Giftwrapping For Animals News

SuperLiga

FINAL TONIGHT!
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Official website
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Final
-Tue Aug 5
New England v Houston - 7pm central on TeleFutura
Match preview by Steve Davis at Soccernet.
Match preview by Monique Walker of the Boston Globe.
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The Attleboro (MA) Sun Chronicle with an article on their native son, Houston's great rookie Geoff Cameron.
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Kyle McCarthy of the Boston Herald reports that New England will start a little used rookie, Chris Tierney, at left fullback tonight.
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Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle with the latest on the confusion surrounding prize winnings from this tournament that have the players so upset.
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Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle gives his thoughts on how this tournament can be improved.
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Greg Lalas at Sports Illustrated feels the not just the Mexican team's were the losers in this years SuperLiga.
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Yesterday stories floated around that the players from both of tonight’s teams had agreed to combine the 1st & 2nd place prize money and split it evenly amongst all players no matter who won. But MLS has shot back with Commissioner Donald N Garber say that this is illegal in the leagues agreement with the players and will not be allowed to happen. The serve is back on the players side of the court.
-Ah yes, Steven Goff of the Washington Post on his blog Soccer Insider has quotes from Garber on this matter. (Of course he does, that’s what makes Goff the best.)
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USA Men's Olympic Team

Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports says a great Olympic tournament for Michael Bradley will mean a great pay day afterwards.
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The New England Revolution website has an audio interview with defender Michael Parkhurst about the tournament.
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FIFA.com on the USA's goal scoring drought.
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Official USA team blog
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Official Olympic soccer website
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Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Thu Aug 7
Japan v USA - 4am central on MSNBC
-Sun Aug 10
Netherlands v USA - 6:45am central
-Wed Aug 13
Nigeria v USA - 4am central
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Group Standings
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Full game schedules for both the Men's & Women's tournament are listed below in the Olympic Schedule section.
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MLS News

FC DALLAS

FCD makes the signing of forward Victor Sikora from NAC Breda in Holland official. The FCD Blog with the proof.
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DC UNITED

John Haydon of the Washington Times on DC's acquisition of midfielder Ivan Guerrero. (This ran last Saturday)
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

Kyle McCarthy of Goal.com does a Q & A with forward Brian Ching.
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LOS ANGELES GALAXY

Nick Green of the Daily Breeze sits down to talk team-inner-turmoil with Galaxy President Alexi Lalas.
-Green has some leftover Lalas quotes that he shares on his 100 Percent Soccer blog.
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LA hold the first allocation spot and thus if Cory Gibbs officially signs with MLS he can be all theirs. They could sure use him in defense. Although we don't know what kind of health he is in. And then there is the fact that LA doesn't have any space on the salary cap to add him with out trading someone else. Simply cutting a player at this point of the season (see Abel Xavier) does not give them cap relief.
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New Becks ad for Adidas. It's not as much fun as the great ones, but not bad, not bad at all.
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Dylan Butler at Big Apple Soccer talks to a Red Bulls insider who says that contrary to reports at the end of last week there is no problem with stadium construction in Harrison NJ.
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Butler also reports that during a week off from game action coach Juan Carlos Osorio had jetted off to Costa Rica on a player scouting mission.
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GENERAL

Dallas forward Kenny Cooper was again named MLS Player Of The Week. He won it last week too. Did they do it on purpose this week to drive up his transfer price? Also, I usually don't care who they give this to, but Cooper and his team lucked into their goals. Jaime Moreno drove DC United to the winners circle and should have won this honor with ease.
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Steve Davis at Soccernet with his Ten Things of Note from Week 19.
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US Soccer has audio of the Week 18 MLS Referee Review.
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MLS Friendlies

-Wed Aug 6
New York v Barcelona (Spain) - 6pm central on ESPN2
-Be forewarned - Barca will be without Lionel Messi who is at the Olympics.
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Greg Lalas of Sports Illustrated reports on Barca training in Central Park!!
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MLS Stadium Talk

The Delco Times reports that Philadelphia's MLS team has hired a company to build their stadium. These same people built MLS the stadium in Chicago, and the ones being finished in Salt Lake & New York. I was kind of hoping they would hire someone real different to give them their own look. Oh well.
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Former MLS Player News

Former Kansas City midfielder Khari Stephenson made his debut for Aalesunds in Norway yesterday. That is the same team that has Adin Brown & Pat Noonan (not any more). He played the full 90 in a 0-0 draw at Molde. He spent the last 2 years at Gotenburg and AIK Stockholm.
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Soccer In America

Our friend Dave Brett Wasser from Historic Video Tapes has written a piece for the blog of Mr Kenn Tomasch on the US Soccer Hall of Fame. Wasser thinks it could be better served were it not in upstate New York.
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Burger King launches a promotion called Futbol Kingdom. Coming to a city near you, maybe.
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Americans In Europe

Aalesunds announced on their website that Pat Noonan has left the team today to rejoin MLS. He does not have a team yet though. New England hold his rights.
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US Soccer has an audio interview with Brad Guzan talking about his move to Aston Villa.
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Yanks Abroad talks to Oguchi Onyewu about his teams upcoming Champions League series against Liverpool. The first leg is at home on Aug 13, with the return on Aug 27 in Scouseville.
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RECENT MATCHES

Champions League
-DaMarcus Beasley - Rangers - did not play due to a hamstring injury, and the team was knocked out in the Second Qualifying Round, 2-1 on aggregate by Kaunas of Lithuania. What an ugly upset.
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Danish SAS Ligaen :
-Dan Califf - Midtjylland - played the entire match as they beat Horsens 2-1.
-Tally Hall - Esbjerg - dressed by did not play as they tied 1-1 at home against Nordsjaelland.
-Will John - Randers - did not dress as they won 0-3 at Brondby.
-Lee Nguyen - Randers - dressed by did not play as they won 0-3 at Brondby.
-Jeremiah White - Aarhus - went the full 90 in a losing effort 3-1 at Odense.
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Norwegian Tippeligaen:
-Adin Brown - Aalesunds - did not dress for the teams 0-0 tie game at Molde on Monday.
-Mikkel Diskerud - Stabaek - did not dress as they beat Bodo Glimt 4-1 at home, and move to #1 in the league.
-Pat Noonan - Aalesunds - came on in the 71st minute of a 0-0 draw at Molde on Monday. This is his last game in Norway because he is all set to move back to MLS.
-Troy Perkins - Valerenga - stared in goal as always a they drew 1-1 at home against Fredrikstad.
-Brian Waltrip - Molde - did not play as the team drew 0-0 at home against Aalesunds.
-Brian West - Fredrikstad - did not suit up for a 1-1 draw at Valerenga.
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Norwegian Adeccoligaen:
-Matthew Allen - Bryne - did not dress as they lost 1-0 at Sogndal.
-Clarence Goodson - Start - drew 2-2 at Kongsvinger
-Joe Lapira - Nybergsund - started and went 88 minutes but they lost badly 5-1 at Odd Grenland.
-Jay Needham - Alta - tied 1-1 at home against Sandefjord
-Chris Rodd - Bryne - played the full 90 but they lost 1-0 at Sogndal.
-Kyle Veris - Hodd - did not play due to injury, and the team lost 2-1 at Sarpsborg.
-Cam Weaver - Haugesund - started and played 6o minutes of a 1-1 tie at Notodden.
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Swedish Allsvenskan:
-Colin Burns - Ljungskile - did not dress as they tied Hammarby 2-2 on the road.
-Charlie Davies - Hammarby - at the Olympics with Team USA, and his team drew 2-2 at home against Ljungskile.
-Etchu Tabe - Ljungskile - went the full 90 as usual and drew 2-2 at Hammarby.
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Others
-Michael Enfield - Sydney - (Australia A League) - season starts Aug 16
-Ryan Guy - St Patricks Athletic - (League of Ireland) - went the distance and scored a goal as they won at UC Dublin 0-3.
-Chris Knopoka - Bohemians - (League of Ireland) - dress but did not play in his teams 3-0 win over Cobh.
-Nate Weiss - Longford Town - (League of Ireland 2) - did not suit up as they won 1-3 at Limerick.
-Damon Wilson - Kapfenberg - (Austrian Bundesliga) - not in the game day squad as they lost 3-1 at Rapid Vienna.
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Americans in Mexico

Yesterday I posted a note about Carlos Ochoa, and not surprisingly today Luis Bueno at Sideline Views tells us exactly who he is. We love you Luis, he always come through for us infidels!
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CONCACAF News

FIFA.com has an interview with Guatemala's star striker Carlos Ruiz as he tries to lead his country to the World Cup.
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Olympic Soccer News

Tim Vickery of Sports Illustrated with an article on Diego leading Brazil at the Olympics.
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Luis Bueno at the Press Enterprise with his thoughts on the Olympic tournament.
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FIFA's Olympic News Site
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Olympic Soccer Scoreboard

Men's Olympic Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Thu Aug 7
Australia v Serbia
Argentina v Cote d'Ivoire
Japan v USA - 4am central
Netherlands v Nigeria
Belgium v Brazil
China v New Zealand
Honduras v Italy
Cameroon v South Korea
-Sun Aug 10
Argentina v Australia
Cote d'Ivoire v Serbia
Japan v Nigeria
Netherlands v USA - 6:45am central
Brazil v New Zealand
Belgium v China
Cameroon v Honduras
Italy v South Korea
-Wed Aug 13
Argentina v Serbia
Australia v Cote d'Ivoire
Nigeria v USA - 4am central
Japan v Netherlands
Brazil v China
Belgium v New Zealand
Honduras v South Korea
Cameroon v Italy
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Men's Group Standings
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Women's Olympic Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Wed Aug 6
Argentina v Canada
China v Sweden
Germany v Brazil
N Korea v Nigeria
Japan v New Zealand
Norway v USA
-Sat Aug 9
Sweden v Argentina
Canada v China
Nigeria v Germany
Brazil v N Korea
USA v Japan
New Zealand v Norway
-Tue Aug 12
China v Argentina
Sweden v Canada
N Korea v Germany
Nigeria v Brazil
Norway v Japan
USA v New Zealand
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Women's Group Standings
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England News

The Guardian begin their Premiership team previews:
-Arsenal
-Aston Villa
NEW-Blackburn
NEW-Bolton
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The English Championship Division starts this weekend.
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European News

FRANCE

Ben Lyttleton of the Guardian with a Ligue 1 season preview. It starts this weekend.
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GERMANY

FIFA.com does a Q & A with new Hamburg coach Martin Jol.
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SPAIN

It's officially official - Rafael van der Vaart to Real Madrid from Hamburger.
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FSC will show the Spanish Super Cup - Valencia v Real Madrid - 2 legs - Sunday's Aug 17 & 24. Both games are at 3pm central.
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Jack Bell of the New York Times with an article on Barca's little used forward Eidur Gudjohnsen.
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UEFA Champions League

2 teams advanced today in the Second Qualifying Round, the other games all take place tomorrow
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Second Qualifying Round, 2nd leg Matches & Scores (1st leg scores included):
-Tue Aug 5
Ventspils (Latvia) 2-1 Brann (Bergen, Norway) - ends 2-2 on aggregate, but Brann advance with the Away Goals tie breaker.
Kaunas (Lithuania) 2-1 Rangers (Glasgow Scotland) - Kaunas pulls the big upset and advance 2-1 after a 0-0 first leg.
-Wed Aug 6
Partizan (Belgrade, Serbia) v Inter Baku (Azerbaijan) (1-1)
Dynamo Kyiv (Kiev, Ukraine) v Drogheda (Ireland) (2-1)
Artmedia (Bratislava, Slovakia) v Tampere United (Finland) (3-1)
Sparta Praha (Czech Republic) v Sheriff (Tiraspol, Moldova) (1-0)
Modrica Maxima (Bosnia-Herzegovina) v AaB (Aalborg, Denmark) (0-5)
Wisla Krakow (Poland) v Beitar Jerusalem (Israel) (1-2)
MTK Hungaria (Budapest, Hungary) v Fenerbahce (Istanbul, Turkey) (0-2)
Basel (Switzerland) v IFK Goteborg (Sweden) (1-1)
BATE (Borisov, Belarus) v Anderlecht (Montignies-sur-Sambre, Belgium) (2-1)
Rapid Wien (Vienna, Austria) v Anorthosis Famagusta (Larnaca, Cyprus) (0-3)
Dinamo Tbilisi (Georgia) v Panathinaikos (Athens, Greece) (0-3)
Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) v Domzale (Slovenia) (3-0)
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African World Cup Qualifying

Due to brewing military conflicts between Sudan and Chad, they will play their next World Cup qualifiers in Cairo Egypt.