Monthly Archives: July 2009

[MANCHESTER UNITED] Manchester United was forced to cancel its trip to Indonesia and Saturday’s match against an Indonesia Super League XI in Jakarta when the hotel it was scheduled to stay at was attacked by terrorists Friday. Blasts struck the Ritz-Carlton as well as the Marriott, killing eight people, according to early reports. The friendly, United’s first in Indonesia and part of a tour of four Asian countries, had sold out the 100,000-seat Bung Karno Stadium.

[DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY] Carmel United SC followed up on its under-15/16 title in last year’s U.S. Soccer Development Academy with the under-17/18 championship, beating D.C. United’s academy team, 1-0, in Thursday’s final at the Home Depot Center.

[MLS] The New York Red Bulls, this season’s worst MLS team, with two wins in 20 games, have acquired Austrian midfielder Ernst Obster from sister club Red Bull Salzburg of the Austrian first division. The left-footer has won two Austrian Bundesliga titles with Salzburg, in 2007 and 2009, but the 25-year-old played only five league matches in the 2008-09 season.

[USA-PANAMA] The USA puts its unbeaten record against Panama on the line when it faces the Canaleros Saturday in the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup at Philadelphia’s Financial Field (TV, live, 8 p.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel and TeleFutura). The match marks the third consecutive Gold Cup that the teams meet in the knockout phase.

[MLS] Who needs David Beckham for long-range shooting when you have Alecko Eskandarian, Landon Donovan and Eddie Lewis? All three scored on volleys from distance in the first half to lead the Galaxy to 3-1 win over the New York Red Stars in Beckham’s first game back with the Galaxy. All were given acres of space by the hapless Red Bulls, who have not won an MLS game in more than two months, a span of 11 games.

[WPS] Sky Blue FC and the Washington Freedom set a Women’s Professional Soccer record Wednesday night for goals in a game when they played to a 4-4 tie. Cat Whitehill scored the late equalizer for the Freedom, robbing Sky Blue a chance to pull away from Chicago and the Freedom in the playoff fight. In Wednesday’s other game, Boston’s 1-0 win over Chicago moved the Breakers into third place, four points ahead of Chicago and Washington, tie for fifth place.

[TELEVISION WATCH] The  inaugural World Football Challenge kicks off Sunday at Stanford Stadium, where Inter Milan meets Chelsea in the opening game of the six-game series that will be available live on the ESPN networks.

[U.S. SOCCER] U.S. Soccer Chief Operating Officer Jay Berhalter, one of the most influential persons in American soccer, is leaving the federations to head up the Kentaro Group’s new office in the United States.

[LIBERTADORES CUP] Juan Sebastian Veron — who backed out of a deal at the last minute to join MLS’s D.C. United for the 2008 season — won the Libertadores Cup Wednesday when his Argentine club, Estudiantes, beat Cruzeiro of Brazil, 2-1, to win the final by the same score on aggregate.

[REAL MADRID] Real Madrid, which will head to North America next month to face Toronto FC and D.C. United in preseason exhibitions, chose a remote Irish estate dating back to the 1100s as the site of its first week of summer training with new signing Cristiano Ronaldo. Golf is a main attraction at Carton House, which lies on the 1,100-acre estate 15 miles west of Dublin and boasts two golf courses. But it has gone in the soccer business, installing a field with a state-of-the-art playing surface, complete with an irrigation system identical to that at Manchester United’s Old Trafford, to attract big-time teams.