Monthly Archives: April 2009

Washington fans were hoping that the return of Christian Gomez would reignite D.C. United, which won one MLS Cup and two Supporters’ Shields during the Argentine’s first stint with the club but failed to make the playoffs without him in 2008. But the Argentine has yet to rediscover the form that made him at MLS […]

When a goalkeeper gives up seven goals in his last two home games, it’s probably time to make a change, but Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink backs goalkeeper Petr Cech. “He is a very intelligent and self-critical goalkeeper,” said Hiddink. After giving up three goals in the 4-3 win over Bolton on Saturday, Cech conceded four […]

Merritt Paulson‘s father, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, pushed for quick passage of last fall’s financial bailout dubbed the Paulson Plan. Now Merritt Paulson is asking the City of Portland to move quickly on a redevelopment plan that includes the renovation of PGE Park, the home of the future MLS Portland team. Some are […]

Twenty years after 96 men, women and children, all Liverpool fans, were crushed to death at the start of the English FA Cup semifinal at Sheffield’s Hillsborough Stadium, Rob Hughes reports that a lot has changed in English soccer. The death traps that were English stadiums with standing sections and movable metal fences are gone. […]

Fox’s acquisition of the UEFA Champions League’s U.S. TV rights, beginning next season, means that American fans may not have to put up with Tommy Smyth much longer. As Steven Wells notes in the Sport Blog, “fans will be hearing a lot less of quite possibly the world’s most hated sports commentator …” Smyth acknowledged […]

Twenty years later and with "hundreds of thousands of soccer fans passing through Liverpool's Anfield stadium every season, the memories remain" of the 96 men, women and children who were crushed to death in "the country's worst sports disaster," on April 15, 1989, a "day that irrevocably changed English soccer." "Time has gone by, but […]

Growing up amid the flying bullets and soaring rockets of Liberia's civil war, "which claimed some 200,000 lives between Christmas Eve of 1989 and 1996," somehow Vancouver Whitecaps forward Ansu Toure's "entire immediate family — nine kids in total – survived," for which they feel "no better than the dead, just truly blessed." According to […]

Among a Chicago Fire team that features players from 10 different nations, ESPN Soccernet’s Maria Burna Ortiz writes of a trio of Chicago Fire internationals – Patrick Nyarko of Ghana, Yugslavian-born Baggio Husidic and Bakary Soumare of Mali – that had “chance meetings turn into life-altering events” and while “everyone has worked and battled to […]

"It is a shame because he used to be a nice guy before he went to Stuttgart, but now he spends all his time trying to provoke people. He just keeps getting on my nerves now. He is totally overrated and out of touch. He should remind himself of the own goal he scored against […]

"We have to walk first. We have to take the first step in order to take the second. First is to qualify for the World Cup and then from there we'll re-establish ourselves and we'll reveal our next step. For now, it is an absolute priority to put our bodies and souls into this qualification […]

"My wife got a funny telemarketing call when we were home last summer, some guy trying to get us to go to a Las Vegas hotel to see the Eiffel Tower and the canals of Venice. Well, we've been there and done that!" Seattle keeper Kasey Keller, speaking of his family's many travels during his […]

At age 26, standing tall at 6-foot-4 and with a wealth of international experience to his credit, from the youth level to the full national team, it’s no secret that U.S. international Oguchi Onyewu is currently a hot commodity overseas. But after speculation that the Belgium-based defender would be shipped off to any number of […]

In these times, “the audacity of hope” is a term that you most likely connect with a man named Obama, but MLSnet.com’s Steve Davis makes a case that it’s that same dare-to-dream confidence that helps soccer players who possess it “more likely to come shining through” and that more often that not, “bold, aggressive action […]