Personal Highlight Of USA v England Match

I was in Chicago this past weekend to see USA v England. It was a great deal of fun. Our Minnesota contingent was big, loud, fun, and popular. What a winning combo. The true highlight for me was when we got our entire section, located directly behind England keeper Calamity James, chanting in unison while the BBC filmed us:
"We Have Dentists!"
boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
boom boom boom-boom-boom

The Greats: Kuper & Ball

Simon Kuper on master architects Herzog & de Meuron
Crowd Pleasers
Phil Ball on the end of another Spanish futebol season
At The End Of The Day

After A Long Weekend In Chicago I Am Back With News

-The LA Times is reporting today that Thomas Rongen is being replaced by fellow Dutchman Hans Westerhoff as coach for Chivas USA. Assistant coach Zully Ledesma will helm the team until Westerhoff gets his work permits etc. Rongen will stay at the club as the "sporting director". Which just means that the club did not want to pay him his 3 guaranteed years without getting some work out of him.
-Chris Albright & Joseph Ngwenya will both be out of action for the Galaxy due to bad injuries. Albright's is a knee, and Ngwenya a hernia.
-PSV smashed Willem II 4-0 on Sunday to win the Dutch Cup. I bet DaMarcas Beasley drank a nice toast to his teammates after that one. Wilfred Bouma, Phillip Cocu, Park Ji Sung, & Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink scored.
-The man who lead Liverpool to NOTHING has been named the new coach of Frances best team, Lyon. Gerrard Houllier takes over from Jean La Page who left the team after they won their fourth staright Ligue 1 title in a row. No one still knows why La Page left. Zathras points out that my dismissle of Houllier was born out of some ignorance (go figure): "Actually, Houllier led Liverpool to a triple-trophy season, League, FA and UEFA cups."
-Diego Forlan kicked dirt directly into the face of many who dogged him, including those bores on Fox Sports Report (especially that blowhard Bobby MacMahon) by finishing La Liga as the top scorer with 26 on the season. Guys like MacMahon mocked Forlan the entire time he was playing for Man U, constantly laughing at how overrated he was. Well I guess the laughs on you fools now. Maybe it was the wrong place for Forlan to play. Or the wrong time, etc. It matters little now.
-Valencia signed Edu from Arsenal.
-DaMarcus Beasley practiced with the USA on Monday as they get ready for Costa Rica and Panaman on Saturday and next Wednesday in World Cup Qualifiers. Eddie Lewis, Eddie Grown Ass Man Johnson, John O'Brien, Pat Noonan, Cobi Jones, Oguchi Onyewu, and Frankie Hejduk were all officially added to the team as well.
-Club America pulverized Tecos 6-3 Sunday to win the MFL Clausura title. There were 105,000 in the stands cheering on the home team.
-Young Americans Frankie Simek and Danny Karbassiyoon were officialy released by Arsenal.
-Eliseo Quintanilla has asked to be released from his contract with DC United so he can find a team that will get him some playing time.
-In other DC news, they signed defender John Wilson from Rochester of the First Division.
-West Ham beat Preston 1-0 to become the third and final team promoted to the English Premier League for next season. I was pulling for Preston. Oh well.
-Celtic won the Scottish Cup. I saw a TV interview with their new coach Gordon Strachan last night. At the end of the interview, Strachan asked the interviewer, "Have you been drinkin'?" The reporter very adamently said "No!" So Strachan pointed at the camera operator and concluded, "Aye, must be this one then. I can smell the booze on the lad."
-Ronaldo kept asking Brazil to give him a rest by leaving him off the roster for the upcoming Confederations Cup. He got his wish. Kinda. He is off the team for the Confederations Cup, but he is also off the team for everything else too. That includes World Cup Qualifying. Be careful what you wish for.
-Balding freaky looking Italian referee Pierluigi Collina took charge of his last match in Serie A on Sunday. He is over the age limit for referees. Plus, he scared a lot of children.
-Marcelinho was named top player in the Bundesliga for this past season. He plays for Hertha. I love watching him play.
-Copa Libertadores launches into the Quarterfinals this week:
June 1
Atletico Paranaense v Santos FC
São Paulo v U. de N. Leon
June 2
Banfield v River Plate
Guadalajara v Boca Juniors

Rankings & Reasonings for Friday May 27

Rankings & Reasonings for Friday May 27
You get 'em a day early cuz I am heading to Chicago for USA's thumping of England. See you after that with some personal highlights.

01 New England - Win looking good. Win looking bad. Get a draw when you are outplayed. Demoralize the other teams every week. Sounds like a clear Number 1 team to me.
02 FC Dallas - I really hope the loss of Mulrooney is not to big for this squad. I really wanna see them play some wild high scoring games this year.
03 Los Angeles - No Landon, No win. Simple as that. Oh, right, then their is that pesky road-game business.
04 San Jose - See, you get rid of the old dead wood in the defense and suddenly you have 3 clean sheets in the last 4 games. Excellent team work boyoyoyoys.
05 DC United - Can Nowak handle the pressure that is starting to build? He has offense galore, but he still has the unknown defense.
06 Chicago - Still boring.
07 Kansas City - Lookin better. Those defenders are starting to cause gas for opposing coaches.
08 Real Salt Lake - Well this is my United States of.....Whatever.
09 Metrostars - "Jeff Parke. Paging Jeff Parke. Please pick up the nearest white courtesy phone. We have last season on the line, and it wants to know if you are an imposter."
10 Columbus - Now Razov is not even playing. This is a hell of a team. Rumor has it that someone is getting cut loose to make room for Chris Henderson. Please don't let it be Manuel Lagos.
11 Colorado - Did you see where Mark Chung ripped 'em as he walked out the door and headed to San Jose where he comes on and contributes to the TEAM immediately!!!
12 Chivas USA - The team stinks, the coach stinks, the fans stink. Their only win was on a dodgy PK. And they actually seem to be getting worse instead of better.

Tiddly Winks & Newsly Dinks

-PSV midfielder Johann Vogel signed a deal to play next year for Milan.
-Olympiakos are your 2005 Greek League champions.
-You already know about Liverpool. I thought it was a fairly brutal game to watch. The Pool stunk in the first half and most of the second half. Milan were amazing for the entire first 45 minutes, continued that way for the first 10 minutes of the second half, then stunk the place up for about 20 minutes, and were stuck in neutral until the end. I hate PK's to decide a winner too. But ya gotta say it loud: Hail Liverpool! What a comeback.
-Everton signed Welsh midfielder Simon Davies who was with Tottenham.
-Saturdays German Cup final should be a good one as the top two teams in the Bundesliga have advanced to the title match. It will be champs Bayern Munchen against runners-up Schalke. I would like to wish good luck to all those goofy kraut-rockin' bastards!
-Excellent John O'Brien interview in Soccer America by Ridge Mahoney. (I have seen three or four interviews with JOB in the last week or so. I think this is the best one.)
-Stuart Downing got to hurting at practice yesterday and will not play against for England the USA. Sol Campbell will be the England Captain. I would assume that Landycakes will be the USA Captain. Do you think Sol could pick Landy out of a lineup? Yeah, yer right, I don't think he could either.
-Our '02 hero, Brad Friedel, is going to get a contract extension from Blackburn.
-British newspaper The Guardian ran a story today mocking Chicago for having no stories in any of their newspapers on the England team. My words to The Guardian are: Our newspapers will start writing about your team when you start writing about ours. Touche, tata, & toodiloo, you Limey cretins.
-There have been a lot of rumors about DC United shipping out Dema Kovalenko. Here is what coach Peter Nowak had to say about that: "Listen to me: Dema is not going anywhere!"
-Speaking of DC, there was a pretty savage article in the last issue of the New Yorker on Freddy Adu. Seven pages of mostly negativity. Then today the Washington Post writes this scorcher on Freddy & Nowak. Ouch! The kid is fif-frickin-teen. Come on!
-Jonathan Spector is back home from Manchester and is training with the USA senior team, and preparing himself for the U20 World Championship in about a month.

More Wednesday Blab

Another really busy day for me, so here's the little I have:
-Another one of the unsung journalistic soccer heroes of American newspapers is Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He always has good stuff to read weekly. He has a nice bit on the MFL Championship this week.
-MLS Tonite:
Wednesday, May 25
Kansas City v Metrostars
Colorado v San Jose
Los Angeles v Columbus
-Martin O'Neill has called it a day as manager of Celtic. He is going to care for his very ill wife. That is damned honorable if you ask me. The Wee-Man of British football, Gordon Strachan, is going to take over. I feel bad for the Celtic players though, cuz Gordon never learned to take the spoonful of marmite out of his mouth and speak properly. He is funny pretty though.

See Some Excellent USA Video From Training Camp

If you go to the US Soccer website there is video of an interveiw with DaMarcus Beasley where he talks about the nasty-assed knee injury he suffered with PSV. As usual he is straight up, and hilarious. Its why we love the guy. He wants to play against England and in the Qualifiers! Lets hope the coach feels the same way. (Warning: the beginning of the video has ultra cheesy USA v England patriot gunk.) There is also footage from Mondays USA practice with a tribute to Earnie Stewart on his retirement.
I think the video footage that US Soccer puts on its web site is always a very cool inside look at the team.

Yesterday's News Today

I got a little busy yesterday and this stuff did not get posted
-So the deal for Mike Petke leaving DC United turns out to be a swap with Colorado for Chris Henderson. But Henderson is not actually headed for DC, rather Columbus who is sending someone unknown at this time to DC. I figure it must be a player from outside the league that DC is not in a place to reveal yet. Interesting! Rumor also has it that Columbus is going to release a player to make room for Henderson.
-This leaves Colorado without Chung or Henderson who have been their best players for the past couple of years. (Although that's not saying much.)
-Josh Wolff has been called into the USA lineup for Saturday beating of England. Excellent choice.
-Ronnie O'Brien of FC Dallas is the MLS Player of the Week.
-The Alpha Men by Phil Ball - Phil picks his La Liga team of the season. (Great reading as always.)

Also: I will be in downtown Minneapolis this afternoon watching the UEFA Champions League final at The Local. Milan v Liverpool starting at 1:30pm central time.

Monday Von Newsday

-Oguchi Onyewu was injured (no details available) and will be replaced on the USA squad against England by Eddie Pope. Correction: Onyewu is not injured, but his club, Standard Liege, is in the playoffs for a Belgian league spot in the UEFA Cup next year. The play home and away with Genk May 26 & May 29. He will be on hand for the USA World Cup Qualifiers on June 4 & 8.
-The other good USA news is that Cory Gibbs looks to be healthy and will report for the England match.
-As will Damarcus Beasley, who will train, but not play. (Can we hope for a miracle?!) I would guess the USA coaches will take a look to see if he can play in the Qualifiers.
-Marc Connolly interviews Johnny O'Brien for Soccernet!!
-Blackburn defender Ryan Nelson made a return trip to DC for Saturdays match and was presented with his 2004 Championship Ring. It's guys like him that show how good MLS really is.
-Clint Dempsey dislocated a finger during warmups before Saturdays match against the Mets. He was scared by it.
-A continuing knee injury has caused Earnie Stewart to decided to retire from playing. He will have a job immediately though as VVV Venlo has named him the teams Technical Director.
-Big MLS rumor this morning has Mike Petke leaving DC to sign with Colorado. Two other players are said to be a part of this move, as is a third team. Should be interesting to see how this one plays out.
-Congrats go out to Rangers who snuck in at the last minute to score the Scottish title out from under the noses of Celtic. The day started with Celtic holding a 2 point lead. Rangers beat Hibs 1-0 to keep their chances alive, but Celtic lead 1-0 late in their own match against Motherwell. Shockingly though, Celtic gave up 2 late goals to lose the game and the title!
-Congrats also to Juve who wrapped up the Italian Serie A on Friday after Milan tied 3-3 and knocked themselves out of the title race.
-Last congrats of the day to Benfica who won the Portuguese title for the first time in 11 years. Porto finished 2nd.
-The top three goal scorers in the Bundesliga this year were: Marek Mintal of crappy Nuremberg with 24 (frankly amazing considering his team!), Roy Makaay of Bayern scored 22, & Dimitar Berbatov of Leverkusen bagged 20.
-The MFL semi finals concluded with Club America beating Cruz Azul 3-1 (6-2 on aggregate) & Tecos winning the other semi by drawing with Morelia 1-1 (2-1 on aggregate). I don't know when or where the championship will be played, but I will post it as soon as I find out.
-Ruud Gullit quit as coach of Feyenoord today, but in reality he was going to be fired for finishing 4th. I think he's been a decent coach and will land with another team. How about MLS (trying to sound like Sid Hartman).
-Hernan Crespo will probably get the start in the Champions League final Wednesday for AC Milan, beating out Superpippo Inzaghi.

Masters At Work - Kuper On Maldini

Maldini finds secret of eternal youth