“They hit me with a camera!”
— Diego Maradona during a melee while leaving a Buenos Aires courthouse following an arbitration hearing with his former agent, Guillermo Coppola. Maradona threw a wild punch and yelled insults at television reporters who crowded him. (AP)
It remains, as it always has been, a mighty difficult task to decide exactly how much violence is permissible on the soccer field. It is all very well for the rules to condemn the use of “excessive force” — but how to define “excessive”? Very much to the point, who is going to define it?
[REACTION] Cristiano Ronaldo‘s missed penalty kick in the third minute cost Manchester United a chance to escape from Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium with a victory, but United manager Alex Ferguson praised the young Portuguese star after Wednesday’s 0-0 in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal series.
FC Dallas, MLS’s only undefeated team (with two wins and a pair of ties), hosts last year’s runner-up, New England, on ESPN2’s Thursday night broadcast. FC Dallas forward Kenny Cooper has already matched his 2007 scoring output of four goals and is second behind the Galaxy’s Landon Donovan (5 goals) on the leading scorer’s list. Cooper, 23, was limited to 14 games because of injury in 2007 after scoring 11 times in 31 games in 2006. New England (2-2-1) will aim to avoid a slipping under the .500 as it enters the game missing half its starters, including injured veterans Taylor Twellman and Steve Ralston, and Sainey Nyassi, who leads the team with two goals but suffered a groin injury. For all the week’s MLS action on TV. …
Chivas USA defender Claudio Suarez tells Nick Green of the Daily Breeze he expects to hang up his boots at the end of the 2008 season, thus closing the door on a glorious career spanning 20 years. Suarez, 39, is the most capped player in the history of the Mexican national team with 178 appearances, […]
Rivalries come and go, but local derbies are forever. Luis Bueno of the Press Enterprise likes the healthy enmity that’s developed between Chivas USA and L.A. Galaxy fans in the Los Angeles derby’s short three-year history. Players and coaches may come and go, but as long as Galaxy and Chivas fans maintain that healthy disrespect, […]
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard is adamant that his team can end Chelsea’s unbeaten record at Stamford Bridge during next week’s UEFA Champions League semifinal return leg. “We believe we can beat Chelsea on their own patch,” he said. “We’ve gone to Inter Milan, we’ve gone to Arsenal and scored, so there is no reason why […]
Both Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson and Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard, whose teams faced each other Wednesday in the UEFA Champions League semifinals, know a perfect season. In 1999, Ferguson’s United won three major trophies — the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League — a success that’s yet to be matched in Europe […]
Italy’s Prime Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday defied reports in the Italian press alleging that he would oppose the takeover of AS Roma by a foreign entity. The speculation was that the AC Milan president, who announced earlier in the day that he would renounce his post, might oppose foreigners investing in Serie A clubs, […]
UMKC has received a gift of $5 million — the largest single commitment ever to UMKC athletics — for the construction of a new soccer stadium in the heart of UMKC’s Volker campus.
Loyola (Md.) has named former Duke All-American Katherine Remy Vettori as its new women’s head coach, while former Portland star Linus Rhode has been named Oregon State women’s coach after eight years as as assistant and associate coach at OSU. Lindsey Horner was promoted from assistant coach to head coach at Drake. For all the coaching moves …
ETSU men’s coach Scott Calabrese announced the signing of 18 players — including NSCAA All-Americans Sean Hoek (Castle High School, Ind.) and Tom Webster (Bearden High School, Tenn.) — who form the team’s inaugural signing class, the largest non-football signing class in ETSU history.
[WOMEN’S RECRUITS] North Carolina’s Anson Dorrance has assembled arguably the deepest women’s recruiting class in the country with the signing of four incoming freshmen ranked among the top 20 players in the country and the nation’s top JC player — all forwards.
St. John’s has announced the signing of one of the Red Storm’s most intriguing freshman classes in recent history. Dave Masur, who has recruited heavily overseas, has tapped into the youth ranks of MLS clubs New York and D.C. United and Miami’s Kendall Soccer Coalition. The Red Storm’s recruits are led by Costa Rican-born Walter Hines, who is considered one of the best players in the class of 2008.
In his third season as the University of Akron head men’s coach, Caleb Porter has snared one of the Zips’ best recruiting classes in their history with the signing of eight players, headed by defender Kofi Sarkodie, who played for the USA at the 2007 Under-17 World Cup in South Korea.
[MEN’S RECRUITS] SMU’s Schellas Hyndman has again tapped a Brazil pipeline to sign highly regarded recruits Arthur Ivo and Diogo de Almeida. The same pipeline from Brazil through the Oakridge School in Arlington and the Dallas Texans previously sent All-American Bruno Guarda and Paulo Da Silva, rising seniors, to SMU.
[MLS] The first tangible result of a marketing partnership announced between MLS and the German Bundesliga last year has come to light.Borussia Moenchengladbach, which has won the league title five times and is leading the second division in its bid to earn promotion, will train for 10 days in the United States this summer and according to Associated Press is to play Colorado and FC Dallas during its visit.
[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS CUP] Mexico’s Pachuca and Costa Rica’s Saprissa, which eliminated MLS teams D.C. United and Houston, respectively, in the semifinals, meet in the first leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup final on Wednesday (TV: 10:30 pm, live, on Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Sports en Espanol). The final series – the second leg is April 30 in Costa Rica – will mark the final two games of the 47-year-old tournament, which will be replaced by the Concacaf Champions League, which launches in August.
[MLS] The Los Angeles Galaxy, which has led the league in attendance in the previous five seasons and in eight of its first 12 seasons, is again the top crowd draw after one month of 2008 play. Leaguewide attendance (15,011) is slightly down from this point last season (15,487). 2007 leaguewide average attendance at season’s end was 16,770. Goalscoring in 2008 is up significantly from last season at this point: 2.93 per game compared to 2.27 in 2007. The scoring per game average at the end of the 2007 season was 2.66. For MLS attendance figures and team-by-team scoring …
[IN THE SPOTLIGHT] Barcelona’s semifinal series against Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League, which begins Wednesday (TV: ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, live, 2:30 pm ET) in Barcelona, will go a long way toward deciding the makeup of the team going forward. Barca touted its “Four Fantasticos” — Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto’o and Lionel Messi — but its domestic troubles are so severe that three of them — Ronaldinho, Henry and Eto’o — are rumored to possibly be leaving Barcelona.
“Luxemburgo distrusts a big club like Sao Paulo and it means he also distrusts me. But how am I going to spray gas at myself? It was a very serious incident. If I had been trying to pull a fast one, then I would have taken the team off the field at halftime and abandoned the game. I hope he regrets his comments.”
— Sao Paulo coach Muricy Ramalho responds to insinuations from Palmeiras coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo that Ramalho was responsible for the mysterious gas that forced Sao Paulo players to flee their locker room at halftime of their game at Palmeiras’ stadium. Luxemburgo was implying that it was a ploy by Sao Paulo to discredit Palmeiras’s stadium. The unidentified substance had caused irritation to their eyes and nostrils. (Reuters)
[REACTION] Chelsea moved one step closer to reaching the UEFA Champions League final in Moscow, the hometown of its Russian owner, Roman Abramovich, thanks to a 1-1 tie at Liverpool Tuesday achieved on an own goal by Norwegian John Arne Riise in the 95th minute.
The Michigan Wolves, the only remaining unbeaten team in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy’s U/15-16 Group, lost for the first time in 12 games when they fell to the CASL Elite, 3-2, on Sunday. The only unbeaten teams in the U/17-18 Group are the New York Red Bulls and U.S. youth national team. For all the weekend U.S. Soccer Development Academy results and goal scorers …
[EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES] Soccer America provides the latest on employment opportunities for soccer-related positions, They include college coaching opportunities, as well as opportunities in pro soccer, youth soccer, the soccer industry and television.
Less than one week after lifting Spain’s King’s Cup, Valencia has given Coach Ronald Koeman and several members of his coaching staff the sack. The Dutchman, who signed a two-and-a-half year deal in November following the sacking of Quique Sanchez Flores, was in charge at the Mestalla for less than six months, during which time […]
