Under Suspicion Of Do-Gooding News

DVDB from NYRB to FCD. See Dallas and New York sections below.

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Pachuca star Christian Gimenez to Andrea Canales of Goal.com: "I like MLS a lot - I watch it a lot." See more details in the MLS General section.

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Tickets for the USA v Mexico game go on sale to the public Jan 28.


MLS Team News

CHICAGO FIRE

Ives Galarcep of Soccer by Ives reports that defender Lider Marmol has been released by the team and he is signing with a team back in Paraguay. I don't think the Fire treated this guy very fairly.
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Luis Arroyave at The Red Card asks, who is to blame for the failure of Marmol?
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Orrin Schwartz of the Daily Herald finds things to be quiet in Fire-land as the draft approaches.
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COLORADO RAPIDS

A reader sent me a link to an official Rapids blog. There are 2 posts. Both from Dec 5. Nice and fresh. Huh?
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COLUMBUS CREW

Shawn Mitchell on Covering The Crew reports that the team has hired former defender Ricardo Iribarren as a new assistant coach.
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FC DALLAS

3rd Degree reports that forward Dominic Oduro has been traded to New York for du Nord 2008 Best 11 left midfielder Dave Van Den Bergh. NY also gets a 2nd round draft pick, and the two teams will swap 1st round picks with NY now getting the higher slot.
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DC UNITED

The team has re-signed right fullback Bryan Namoff. He has been their more consistent defender for many years running now.
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

Last week on his radio show, The Houston Dynamo All Access Show, Glenn Davis played a pre-recorded statement from Dwayne DeRosario thanking the team and fans in Houston for his great time there, now that he has been traded to Toronto. Listen to or download here. And while DDR sounds very sincere, I was left wondering why he didn't mention anything about WHY he left the team. We have heard speculation that he simply wanted to go home to Toronto to play. Fair enough. But I would like to hear him say it. And obviously he does not have a new contract in place at TFC seeing as they still have not made any introduction of their prized catch, and the word money keeps coming up as the reason why.
-On a connected note - I think Houston is going to miss DDR a lot more than I initially thought. Over the past couple of weeks I have just recalled so many time when he carried that team all by himself to victory. He is not replaceable.
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Ives Galarcep of Soccer by Ives with the latest on the teams attempts to re-acquire forward Joseph Ngwenya. (scroll down to the middle of the page for story)
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LOS ANGELES GALAXY

The official team blog has an article written by defender Julian Valentin about the anticipation of being drafted, which he was last year.
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RED BULL NEW YORK

Ives Galarcep of Soccer by Ives with more on the trade sending du Nord 2008 Best 11 left midfielder Dave Van Den Bergh to Dallas in a trade for forward Dominic Oduro. See Dallas section above for details from 3rd Degree.
- NY also gets a 2nd round draft pick, and the two teams will swap 1st round picks with NY now getting the higher slot.
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Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer talks to Van Den Bergh about the trade. Lots of very good stuff here.
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Frank Giase of the Newark Star Ledger looks at what the Bulls need to achieve on draft day.
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REAL SALT LAKE

Michael C Lewis of the Tribune reports that RSL is still searching for strikers, and has big question marks next to the names of Fabian Espindola and Kenny Deuchar.
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SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES

Jeff Carlisle of Center Line Soccer reports that the Quakes have signed Antiguan forward Peter Byers from Montreal .
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Contrary to popular belief the San Jose Mercury News still does cover the Earthquakes! Kind of.
-Elliot Almond with various team notes as the draft approaches on Thursday.
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GENERAL

Paddy Agnew of the Irish Times refers to our league as "Graveyard of Forgotten Genius that is Major League Soccer (MLS) in America." Ah yes, Ireland, the bastion of amazing football. Piss off Paddy.
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Andrea Canales at Goal.com talks to Pachuca star midfielder Chaco Gimenez about playing in MLS. "Sure."
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MLS College Draft Talk

Don't forget to watch the first hour of the SuperDraft on Thurs Jan 15 at 1pm Central on ESPN2.
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Gerry Dobson of Sportsnet sees two views on the importance of the draft.
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The Rockford Register Star with an article on Generation Adidas signee Peri Marosevic, and his high school teammate who are both hoping to make a splash in MLS.
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MLS Rumor City - Don't Tease Me Bro!

Soccer by Ives says that a deal to send Mike Magee from NYRB to the Galaxy is all but done.
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USL First Division News

Steven Goff of Soccer Insider has a nice little rumor about USL-1 in Detroit, with a connection to the Columbus Crew. (in the middle of the column)
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Rumors continue to roll about Pachuca launching a club team here in America with a USl-1 team starting in 2010, and they appear to have chosen Orlando over Phoenix as their base. The team is said to be called Orlando Tuzos USA. Our friend Robert in Orlando sent us this link, which mentions the team at the bottom of the article. - in Spanish. Robert also told me that a big hurdle in "where would they play?" Not a lot of options in Orlando.
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-SF at the Offside Rules had mention of it today. But the article linked to says they will play in MLS. Ahhhh, Nope.
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US Soccer News

FIFA.com with an article on one of the players who will always be associate with Team USA at the 94 World Cup - Thomas Dooley.
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Team USA

Official team blog, live from the January training camp, as they prepare for the Friendly v Sweden on Sat Jan 24.
-Q & A with midfielder Brian Carroll.
-More video from training sessions.
-Video interview with Jack Jewsbury.
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USA U18 News

The team is headed to the Australian Youth Olympic Festival for a series of matches. Here is the schedule and roster.
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Matches & Scores:
-Thu Jan 15
USA v Chile
-Fri Jan 16
USA v China
-Sun Jan 18
USA v Australia
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Americans In Europe

Clint Dempsey was named Fulham Player of the Month for December. (thanks to Brian for the info)
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Greg Seltzer at Soccer 365 with the latest word on Marcus Hahnemann's recovery from a calf injury.
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Soccer 365 has some very positive quotes from a Rangers executive talking about Maurice Edu. They also report that he has an ankle injury.
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Soccer by Ives has a link to video of Landon Donovan's header off the cross bar and then his first Bayern goal - a nifty trap, turn and shoot combo.
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CONCACAF News

The 12 team Costa Rican Primera Division Torneo Verano kicks off this weekend, with Saprissa as 5-in-a-row champions.
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England News

An interesting midweek Premiership game pits Manchester United and their 8 consecutive shut outs hosting Wigan and their 6 wins out of 7 played.
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Man U left fullback Patrice Evra is out for up to a month due to an unspecified foot injury.
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Reuters reports that 11 people have been charged with "indecent chanting" directed at Portsmouth centerback Sol Campbell. Wow, that’s a new one.
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James Lawton of the Independent writes that Chelsea coach Big Phil Scolari is being heavily hampered by the strong arm of owner Roman Abramovich.
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Kevin McCarra of the Guardian thinks the end could be very near for Big Phil at Chelsea.
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All the English January transfers via The BBC.
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FA Cup
3rd Round replays of tie games are this week.
Matches & Scores:
-Tue Jan 13
Birmingham 0-2 Wolverhampton
Histon 1-2 Swansea City
Bristol City 0-2 Portsmouth
Leyton Orient 1-4 Sheffield United
Burnley 2-1 Queens Park Rangers
Norwich 0-1 Charlton
Peterborough United 0-2 West Brom
Crewe Alexandra 2-3 Millwall
Cheltenham Town 0-0 Doncaster Rovers
-Wed Jan 14
Newcastle v Hull City
Southend United v Chelsea
Crystal Palace v Leicester City
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European News

FRANCE

Ben Lyttleton of the Guardian on the growing prowess of Yoann Gourcuff at Bordeaux, and the rest of Ligue 1 action from last weekend.
-Check out this video of Gourcuff's multi-touch-spin-move and goal from their big win over PSG. Not to forget the nearly as amazing goal he pulled off the week before in beating Toulouse.
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Coupe del la Ligue
Quarterfinal Matches & Scores:
-Tue Jan 13
Vannes Olympique Club v Metz
Nice 1-0 Le Havre
-Wed Jan 14
Bordeaux v Berrichonne Chateauroux
PSG v Lens
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ITALY

Copa Italia
The last of the Round of 16 games are being played this week.
Matches & Scores:
-Tue Jan 13
Inter 3-1 Genoa
-Wed Jan 14
Juventus v Catania
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Udinese, Sampdoria, Napoli, Roma, Torino & Lazio have already advanced to the Quarterfinals.
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RUSSIA

Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian writes about former Brazilian great Zico who has just been hired as the coach at CSKA Moscow.
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SPAIN

Copa Del Rey
Round of 16 Second leg Matches & Scores (with First leg scores included):
-Wed Jan 14
Barcelona v Atletico Madrid (3-1)
Espanyol v Polideportivo Ejido (2-3)
Valencia v Racing Santander (1-1)
Real Valladolid v Sporting Gijon (1-3)
Real Betis v Real Union Club du Irun (1-0)
Deportivo La Coruna v Sevilla (1-2)
Almeria v Mallorca (1-3)
-Thu Jan 15
Athletic Bilbao v Osasuna (1-1)
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Middle Eastern News

James Montague of the Guardian with an article on an Israel club with all Arab players - Bnei Sakhnin - and how the league is dealing with this team and the war in Gaza.