Thursday, November 19, 2009

Some News for Thu Nov 19, 2009

FYI

I will be off Friday and Monday enjoying all that Seattle has to offer. So our good friend Graham Fox will be filling in. I have no doubt you will like it. His work here in the past has been fantastic. Have fun everyone, and don't miss MLS Cup.
- Bruce

STARTERS

If last Saturday's USA game at Slovakia was disappointing, then yesterday's game at Denmark was down right pathetic. They did not appear to make any adjustments or learn from Saturday's match. And then like so many times before then were asleep when they came out from half time and got rolled hard with 3 goals in 9 minutes. There is absolutely no excuse for this.

dN

The very last entrants grabbed their spots at the World Cup yesterday. The big upset was Slovenia knocking off Russia. Algeria also pulled off a big win and beat Egypt. Also claiming spots were Uruguay, France, Portugal and Greece. Huge congrats to all of them.
-France's forward Thierry Henry admitted he cheated in helping France beat Ireland: "I will be honest, it was a handball."

dN

Now that Russia is out of the World Cup, which country is going to pony up the big dough to hire their coach Guus Hiddink?? South Africa? Portugal? It's gonna cost you a lot of money.

MLS PLAYOFF NEWS

Los Angeles Galaxy

Landon Donovan is the guest on today's edition of Bill Simmons podcast from ESPN. Download or listen here.

dN

James Edward of the Deseret News scouts the Galaxy and shows us their weaknesses.

dN

Phil Collin of the LA Daily News sings the praises of Galaxy manager Bruce Arena.

dN

Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise writes about LA's long slow return to their old winning attitude.

dN

The Los Angeles Galaxy - official blog.

dN

The lame ass LA Times has still not written a single word about the Galaxy in the lead up to the final.

dN

Real Salt Lake

Michael C Lewis of the Salt Lake Tribune looks at the exciting chapters being written in RSL's so-far boring book.

dN

Lewis writes about the 2 coaches in the big game - Kreis v Arena.

dN

Lewis with today's team notes.

dN

Kurt Kragthorpe of the Tribune writes about Ned Grabavoy, whose name is attached to the biggest moment in team history.

dN

James Edward of the Deseret News with RSL team notes.

dN

The Deseret News talks to players from the Utah Jazz NBA team, and asks them about RSL.

dN

Luis Bueno at Sports Illustrated on RSL raising standards.

dN

Behind the Shield - the official blog of Real Salt Lake.

Other

Steve Davis of ESPN Soccernet says the 2 finalists are both deserving.

dN

The Seattle Times looks at the cities civic pride in hosting MLS Cup.

dN

The Seattle Times MLS Cup section.

dN

Grant Wahl, author of The Beckman Experiment will be doing a book reading/signing at the George & Dragon soccer pub in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood on Saturday at 12:45pm! Sounds cool to me!

MLS PLAYOFF SCHEDULE

Final
Match & Score:
-Sun Nov 22
Los Angeles Galaxy v Real Salt Lake - 7:30pm Central on ESPN
Venue: Qwest Field - Seattle WA
Referee: Kevin Stott

TEAM USA

Something was rotten in Denmark.

The most glaring thing we learned in these 2 games is that Landon Donovan runs this team. Without him they are as stale as gas station donuts.

dN

I will officially now call "crisis" on a particular problem for this USA team. At issue is the fact that time and time again the team has taken the field to start the game, or even more so to start the second half and given up a goal or goals almost instantly. This game it was 47th, 52nd and 55th minutes.
Let's check out other matches this year:
-Mar 28 at El Salvador - 15th minute
-Jun 3 at Costa Rica - 2nd & 13th minutes
-Jun 6 v Honduras - 5th minute
-Jun 15 v Italy - 58th minute
-Jun 18 v Brazil - 7th minute
-Jun 28 v Brazil - 46th minute
-Jul 11 v Haiti - 46th & 48th minutes
-Jul 26 v Mexico - 57th minute
-Oct 10 at Honduras - 47th minute
-Nov 18 at Denmark - 47th, 52nd and 55th minutes
This is a serious problem!

dN

Team's official blog, and official YouTube page.

dN

International Friendlies
Match & Score:
-Wed Nov 18
Denmark 3-1 USA - Den goals by . USA goal by Jeff Cunningham.
Match report from US Soccer.
Match report by Mike Woitalla of Soccer America.
Player ratings by Woitalla.
Player ratings by Jack Bell of the New York Times.
Post game analysis by Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated.
Match report and player ratings by Jeff Carlisle at ESPN Soccernet.

WORLD CUP QUALIFYING NEWS

Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune wraps up all of last nights big games.

dN

Mike Lopresti of USA Today on the need for world soccer to adopt some form of video replay to help referees.

CONMEBOL/CONCACAF WORLD CUP QUALIFYING PLAYOFF

Uruguay is headed to the World Cup.

2nd Leg - with 1st Leg scores included
-Wed Nov 18
Uruguay 1-1 Costa Rica - Uru advance 2-1 on aggregate - Uru goal by Sebastian Abreu - CR goal by Walter Centeno.

AFRICA WORLD CUP QUALIFYING

In a wild scene in Khartoum, Algeria earned the final African World Cup place. And thankfully the night ended in peace.

The New York Times describes the intensity of the day. (Includes an audio report too.)

dN

African 1 game playoff
-Wed Nov 18
Egypt 0-1 Algeria - Alg goal by Antar Yahia.

UEFA WORLD CUP QUALIFYING PLAYOFFS

France, Portugal, Greece & Slovenia have qualified for the World Cup.

dN

But Ireland is furious about a non-call where France's Thierry Henry appeared to use his hand to control the ball so he could pass to a teammate who scored the goal to put them through. Ater the game Henry said this: "I will be honest, it was a handball." Oops. See picture below:














-The Irish soccer federation has said they will file a formal complaint with FIFA over this. That is not going to happen.

dN

Matches & Scores:
2nd Leg - with 1st Leg scores included
-Wed Nov 18
France 1-1 Ireland - Fra advance 2-1 on aggregate - Fra goal by William Gallas. Ire goal by Robbie Keane.
Bosnia-Herzegovina 0-1 Portugal - Por advance 2-0 on aggregate - Por goal by Raul Meireles.
Ukraine 0-1 Greece - Gre advance 1-0 on aggregate - Gre goal by Dimitrios Salpingidis.
Slovenia 1-0 Russia - series tied 2-2, Slo advance on away goal tie breaker - Slo goal by Zlatko Dedic.

dN

Soccerway with an article on the Prime Minister of Slovenia who promised to clean his countries players shoes if they qualified for the World Cup. And sure enough, he did it. (thanks to Sugabakes for the tip off)

MLS

Preki was introduced as the new head coach of Toronto FC today. Did you know that he and TFC general manager Mo Johnston played together at Everton and Kansas City. They go way back.

The Canadian press weigh in on the hiring of the one named wonder:
-The Star
-Globe & Mail
-Sports Net
-CBC - John Molinaro
-CBC - Nigel Reed
-National Post

dN

The expansion draft for Philadelphia to begin filling their roster will take place next Wednesday. Happy Thanksgiving, you've been shipped out!

dN

Got this note from a long time New England supporters named Jason: "As a supporter from the beginning its tough to watch New England work its way to being one of the worst clubs in the league. The owners seem non-existent compared to other teams in the league. And now with the high profile expansions we seem to be going backward very fast. Its still hard to believe they play with Patriots Football lines on the field for some games. And the field itself has gotten very bad this last year, matted and flat, most games unfortunately are like watching ping pong. The ball just doesn't sit."
-He seems really exasperated by the organization.

dN

Michael C Lewis of the Salt Lake Tribune writes about the new co-owner of Salt Lake Real.

dN

Michael Black of the Deseret News also writes about the new part-owner.

dN

Nick Firchau of Chicago's Southtown Star says Fire forward Brian McBride wants to keep playing. Will Chicago want him back? They would be massive fools not to.

dN

The Seattle Post Intelligencer reviews the Sounders roster looking ahead to next season - Part 1 - and - Part 2.

dN

The Seattle Times looks at the positive impact the Sounders have had on the neighborhood around their stadium Qwest Field.

dN

Chicago Fire supporters of Section 8 posted a history with photos of some of their great choreography in the stadiums.

MLS POST SEASON AWARDS

Landon Donovan of the Los Angeles Galaxy has been named the MLS 2009 Most Valuable Player. Huge congrats to him!

dN

Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Pat Onstand won the Save of the Year award for this stop. (Ignore the meaningless saves on the clip before the real winner, which you will know when you see.)

dN

Los Angeles Galaxy forward Landon Donovan won the Goal of the Year award for this strike. (In the clip you hear the announcers say the shot took a deflection, but by the end of the replays you can see that it clearly did not.)

MLS STADIUM BUILDING

The Original Winger does a Q & A with Rossetti Architects who designed the new Red Bull Arena. This is Part 2 of 2.

NCAA MEN'S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP

The tournament begins on Thu Nov 19

Here is the official bracket for the full tournament.

USL FIRST DIVISION

Inside Minnesota Soccer with all the latest details, rumors, scenarios and border-line insanity.

dN

Long time Montreal Impact captain Mauro Biello has announced his retirement today.

MEXICO

Primera Division Liguilla
The Appretura playoff rounds are all 2 Legs.

Matches & Scores:
1st Leg
-Sat Nov 21
Monterrey (5) v America (4)
Puebla (7) v Cruz Azul (2)
-Sun Nov 22
San Luis (8) v Toluca (1)
Santos Laguna (6) v Morelia (3)
2nd Leg
-Sat Nov 28
America (4) v Monterrey (5)
Cruz Azul (2) v Puebla (7)
-Sun Nov 29
Toluca (1) v San Luis (8)
Morelia (3) v Santos Laguna (6)

BIG EUROPEAN CLUB MATCHES THIS WEEKEND

-Fri Nov 20
Marseille v Paris Saint-Germain - they simply hate each others guts. This is a make up game from last month.
-Sat Nov 21
Liverpool v Manchester City - are either one going to hang with the big boys? No, not the great Texas punk band!
Besiktas v Fenerbahce - the 2nd biggest derby in Turkey
-Sun Nov 22
Bayern Munich v Bayer Leverkusen - Leverkusen with a chance to go on the road, stick a sword through FC Hollywood, and stake claim to the league lead.

SOUTH AFRICA

FIFA.com talks to returned SA coach Carlos Alberto Parreira about the quality of his team.

WORLD CUP SOUTH AFRICA 2010

Here they are folks – your 32 team field for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa:
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Cameroon
Chile
Denmark
England
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Honduras
Italy
Ivory Coast
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
North Korea
Paraguay
Portugal
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Switzerland
Uruguay
USA

The draw to form the groups will he held on Dec 4.

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