Friday, September 05, 2008

Down And Into The Eastern Parts News

What was going on in Dallas last night that the Pizza Hut Park looked next to empty. From the TV view there were only a couple hundred people in the stands. Add in the side you can't see and you had maybe a couple thousand. What is going on down there? It was the big Thursday night game fer cryin out loud! I bet there is an excuse coming!


Team USA

Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 6
Cuba v USA - live at 7pm central on ESPN Classic - Join me to watch it at the Sweetwater in St Paul.
Venue: Estadio Pedro Marrero, Havana
-Wed Sep 10
USA v Trinidad & Tobago - live at 7pm cetnral on ESPN2 - join me in the stands in Chicago.
Venue: Toyota Park, Bridgeview IL
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Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated, on his blog, writes about 5 Americans who are in Cuba for the game!
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Mike Woitalla from Soccer America reports from Cuba on the arrival of Team USA.
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FIFA.com takes a look at the Cuban team.
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Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports hopes the USA does not take Cuba lightly.
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Brad at the blog Before I Forget is back in World Cup qualifying mode, and goes beyond gathering up all the match previews he can find, with a score prediction poll going on. Brad is one of the good guys.
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Official team blog.
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CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying Schedule
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FIFA.com previews this weekends CONCACAF matches.
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Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 6
Trinidad & Tobago v Guatemala
Cuba v USA
Mexico v Jamaica
Canada v Honduras
Haiti v El Salvador
Costa Rica v Surinam
-Wed Sep 10
USA v Trinidad & Tobago
Guatemala v Cuba
Honduras v Jamaica
Mexico v Canada
Surinam v El Salvador
Haiti v Costa Rica
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MLS Scoreboard

Week 24
Matches & Scores:
-Thu Sep 4
Dallas 0-1 Colorado - CR goal by Mike Petke
Attendance: 7,140
Venue: Pizza Hut Park, Frisco TX
Match report
-Sat Sep 6
Toronto v Chivas - 3pm central on TeleFutura & Direct Kick
Venue: BMO Field, Toronto ON
Columbus v New England - 6:30pm central on HDNet
Venue: Crew Stadium, Columbus OH
Chicago v New York - 7:30pm central on FSC
Venue: Toyota Park, Bridgeview IL
San Jose v DC - 9pm central on Direct Kick
Venue: Buck Shaw Stadium, Santa Clara CA
Los Angeles v Salt Lake - 9:30pm central on Direct Kick
Venue: Home Depot Center, Carson CA
-Sun Sep 7
Houston v Kansas City - 2pm central on TeleFutura
Venue: Robertson Stadium, Houston TX
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League Standings
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MLS News

COLORADO RAPIDS

George Tanner of the Rocky Mountain News blog FC Rocky tries to figure out why the team sold forward Herculez Gomez at this time of the season.
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KANSAS CITY WIZARDS

KCW added another striker to the team today as they bought Abe Thompson from Dallas. They bought Herculez Gomez the day before.
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Greg Seltzer of Soccer365 talks to Gomez about his new team.
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Jack Bell of the New York Times blog Goal talks to NYRB coach Juan Carlos Osorio about his team, Man City, playing through international dates and more.
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REAL SALT LAKE

The Tribune looks at RSL's weakest spot in the lineup: Forward.
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TORONTO FC

Vancouver Whitecaps have done a one game loan of defender Diaz Kambere who TFC will have some cover this weekend.
-TFC is also considering adding chief scout and former MLS defender Tim Reagan to their roster for Saturday. Wow.
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Morgan Campbell of the Star with an article on TFC's "non-defense" for this weekend.
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Campbell on his Toronto FC blog has more on the TFC dearth of players situation.
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GENERAL

Columbus midfielder Guillermo Barros Schelotto has been named Player of the Month for August.
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Dean McNulty of the Toronto Sun has an inside source telling him that MLS is taking the issue of over 30 top players being gone this weekend for international duty seriously, and will work on a solution.... for next season. How come all the rest of saw this as a problem for years, and MLS is just getting serious about it now?
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Greg Seltzer of No Short Corner addresses two recent MLS incidents - NYRB not buying Mac Kandji from Atlanta, and security issues in Chicago & New York.
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Jeff Bradley at MLSnet uses his column First XI to explore the great runs to the playoffs that have happened in past Septembers.
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MLS Exhibition Matches

-Sun Sep 7
Dallas v Club America (Mexico)
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MLS Expansion News

Vancouver follows Portland's lead in the "I Want My MLS" Sweepstakes. The are trying to get the whole city involved. Lots of news, video, photos etc here. They are using their game this Sunday against my mighty mighty Thunder to kick off their campaign.
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The Vancouver Sun reports that the city is not going to help fund a new stadium however. They will help refurbish their old dome stadium though. Booooooooooooooooooooooooo.
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USL First Division Scoreboard

Matches & Scores:
-Thu Sep 4
Portland v Miami
-Fri Sep 5
Montreal v Minnesota - 7pm central on FSC
Puerto Rico v Vancouver
-Sat Sep 6
Carolina v Charleston
Rochester v Portland
Seattle v Miami
-Sun Sep 7
Vancouver v Minnesota
-Mon Sep 8
Montreal v Portland
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USL First Division Standings

Points - Team - Games played of 30 (goal difference):
46 Puerto Rico (26) (GD +17)
46 Vancouver (26) (GD +5)
37 Charleston (26) (GD +4)
37 Rochester (26) (GD +4)
36 Seattle (26)
34 Montreal (24)
32 Atlanta (27)
- - - - - - - - -
31 Minnesota (26)
28 Miami (26) (GD -1)
28 Portland (25) (GD -5)
27 Carolina (26)
(The top 7 teams advance to the playoffs.)
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Americans In Europe

Jonathan Spector is a guest blogger on No Short Corners, and lists the "Top 5 Trickiest Attackers I've Ever Faced". Very cool.
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Preston Zimmerman is out that door at Hamburg and will now line up for Kapfenberg in Austria, who already have little known American Damon Wilson on the roster. This is a permanent move. (thanks to Greg for the clarification)
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CONCACAF Champions League News

Official CONCACAF website.
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The 8 winners move on to the group stage which begins on Sep 16.
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San Francisco, UNAM Pumas, Puerto Rico, Cruz Azul, Marathon, Joe Public, Tauro & Montreal advanced to the group stage. Those games start on Sep 16.
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2nd Leg Matches & Scores (1st leg scores included):
-Tue Sep 2
New England 0-4 Joe Public - JP destroys NER 6-1 on aggregate. - JP goals by Gregory Richardson(3) & Roen Nelson.
Chivas USA 1-1 Tauro (0-2) - Tauro advance 3-1 on aggregate. - CUSA goal by Roberto Nurse. Tau goal by Luis Moreno.
Real Esteli 0-0 Montreal (0-1) - MI adv 1-0 on agg.
-Wed Sep 3
Puerto Rico 2-1 Alajuelense - PRI adv 3-2 on agg.
Hankook Verdes 0-6 Cruz Azul - CA adv 12-0 on agg.
Marathon 2-1 Isidro Metapan - Mara adv 4-3 on agg.
-Thu Sep 4
San Francisco 5-0 Jalapa - SF adv 5-1 on agg.
UNAM Pumas 3-0 Harbour View - UNAM adv 3-0 on agg.
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Richard Snowden at Soccer365 weighs in on the MLS beatdown in the Champs League this week. He writes that while we all can talk about how embarrassing it is, what is really going to be done to fix the problem?
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South American News

Tim Vickery at Sports Illustrated checks in on the qualifying rivalry betweem Colombia & Uruguay - one of them always seems to knock the other out.
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CONMEBOL World Cup qualifiers
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 6
Argentina v Paraguay
Ecuador v Bolivia
Colombia v Uruguay
Peru v Venezuela
-Sun Sep 7
Chile v Brazil
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England News

Joey Barton of Newcastle has been suspended 6 games by the English FA for beating the daylights out of a teammate during training last year. He spent time jail earlier this year for an assault charge.
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Sport Magazine does a Q & A with the director of development for the English Football Assoc. They talk about the countries direction.
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Martin Samuel of The Times poses a very important question - What would happen if Chelsea owner Abramovich decided to take his cash, go home to Russia and invest in football there rather than in London?
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Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Mancini, Roberto Donadoni & Gerard Houllier are on the list of potential new coaches at West Ham.
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The Independent says Andorra players will most likely try to goad Wayne Rooney into doing something stupid.
-Rio Ferdinand will not play against Andorra due to some sort of neck ailment.
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UEFA World Cup Qualifying Schedule

Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 6
Albania v Sweden
Hungary v Denmark
Malta v Portugal
Poland v Slovenia
Wales v Azerbaijan
Macedonia FYR v Scotland
Slovakia v N Ireland
Moldova v Latvia
Norway v Iceland
Andorra v England
Ukraine v Belarus
Georgia v Ireland - in Mainz, Germany
Montenegro v Bulgaria
Luxembourg v Greece
Croatia v Kazakhstan
Serbia v Faroe Islands
Austria v France
Liechtenstein v Germany
Belgium v Estonia
Israel v Switzerland
Armenia v Turkey
Romania v Lithuania
Cyprus v Italy
Spain v Bosnia-Herzegovina
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African World Cup Qualifying

Africa World Cup qualifiers
Matches & Scores:
-Fri Sep 5
Djibouti v Malawi
Libya v Ghana
Algeria v Senegal
-Sat Sep 6
Zambia v Togo
Cape Verde Islands v Cameroon
Kenya v Namibia
Sierra Leone v Equatorial Guinea
Seychelles v Burundi
Gambia v Liberia
Mauritania v Rwanda
Burkina Faso v Tunisia
Sudan v Chad
Mauritius v Tanzania
-Sun Sep 7
Madagascar v Botswana
Zimbabwe v Guinea
Lesotho v Gabon
Mozambique v Cote d'Ivoire
Congo v Mali
Congo DR v Egypt
Benin v Angola
Ethiopia v Morocco
Niger v Uganda
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Asian News

Asia World Cup qualifiers
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 6
Bahrain v Japan
Saudi Arabia v Iran
United Arab Emirates v N Korea
Qatar v Uzbekistan
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The Road To World Cup 2010 - South Africa News

Oceania World Cup qualifiers
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 6
Fiji v Vanuatu
New Caledonia v New Zealand

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

PHP had a pretty bad attendance, but no one sits on the side you see on TV. Its so damn hot. Everyone sits on the shady (West) side.

8:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Um. Nobody goes to FC Dallas games (at least compared to when they were at the Cotton Bowl) because a) it's in BFE and b) they no longer have a one-side general admission ticket that I swear is the main reason attendance has dropped so much at games...that's what got me hooked on MLS in the first place....

12:11 AM  

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