Monday, August 04, 2008

Who Would Get Better Tanlines News

Dish Network has dropped GolTV effective last Friday. My outrage has already been heard by both parties. They are squabbling over money. Please call/write them to complain loudly! DISH - 1-888-284-7116! Call NOW! GolTV doesn't list a phone number, so email them - info@goltv.tv - NOW!

~and~

As Juan Toja leaves Dallas for Romania his old team gives him a video send off! From FC Dallas Updates.

~and~

Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle: "There’s more emotion in one Dynamo game than the Texans (NFL), Astros (MLB) and Rockets (NBA) have in an entire season." You got that one right buddy! See Houston Dynamo section for the full story of Dynamo Love.

~and~

Tuesday night is the SuperLiga Final - New England v Houston. Again!


MLS Scoreboard

Week 19
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Aug 2
DC 2-0 Kansas City - DCU goals by Luciano Emilio & Jaime Moreno.
Attendance: 18,731
Venue: RFK Stadium, Washington DC
Match report by Steven Goff of the Washington Post.
Match report by Chris Webb of United Mania.
Match report from the Kansas City Star.
Post game notes and DC player ratings by Goff on his blog Soccer Insider.
Post game analysis by Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner.
Chicago 1-0 Chivas USA - CF goal by Patrick Nyarko.
Attendance: 20,492
Venue: Toyota Park, Bridgeview IL
Match report by Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune.
Match report by Orrin Schwarz of Chicago's Daily Herald.
Match report by Nick Firchau of Chicago's Southtown Star.
Post game notes by Arroyave on his blog The Red Card.
Houston 2-0 Columbus - HD goals by Brad Davis & Brian Ching.
Attendance: 15,371
Venue: Robertson Stadium, Houston TX
Match report by Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle.
Match report from the Daily Texan.
Post game notes from the Columbus Dispatch.
Post game analysis from the Dispatch.
-Sun Aug 3
San Jose 3-2 Los Angeles - SJE goals by Arturo Alvarez, Darren Huckerby & Ryan Cocherane. LAG goals by Landon Donovan & Edson Buddle.
Attendance: 26,071
Venue: McAfee Stadium, Oakland CA
Match report from the San Jose Mercury News.
Match report from the San Mateo Daily Journal.
Match report from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Match report from Center Line Soccer.
Toronto 0-2 Dallas - FCD goals both by Kenny Cooper(1 via PK)
Attendance: 20,247
Venue: BMO Field, Toronto ON
Match report by Larry Millson of the Toronto Globe & Mail.
Match report by Morgan Campbell.
Match report from the Dallas Morning News.
Match report from the Fort Worth Star Telegram.
Post game notes by Campbell on the Star's Toronto FC blog.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ejections:
Amado Guevara - Toronto - Red Card
Marco Velez - Toronto - 2 Yellow Cards
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League Standings
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MLS News

CHICAGO FIRE

Patrick Nyarko scored his first MLS goal on Saturday but also suffered a concussion in a clash of heads with CUSA defender Claudio Suarez late in the first half of the game.
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FC DALLAS

So long Juan Toja - we hardly knew ya. But at least you gave us Juan Toja wig night! Good luck with your new club Steaua Bucharest.
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And forward Victor Sikora from NAC Breda in Holland is set to take his place on the roster.
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Dallas also signed America's favorite diving hobbit Jamie Watson.
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle with an article on the strong love between the fans and their team the Dynamo. The energy is pure, raw and bright orange.
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KANSAS CITY WIZARDS

Josh Wolff did not play this weekend due to a hamstring strain.
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LOS ANGELES GALAXY

I get the feeling that Ruud Gullit just might have seen enough, and he is not up for the challenge - His house in LA has gone on the market. From the LA Times (halfway down the page). (thanks for this one Joe)
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But Gullit says he isn't going anywhere. His wife just doesn't like the house. So they are buying a new one.
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Could we see Gullit and Alexi Lalas shown the door together? And where is Steve Sampson?
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Scott Wolf of the Daily Breeze on all the turmoil, and rumors. Some ugly stuff. Plus Gullit fires back at Abel Xavier.
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And Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated says that staff and players have already been given the one-last-chance speech.
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The San Jose Mercury News proclaims Beckhamania to be over.
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TORONTO FC

It looks like the referees may have let TFC down. From what we all could see on TV Amado Guevara blasted Pablo Richetti, giving him a bloody nose, knocking him down in the penalty box and earning Guevara a Red Card. But video seems to show that Guevara hit Richetti well outside the box, then again in the box. You make the call.
-The Sun with an article on the wildness.
-OK, so the Penalty Kick call was questionable, but the Red Card to Guevara was not.
-And the first Yellow Card to Marco Velez was questionable, although he did push the Dallas defender into the airborne keeper. But with one card already why did Velez have a melt down about a throw in and get himself sent off? He is an idiot!
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GENERAL

Steven Goff of the Washington Post on his blog Soccer Insider with his weekly notes - The Good, The Bad & The Coyote Ugly.
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Ben Knight of the Toronto Globe & Mail blog On Soccer says MLS has a serious officiating problem, much worse than the rest of the world. I agree there are problems but every league has the same ones. And us being able to watch TV replays over and over again make it really easy to second guess every little detail. I understand frustrations, but I think this is a really ill-informed article.
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Kyle McCarthy of Goal.com with his Monday news wrap up (2nd half of article).
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Goal.com also has an article which asks the important question - Is MLS really progressing? I say yes indeed.
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Allen Hopkins at Soccernet with some insider kibbles and bits.
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Jen Chang at Soccernet with some post weekend news and opinions on MLS and beyond.
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MLS Friendlies

-Sun Aug 3
Colorado 1-2 Everton (England) - CR goal by Conor Casey. Ever goals by Mikel Arteta & Leon Osman.
Match report by Pat Rooney of the Rocky Mountain News.
Match report by Brian Forbes of the Denver Post. With a huge thumbs up for the Glengarry Glen Ross reference.
Match report from the Liverpool Echo.
Match report from the Liverpool Daily Post.
-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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MLS Golden Boot

Golden Boot
13 Landon Donovan
13 Kenny Cooper
12 Edson Buddle
11 Luciano Emilio
8 Brian Ching
7 Jaime Moreno
7 Alejandro Moreno
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MLS Expansion News

Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal reports that the expansion fee for the 2 new teams in 2011 may raise from $40 million to $50 million. Wow.
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SuperLiga

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.
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Steven Goff of the Washington Post on his blog Soccer Insider is reporting that players from Houston and New England have agreed to pool the prize money for both first and second place and share it between all the players on both teams. They are not happy about getting such a small chunk of the $1million total (the winner gets 15%).
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Kyle McCarthy of Goal.com on ways he would like to see SuperLiga improved.
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USL First Division News

Soccernet with an article on the USL players that they feel have the goods to do some damage in MLS.
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USL First Division Scoreboard

Matches & Scores:
-Fri Aug 1
Atlanta 2-1 Charleston
Puerto Rico 1-2 Seattle
Carolina 2-3 Vancouver
-Sat Aug
Minnesota 2-2 Portland
-Sun Aug 3
Charleston 2-0 Vancouver
Puerto Rico 1-0 Carolina
Rochester 3-4 Atlanta
-Tue Aug 5
Atlanta v Vancouver
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USL First Division Standings

Standings (games played) (goal difference):
34 Charleston (20) (GD +9)
34 Vancouver (19) (GD +2)
33 Puerto Rico (19)
29 Seattle (21)
28 Rochester (20)
27 Atlanta (18)
24 Portland (21)
23 Miami (21)
21 Minnesota (20) (GD -5)
21 Carolina (21) (GD -10)
19 Montreal (18)
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USA Olympic Team

Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet previews the USA's group.
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ING Cup Friendly Matches & Scores:
-Wed Jul 30
USA 0-0 Cote d'Ivoire
-Sat Aug 2
USA 0-1 Cameroon
Match report from US Soccer.
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2 warm up games, no goals, and no mention of a decent attack in the match reports of either game. Are they playing possum?
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Official team blog.
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USA U20 News

Our boys finished 3rd in the annual Milk Cup in Northern Ireland.
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Final Matches & Scores:
-Fri Aug 1
5th Place - Wales 0-2 Israel
3rd Place - USA 2-1 Belgium - USA goals by Peri Marosevic(PK) & Casey Townsend.
1st Place - Chile 1-2 Northern Ireland [SCORE CORRECTED]
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The hosts have won the tournament for the first time in 11 years!
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Soccer In America

International Club Friendly in Chicago at Soldier Field
Match & Score:
-Sun Aug 3
Guadalajara Chivas 2-5 Barcelona
Post game notes by Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune on his blog The Red Card.
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And of course we just somehow knew that it can still be the Samuel Eto'o show at Barca. Which it was and he bagged 2 goals.
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Americans In Europe

With Rafael van der Vaart all but signed at Real Madrid it looks like better odds every day for Michael Bradley to move to Hamburg.
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Brian Forbes of the Denver Post with an article on Tim Howard at Everton.
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Greg Seltzer at Soccer365 gets the latest word on Benny Feilhaber's future.
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The Birmingham Mail has a few words with Brad Guzan about his new team Aston Villa.
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Americans in Mexico

Luis Bueno of Sideline Views rounds up our boys from the weekend games for us.
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And who is this Carlos Ochoa who scored for Monterrey in a 2-0 win over Indios? Soccer America mentioned him.
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England News

The Guardian begin their Premiership team previews:
-Arsenal
-Aston Villa
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European News

Time Magazine with an article on the giant economy that European soccer has become.
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GERMANY

This photo has nothing to do with soccer, but it does prove that elderly German women love their heavy metal music.
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RUSSIA

Sevilla of Spain won the Moscow preseason tournament - Railways Cup over the weekend:
-Fri Aug 1
Sevilla 1-0 Milan
Lokomotiv 1-1 Chelsea Loko win 5-4 on PK's
-Sun Aug 3
1st Place - Sevilla 3-0 Lokomotiv
3rd Place - Milan 0-5 Chelsea
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Nicolas Anelka scored 4 goals against Milan!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SPAIN

Luis Arroyave of the Chicago Tribune talks to Thierry Henry about Barca and many other worldly topics.
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Arroyave also writes about Barcelona's Win-or-Else attitude.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

So... Northern Ireland lost the 1st place game, yet still won the Milk Cup? Can you explain?

4:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do think we have an officiating problem. It really starts with the allowance of grabbing & tugging.

It seems that the grabbing is allowed if the player maintains possesion of the ball even if the momentum is disrupted. It should be called early even if the first few minutes of the game are stop-start. I believe the players will recognize the scrutiny of the refs and play more honestly.

Often the refs will allow the heat to build up to the point that cheap shots start occurring off the ball. Then the ref has to try and reel things in. That's where the wrong calls are coming in- they seem to be haphazard make-up calls.

The cheap fouls on corner kicks in our league & around the world are really taking the sportsmanship out of things. Ballacks' push before his headed goal at the UEFA tourney was a disgrace and a perfect example!

Am I that far off? Anyone's thoughts?

I still believe, once the money is there, that there ought to be 4 linesmen- 1 for each half of the field & on both sides.

5:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good comment by anonymous. It seems to me that defenders basically hip-check/body-check a lot of strikers and midfielders who receive the ball with their back to goal, making it nearly impossible for them to maintain possession, and adding to the crappy, ping-pong, back-&-forth nature of some MLS games. I also think that a lot of crap goes on in the penalty box on corners and the refs don't call it. And half-way through the game, they can't call much in the penalty area b/c they've already let so many muggings go unpunished.

I think instant replay could help refs keep from making obvious or 'legendary' blunders (stuff that fans complain about for decades), but it wouldn't completely ruin the game as Sepp 'the blue ribbon jackass' Blatter thinks. Just like football here, MLS should let some calls be totally up to ref judgement (like pass interference in the NFL) and unreviewable w/instant replay.

7:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

pic of Ruud's house, if you care...

http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/hotprop/la-hm-hotprop2-2008aug02-pg,0,5969656.photogallery?index=2

jj

7:11 PM  
Blogger Eric said...

Gabriele Marcotti's comments on the Rev's Atlante match and aftermath. He provides the translated comments from the ejected keeper (paranoid) and well as perspective on the surprising lack of xenophobia.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/gabriele_marcotti/article4453981.ece

9:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think the Jonah Freedman article is hogwash. Of all the players who would be jettisoned off, Landon Donovan would be the last one to go. He's by far the most productive member of the team and worth his salary. Carlos Ruiz, on the other hand, costs virtually as much as LD and has done nothing for the Galaxy at all. Not to mention Greg Vanney and Pete Vagenas - much too costly to keep on the roster given their production, or lack thereof.

7:04 AM  
Blogger dallen said...

Looks like I switched to DirecTV just in time. I gots to have my Jozy and Ray Hudson!

9:10 AM  

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