Casas GEO
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USL First Division & PDL News

Anne Ramzy at Soccernet with an article on some of bigger names (respectively) who are signing & bigger stories happening with the USL First Division teams this offseason.
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US Soccer News

Paul Gardner at World Soccer does a Q & A with US Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati. Via Sports Illustrated.
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Soccer In America

On Milwaukee Daily Magazine with a story on all the pubs that show soccer on TV in their city, and what it all means to a growing fan base. Myself, I frequent and strongly recommend the Highbury!
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Americans In Europe

AIE of the Week: Oguchi Onyewu - Standard - scored his teams only goal in a winning effort, that stretched their lead at the top to 9 points with 5 games left to play in the Belgian league.
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How'd their recent matches go:
-Freddy Adu - Benfica - did not dress for the teams 0-0 draw at Boavista.
-Bryan Arguez - Hertha Berlin - on the bench but did not play, and the team lost at home 1-2 to Werder Bremen.
-Gregg Berhalter - 1860 Munich - started and played all 90 but lost at Greuther Furth 3-1.
-Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham - on the bench but did not play in a painful 1-3 home loss to Sunderland.
-Michael Bradley - Heerenveen - played the full match and won at Willem II Tilburg 2-3.
-Adin Brown - Aalesund - went the full 90 and beat Brann 4-2 at home.
-Colin Burns - Ljungskile - at Kalmar on Monday.
-Dan Califf - Aalborg - went the distance in a 3-1 home win over Nordsjaelland.
-Steve Cherundolo - Hannover - started but came out after 51 minutes as the team lost 3-2 at Wolfsburg. No word on why he was replaced, but there was no report of an injury.
-Bobby Convey - Reading - came on in the 60th minute of a 3-0 loss at Newcastle. At least he is back on the field.
-Charlie Davies - Hammarby - at home against Sundsvall on Monday.
-Clint Dempsey - Fulham - came on in the 62nd minute of a 1-3 home loss to Sunderland.
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - came off the bench in the 86th minute to help hold a 2-1 home win over Coventry.
-Joe Enochs - Osnabruck - lost at Alemania Aachen 3-0
-Benny Feilhaber - Derby County - never left the bench as the team lost a 1-0 at Everton.
-Gabriel Ferrari - Sampdoria - did not dress for the teams 2-0 home win over Livorno.
-Brad Friedel - Blackburn - all 90 minutes as always in a 1-1 home tie against Tottenham.
-Cory Gibbs - Charlton - did not dress for the teams 1-2 road win at Plymouth.
-Clarence Goodson - Start - debuted with a full 90 and won at home 5-2 over Nybergsund.
-Joshua Grenier - Koblenz - was not on the bench as they tied at home 1-1 with Kickers Offenbach.
-Marcus Hahnemann - Reading - went all 90 in a 3-0 road loss at Newcastle.
-Tally Hall - Esbjerg - won at home 2-1 over Lyngby
-Tim Howard - Everton - went start to finish as always and got the 1-0 home win over Derby.
-Nate Jaqua - Rheindorf Altach - played the whole 90 and tied 1-1 at Karnten. Got a Yellow Card.
-Will John - Randers - came on in the 76th minute of a 0-2 home loss to Odense.
-Eddie Johnson - Fulham - was not dressed for the teams 1-3 home loss to Sunderland.
-Kasey Keller - Fulham - started and played the whole match losing 1-3 at home to Sunderland.
-Joseph Lapira - Nybergsund - started and went 81 minutes in a losing effort, 5-2 at Start.
-Eddie Lewis - Derby County - went the full 90 in a 1-0 loss at Everton.
-Clint Mathis - Ergotolis - did not play in the teams 3-1 loss at AEK.
-Brian McBride - Fulham - went the distance in a 1-3 home loss to Sunderland.
-Lee Nguyen - Randers - played 90 minutes but lost at home 0-2 to Odense.
-Pat Noonan - Aalesunds - did not dress as the team beat Brann 4-2 at home.
-Oguchi Onyewu - Standard - played the whole match as usual and even scored the games only goal very late as they won at home 1-0 over Excelsior Mouscron.
-Heath Pearce - Hansa Rostock - started and played 90 minutes but they lost to Schalke 1-0 on the road.
-Matt Pickens - Queens Park Rangers - on the bench for a 2-2 home draw against Preston.
-Troy Perkins - Valerenga - played the entire match but lost 2-0 at Tromso.
-Luis Robles - Kaiserslautern - did not suit up for a loss at home 0-2 to Hoffenheim.
-Robbie Russell - Viborg - on the road at Aarhus on Monday.
-Frank Simek - Sheffield Wednesday - out injured, the team drew at Scunthorpe 1-1.
-Jonathan Spector - West Ham - play Portsmouth at home on Tuesday.
-Neven Subotic - Mainz - played the full 90 minutes and won at home 3-0 over Wehen.
-Danny Szetela - Brescia - 0-0 home tie against Bari.
-Brian Waltrip - Molde - subbed on in the 74th minute but lost 2-1 at Fredrikstad.
-Brian West - Fredrikstad - did not dress as the team won at home 2-1 over Molde.
-Quentin Westburg - Troyes - at Grenoble on Monday.
-Jeremiah White - Aarhus - at home against Viborg on Monday.
-Josh Wolff - 1860 Munich - did not play as the team lost at Greuther Furth 3-1.
-Sal Zizzo - Hannover - dressed but did not play in the teams 3-2 loss at Wolfsburg.
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Mid-week matches to follow:
-Jay DeMerit - Watford - at home v Barnsley on Wednesday.
-Frank Simek - Sheffield Wednesday - play their big derby match at Sheffield United on Tuesday.
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Last Friday US Soccer posted an audio interview with Oguchi Onyewu.
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Americans in Mexico

This is Luis Bueno's weekend review of the Americans who play in the Mexican league, from his Sideline Views blog. I am really really really glad he is posting this stuff. Thank you Luis.
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Copa Libertadores

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Tue Apr 8
Libertad v Liga Universitaria Quito
Arsenal v Fluminense
San Jose v Cucuta Deportivo
-Wed Apr 9
Chivas Guadalajara v Santos
Cienciano v Flamengo
Atlas v Boca Juniors
-Thu Apr 10
Colo Colo v Maracaibo
Sportivo Luqueno v Atletico Nacional
Audax Italiano v Sao Paulo
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Cruzeiro, Fluminense & LDU Quito have secured 3 of the 16 spots in the knock out rounds.
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Group Stage Standings
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England News

James Lawton of the Independent compares and contrasts the teams, coaching styles, personalities etc. of Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.
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David Pleat of the Guardian likes what he sees from Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate.
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Arsenal midfielder Tomas Rosicky is going to have surgery to repair a knee injury he suffered in January.
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Colorado Rapids owner Stan Kroenke has upped his ownership stake in Arsenal. Story from The Telegraph.
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Chelsea keeper Petr Cech will be out of action even longer now, cuz he got kicked in the face by teammate Tal Ben Haim during training and will need some sort of surgery to fix his lips and chin. Damn, he can't win.
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European News

The Observer with a nice big article on Brazilian legend and Fenerbahce mad-man-coach Zico.
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Simon Kuper at the Financial Times has a very clear cut Q & A with Barca bossman Frank Rijkaard.
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Raphael Honigstein at the Guardian looks at a very interesting trend among the most-hardcore of Bundesliga fans.
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Paolo Baldini of the Guardian says Walter Zenga is back, and leading struggling Catania to improbable victory.
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Side Lowe of the Guardian tells us that Racing Santander are playing their best football in 70 years!
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Football Italia with a Week 32 review.
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La Gazzetta talked to Milan's infamous owner/former-president/sexist-pig/crook Silvio Berlusconi who says that coach Carlo Ancelotti is not going anywhere at the end of this season.
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UEFA Champions League

UEFA Champions League
Quarterfinal 2nd Leg Matches & Scores (with first leg scores included):
-Tue Apr 8
Liverpool v Arsenal (1-1)
Chelsea v Fenerbahce (1-2)
-Wed Apr 9
Manchester United v Roma (2-0)
Barcelona v Schalke (1-0)
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Again this week Roma will be without Francesco Totti.
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Euro League Cup Competitions

English FA Cup Semifinals (Wembley Stadium - London)
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Apr 5
West Bromwich Albion 0-1 Portsmouth
-Sun Apr 6
Barnsley 0-1 Cardiff City
Final (Wembley Stadium - London)
-Sat May 17
Cardiff City v Portsmouth
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Portsmouth keeper David James writes for the Guardian about his teams march to the FA Cup final.
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Big Euro Club Matches This Week

Matches & Scores:
Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool - Arsenal did not get the win it so badly needed to stay close to Man U & Chelsea, while Liverpool stayed ahead of Everton.
Stuttgart 1-0 Hamburg - last years champs are slowing climbing back into it only 2 points from a Champions League spot, while Hamburg drops to the #3 spot, now 10 points behind leaders Bayern Munchen.
Sevilla 2-0 Villarreal - #6 got the win they desperately need to get into the top 4 for Champions League, now 5 points out, while Villa fell to #3.
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Teams Still Chasing the Title in each of Europe's Biggest Leagues

-Premiership-
*33 of 38 games played
77 Manchester United
74 Chelsea
71 Arsenal
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-La Liga-
*31 of 38 games played
66 Real Madrid
59 Barcelona
59 Villarreal
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-Serie A-
*32 of 38 games played
72 Inter Milan
68 Roma
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-Bundesliga-
*27 of 34 games played
57 Bayern Munich
48 Schalke
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-Ligue Un-
*32 of 38 games played
67 Lyon
61 Bordeaux
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-Eredivisie-
*32 of 34 games played
68 PSV
63 Ajax
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FIFA Scandal News

Andrew Jennings of Transparency In Sports has a new column for Glasgow's Sunday Herald, this one about the weird creepy dude who England have hired to help them with their World cup 2018 bid. He is a FIFA & Sepp Blatter crony, and he appears to have a very bad temper. I really wish you could see a picture of this guy. He looks like a villain from the original Batman TV show, but I can't find one on line.
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This Is The End

Stolen from Soccer By Ives - this video is so damn funny I can't stand it - a keeper saves a PK only to have his own guy fire it back into the net. Own Goal City Baby!