“I won’t mince my words. I lambasted them after the game. I wasn’t happy with the effort. I’ll tell you what, even if you don’t play well you have to give 100 percent.”
— Toronto coach Mo Johnston gets really, really upset after his team’s league-leading 16th loss of the season last weekend. (The Globe & Mail)
The biggest challenge is to find a player who is compatible with your company or brand, someone respected by, and popular with, consumers.
The FIFA World Player of the Year shortlist, which is long at 30 players, was released on Wednesday, featuring five players from 2006 world champion Italy, four from England, four from France, three from Brazil and three from Argentina. Italy’s national team candidates include defending World Player of the Year Fabio Cannavaro of Real Madrid, goalkeeper […]
The long-awaited season debut of AC Milan striker Ronaldo could finally happen after the international break, which ends after next Wednesday’s games. “The doctors have given me good news about Ronaldo,” Vice President Adriano Galliani said earlier this week, suggesting that the Brazilian striker would be fit to play Empoli on Oct. 21. Billed by […]
If David Beckham’s attitude toward artificial turf is anything to gauge by, his England teammates could be in for an equally unhappy time when they face Russia in a Euro 2008 qualifier in Moscow next Wednesday. The capital city’s Luzhniki Stadium had field turf installed in 2002 due to the country’s particularly harsh winters. The […]
Just three months into his five-year MLS adventure, David Beckham has once again found himself in the position of having to prove people wrong. A pair of injuries restricted him to just three league appearances, and five overall, causing many to brand Beckham as “a bust, a distraction to his struggling team, and a malingering, […]
Bob Bradley’s roster says it all. While it’s nice to see fresh faces like Preston Zimmerman, Freddy Adu and Sal Zizzo on the U.S. national team squad to face Switzerland, it’s frustrating to see the national team coach in a position where he can’t call on his best domestic-based players. As USSoccerPlayers’ Ian Plenderleith points […]
With the Red Bulls and FC Dallas assured of playoff participation, and five teams – theoretically – still in the hunt for the remaining two spots, will the eighth-place team set a record for the poorest mark ever to qualify?
Se Eun Park, Brian Nord, Katy Tafler and Brittany Yeggy lead their respective divisions in scoring. For the Top 10 goal scorers in each division …
U.S. international Lauren Cheney (UCLA) inched closer to the top of the NCAA Division I women’s scoring charts with three goals in wins over San Diego State and Santa Clara. For the Top 10 goal scorers …
Hat tricks by O’Brian White (Connecticut) and Kyle Evans (Lehigh) propelled them up the NCAA Division I men’s scoring charts. For the Top 10 goal scorers …
[UPDATE] There’s no stopping Graciano Brito, the Cape Verdean immigrant who never played organized soccer until entering college and is the NCAA Division I’s leading scorer. Brito’s unassisted goal in the 88th minute gave unbeaten Quinnipiac a 1-0 win over Holy Cross on Tuesday for his third game-winning goal in five days.
The No. 1 teams in the NSCAA/adidas rankings remain the same: Northern Kentucky (DII men), Trinity, Texas (DIII men), Grand Valley State (DII women) and Wheaton, Ill. (DIII women).
[MEN’S TOP 25 ACTION] Pat Phelan quickly made up for lost time. After going 65 games at Wake Forest without scoring a goal, the senior defender scored twice in the first six minutes on Tuesday to lead No. 2 Wake Forest to a 5-0 win over Appalachian State.
[UPSET] Clemson’s long season got even longer Tuesday night when it lost to UNC Asheville, a team it had beaten in their six previous meetings, 2-1, in overtime. The loss dropped the Tigers’ record to 4-7-1 and left them increasingly danger of finishing with a losing record for only the third time in the 41-year history of the program.
Lafayette ended a six-game losing streak with a 4-0 win over St. Peter’s on Tuesday. Senior Kelly Koreyva scored twice to lead the Leopards. For all Tuesday’s scores …
Maryland moved back above .500 with a 2-1 win over Lehigh in non-conference action on Tuesday. Sophomore Jeremy Hall connected on a penalty kick in the 84th minute to break the tie. The loss was the third of the season for the Mountain Hawks (5-3-2), who lost only two games all last season. For all scores and more news from Tuesday’s action …
Soccer’s 3-to-22 officials-to-player ratio is significantly lower than all major sports. Finally FIFA, the game’s world governing body, has approved an experiment with two additional referees. At the Club World Cup competition in Japan in December, two goalmouth referees will be used in addition to the referee and the two assistant referees (linesmen). FIFA’s new Strategic Committee, chaired by
UEFA president Michel Platini, confirmed the experiment during the first meeting of FIFA’s new Strategic Committee. What exact role the two goalmouth referees will play has not yet been determined.
[MLS PLAYOFF PICTURE] Three days after failing to clinch a playoff spot – again — New York snuck into the postseason thanks to other results going in its favor. The Red Bulls lost to Toronto, 2-1, last Thursday, which left their record at 11-11-6 and 39 points. When Columbus lost to FC Dallas, 3-1, on Saturday, it lost any chance to catch New York. Colorado won, but is seven points behind New York with two games to play.
Coach Bob Bradley‘s 21-man roster to prepare for the USA’s Oct. 17 friendly at Switzerland is comprised of three MLS players and 18 European-based players, including three German-based players (Steve Purdy, Preston Zimmermann and Sal Zizzo) who have yet to play for their clubs’ first teams. Freddy Adu has a chance to make his second appearance for the full national team, for which he appeared once, in early 2006. Seven players on the roster are uncapped.
“No, it is me.”
— Eric Cantona upon being asked whether Zinedine Zidane or Michel Platini was the greatest French soccer player ever. (Daily Mail)
The following is the draw for the group stage of the UEFA Cup, in which three teams with Americans on their first-team squads are entered: Everton (Tim Howard), Brann (Ramiro Corrales) and AaB (Dan Califf).<
Cheating on the soccer field would decrease if we got rid of the referees, says Gijs van Oenen, a professor of ethics, legal philosophy and social philosophy at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. According to Ode magazine, van Oenen theorizes that in soccer-sans-refs there would be more arguments at first, “but soon players would realize those arguments were solvable.” Because officials are merely stand-ins for the rule books, players would in their absence begin following the rules, figures van Oenen.
After David Beckham limped off the field once again nearly a month and a half ago, L.A. Galaxy and league officials must have started looking towards next season: their publicity rainmaker would likely miss the rest of the season, and the Galaxy’s playoff hopes, already bad, looked even worse. And so it is — or […]
Frank Dell’Apa of the Boston Globe says that Major League Soccer’s expansion plans are over-extending its teams, whose financial constraints keep them from having a big enough squad to handle mounting fixture lists. One obvious example is the Los Angeles Galaxy, which will have played 41 games this year not including the playoffs, and while […]
