Is It Love Again News

I just want to thank all you awesome readers, especially those who post comments and send me email. Yesterday was the biggest day yet at du Nord. I am grateful for you.

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The USA women begin Olympic qualifying on Thursday in Ciudad Juarez Mexico. Here is their official home page so you can follow the action.

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Who is Ben Olsen kissing in that new Dick's Sporting Goods ad? And who is the kid?


CONCACAF Champions Cup

Semifinals - 1st Leg Matches & Scores:
-Tue Apr 1
Pachuca v DC - live at 9pm on FSC
-Wed Apr 2
Houston v Suprissa - live at 9pm on FSC
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Previews of DC's trip south of the border from Steven Goff of the Washington Post, John Haydon of the Washington Times and Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner.
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet previews both MLS teams.
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Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle on his Soccer y Futbol blog was at Houston practice today and has these notes. The team has some real injury issues.
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UEFA Champions League

Quarterfinals - 1st Leg Matches & Scores:
-Tue Apr 1
Roma v Manchester United - live at 1:30pm on ESPN2
Schalke v Barcelona - live at 1:30pm on Setanta & delayed at 4pm central on ESPN Classic
-Wed Apr 2
Arsenal v Liverpool - live at 1:30pm on ESPN2
Fenerbahce v Chelsea - live at 1:30pm on Setanta & delayed at 4pm central on ESPN Classic
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The Telegraph with an article on the excellent chaos around Fenerbahce, and their colorful Brazilian coach Zico.
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The Independent asks a very important question for Barcelona - Where is Ronaldinho?
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FIFA.com has a preview of Schalke, and a Q & A with their Brazilian midfielder Rafinha.
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MLS News

CHICAGO FIRE

MLSnet with an article on Fire owner Andrew Hauptman.
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Luis Arroyave on the Red Card blog with a Fire injury & team captaincy update.
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COLUMBUS CREW

Long passionate in-depth description of opening day for the Crew by fan Steve Sirk, from the teams website. High Quality.
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FC DALLAS

Missed yesterday: Diego Aparicio of the Dallas Morning News with a match report from Dallas v C-USA.
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DC UNITED

SF at The Offside Rules does a Q & A with goalkeeper Zach Wells, who lives in Ben Olsen's basement.
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle with several notes on the Dynamo. Including a little stadium talk.
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Glenn Davis also of the Chron with an article on what Houston does off the field that has just as big an impact around the city as winning Championships does.
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KANSAS CITY WIZARDS

Good one from Big Soccer - a first timers visit to a KC game, and the person stood in the supporters section. (I have to apologize, but I stole this from someone and for the life of me I can't remember where it came from - I appreciate your hard work in digging this up.)
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LOS ANGELES GALAXY

Kristian Dyer at Soccernet does a Q & A with LA exec Alexi Lalas.
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The official LA Galaxy blog tipped us off to a radio interview Landon Donovan did this morning in San Diego. Listen or download here.
-They also have a nice shot of El D sticking up for El Pescadito after Ciaran O'Brien's hard foul last Saturday.
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NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION

Frank Dell'apa of the Boston Globe says Taylor Twellman is down for the count. TT is going to need some minor (at least) knee surgery to get a look at what happened to him last week at practice. Also more on Sainey Nyassi who had a great starting debut.
-Nyassi was knocked out cold for a brief moment on Saturday after getting kicked in the head by Cory Ashe. Wow.
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Adam Smartschan of the Cape Cod Times reports on the Sports Buzz blog that the teams new forward signing from Costa Rica, Argenis Fernandez, will arrive in Boston today.
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Smartschan also wrote an A to Z guide for the 2008 MLS season.
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The Glasgow Herald goes all slobbery wild on their native son Rev's coach Steve Nicol.
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Jim Dow at RevsNet with his thoughts after game 1 and also a Q & A with NE asst coach Paul Mariner.
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer writes about all the questions the Red Bulls have going into the new season.
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Jack Bell of the New York Times sees a future in Europe for Jozy Altidore that is not far away.
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The New York Times also has an article on the teams marketing efforts for this season.
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Brian Lewis of the New York Post with some interesting scuttlebutt on potential new signings for the Bulls.
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger sees more of the same old same old from the New York team this season.
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SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES

Andrew Rogers at Soccer 365 has a Q & A with San Jose coach Frank Yallop.
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TORONTO FC

The Toronto Sun talks to forward Danny Dichio who says he understands not being in the starting 11.
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Ben Knight of the Toronto Globe & Mail blog On Soccer gives us Part 2 of his travelogue with the TFC thousands in Columbus.
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GENERAL

Pete Grathoff of the KC Star talks to former USA head coach, former Kansas City head coach & former Toronto assistant coach Bob Gansler. What is he up to?
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The Soccer Reporters of North America have named Terry Cooke of Colorado as their MLS Player Of The Week.
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Adam Spangler of This Is American Soccer rounds up week one of the new season.
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Kartik Krishnaiyer of the American Soccer Show with his wrap-up and thoughts on week 1.
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Steve Davis at MLSnet with a round-up of week 1.
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MLS Scoreboard

Week 2 Matches & Scores:
-Thu Apr 3
Chicago v New England - 7pm central on ESPN2
Los Angeles v San Jose - 9:30pm central on ESPN2
-Sat Apr 5
Kansas City v Colorado - 4pm central on Direct Kick (Note time change!)
New York v Columbus - 6:30pm central on FSC
DC v Toronto - 6:30pm central on Direct Kick
Chivas USA v Salt Lake - 9:30pm central on HDNet
Sun Apr 6
Houston v Dallas - 2pm central on TeleFutura
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MLS Rumor City - Don't Tease Me Bro!

Jack Bell of the New York Times reports that the list of teams chasing after Michael Bradley is now up to 4: Everton, Sampdoria, Stuttgart & Werder Bremen.
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Tired old Laurent Robert is expected to be in Toronto this week so the two sides can eye each other up for a possible roster spot. This is a guy who can't get on the field for awful Derby County in England. TFC fans should hope this does not happen.
-Larry Millson of the Globe & Mail with details on this and more.
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MLS Stadium Talk

Forbes has a story on new stadium building around the world, and a nice slide show to go with it. Both Red Bull Park and the Real Salt Lake stadium are included, along with a few of the big new Euro football stadiums. And how about the Olympic stadium in Beijing - that thing is insane looking!
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USL First Division & PDL News

Brian Quarstad at Blue Sky Soccer has audio of an interview with Minnesota Thunder coach Amos Magee as the team begins preseason training in earnest.
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Americans In Europe

The Fulham website has an article on Eddie Johnson. (thanks to Brian for this)
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Former college All-American Joseph Lapira has signed with Norwegian 2nd Division team Nybergsund.
-Greg Seltzer of American Soccer Daily with some more details.
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Monday performances:
-Colin Burns - Ljungskile - did not leave the bench in a 0-1 home loss to Hammarby.
-Charlie Davies - Hammarby - started and went 83 minutes, scoring the game winner of a 0-1 road victory at Ljungskile.
-Joe Enochs - Osnabruck - came on as a 79th minute sub and the team were 2-0 winners at home against Kaiserslautern.
-Luis Robles - Kaiserslautern - did not play as the team lost 2-0 at Osnabruck.
-Robbie Russell - Viborg - did not play in a 2-3 home loss to Copenhagen.
-Etchu Tabe - Ljungskile - came on in the 82nd minute for his debut but lost at home 0-1 to Hammarby.
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Mexico & FMF News

Reuters on the end of the road for Hugo Sanchez as the top boss in Mexico.
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Luis Bueno at Sports Illustrated on the exit of Sanchez.
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South American News

Tim Vickery at Sports Illustrated makes the case for the good side of Argentine fandom, calling it top notch.
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Copa Libertadores

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Apr 1
Santos v San Jose
Universidad Catolica v Dep Univ San Martin
Bamin Real Potosi v Caracas
-Apr 2
America v River Plate
Fluminense v Libertad
Sao Paulo v Sportivo Luqueno
Lanus v Estudiantes
-Apr 3
Atletico Nacional v Audax Italiano
Nacional v Coronel Bolognesi
Cruzeiro v San Lorenzo
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Group Stage Standings
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England News

The Guardian with an article on the superiority of English club football. A writer in Italy and in Spain both have their say on that subject.
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The Guardian says Cristiano Ronaldo really needs to turn it up a notch away from Old Trafford if he wants to be the best.
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European News

Football Italia has a profile of the top 15 star players associated with Italian Calcio in the modern era. Great list.
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Catania has hired none other than Walter Zenga as their new manager. Story from La Gazzetta.
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Phil Ball at Soccernet does some globe trotting and then applies what he has seen to the current state of La Liga.
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Fans of Inter have put coach Roberto Mancini up for sale on EBay. Sadly for them, no takers.
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The Independent has an article showing just how ugly these corruption proceedings involving Fabio Capello could get. This Moggi guy from Juve is a real piece of work. He even looks like Mr Burns.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune with his view on corruption scandals all over football, and oh how they like to linger on and on and on.
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Top Goal 5 Scorers In Some Of Europe’s Big Leagues

-La Liga-
22 Luis Fabiano - Sevilla
18 Raul Gonzalez - Real Madrid
17 Daniel Guiza - Mallorca
16 Kahveci Nihat - Villarreal
15 Diego Milito - Zaragoza
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-Bundesliga-
16 Luca Toni - Bayern Munich
16 Mario Gomez - Stuttgart
13 Marko Pantelic - Hertha Berlin
13 Mladen Petric - Borussia Dortmund
12 Diego - Werder Bremen
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-Serie A-
20 David Trezeguet - Juventus
18 Marco Borriello - Genoa
17 Zlatan Ibrahimovic - Inter Milan
16 Adrian Mutu - Fiorentina
15 Antonio Di Natale - Udinese
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-Eredivisie-
30 Klaas-Jan Huntelaar - Ajax
21 Blaise N'Kufo - Twente
16 Robin Nelisse - Utrecht
16 Michael Bradley - Heerenveen
15 Luis Suarez - Ajax
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-Premiership-
26 Cristiano Ronaldo - Manchester United
21 Fernando Torres - Liverpool
19 Emmanuel Adebayor - Arsenal
14 Robbie Keane - Tottenham
14 Roque Santa Cruz - Blackburn
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-Ligue Un-
17 Karim Benzema - Lyon
13 Mamadou Niang - Marseille
12 Tulio De Melo - Le Mans
12 Fernando Cavenaghi - Bordeaux
10 Daniel Niculae - Auxerre
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World News

FIFA.com has a Q & A with Samir Zaher, President of the Egyptian Football Assoc.
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The Guardian with an article on Chinese football which kicks off a new season still surrounded by feelings of corruption.