Creeping Up In Back News

Memo from Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson dated Oct. 7, 2008: “Today, on behalf of the greatest soccer fans in America, we submitted our formal application to bring Major League Soccer to Portland. We expect to get a response to our application no later than March of next year. In the meantime, we will continue to work with MLS, city officials and the community to turn this exciting idea into reality for Portland and Oregon.” (thanks to Jerry for sending us this)

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Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan & Tim Howard have been named as the finalists for the 2008 Honda Player Of The Year award. The winner will be announced on Nov 11 in LA, and is presented by Futbol de Primera. Tim Howard will win.


CONCACAF Champions League News

Official CCL website
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Matchday 4 Matches & Scores:
-Tue Oct 7
Cruz Azul v Marathon
Houston Dynamo v San Francisco - 9pm central on FSC
Match preview by Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle.
-Wed Oct 8
Joe Public v Impact de Montreal - 7pm central on FSC
Olimpia v Atlante
Municipal v Tauro
Santos Laguna v Puerto Rico Islanders - 10pm central on FSC
-Thu Oct 9
Luis Angel Firpo v UNAM Pumas
Saprissa v DC United - 9pm central on FSC
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MLS News

CHICAGO FIRE

Luis Arroyave of the Tribune does a Q & A with forward Brian McBride.
-Arroyave has a couple more words about McBride on this blog The Red Card.
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CD CHIVAS USA

Greg Seltzer at Soccer365 talks to Sacha Kljestan about yesterday, today and tomorrow.
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COLUMBUS CREW

Weekly paper Columbus Alive with a video report on Crew-nation.
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Shawn Mitchell of the Dispatch directs us to 2 nice links at his own paper:
-A blog post the other day from Dispatch writer Michael Arace. Great stuff on a big night for the Crew, and becoming a soccer fan (he is a former hater)!
-Photo's from the teams win over LA on Saturday night. (although they are mainly of Beekman.)
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The Telegraph in England runs with the Frankie Hejduk pre-game party story. Ah, if only every one was creative with their suspensions. At least they could try to get the fact right though. Naaaaah.
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DC UNITED

Steven Goff of the Washington Post on his blog Soccer Insider reports that midfielder Fred will be out for the rest of the regular season with a hamstring injury.
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The Washington Examiner blog The Pitch gets the thoughts of DCU owner Victor MacFarlane after last weekends brutal loss.
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The Pitch also has quotes from players on the loss of Marcelo Gallardo for however long the season might still last.
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Pat Walsh of Goal.com passes around the blame for DCU's disintegrating season.
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

The team play their next 5 games (in all competitions) at HOME!
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Bernardo Fallas of the Chronicle on his blog Soccer y Futbol has a few other new Dynamo notes to report.
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LOS ANGELES GALAXY

Grant Wahl at Sports Illustrated writes about the still-popular Beckman show and the horrible-performance Galaxy show. It's a mess, and weird one at that.
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NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION

I did not realize this yesterday, but the Revs clinched their spot in the post season. Congrats!
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Metrofanatic says if things don't turn around NOW, then this years Red Bulls are going to be a step backward from last year. Not what anyone hoped for.
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger on the teams bumbling ways.
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The Jersey Journal with the latest on the building of Red Bull Arena.
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Jack Bell of the New York Times on the Red Bulls horrible stretch run. And other soccer news and notes.
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REAL SALT LAKE

Michael C Lewis of the Tribune talks to the players about feeling butterflies on opening night at the new digs.
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GENERAL

Houston forward Brian Ching has been named Player Of The Week. Presumable because no one else stepped up to claim it.
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Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America looks at the race for the playoffs as we get down to 3 final weeks of action. Via Sports Illustrated.
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Sport Business Journal reports that DC, New England & Colorado are all moving forward with plans to breakaway from MLS's online formats and create their own. (thanks to Joe for this one)
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Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise writes that after 3/4ths of a season of domination by teams in the Eastern Conference, it's the Western Conference teams who are coming on strong in the end.
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MLS Rookie Of The Year

Here is my ranking:
1 Sean Franklin - Los Angeles Galaxy
2 Roger Espinoza - Kansas City Wizards
3 Geoff Cameron - Houston Dynamo
4 Kheli Dube - New England Revolution
5 Julius James - Toronto FC
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MLS Youth Development

Ives Galarcep at ESPN Soccernet feels that rules need to be changed in order for MLS teams to fully utilize their won youth systems.
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MLS Rumor City - Don't Tease Me Bro!

Soccer 365 with 2 new rumors - Recreativo Huelva midfielder Gerard in talks with MLS, and Bayern Munich midfielder Ze Roberto to join Dallas in January.
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MLS Expansion News

The Vancouver Province says their cities mayor is making a stop in NYC to meet with MLS branch and pimp for an expansion team!
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The West Orange Times of the Orlando FL area has a surprise article on a local guy who wants MLS in that city. The team is called FC Orlando, and he is either serious, or insane. (thanks to our friend Robert in Orlando for the heads up)
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The Seattle Times looks at the chances of current Sounders coach Brian "Stray Cat Strut" Schmetzer keeping his job as the team moves up to MLS next season.
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The Seattle Times also writes about the MLS experience in Colorado and hopes it can be duplicated in their city. Are you kidding me?!?! I hope so! I mean, outside of a great stadium, a couple of cool media people and a few top notch fans, you can forget about the rest. Will someone out there please take this writer to a real game?
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USL First Division News

Anne Ramzy of ESPN Soccernet looks at how the semifinals came out.
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USL First Division Playoff Schedule

Final
-Sun Oct 12
Vancouver Whitecaps v Puerto Rico Islanders - live at 6pm central on FSC.
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So how in the world did the #2 seeded team get to the host the 1 leg final over the top seeded team anyway? James was kind enough to fill us in on what he has heard:
"...each of the teams in the final submit a bid. The USL has a minimum bid and if each team submits the minimum bid, then the higher seeded team will host the final. So, perhaps Puerto Rico failed to submit the minimum bid, but Vancouver did? I have also heard rumors that the USL said that PR’s stadium didn’t meet USL requirements to host a final. That sounds weird as they are hosting CCL matches and USL regular season and playoff matches………".
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Team USA

The team is training all week long in the Washington DC area.
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Steven Goff of the Washington Post on the teams preparations.
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Goff on his blog Soccer Insider has a short Q & A with midfielder Michael Bradley.
-Goff also has lots more great notes from today’s practice on his blog.
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The official team blog is back in full action.
-A short Q & A with defender Jay DeMerit.
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Soccer In America

Glenn Davis of the Houston Chronicle looks at the on-field success of youth soccer in North Texas and sees the way forward for all clubs in America.
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Andrew Rogers [CORRECTED] at Soccer 365 talks to former college and short time MLS reserve team player Chris Megaloudis who is now in player management.
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A reporter from the NY Daily News gets in on the pro-am soccer game last Thursday in New York raising money for Grassroot Soccer.
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Goal.com introduces us to a player on surprise Bundesliga team Hoffenheim who played high school and college soccer in St Louis - Vedad Ibisevic.
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Americans In Europe

Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports reports that contrary to recent rumors Nevin Subotic is nearly set to play of Germany. Many have thought for a while that he will not play for the USA, but his native Bosnia was his most likely choice, or Serbia, home to his parents. That is really depressing reading.
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Michael Bradley, talking to Steven Goff of the Washington Post, tells us that it was his team Monchengladbach's new interim head coach Christian Ziege who was responsible for bringing Bradley to Germany. So the coaching change is a positive. See article above in the Team USA section.
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MOST RECENT MATCHES

Swedish Allsvenskan
-Charlie Davies - Hammarby - went the distance by lost 2-0 at Goteborg.
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England News

Sport Magazine does a Q & A with Chelsea & England midfielder Joe Cole.
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The Times with an article on Fulham & Australia goalkeeper Mark Schwartzer, who they call "eccentric". Which in terms of athletes usually just means they are fairly smart and think for themselves (hardly the definition of eccentric). On a brighter note, I think it's clear that Schwartzer is one of the good guys.
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One thing about the Times newspaper that cracks me up - in their Football section they have sub sections for both European and International Football. But what these two subsections really are is just a place for articles on English teams/clubs playing in UEFA and FIFA competitions, there is only the occasional story about other countries or non-English clubs.
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The Independent writes that the idea of Premiership teams playing an extra game every season on foreign soil is certainly not dead. I have always felt that this is definitely going to happen, it's just a matter of when?
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The Independent also reports on the English FA's concerns of the huge amounts of financial debt that many of their top clubs are carrying in this time of "no credit". It is nearly $6 Billion US. That is scary.
-Reuters says West Ham could be in the most immediate trouble.
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Kevin McCarra of the Guardian calls the pairing of midfielders Steven Gerrard & Frank Lampard for England the muddle in the middle.
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European News

FRANCE

This has to be one of the stupidest reporting jobs ever done: Supposedly the players from Olympique Marseille had to pay for the jet fuel to get their chartered flight home from a Champions League game in Madrid last week because their "pilot's credit card had been rejected". Oh please! First of all, pilots don't carry around credit cards to pay for jet fuel! Their company sorts that stuff all out. And second, the players would never have to open their own wallets to pay for travel. Their team would take care of that. Now I can see a scenario where the charter company was behind in paying bills and the fuel company simply said "No". Then the team would pay for the fuel to get the team home. But players paying because of a pilots credit card being rejected. Yeah, right. I only link to this to point out to whoever the editor at Fan Nation is that they ran with a totally idiotic story. Try harder next time. Please.
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Ben Lyttleton of the Guardian looks at Rennes stunning walloping of Lyon, and the great start to the season for Toulouse, of all teams.
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GERMANY

Uli Hesse Lichtenberger of ESPN Soccernet gives us the history of shirt sponsorship in the Bundesliga.
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Raphael Honigstein of the Guardian wonders how long Klinsi will have to get things rolling at Bayern. My friend Saeed thinks he has all season. I don't.
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ITALY

Reuters is reporting that Serie A teams may pull the same maneuver that English First Division team pulled in the early 90's and form a Premiership style division, separate from the rest of the Italian leagues.
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Football Italia reports that Inter forward Adriano's house was burglarized during the teams home game against Bologna last weekend. I guess a little Liverpool has come to Milan.
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RUSSIA

Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian tells us all about coach Michael Laudrup and his Spartak Moscow team.
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OTHERS

My friend and world traveler Andrew sent me a link to this YouTube footage of the supporters of Greek club Iraklis. The team turns 100 this year. Unfortunately they are in 15th place right now with only 2 points from 5 games in the Greek Super League (the top division). Looks like a lot of fun!
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UEFA Cup

The Group Stage draw took place today and matches begin Thu Oct 23. Here are the 8 groups of 5:
A
Schalke
PSG
Man City
Racing Santander
Twente
B
Benfica
Olympiakos
Galatasaray
Hertha
Metalist Kharkiv
C
Sevilla
Stuttgart
Sampdoria
Partizan
Standard
D
Tottenham
Spartak Moskva
Udinese
Dinamo Zagreb
Nijmegen
E
Milan
Heerenveen
Braga
Portsmouth
Wolfsburg
F
Hamburg
Ajax
Slavia Praha
Aston Villa
Zilina
G
Valencia
Club Brugge
Rosenborg
Kobenhavn
St Etienne
H
CSKA Moskva
Deportivo la Coruna
Feyenoord
Nancy
Lech Poznan
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World News

The Guardian marvels at those players who are true magicians on the ball.
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Jack Warner/Sepp Blatter/FIFA Idiocy & Scandal News

Martin Samuel of the Times writes about Sepp Blatter, who is attacking the rise of "foreign ownership" in club football. Samuel feels the problem is not "foreign", it's "just plain old bad" ownership that is a problem.
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Ben Knight of the Toronto Globe & Mail writes about the same subject and hilariously calls it "More blather from Blatter." You got that right. Does Blatter ever say anything that makes sense? Anything at all? Ever?
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune writes about Blatter pontificating on various subjects at a European Union conference.
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This Is The End

Some du Nord readers are on a new mission: Seeing as you have to be 35 to be president of the United States, and Brian McBride is 36, then its time to start a write in campaign. McBride '08! You need to join the fight now! Who would be his running mate? (thanks to fuhs for the great idea)