Thursday, September 02, 2010

Some News for Thu Sep 2, 2010

STARTERS

Philadelphia brought in 15 year old defender Zach Pfeffer for the final 10 minutes of their friendly with Chivas of Guadalajara last night. He is on their acadamy team. Wow.

dN

Chicago says they have a major player announcement for Friday at high noon. Are they signing someone, or is someone retiring, or...? I think it could be the latter.

Superliga 2010

Morelia are the 2010 SuperLiga champions! Congrats to them.

Final Match & Score:
-Wed Sep 1
New England Revolution 1-2 Monarcas Morelia - NER goal by Kevin Alston. MM goals both by Miguel Sabah(1 via PK).
Venue: Gillette Stadium - Foxborough MA
Attendance: 10,414

dN

Frank Dell'Apa of the Boston Globe with a match report.
-This was the first loss New England has ever suffered at the hands of a Mexican team.

dN

John Connolly of the Boston Herald also reports on the match.

LAMAR HUNT US OPEN CUP

Stay on top of the Open Cup.

dN

Seattle and Columbus will battle it out for the 2010 Open Cup championship.

dN

Semifinal Matches & Scores:
-Wed Sep 1
Seattle Sounders FC 3-1 Chivas USA - SS goals by Nate Jaqua(2) & Fredy Montero. CU goal by Jesus Padilla.
Venue: Starfire Sports Complex - Tukwila WA
Attendance: 4,547
DC United 1-2 Columbus Crew - DCU goal by Pablo Hernandez(PK). CC goals by Marc Burch(OG) & Guillermo Barros Schelotto(PK).
Ejection: Pablo Hernandez - Red Card - DC
Venue: RFK Stadium - Washington DC
Attendance: 3,411

dN

Don Ruiz of the Tacoma News Tribune with a match report from Seattle.

dN

Joshua Mayers of the Seattle Times with a Sounders-Chivas report as well.

dN

Steven Goff of the Washington Post with a match report.
-More notes from Goff.

dN

Craig Stouffer of the Examiner reviews DC-Columbus.

dN

Travis Clark of the Columbus Dispatch with a match report.

dN

Final
-Tue Oct 5
Seattle Sounders FC v Columbus Crew - 10pm Central on FSC
Venue: Qwest Field - Seattle WA

MLS EXHIBITIONS

Philadelphia used another Jack McInerney goal to win another game.

Match & Score:
-Wed Sep 1
Philadelphia Union 1-0 Guadalajara (Mexico) - PU goal by Jack McInerney.
Venue: PPL Park - Chester PA
Attendance: unknown

dN

Kerith Gabriel of the Philadelphia Daily News with a match report.

dN

Jonathan Tannenwald of Philly.com with post game notes.

CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Round Three of the Group Stage will be played Sep 14-16.

STORY OF THE DAY

The Associated Press has an article saying the guy who shot Club America striker Salvador Cabanas in the head last year was protected by a major drug lord.
-To me the more surprising revelation is that Cabanas and the shooter were friends.

HMMMMM, VERY INTERESTING

Davidde Corran of Roar in Australia has just visited our shores, and is not optimistic about the game in the USA. He even talks to Danny Allsopp of DC United and claims Allsopp told him that play in MLS is not as good as that in the A-League. Well well. (second half of the article)
-Its always good to read an unbiased opinion, even if you disagree with some of it.

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Several of Europe's most notable club managers met this week to discuss the state of the modern game.

How many of them can you name in the picture below without looking them up. I got 9. See the answers below in Enders. (HINT: 3 people in this picture are not coaches, they are UEFA staff.)











MLS WEEK 23

Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 4
Philadelphia Union v Kansas City Wizards - 2:30pm Central on Direct Kick
Venue: PPL Park - Chester PA
Chicago Fire SC v Los Angeles Galaxy - 3:00pm Central on Telefutura
Venue: Toyota Park - Bridgeview IL
New England Revolution v Seattle Sounders FC - 6:30pm Central on Direct Kick
Venue: Gillette Stadium - Foxborough MA
DC United v Columbus Crew - 6:30pm Central on FSC
Venue: RFK Stadium - Washington DC
FC Dallas v Toronto FC - 7:30pm Central on Direct Kick
Venue: Pizza Hut Park - Frisco TX
Colorado Rapids v CD Chivas USA - 8:00pm Central on Direct Kick
Venue: Dick's Sporting Goods Park - Commerce City CO
Real Salt Lake v New York Red Bulls - 8:00pm Central on Direct Kick
Venue: Rio Tinto Stadium - Sandy UT
-Sun Sep 5
Houston Dynamo v San Jose Earthquakes - 7:30pm Central on Direct Kick
Venue: Robertson Stadium - Houston TX

MLS TEAM & PLAYER NEWS

Daniel Girard of the Toronto Star with an article on TFC centerback Ty Harden who the team feels can be a big help to their backline.

dN

Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer shows his love for retiring MetroBull Mike Petke.

MLS INTERNATIONALS

The Banjul Daily Observer on 3 MLS players headed home to Gambia for national team matches.

MLS/SUM BUSINESS

CBS's business network tries to read into the MLS-Adidas $200 Million dollar partnership.

MLS YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Tobias Lopez of Sports Illustrated looks at the early fruits of each team's league mandated youth academies.

dN

PennLive writes about the Union's development deal with USL-2 Harrisburg. How has the first season gone?

MLS EXPANSION

Alaska Airlines will sponsor the Portland Timbers next season and adorn the front of their shirts.

dN

TSN reports on Montreal's early prep for life in MLS in 2012.

MLS STADIUMS

MLS Insider gives us a tremendous video of the building of Vancouver's new home field. Wow!

USSF DIVISION 2

J Mike Blake of the Raleigh News & Observer with a look at how a new second division could be organized for next season. (Thanks to Mark for the correction on the newspaper name.)

dN

Matches & Scores:
-Thu Sep 2
Portland Timbers v Puerto Rico Islanders
-Fri Sep 3
Carolina RailHawks v Crystal Palace Baltimore
-Sat Sep 4
Austin Aztex v NSC Minnesota Stars
-Sun Sep 5
Vancouver Whitecaps FC v Puerto Rico Islanders
AC St Louis v Miami FC Blues

dN

Standings (As of Sun Aug 29):
48 Rochester - 26 played
46 Austin - 23 played
40 Vancouver - 25 played
38 Portland - 25 played
34 Carolina - 24 played
32 Puerto Rico - 23 played
31 Montreal - 25 played
28 Minnesota - 25 played
28 Tampa Bay - 25 played
24 Baltimore - 25 played
23 St Louis - 24 played
20 Miami - 24 played

dN

Pro-Rated Standings based on Points Per Game:
2.00 Austin
1.85 Rochester
1.60 Vancouver
1.52 Portland
1.42 Carolina
1.39 Puerto Rico
1.24 Montreal
1.12 Tampa Bay
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
OUT OF PLAY OFF SPOTS
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1.12 Minnesota
0.96 Baltimore
0.96 St Louis
0.83 Miami

TEAM USA

Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated tells us what he thinks Bob Bradley needs to do to improve in his second term.

USA U20 TEAM

Geoffrey Arnold of the Oregonian on striker Omar Salgado who has been training with the Portland Timbers, and is now headed for a tournament in Peru with U20's.

CONCACAF

International Friendlies
Matches & Scores:
-Sat Sep 4
El Salvador v Honduras
Canada v Peru
Mexico v Ecuador
-Sun Sep 5
Jamaica v Costa Rica
-Tue Sep 7
Mexico v Colombia
Canada v Honduras
-Wed Sep 8
Belize v Trinidad & Tobago

UEFA

UEFA - Euro 2012 Qualifying

The schedule has mainly been shifted forward 1 day now with matches being played on Fri and Tue, instead of Sat and Wed.

dN

Matches & Scores:
-Thu Sep 2
Israel v Malta
-Fri Sep 3
Kazakhstan v Turkey
Belgium v Germany
Armenia v Ireland
Andorra v Russia
Slovakia v Macedonia
Faroe Islands v Serbia
Estonia v Italy
Slovenia v Northern Ireland
Romania v Albania
Luxembourg v Bosnia-Herzegovina
France v Belarus
Moldova v Finland
Sweden v Hungary
San Marino v Netherlands
Greece v Georgia
Latvia v Croatia
Montenegro v Wales
England v Bulgaria
Iceland v Norway
Portugal v Cyprus
Lithuania v Scotland
Liechtenstein v Spain

-Tue Sep 7
Kazakhstan v Austria
Turkey v Belgium
Germany v Azerbaijan
Russia v Slovakia
Macedonia v Armenia
Ireland v Andorra
Serbia v Slovenia
Italy v Faroe Islands
Belarus v Romania
Albania v Luxembourg
Bosnia-Herzegovina v France
Sweden v San Marino
Netherlands v Finland
Hungary v Moldova
Georgia v Israel
Malta v Latvia
Croatia v Greece
Bulgaria v Montenegro
Switzerland v England
Denmark v Iceland
Norway v Portugal
Czechia v Lithuania
Scotland v Liechtenstein

Here are the group standings.

dN

Next rounds of games will be played Oct 8/9 and 12.

AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS

Africa Cup Of Nations 2012 Qualifying:
16 teams will qualify
2 - Co-Hosts Gabon & Equatorial Guinea
11 - Winners of each group
1 - Plus runner-up of Group K
2 - Plus 2 best runner-ups from other groups

dN

Matches & Scores:
-Fri Sep 3
Algeria v Tanzania
-Sat Sep 4
Cape Verde v Mali
Zambia v Comoros
Mauritius v Cameroon
Morocco v Central African Republic
South Africa v Niger
Cote d'Ivoire v Rwanda
Sudan v Congo
Uganda v Angola
Guinea-Bissau v Kenya
Botswana v Togo
Tunisia v Malawi
-Sun Sep 5
Liberia v Zimbabwe
Mozambique v Libya
Gambia v Namibia
Swaziland v Ghana
Nigeria v Madagascar
Ethiopia v Guinea
Congo DR v Senegal
Egypt v Sierra Leone
Benin v Burundi

dN

Groups & standings can be found here.

ENDERS

Answers to "who is in the photo" from the Picture Of The Day section above:
Back: Giorgio Marchetti (UEFA Competition Director), Thorsten Fink (FC Basel 1893), Martin Jol (AFC Ajax), Thomas Schaaf (SV Werder Bremen), Nikos Nioplias (Panathinaikos FC), Andy Roxburgh (UEFA Technical Director)
Middle: Felix Magath (FC Schalke 04), Jorge Jesus (SL Benfica), Roy Hodgson (Liverpool FC), Claude Puel (Olympique Lyonnais), Claudio Ranieri (AS Roma), Jesualdo Ferreira (Malaga CF)
Front: Jean Fernandez (AJ Auxerre), Josep Guardiola (FC Barcelona), Didier Deschamps (Olympique de Marseille), Jose Mourinho (Real Madrid CF), Gianni Infantino (UEFA General Secretary), Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United FC), Carlo Ancelotti (Chelsea FC)

6 Comments:

Blogger Colin said...

If the A-League is superior to MLS, then why has A-League player of the year Fred had so little impact?

8:22 AM  
Blogger Demko said...

Who is this Steve Goff you mention?

9:59 AM  
Anonymous Kenobi said...

What Allsopp meant to say was that DC's play in MLS is not as good as that in the A-League. Or any team in Australia above the U-9 level.

3:35 PM  
Blogger CACuzcatlan said...

"While the women’s clubs are bleeding huge amounts of money, things are even worse in the now well-established MLS where annual club loses are in the millions of dollars."

Hahahaha, this guy has no clue if he thinks MLS is in worse shape than WPS

5:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lived in Oz for two years so I got a good look at the A-league and while I think the MLS play is rather mediocre, the level of play of the A as a whole is weaker.
Compare the stars of the MLS and A (their two big stars who are now in MLS are mediocre at best), compare the health of the two leagues and compare attendance and then compare actual play OVERALL.
If we judged the MLS based on DC, then yeah, I can see how this conclusion would be made.

Melbourne Victory is the only team that would rate in upper half of MLS franchises in terms of fan support and off field financial strength.
There are about 4 good teams in the A that could do well in the MLS but the technical level is rather... british!

The MLS has a viable financial plan..im not always a fan of it but I can see the benefits of stability before the training wheels get taken off. The A league seems basically broke with owner proble
Im a big fan of MLS as they are doing things in a smart financially viable way. Unlike the a-league which is effectively broke. Owner problems, Newcastle players not getting paid and a league that has a team like Gold Coast installed a crowd cap where they limit the crowd to 5,000 (even though they need 8000 to break even) because they have to pay fees for extra security and the use of the train station as soon as the crowd reaches 5,001.
I really could go on for quite some time.
The games there are shown on FoxSports which has something like a 30% penetration rate in teh country,

Attendance is going down, not up.

And while I was there I met a lot of people who were soccer fans from long ago but have no interest in supporting the new A-League clubs when the clubs they supported a few years ago were excluded from the new look national league. Its hard to tell someone that your long allegiance to you team can simply be switched over to the new league.


Im a USL ticket holder from quite a while back (as well as its predecessor, the american A-League, going back to the early 90s) and the oz A league is run in a similar fashion: bush league and unstable.

When I think of the Oz A-League, I think of the US A-Leagues Raging Rhinos. Roughly the same thing.

3:07 AM  
Anonymous Dan said...

There's interesting, then there's laugh out loud wrong. It's hard for me not to disqualify the entire article based on saying MLS is in worse shape than WPS. That's not opinion, that's just "deserts are wetter than oceans" wrong.

Allsopp might be right about the A-League - I should probably watch FSC games so I can form my own opinion - but value judgments on how much ass the league which employs you blows or does not blow are better made from the top of the table than the bottom, n'est-ce pas?

11:50 AM  

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