Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Some News for Tue Dec 15, 2009

STARTERS

LA Galaxy and Landon Donovan to make "Major Player Announcement" on Wed Dec 16 at 2pm Central. From Nick Green at 100 Percent Soccer.

dN

It's official - USA v Honduras friendly on Sat Jan 23 at Home Depot Center in Carson CA - 8pm Central on Fox Soccer Channel.

dN

Many people are convinced that Akron head coach Caleb Porter will become the next DC United head coach. [AFTER-POST NOTE: Hahahahahahahaha, this shows just how little I actually know - Caleb Porter has a signed a 5 year contract extension with Akron]

MLS

Charlie Coor of ESPN Chicago has a Q & A with Fire tech director Frank Klopas.
-He talks about how the team is going about looking for a replacement for Cuauhtemoc Blanco. I didn't know Blanco was NOT coming back.

dN

Orrin Schwarz of Chicago's Daily Herald with a Klopas article too.

dN

Nick Green of the Daily Breeze on the new man in charge of Chivas USA on the field - Martin Vasquez. People seem pretty excited about this move.

dN

Glasgow Evening Times with an article on the money that MLS is offereing Houston midfielder Stuart Holden.

MLS STADIUM BUILDING

Check in on the Philadelphia Union stadium cam. It had been a while since I have looked, and the progress is very impressive.
-Then head to the latest photos to be really blown away.

How's this for a view? Awesome!













NCAA

Just to clear up any confusion as to how Akron ended the season with one loss even though they technically tied in the championship game - "Under NCAA rules, a shootout loss in the title game counts as a loss."

USA WORLD CUP 2010 SOUTH AFRICA

Steve Davis at Daily Soccer Fix gives us his list of 5 attacking players who need a big spring if they hope to make an impact with the USA at the World Cup.

dN

Greg Seltzer at Soccer 365 gives us an overview of the Bob Bradley era, and what we can expect to see next.

AMERICANS IN EUROPE

Marcus Hahnemann takes his 2 game winning and scoreless streak to Manchester United today.

dN

Coming Up: (all possible players are listed)

ENGLAND - Premiership
Marcus Hahnemann - Wolverhampton - Tue Dec 15 at Manchester United

ENGLAND - Johnstone's Paint Trophy Northern Section Semifinal:
Mike Grella - Leeds - Tue Dec 15 v Accrington Stanley.

ENGLAND - Johnstone's Paint Trophy Southern Section Semifinal:
Jemal Johnson - Milton Keynes - Tue Dec 15 at Hereford United

FRANCE - Ligue 1
Carlos Bocanegra - Stade Rennes - Wed Dec 16 at Monaco

SCOTLAND - Premiership
DaMarcus Beasley - Rangers - Tue Dec 15 at Dundee United

UEFA - Europa League
Bryan Arguez - Hertha Berlin - Wed Dec 16 v Sporting
Dominic Cervi - Celtic - Thu Dec 17 at Rapid Wien
Clint Dempsey - Fulham - Wed Dec 16 at Basel
Greg Garza - Sporting - Wed Dec 16 at Hertha Berlin
Tim Howard - Everton - Thu Dec 17 v BATE
Jared Jeffrey - Club Brugge - Wed Dec 16 v Toulouse
Eddie Johnson - Fulham - Wed Dec 16 at Basel
Matt Luzunaris - Rapid Wien - Thu Dec 17 v Celtic

ENGLAND

Paul Doyle of the Guardian calls English players hypocrites for complaining about players from other country's diving antics.

SPAIN

With Valencia figuring to lose striker David Villa to Barcelona (as a replacement for New York bound Thierry Henry), has signed Alejandro Dominguez from Rubin Kazan.

FRANCE

St. Etienne, who are having a miserable season, fired manager Alain Perrin today.

GERMANY

Raphael Honigstein of the Guardian on the latest in a long time of Jens Lehman meltdowns, and a look back at the weekend in the Bundesliga.

EUROPE

The former Celtic & Sweden star Henrik Larsson has been hired as the head coach of Landskrona in Sweden's Superettan (2nd tier).

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

13 teams - Ajax, Sporting, Hamburg, Hapoel Tel Aviv, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Salzburg, Benfica, Everton, Shakhtar, Werder Bremen, Athletic Bilbao & PSV - have advanced tot he knock out rounds already.

The other 11 spots will be filled this week.

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.

WORLD CUP 2010 - SOUTH AFRICA

James Lawton of the Independent tells us why South Africa is the perfect place for this World Cup.

CLUB WORLD CUP

The tournament is being played in Abu Dhabi, and begins on Wednesday.

-Wed Dec 9 - Match 1
Al Ahli FC 0-2 Auckland City FC - Auc goals by Adam Dickinson & Chad Coombes.
-Fri Dec 11 - Match 2
TP Mazembe 1-2 Pohang Steelers FC - TPM goal by Mbenza Bedi. PS goals both by Denilson (no, not that one).
Sat Dec 12 - Match 3
Auckland City FC 0-3 Atlante FC - Atl goals by Daniel Arreola, Christian Bermudez & Lucas Silva.
-Tue Dec 15 - Semifinal
Pohang Steelers FC 1-2 Estudiantes de La Plata - PS goal by Denilson. EDLP goals both by Leandro Benitez.
-Wed Dec 16 - Semifinal
Atlante FC v FC Barcelona
-Sat Dec 19 - Final
Estudiantes de La Plata v Semifinal 2 winner

ALL AROUND THE WORLD

When Saturday Comes hands out their 2009 Best Blog awards, and the fantastic Pitch Invasion is one of 4 Gold Medal winners. My only problem with this list is that its almost completely England-centric.

ENDERS

It's not soccer, but it might as well be - In qualifying for the 2010 Cricket World Twenty20, the USA has been drawn into a 4 team group with Afghanistan. Wow! Ireland and Scotland are the other 2.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just to clear up any confusion as to how Akron ended the season with one loss even though they technically tied in the championship game - "Under NCAA rules, a shootout loss in the title game counts as a loss."
----------

No, it's not a "loss."
The other team is certainly credited as "champion," but games decided on PKs are always recorded as draws.

That's just standard record-keeping in football.

You can't say that a second round playoff game that ends in PKs is a "draw," and then turn around and say that a championship game that ends in PKs is a LOSS.

That's too Orwellian, even for a bureacracy like the NCAA.

3:24 PM  
Blogger brucio said...

I don't make up the rules dude - I just report them. (sigh)

You can go ahead and say it wasn't a loss, but ask those Akron players if they think they tied. They feel that they lost. Then take a look at the official NCAA season ending stats - it says one loss.

4:25 PM  
Anonymous jtd said...

tour de france... nice!

4:17 AM  

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