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Men’s Weekend College Scoreboard
Women’s Weekend College Scoreboard
The museum at the National Soccer Hall of Fame, in Oneonta, NY., will close to the public after Labor Day due to financial difficulties. Although the institution will remain open on days when it hosts matches, it will cut staff as part of a “new sustainable operating model,” Jonathan Ullman, its President and Chief Operating […]
Arsenal announced that it will appeal the two-match ban UEFA imposed on Eduardo da for diving against Celtic during a Champions League qualifier. “We strongly believe that the decision taken is deeply flawed and not based on any forensic review of the video evidence available,” Arsenal said in a statement Thursday. “There are obvious errors […]
Benny Feilhaber answers a few tough questions ahead of Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against El Salvador. As part of Goal.com’s “You Asked?” video feature, Feilhaber talks about his influences growing up and his favorite players to watch today. He also reveals the funniest member of the national team as well as the biggest “ladies man.”
After some uncertainty, Diego Maradona announced Argentina's starting lineup when it faces archrivals Brazil on Saturday. The two-time world champions will go with: Mariano Andujar, Javier Zanetti, Nicolas Otamendi, Sebastian Dominguez, Gabriel Heinze, Maximiliano Rodriguez, Javier Mascherano, Juan Sebastian Veron, Jesus Datolo, Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez. Pundits speculated that Maradona might use veteran striker […]
Mathew Le Tissier, a legendary Southampton player, has revealed in a new autobiography that he once failed an attempted betting scam during a game against Wimbledon. Le Tissier colluded with friends and a teammate to cash in on a spread bet of over $16,000 on the timing of the first throw-in. The plan was for […]
Javier Aguirre replaced Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson as Mexico coach with one simple objective: qualify for the World Cup. Aguirre has turned around a sputtering team in only a few months. But the success doesn’t appear to come from any secret methodology. Mexico winger Andres Guardado says that the players simply respect Aguirre’s personality and honesty. […]
Arturo Alvarez isn’t the only member of El Salvador to play in MLS. Alvarez’s teammate on the San Jose Earthquakes, Ramon Sanchez, also plays for El Salvador. So does New York Red Bulls defender Alfredo Pacheco. These players know that the unlikely odds of a result in the USA. But they are not setting their […]
Gambian native Amadou Sanyang arrived in Toronto in March to face the harsh truth. "It was very cold to me," the 18-year-old defender said. "It was like: ‘Wow, what am I doing here?’" But Sanyang, who has appeared in all four TFC games since turning 18 on Aug. 1, says the season change has comforted […]
All those voters who last year named Sean Franklin as their top choice for MLS Rookie of the Year are in a real pickle this time around.
On Saturday, World Cup qualifying takes center stage. The USA looks to get back on track against El Salvador. In other Concacaf action, Mexico clashes with Costa Rica. European and South American qualifiers are also on tap.
TELEVISION NEWS … Bradley has scheduled a 10 p.m. kickoff (11 p.m. ET) for Friday’s match against Memphis, the opening game of the NSCAA College Game of the Week on Fox Soccer Channel.
Eleven of the 12 men’s matches will be played on Friday nights. All but one of the eight women’s matches will be featured on Sunday afternoon. Women’s action debuts on Sept. 20 when Boston University hosts Harvard.
(Read more for the complete NSCAA College Game of the Week schedule.)
WOMEN’S NEWS … North Carolina-Notre Dame ranks as the top rivalry in women’s college soccer. They’ll meet for the 17th time Friday night when the Tar Heels are the guests for the ailing Irish’s first women’s game at the new Alumni Stadium.
Five of the 16 meetings have been for the national championship, most recently in 2008 when the Tar Heels rallied after going down, 1-0, in the first minute and won, 2-1, on a pair of world-class goals by Casey Nogueira.
Heading into Friday’s Inn at Saint Mary’s Classic, North Carolina (3-0-0) is No. 1 and Notre Dame (2-0-0) is No. 4 in this week’s Soccer America Top 25.
Carolina has arguably the deepest team Anson Dorrance has ever assembled. Nogueira, 2008 Olympic gold-medalist Tobin Heath, Courtney Jones and Nikki Washington lead the attack that has scored 13 goals in three games. The Tar Heel defense includes goalie Ashlyn Harris, who was called up to the U.S. national team camp that begins next week.
On the other hand, the Irish entered a rebuilding year, having lost two-time Hermann Trophy winner Kerri Hanks, Brittany Bock, Carrie Dew and Elise Weber to WPS. To make matters worse, the Irish have been without their two senior co-captains, Michele Weissenhofer and Courtney Rosen. Weissenhofer has been bothered with hamstring problems, while Rosen is out indefinitely after breaking her left foot during preseason training.
TRIVIA: North Carolina won all five NCAA championship games against Notre Dame and leads the series with a 10-4-2 record. Perhaps the Irish’s most memorable accomplishment involved the 0-0 tie on Oct. 2, 1994 in St. Louis. Goalkeeper Jen Renola made 11 saves for Notre Dame, which snapped UNC’s NCAA record 92-game winning streak, the third time an Irish squad had broken an NCAA-record success string (joining football’s 1957 win at Oklahoma that ended the Sooners’ 47-game streak, and the 1974 men’s basketball team that stopped UCLA’s 88-game run).
Notre Dame-North Carolina Audio UND.com
* It wasn’t for a lack of trying that Wisconsin-Milwaukee fell to Marquette, 2-0, for its first loss at home since 2006. The Panthers held a 15-2 shot advantage in the second half after falling behind by two goals. “We completely dismantled them,” said UWM coach Michael Moynihan. “It was as good as I think I have ever seen our team play.” The game drew a women’s record crowd of 1,307 at Engelmann Field.
* Thursday night Top 25 action: Defending Big West champion UC Santa Barbara held No. 15 Michigan State to a 1-1 tie, while No. 9 West Virginia cruised past Duquesne, 4-0.
TOP 25 MATCHUPS:
Friday
No. 4 Notre Dame vs. No. 1 North Carolina (Inn at Saint Mary’s Classic)
No. 3 Portland vs. No. 23 Colorado College (Husky/Nike Invitational)
No. 5 Florida State vs. No. 10 Penn State
No. 16 Illinois vs. No. 8 UCLA (Illini Challenge Cup)
No. 14 California vs. No. 13 Texas A&M (Cal Invitational)
Sunday, Sept. 6
No. 7 Florida vs. No. 8 UCLA (Illini Challenge Cup)
(Follow all the action with Soccer America’s Women’s College Weekend Scoreboard.)
MEN’S NEWS … This year’s darkhorse in men’s soccer could be N.C. State. At the very least, the Wolfpack has a good shot of winning the ACC — something it hasn’t done since 1990 when its championship team featured future national team players Dario Brose and Henry Gutierrez and a backup goalie in Robert Gibbs, now President Barack Obama‘s press secretary.
Defending ACC and national champion Maryland, Wake Forest and Boston College face major rebuilding, Clemson and Virginia Tech lost their coaches in the offseason, Virginia and Duke begin the season with question marks. That leaves only No. 1 North Carolina and N.C. State reasonably confident about what they have to offer.
Enthusiasm is high in Raleigh, as evidenced by the 1,800 fans who turned out on opening day to watch the Wolfpack defeat Winthrop, 3-1. N.C. State was one of the best teams in the ACC over the second half of last season, winning eight of its last 11 games, and it returned everyone. Seven seniors, three juniors and one sophomore started in Tuesday’s opener.
The Wolfpack’s lineup is a mix of locals — five starters from North Carolina — and foreigners — including starters born in Cameroon, Congo, England, Venezuela and Argentina, Coach George Tarantini‘s home country (his brother Alberto starred on the 1978 World Cup championship team).
Ronnie Bouemboue, who was born in Congo and attended high school in Brooklyn, is the Wolfpack’s top scoring threat and most inspirational player. He missed most of the 2006 season and all of the 2007 season with knee injuries but recovered to score 14 goals in 2008. Bouemboue, who had a goal and an assist against Winthrop, was nominated for the 2009 Lowe’s Senior CLASS award, having served two terms as the president of N.C. State’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and been active in charity works.
All four other foreigners are second-year seniors. Left back Korede Aiyegbusi, who was born in London to Nigerian parents and represented England in the 2009 World University Games, and Cameroonian midfielder Chrystel Bakong both took the JC route to Raleigh. Defenders Federico Nachmann, 24, and Romulo Manzano, 21, arrived last season from Argentina and Venezuela, respectively.
* No. 4 Indiana will be without Soccer America Preseason All-American Ofori Sarkodie for the rematch of its 2008 NCAA quarterfinal match with No. 3 St. John’s Friday at the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic in Bloomington. Sarkodie is serving a one-game suspension for his red card in the Hoosiers’ 3-2 loss to St. John’s.
TOP 25 MATCHUPS:
Friday
No. 4 Indiana vs. No. 3 St. John’s (adidas/IU Credit Union Classic)
No. 5 Wake Forest vs. No. 10 Notre Dame (adidas/IU Credit Union Classic)
No. 8 Maryland vs. No. 9 UCLA
Saturday
No. 6 Creighton vs. No. 20 Cal Poly
No. 13 Connecticut vs. No. 24 Boston Univ.
Sunday
No. 22 Tulsa vs. No. 2 Akron (Radisson Tulsa Airport Classic)
No. 3 St. John’s vs. No. 10 Notre Dame (adidas/IU Credit Union Classic)
No. 4 Indiana vs. No. 5 Wake Forest (adidas/IU Credit Union Classic)
(Follow all the action with Soccer America’s Men’s College Weekend Scoreboard.)
[MLS] D.C. United announced, without details, that it will discipline its goalkeeper Josh Wicks, who set the team on the course to its U.S. Open Cup final loss to Seattle on Wednesday by getting red-carded for stomping on Fredy Montero after he scored in the 2-1 Sounders’ win. In United’s MLS game four days earlier, Wicks attacked teammate Marc Burch.
[MLS PREDICTIONS] The international schedule shrinks the MLS menu to just three games, all with crucial playoff consequences for at least one of the participating teams. The national telecast is on Fox Soccer Channel, and showcases the first of back-to-back meetings matching Colorado and Toronto, which are separated by just two points in the overall standings. For all of Soccer America’s predictions, as well as TV viewing information, and to see how Ridge Mahoney fared so far this season …
“I think he’s the epitome of a captain. He’s capable of playing with the best players. He’s an intelligent and gifted footballer. He’s also a good athlete, and given that those legs are starting to get on in years now, he still covers a lot of ground. He can mix it with the best people in the league. It’s not always about the finer points. I thought those finer points we still achieved to a decent degree. But those other qualities are very, very hard to come by in players. Very hard.”
— Rapids coach Gary Smith focuses on the positives of his captain, Pablo Mastroeni, who is suspended because of caution points this weekend and has been banned for two additional games and fined $1,250 by MLS for a hard foul against Houston last Sunday. Mastroeni now has 69 yellows and seven reds since joining the league in 12 seasons.
[USL-1] Errol McFarlane‘s second goal of the game in the 90th minute gave the Rochester Rhinos a 2-1 win over the Portland Timbers and snapped the Timbers’ USL First Division-record unbeaten streak at 24 games.
[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] Since the 2006 World Cup, the USA has tried to replace veterans whose poise and toughness in critical situations carried the team through some very precarious moments. More than three years later, and with less than a year to go until World Cup 2010, where stands the process of filling the voids left by Claudio Reyna, Brian McBride and Eddie Pope? Has the coaching staff unearthed in the current player pool their characteristics, and not just in the players who might fill similar positions or roles on the field? Qualities personified by those three players have yet to emerge on a regular basis, which is one reason a team that beat Egypt and Spain and stripped Brazil of some samba at the Confederations Cup could struggle against El Salvador Saturday in Sandy, Utah (ESPN Classic & Telefutura, 8 pm ET), and in Trinidad next Wednesday.
WEEKEND COVERAGE: Soccer America Daily will be published Saturday and Sunday with coverage of the key USA-El Salvador World Cup 2010 qualifier and all the other major soccer news. Watch for your Daily at the usual time …
[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] Qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa moves into the home stretch with the second-to-last Saturday-Wednesday fixtures in Europe and South America. For a look at how things stand in all the continental groups and the weekend’s television viewing schedule …
Back to the courts we go — not the real courts, not the legal bodies, but these special quasi-legal, pseudo-legal bodies, these disciplinary bodies that the professions set up keep their own members in order.
Mexico is entering Costa Rica with momentum on its side for a crucial clash at the famed Estadio Saprissa. Since the start of the Gold Cup, Mexico has won six of seven games, drawing one game against Panama. Mexico has also enjoyed success at the Estadio Saprissa before. Four years ago, Los Ticos scored two […]
Heath Pearce's move to Turkish club Bursaspor has been canceled. According to the club's official website Pearce wanted to re-work the contract before he signed, but he and the club couldn't come to an agreement before FIFA closed the transfer window. The failed move leaves the U.S. left back still out of contract and with […]
Guillermo Franco is returning to his native Argentina to play for reigning Copa Libertadores champion Estudiantes de La Plata. The Mexican striker will join Estudiantes after Mexico's game against Honduras on Sept. 9. Franco played for Valencia since 2006, but the club didn't opt to bring Franco back for the 2009-10 season. Franco said that […]
