Thursday, December 17, 2009

Some News for Thu Dec 17, 2009

AMERICANS IN EUROPE

Arch Bell of Yanks Abroad does a great interview with Jay Needham who passed up MLS to play for Alta in Norway's 2nd division. How bad does your MLS experience have to be to go play in a league like that? He has some pretty open comments about MLS etc.

dN

The Glasgow Herald with a story on the amazing turnaround in the season for DaMarcus Beasley.

dN

The Guardian describes the dyer financial state of Jay DeMerit's team Watford.

dN

Greg Seltzer at Soccer 365 talks to Ian Joy about where he goes next.

dN

Clint Dempsey helped lead Fulham to a road win over Basel in the Europa League, which got them enough points to finish 2nd in their group behind Roma, and they now advance to the knockout stages early next year. The draw for the next round will be held on Fri Dec 18. Stay tuned.

MLS

TSN reports that Toronto has not picked up the contract options for both Amado Guevara and Pablo Vitti. That frees up a tooooooooon of salary cap space.

dN

Even though the Charleston Battery are dropping down to USL-2 for next season they are still planning to host the pre-season Carolina Challenge Cup with 3 MLS teams. Those teams will be Real Salt Lake, DC United and Toronto FC.

dN

Soccer 365 interviews Seattle goalkeeper Kasey Keller about what his team needs for next season to put them at the top of the league.

dN

Mark Young at MLSnet tracks down all your fave MLS alum players to see what is up with them this week. What's going on with Dedi?

MLS RUMORS

Steve Davis at ESPN Soccernet checks out all twists and turns that Landon Donovan's loan deal to Everton could uncover.

dN

I have read several different stories about Landon Donovan's new contract, with the range in salaries being 1.8 Million to 2.25 Million per season.

dN

Is Amado Guevara headed once again back to Motagua in Honduras?

dN

Landon Donovan was getting set to go on loan to America in Mexico until Everton came along!

MLS COACHES MERRY-GO-ROUND

Peter Wilt at Pitch Invasion writes about how a pro team goes about hiring a new head coach.

dN

Sam Stejskal of Chicago Now says that Soccer America got bad info on the Chicago coaching search. It's NOT down to just Jesse Marsch and Tom Soehn as reported yesterday.

MLS STADIUM BUILDING

There will be no CFL games played at BMO field in Toronto. Hooray $12 beer!

dN

The company that put the roof on the new Red Bull Arena tell us all about it.

USL-1/NASL MESS

Brian Quarstad of Inside Minnesota Soccer takes the time to give us a team by team breakdown of everyone involved in the 2 leagues.

TEAM USA

Brad Paton of the US Soccer Review gives us his Top 5 Highs and Bottom 5 Lows for the USA in 2009.

AMERICANS IN EUROPE

Game Action: (only those that played are listed)

UEFA - Europa League
Clint Dempsey - Fulham - came on as a sub in the 70th minute and helped them win 2-3 at Basel, and advance to the knock out stages.

dN

Coming Up: (all possible players are listed)

UEFA - Europa League
Dominic Cervi - Celtic - Thu Dec 17 at Rapid Wien
Tim Howard - Everton - Thu Dec 17 v BATE
Matt Luzunaris - Rapid Wien - Thu Dec 17 v Celtic

AMERICANS IN EUROPE - RUMORS

Has Miami FC sold USA U20 team forward Tony Taylor to Estoril Praia in Portugal (2nd tier - Segunda Liga)?

MEXICO

Luis Bueno at Sports Illustrated looks at what Mexico is going to have to do to succeed at the World Cup.

CANADA

For the 2nd year in a row the Canadian Soccer Association has named Nana Attakora of Toronto FC as the Under-20 Player of the Year.

ENGLAND

The Wall Street Journal writes about the looming financial tug of war between American Stan Kroenke and Russian Alisher Usmanov for the ownership of Arsenal.

SPAIN

Phil Munshull of the BBC has a great article on the first player of African decent to suit up for Athletic Bilbao. What took them so long?

GERMANY

Germany has signed national team coach Jochim Loew to a new contract that runs through 2012.

ITALY

COPPA ITALIA - Round of 16
-Wed Dec 16
Inter 1-0 Livorno - Int goal by Wesley Sneijder.
-The other 7 matches in this round will not be played until Mid-January.

EUROPE

Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian gives us more of his amazing tactical analysis - The Nutmeg.

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

The draw for the first knock out stage will be done on Fri Dec 18.

UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE

Matchday 6 will be played on Wed Dec 16 & Thu Dec 17. This is the last round of the Group Stage.

dN

Standings

dN

6 teams - Hertha Berlin, Panathinaikos, Roma, Fulham, Club Brugge & Kobenhavn - joined 13 teams - Ajax, Sporting, Hamburg, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Salzburg, Benfica, Everton, Shakhtar, Werder Bremen, Athletic Bilbao & PSV - that have advanced to the knockout rounds already.

The other 5 spots will be filled Thursday.

And 8 teams from the Champions League - Juventus, Wolfsburg, Marseille, Atletico Madrid, Liverpool, Rubin Kazan, Unirea Urziceni & Standard Liege - will drop down to fill out the 32 team field.

dN

The draw is to be held on Fri Dec 18.

ARGENTINA

Gregory Sica of Sports Illustrated writes about Banfield winning the Argentine championship, the first time in their 113 years!!!
-Neither Boca Juniors or River Plate have qualified for the 2010 Copa Libertadores. Wow.

CLUB WORLD CUP

Barcelona meets Estudiantes in the Final on Saturday.

3 Comments:

Blogger vic10 said...

Vic from El Paso, Texas
Great articles Mr.Du Nord. The Jay Needham info was very good, and MLS must raised their minimium wage. Also the article from Peter Wilt at Pitch Invasion writes about how a pro team goes about hiring a new head coach and the Red Bull Arena Roof article, only if MLS teams had the balls and money to do that to their new or old stadiums.

8:22 PM  
Blogger vic10 said...

Hey Du Nord,
Here in El Paso,Tx is a big piece of land by our University UTEP, close to downtown. The city does not know what to do with it and has a lot of ideas, like an arena, University expansion, new rail road, new football stadium. Imagine some money maker group gets together with El Paso, Tx and makes a soccer stadium, something simple but nice like a Rio Tinto. The city back then wanted to make a soccer stadium next to the zoo, but never made it.Not a lot of people know El Paso, Tx, but it is a very hungry city, and the people looooooove soccer. The Mexican city across us, Juarez, CH have first division Indios and 85% of El Paso people own the season ticket membership for a team ACROSS OUR BORDER. El Paso, Tx is like an Austin or San Antonio, but we are far away from those cities and big Texas cities.Someone out there, has to find this perfect ready MLS city. Im not talking out of my ass, we can easily fill Pizza Hut Park.

8:42 PM  
Blogger Malcolm said...

I'm sad Landon didn't end up with America. That would have been huge deal in Mexico and here. It would have been a hell of a lot more fun to watch then him going to Everton.

I get why he would rather go to Everton. Still Landon on Club America screams awesomeness.

9:28 AM  

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