Some Soccer News for Mar 3, 2016

It's Day 63 of 2016.


Coming tomorrow: My 2016 MLS predictions!

dN

The wind just keeps blowing in Leicester City's direction round after round. In a game on Tuesday they tied 2-2 v West Brom leaving the door wide open for 2nd place Tottenham to steal the league lead, and chasers Arsenal and Man City to make up precious ground. So what do those three go and do a when they kicked off a day later? Tottenham lost to West Ham, Arsenal lost v Swansea, and Man City lost at Liverpool!!! End result: Leicester extends their lead to 3 points, 6 points and 10 points respectively! Amazing.

dN

I told you a few days ago that Minnesota United midfielder Ibson had suffered a non-contact knee injury in Portland and today the team told us the extent of it, "acute exacerbation of a chronic patellar." He will be out of action for a month but does not need surgery. Unfortunately that means he will not be in game-form when the season starts. But hey, it could be a lot worse for him.

dN

Last night I attended the St Paul City Council meeting where they approved the cities agreement with Minnesota United to build a new stadium. By Brian Quarstad of Northern Pitch.

• The final step for Minn United is the state legislature (which convenes Mar 8) for 3 things:

1. Property tax exemption for the site
2. Stadium building materials tax exemption
3. Liquor license for the stadium

• If you are a Minnesota resident you need to contact your state House and Senate representatives NOW, and stay on them. Find them here.

dN

CONCACAF Champions League - Quarterfinals 2nd Leg scores
-Tue Mar 1
DC United 1-1 Querataro - Que advances 3-1 on aggregate.
Santos Laguna 4-0 LA Galaxy - SL advances 4-0 on aggregate.
-Wed Mar 2
America 3-1 Seattle Sounders - Ame advances 5-3 on aggregate.
Real Salt Lake 1-1 Tigres UANL Tig advances 3-1 on aggregate.

• All hail Liga MX. Four teams in the semifinals.

• And the other 2 MLS teams were knocked out of the competition last night, making it 4 outta 4. Frustrating.

• All 4 MLS teams got tie games at home, which is OK at best, but no one came close to winning on the road. Painful.

Semifinal matchups:
Queretaro v Tigres UANL
Santos Laguna v Club America

dN

Interesting item: Audi has developed a system for MLS that judges individual player performance using 86 measuring points.

Measuring over 2K player actions and 86 components, a new form of soccer intelligence has arrived. #AudiPlayerIndexhttps://t.co/W4kCm3aJGW

— Audi (@Audi) March 2, 2016

• More information.

dN

MLS 2016 season predictions from the staff at Sports Illustrated and the staff at ESPNFC.

dN

The Portland Timbers have signed contract extensions with their most underrated player Diego Chara, and overrated player Darlington Nagbe.

dN

Perry Kitchen who left DC United this winter has signed with Hearts in Scotland.

dN

MLS Opening Day Schedule!
-Sun Mar 6
NYRB v T - 12:30pm CT on MLS Live
OC v RSL - 1:00pm CT on MLS Live
CF v NYC - 1:00pm CT on MLS Live
HD v NER - 2:00pm CT on MLS Live
SJE v CR - 2:00pm CT on MLS Live
D v PU - 2:00pm CT on MLS Live
PT v CC - 3:30pm CT on ESPN
VW v MI - 4:30pm CT on MLS Live
SS v SKC - 6:00pm CT on FS1
LAG v DCU - 9pm CT on UniMas

dN

The making of the new book "Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements" [VIDEO]

dN

A primer for this years SXSW Music Festival from NPR. They have a zip file of 100 songs by some of this years performers. Happy listening. Let me know if anything blows you away. Thanks to Janefact for the link.

dN

Could Bayern Munich be throwing away the Bundesliga title??? Somehow Borussia Dortmund has pulled within 5 points of the league lead today, with 10 games left in the season. Bayern lost 1-2 v Mainz, while Dortmund won 0-2 Darmstadt. Looks like we got us a race!

• And wouldn't you know it, right on schedule, Bayern goes to Dortmund this Saturday. Yes!

• But for some reason you won't be able to watch it live on any Fox TV channels. Its only on streaming. So much for the big commitment to the Bundesliga.

The Bird Is The Word