Tuesday, May 20, 2008

When It's Done Drying News

Steve Morrow of Dallas becomes the first MLS head coach to be fired this season. See FC Dallas section below for details

~and~

You can expect a triumphant return by Grant Wahl to the pages of Sports Illustrated later this week!


UEFA Champions League Final

Match & Score:
-Wed May 22 in Moscow
Chelsea v Manchester United - live at 1:30pm central on ESPN2
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FIFA.com has a Q & A with Chelsea forward Nicolas Anelka.
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The Times says Moscow is like a carnival right now. That sounds very exciting!
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The Times with a story on Chelsea captain John Terry who will play despite dislocating his left elbow 10 days ago.
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The Times also has a ridiculous story on Chelsea keeper Petr Cech who they say has a specially made, Russian designed, orange shirt to wear. The shirt is engineered to distract strikers. My bullshit detector is on high alert from this one - I wonder what keeps it from distracting his own defenders too?
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Martin Samuel of the Times raves about the growth in quality of Man U centerback Rio Ferdinand.
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The Telegraph talks to former Italian World Cup winning coach who says that while Man U & Chelsea are very good teams from England, they are not very English.
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The Telegraph also gives us 30 great moments in CL & European Cup history. But be warned, if you only read this you would think that English teams had a near exclusive lock on those greatest of moments. The American media does this kind of short sighted crap all the time.
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Sid Lowe at World Soccer talks to former Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek about his triumphant Penalty Kick saving and crazy leg dancing in the 05 CL final. Via Sports Illustrated.
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Martin Rogers at Yahoo sports calls David Beckham the biggest Manchester United fan of them all.
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The Guardian tells us just who is snapping up the Champions League final tickets.
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Kevin McCarra of the Guardian calls Paul Scholes the heart, soul & steel of Man U. He might be all that, but he certainly isn't the brains, and he has no idea how to tackle yet he goes full bore into them all the time.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune wants to know who will win tomorrow; Blue, Red or Green?
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MLS Scoreboard

Week 9
Matches & Scores:
-Wed May 21
Toronto v DC - 6:30pm central on Direct Kick
-Thu May 22
San Jose v Houston - 9:30pm central on ESPN2
-Sat May 24
Columbus v New England - 6:30pm central on FSC
DC v Toronto - 6:30pm central on
Dallas v Salt Lake - 7:30pm central on Direct Kick
Colorado v Chivas USA - 8:30pm central on Direct Kick
Los Angeles v Kansas City 9:30pm central on HDNet
-Sun May 25
New York v Chicago - 2pm central on TeleFutura
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Serving Suspensions:
Dave Van Den Bergh - New York - 1 game for throwing an elbow.
Adrian Serioux - Dallas - 1 game for tackle from behind.
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MLS Standings

Eastern Conference
19 Columbus (8)
16 Chicago (8)
16 New England (9)
12 New York (7)
11 Kansas City (8)
11 Toronto (7)
6 DC (8)
Western Conference
12 Colorado (8)
11 Los Angeles (8)
10 Houston (8)
9 Dallas (8)
8 Chivas (8)
8 Salt Lake (8)
4 San Jose (7)
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MLS News

FC DALLAS

The Dallas Morning News with the story on the firing of FCD head coach Steve Morrow today. Asst. Marco Ferruzzi will be the interim coach.
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Andrea Canales on her blog Sideline Views gives us a recap of the FCD conference call announcing the firing.
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DC UNITED

The Baltimore Sun with a story on native son midfielder Santino Quaranta.
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KANSAS CITY WIZARDS

Jimmy Conrad, centerback and captain of the Zards gives us his latest column from Soccernet. He hates refs too, or does he? Hahahahaha.
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TORONTO FC

The National Post with an article on the ugliness between TFC coach John Carver and referees the past 2 weeks. The league is looking into whether or not Canadian referee Mauricio Navarro stepped over the line. On a more personal note, Navarro is also a CONCACAF referee, and is the worst ref I have ever seen, and that is saying something.
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Larry Millson of the Globe & Mail says Carver had a productive conversation with MLS honchos about referees.
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Morgan Campbell of the Star says the Carver incident is over and the coach just wants to move on with things.
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GENERAL

Jack Bell of the New York Times takes his turn bashing MLS for paying young players so little $$.
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MLS Rumor City - Don't Tease Me Bro!

Edgar Davids has announced that he will NOT extended his contract at Ajax. It ends on Jun 30. So does this open the MLS door again? It almost happened last year with Dallas.
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MLS Expansion News

The Montreal Gazette writes about the Impacts potential move to MLS. They talk to MLS commish Donald F Garber who was in Montreal last night for the grand opening of the teams new stadium.
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USL First Division News

Here are the Week 5 First & Second Division Teams of the Week.
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Minnesota Thunder

Midfielder Ricardo Sanchez makes the team of the week.
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USL First Division Scoreboard

Matches & Scores:
-Mon May 19
Montreal 0-0 Vancouver - Opening night at brand new Stade Saputo!
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USL First Division Standings

Points - Team - (games played)
14 Charleston (7)
13 Portland (7)
10 Vancouver (5)
10 Minnesota (6)
9 Carolina (5)
9 Seattle (6)
8 Atlanta (6)
7 Montreal (7)
5 Miami (8)
4 Puerto Rico (5)
2 Rochester (6)
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Team USA

Ives Galarcep at Soccernet gives his opinions on the roster for the upcoming slew of matches.
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Here is the roster of the Argentina squad that the USA will face on Sun Jun 8 at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford New Jersey:
G:
Roberto Abbondanzieri - Getafe
Oscar Ustari - Getafe
D:
Gabriel Heinze - Real Madrid
Fabricio Coloccini - Deportivo la Coruna
Pablo Zabaleta - Espanyol
Javier Zanetti - Inter
Nicolas Burdisso - Inter
Martin Demichelis - Bayern Munich
M:
Fernando Gago - Real Madrid
Maximiliano Rodriguez - Atletico Madrid
Gonzalo Rodriguez - Villarreal
Jonas Gutierrez - Mallorca
Ever Banega - Sevilla
Esteban Cambiasso - Inter
Jose Sosa - Bayern Munich
Javier Mascherano - Liverpool
F:
Sergio Kun Aguero - Atletico Madrid
Lionel Messi - Barcelona
Julio Cruz - Inter
Lisandro Lopez - Porto
Fernando Cavenaghi - Bordeaux
-NOTE: no Juan Roman Riquelme, Carlos Tevez, Hernan Crespo, Diego Milito or Gabi Milito.
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USA Olympic Team

Our boys take part in the Toulon Tournament in France, May 21-29
-All games will be shown live on Fox Soccer Channel
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Matches & Scores:
-Wed May 21
USA v Turkey
-Fri May 23
USA v Ivory Coast
-Sun May 25
USA v Italy
-Tue May 27
Semifinals
-Thu May 29
Final
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Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet reviews the roster.
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Roster:
G:
Dominic Cervi - no team
Chris Seitz - Real Salt Lake
Quentin Westburg - Troyes
D:
Anthony Beltran - Real Salt Lake
Eric Brunner - no team
Kyle Davies - Southampton
Michael Gavin - Los Angeles Galaxy
Kamani Hill - Wolfsburg
Jonathan Leathers - Kansas City Wizards
Brek Shea - Dallas
Julian Valentin - Los Angeles Galaxy
Rob Valentino - New England Revolution
Blake Wagner - Dallas
M:
Bryan Arguez - Hertha Berlin
Corey Ashe - Houston Dynamo
Greg Dalby - Charleroi
Benny Feilhaber - Derby County
Lee Nguyen - Randers
F:
Gabe Ferrari - Sampdoria
Bryan Jordan - Los Angeles Galaxy
Ellis McLoughlin - Hertha Berlin
Sammy Ochoa - UAG Tecos
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Soccer In America

Billy Witz at the New York Times writes about NBA guys who love their soccer, and the beautiful games influence is starting to show. Great story.
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CONCACAF News

Fox Soccer Channel bought the rights to the new CONCACAF Champions League which starts in the fall.
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Canada & CSA News

FIFA.com talks to Julian de Guzman about the increasing quality of the Canadian national team.
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Mexico & FMF News

Luis Bueno on his blog Sideline Views says Guadalajara striker Omar Bravo is most likely headed to Deportivo la Coruna.
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England News

Soccer by Ives reports that Fox Soccer Channel has bought the American broadcast rights to England national team games, including World Cup qualifiers, and the FA Cup.
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BBC with an article on Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton who was given a 6 month jail sentence after being found guilty of assault. After all the shit he has done to other people I think he is getting off light here.
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The Daily Mail has an X-ray of Chelsea keeper Petr Cech's repaired skill fracture. Damn.
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Reading has retained the services of their head coach Steve Coppell.
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European News

SPAIN

Sid Lowe of the Guardian looks at Zaragoza's disastrous relegation.
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Phil Ball of Soccernet reviews the final round of La Liga 07/08, names his best 11+ and then makes up some awards to hand out. Ball lists Leo Messi at left midfield, and I have to say that I watched Barcelona a lot this year and never saw Messi on the left side once, he was always always always on the right.
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Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated talks to Barcelona & Spain defender extraordinaire Carles Puyol. And let me state this for the record - Puyol does not have Dee Snider hair. That is insulting. He has Roger Daltrey, Ian Hunter, Robert Plant hair.
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Villarreal's 2nd place finish in the just ended La Liga season, is their highest finish ever.
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FRANCE

Ben Lyttleton of The Guardian on Lyon's 7th crowning in succession.
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ITALY

Italian national team coach Roberto Donadoni has signed a contract extension through 2010.
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Paolo Bandini of the Guardian on Inter's championship triumph via Ibra!
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World News

Paul Doyle of the Guardian is absolutely sick of the time wasting that most football matches have become, and he wants to stamp it out now.
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IPS News with a story the dream of football in Iraq, which is nearly gone today. (thanks to Brian for this)
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The Road To World Cup 2010 - South Africa News

Reuters reports that violence against foreigners has exploded in South Africa in the past 10 days. 24 people have been killed. Now, is this story about tourism, or an internal conflict with immigrants?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i've heard people claim that bright goalie shirts attract keepers in the sense that it draws their eyes and hence their shots. i wonder if its ever been tested.

kevvo

7:55 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

re: Barton

While he's an odious little shit, you can't punish him for more than the crime at hand. He's still to stand trial for the assault charge on Dabo in a separate hearing; the six months was for only the bar brawl in which he was beat up a fellow drunk Liverpudlian. I'm sure there will be more to come from the Dabo incident. While he's been involved in affray and assault, it's hardly the level of his brother. That being said, if he wasn't a professional player (and a high-profile one) he'd have gotten more even for the simple assault charge.

8:34 AM  
Blogger brucio said...

thanks zath
i guess i was thinking more karmic-ly

8:57 AM  

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