Calm Down Dork News

For the 2nd season running I have been asked by George Tanner of the Rocky Mountain News blog FC Rocky to make my MLS season predictions. I join with fellow geniuses in make believe. I am honored to contribute, read em and weep.

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Elisabeth Loisel, coach of Chinese women's team, was fired via E-mail! Cold.


Team USA

-Wed Mar 26
Polska 0-3 USA - USA goals by Carlos Bocanegra, Oguchi Onyewu & Eddie Lewis.
Match report from US Soccer
Match report by Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America.
Match report from American Soccer Daily.
Post game analysis and player ratings by Jeff Carlisle of Soccernet.
Player ratings by Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America.
Quotes by coach and players from US Soccer.
Game photos from US Soccer.
Behind the scenes video from US Soccer.
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du Nord Three Stars of the Match:
3 Ricardo Clark & Michael Bradley - seriously stuffed and dismantled the Polish attack. It's never pretty when they are effective, but Poland had no chance to get into any rhythm with the ball. Impressive defensively.
2 Carlos Bocanegra - captained the team well, played centerback with a lot of poise and helped cover others mistakes (both Onyewu & Pearce got caught), not to mention scoring the game winning goal.
1 Landon Donovan - deadly accurate on his free and corner kicks like we have rarely seen from him (is he taking lessons from DB?), set up the first two goals and was all over the field trying to add more to it. Would have been a perfect game if his shot on a break away had been 1 foot to the left.
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Team USA official blog.
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Now that we have seen the light black uniforms on the field, what do you think? I like them.
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MLS First Kick

Matches & Scores:
-Sat Mar 29
Columbus v Toronto - 3pm central on Direct Kick
Salt Lake v Chicago - 5pm central on Direct Kick
New England v Houston - 6:30pm central on FSC
Kansas City v DC - 7pm central on Direct Kick
Colorado v Los Angeles - 8:30pm central on FSC
-Sun Apr 30
Dallas v Chivas USA - 2pm central on TeleFutura
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MLS News

CHICAGO FIRE

Luis Arroyave on his Red Card blog has the latest on defender Wilman Conde who demanded to be shipped to New York. It's getting bad in the locker room.
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COLORADO RAPIDS

Brian Forbes of the Denver Post with an article on coach Fernando Clavijo who is in a serious battle to keep his job this season. Hey, all he has to do is win and the job is his. Simple.
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COLUMBUS CREW

Shawn Mitchell of the Columbus Dispatch says the Crew are getting ready for over 2000 Toronto fans to descend on their stadium Saturday. I love it.
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Mitchell on the Covering the Crew blog has a few words with defender Chad Marshall, who needs to have a big season.
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FC DALLAS

Diego Aparicio of the Dallas Morning News reports that Duilio Davino is training with the team again after a knee thingy.
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HOUSTON DYNAMO

Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle suggests that the Dynamo might be moving into the Designated Player market. Awesome. Now take a big ol' chunk of that AEG cashola and go get yer hands on a big Big BIG name like Henry or Ronaldinho. They will sell massive amounts of tickets and orange shirts.
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KANSAS CITY WIZARDS

Bob Luder of the Kansas City Star on the Wizards Argentine contingent. Does every MLS team have one now - a contingent?
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NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION

Brad Feldman and Rev's radio show In The Net are back for another season. Get the podcast of yesterdays show here.
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REAL SALT LAKE

James Edward of the Deseret Morning News visits the Salt Lake stadium construction site, and gets some words from owner Dave Checketts on where the team has been and where it is going.
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TORONTO FC

The Toronto Sun wonders how TFC fans will respond to another poor season on the field.
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MLS Season Previews

While too many other publications are giving us the obvious names to watch for this season, Pat Walsh at Goal.com gives us his little-knowns to watch out for. Excellent! Any putz can pick Blanco, Angel and Christian Gomez.
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Martin Rogers of Yahoo Sports with 3 more team season previews, Houston Dynamo - and - San Jose Earthquakes - and - Los Angeles Galaxy.
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Jeffrey Marcus of the New York Times looks at the Latin American player influx.
-Marcus lists his "Players to watch" this season.
-The Times also has an audio report where players in the league talk about their favorites.
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American Soccer Daily with a Western Conference preview.
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Andrea Canales of Soccernet with a Kansas City season preview.
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Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner with his season preview.
-And some more previewish notes on his blog The Pitch.
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The Ogden (Utah) Standard Examiner with their list of top things to watch for in the league this season.
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MLS Stadium Talk

James Edward of the Deseret Morning News with the latest on the sale of naming rights for the new Salt Lake stadium.
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MLS Friendlies

Matches & Scores:
-Fri Mar 28
Portland (USL1D) v San Jose in Portland, OR at the Clive Charles Soccer Complex
Carolina (USL1D) v New York in Cary, NC at the Wake Med Soccer Park
-Tue Apr 8
San Luis (FMF) v Chicago in Mexcali, Mexico at Estadio Casas GEO
-Tue May 13
Vancouver (USL1D) v Los Angeles in Edmonton, Alberta at Commonwealth Stadium
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San Jose & New York are playing exhibition games on Friday because they don't have an opening weekend game. I guess they couldn't figure out a way to play each other. Lame.
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USL First Division & PDL News

FC Dallas Updates is reporting that backup keeper Ray Burse is being pursued by Portland on a loan deal. The Timbers just lost their keeper Josh Wicks to LA. As an opponent of Portland, I do not want to see Ray Burse in their shirt. I think Scott Garlick & Ronald Wattereus are available.
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CONCACAF News

The top 3 Canadian club teams, Montreal, Toronto & Vancouver, have set up a home-and-away round-robin tournament to decide who will be their countries 1 representative in the new CONCACAF Champions League that starts next fall.
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CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying

Barbados defeated Dominica 1-0 last night and will advance 2-1 on aggregate.
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Match reports from their two daily papers - The Advocate - and - Nation News.
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One-off Qualifier Matches & Scores:
-Wed Mar 26
Grenada 10-0 US Virgin Islands - Gren advance.
Montserrat 1-7 Surinam - Sur advance.
Puerto Rico 1-0 Dominican Republic - game ended 0-0, and PR won 1-0 in Extra Time to advance.
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2nd leg Qualifier Matches & Scores (with 1st leg scores included):
-Wed Mar 26
Netherlands Antilles 2-0 Nicaragua - NA adv 3-0 on agg.
Anguilla 0-4 El Salvador - El S adv 16-0 on agg.
St Kitts & Nevis 1-1 Belize - Beli adv 4-2 on agg.
Bahamas 1-1 British Virgin Islands (1st leg)
Barbados 1-0 Dominica - Barb adv 2-1 on agg.
St Lucia 2-0 Turks & Caicos Islands - St L adv 3-2 on agg.
Antigua & Barbuda 1-0 Aruba - A & B adv 4-0 on agg.
-Mar 30
British Virgin Islands v Bahamas (1-1)
Cayman Islands v Bermuda (1-1)
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Steven Goff of the Washington Post with a match report on Anguilla v El Salvador at RFK in DC.
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Friendly Matches & Scores:
-Wed Mar 26
Poland 0-3 USA in Krakow
Mexico 2-1 Ghana in London
Jamaica 2-2 Trinidad & Tobago
Peru 3-1 Costa Rica
Estonia 2-0 Canada in Tallinn
Colombia 1-2 Honduras in Fort Lauderdale FL
Ecuador 3-1 Haiti
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CONCACAF Champions Cup

CONCACAF has handed Saprissa a token $15,000 fine and a stern warning after fans pelted the field with debris injuring an Atlante player in the first round series. Details included.
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Mexico & FMF News

Only 3 more days until the Mexican federation honchos meet and decide the near future fate of coach Hugo Sanchez.
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Copa Libertadores

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Mar 25
Coronel Bolognesi 0-0 Cienciano
Maracaibo 1-1 Atlas - Mar goal by Dario Figueroa(PK). Atl goal by Bruno Marioni
San Lorenzo 1-0 Bamin Real Potosi - SL goal by Adrian Gonzalez
-Mar 26
Liga Dep Univ Quito 6-1 Arsenal - LDUQ goals by Patricio Urrutia, Damian Manso, Luis Bolanos (2), Claudio Bieler & Alfonso Obregon. Ars goal by Luciano Leguizamon.
River Plate 2-0 Universidad Catolica - RP goals by Radamel Falcao Garcia & Sebastian Abreu.
Dep Univ San Martin 1-0 America - DUSM goal by Mario Leguizamon.
-Mar 27
Cucuta Deportivo v Chivas Guadalajara
Boca Juniors v Colo Colo
Danubio v Deportivo Cuenca
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Group Stage Standings
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Last night LDU Quito of Ecuador became the first team to advance to the knock out rounds. 2 teams from each of the 8 groups advance, and with 4 of 6 rounds played their 10 points in the cannot be surpassed by the teams in 3rd or 4th place.
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European News

Robert Pires got a one year contract extension from Villarreal.
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Turkey & Bayern Munich have lost important midfielder Hamit Altintop for most likely 2 months after he broke his foot in his countries match v Belarus yesterday.
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The Italian press is starting to ask for Giuseppe Rossi in the nations senior team lineup.
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Rob Hughes of the International Herald Tribune writes about another of the du Nord fave players Michael Ballack, and even though MB was injured through most of the first half of the season, it didn't keep him from doing some great stuff for other people who really need help.
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The Reuters Soccer Blog asks the same question that is bouncing around in my head - What is going on with Inter Milan?
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UEFA Champions League

Friendly Matches & Scores:
-Wed Mar 26
Andorra 0-3 Latvia
Armenia 1-0 Kazakhstan
Austria 3-4 Netherlands
Belarus 2-1 Turkey
Belgium 1-4 Morocco
Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-2 Macedonia
Bulgaria 2-1 Finland
Denmark 1-1 Czech Republic
Estonia 2-0 Canada
France 1-0 England
Hungary 0-1 Slovenia
Israel 1-0 Chile
Lithuania 1-0 Azerbaijan
Luxembourg 0-2 Wales
Malta 7-1 Liechtenstein
Montenegro 3-1 Norway
N Ireland 4-1 Georgia
Poland 0-3 USA
Portugal 1-2 Greece
Romania 3-0 Russia
Scotland 1-1 Croatia
Slovakia 1-2 Iceland
Spain 1-0 Italy
Sweden 0-1 Brazil
Switzerland 0-4 Germany
Ukraine 2-0 Serbia
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La Gazzetta says that even though Italy lost in Spain coach Donadoni is not phased by it and the prep continues for the summer tourney.
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Barney Ronay of the Guardian says that while England played by all of Don Capello's rules, they still weren't very good.
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James Lawton of the Independent says it was not pretty for Capello & England.
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Asian World Cup Qualifying

Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Wed Mar 26
Singapore 2-0 Lebanon
N Korea 0-0 S Korea in Shanghai China
Thailand 0-1 Oman
China 0-0 Australia
Turkmenistan 0-2 Jordan
Uzbekistan 3-0 Saudi Arabia
Bahrain 1-0 Japan
Syria 1-1 United Arab Emirates
Kuwait 2-2 Iran
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Group Standings