Monthly Archives: August 2009

[MAKING A LIST] England’s four representatives — No. 2 Chelsea, No. 3 Liverpool, No. 4 Manchester United and No. 6 Arsenal — rank among the top six teams in the 2009-10 UEFA Champions League and will be in the first pot for Thursday’s group stage draw in Monaco (TV: Fox Soccer Channel, live, noon ET). Defending champion Barcelona is the top seed. For the seeds 1-32 …

[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] APOEL Nicosia made history when it beat FC Copenhagen, 3-1, and won its UEFA Champions League playoff series, 3-2, becoming the first Cypriot team to qualify for the competition’s group stage.  Debrecen became the first Hungarian club to qualify for the group stage in 14 years when sealed its 4-1 aggregate win over Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia with a 2-0 victory. Other teams making their Champions League debut will be Wolfsburg, Rubin Kazan, AZ, Standard Liege, Unirea Urziceni, and FC Zurich. For all the mid-week results …

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] He missed out on the most recent Mexico-USA showdown at Azteca Stadium, so defender Frankie Hejduk is perhaps even more eager than usual for the assignment handed to him and his Columbus teammates Wednesday.

[AMERICANS ABROAD] Jozy Altidore, who got an assist in his English Premier League debut for Hull City on Saturday, scored on a long-range shot in Hull’s 3-1 win on Tuesday over third-tier Southend in the second round of the English League Cup.

[MLS PREDICTION] The two expansion entrants of 2005 that met in last year’s playoffs square off for the second time this season, with host Real Salt Lake desperately in need of a win.

[MLS] At a transfer fee reported as $1.4 million and $2.1 million by various outlets, and said by a source to be $2 million, MLS and Chicago have agreed to sell defender Bakary Soumare to French club Boulogne. The club – along with a few other teams — had expressed interest in Soumare in June, shortly after the European season ended, but MLS and the Fire tamped down the inquiry though an offer was reportedly made. A native of Mali, Soumare, 23, moved to the Paris suburb of St. Denis at age 3 and to New York at age 15.

[MLS] With new teammates Jesus Padilla and Maicon Santos playing their first games for Chivas USA, midfielder Sacha Kljestan took advantage to play his best game of the season and continue a revival for the club that started off strong before a six week winless slump.

[OFF THE POST] When Peruvian referee Georges Buckley showed up in Chile to work a Copa Sudamericana game, he was taken into custody for a 1997 arrest in Chile for smoking marijuana in public as he was preparing to enter a concert, reports Reuters.

[COLLEGE] Harvard’s Andre Akpan, a 2007 selection to Soccer America’s MVPs first team and 2008 pick to the MVPs second team, heads the Soccer America Men’s Preseason All-American team, as selected by its editors.  For all the Preseason All-American selections …

[AMERICANS ABROAD] German club Hoffenheim, the surprise of the 2008-09 Bundesliga season, has pulled a coup, landing Joseph-Claude Gyau and midfielder Charles Renken in the highest-profile signings of U.S. U-17 players since German club Bayer Leverkusen signed Landon Donovan a decade ago. There’s a twist to the deal: Gyau and Renken will first spend time at the Vancouver Whitecaps residency program.

[WOMEN’S EURO ’09] With five WPS players in its squad, England came into the 2009 European Women’s Championship with high hopes, but it crashed to Italy, 2-1, Tuesday in its opening game.

[U.S. WOMEN] Four members of WPS champion Sky Blue FC were called up to the U.S. women’s national team camp that will take place Sept. 21-Oct. 2 at the Home Depot Center. Not included in the squad is Sky Blue FC player-coach Christie Rampone, the U.S. national team captain who is three months pregnant.