Author Archives: Paul Kennedy

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Rafael Marquez Lugo‘s penalty kick in the fourth minute of stoppage time gave Atlante a 3-1 victory over Mexican rival Santos Laguna on Wednesday and a 4-3 win on aggregate that sent the Cancun team to the Concacaf Champions League final against Cruz Azul.

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] The coaches of both teams the USA has beaten in the Hexagonal are gone. Less than a week after Trinidad & Tobago’s 3-0 loss to the USA in Nashville, Francisco Maturana quit as the Soca Warriors coach. Maturana’s departure follows the firing of Mexico’s Sven Goran Eriksson a week ago.

[IRAQ] Former U.S. national team coach Bora Milutinovic, 64, will coach Asian champion Iraq — the eighth national team he has coached — at this year’s Confederations Cup in South Africa.

[WORLD CUP 2018/2022] The World Cup in Lincoln, Neb., or at Green Bay’s famed Lambeau Field? They might be long shots for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, but they were among the 44 stadiums with a capacity of 70,000 or more the USA Bid Committee has identified on its initial list of stadiums. For the complete list of 70 stadiums identified …

[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Manchester United hit a road bump on its drive for five, having to settle for a 2-2 tie with Porto Tuesday at Old Trafford in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series. The result means United will probably have to do what no other English team has done and win in Oporto next Wednesday if it is to advance to the semifinals and keep alive its bid for five titles.

[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Arsenal’s good form continued when it earned a 1-1 tie at Villarreal in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series thanks to an acrobatic goal by Emmanuel Adebayor. The game was costly, though, as the Gunners could have lost two key players — both injured in collisions with Italian-American Giuseppe Rossi — for next Wednesday’s second leg in London.

[U.S. OPEN CUP] Three days after the Los Angeles Galaxy suffered an embarrassing loss to the Colorado Rapids in MLS action, they met again at the Home Depot Center in a U.S. Open Cup qualifying game. The Galaxy’s defense, pathetic on Saturday, held firm, but its attack was equally abysmal in the rematch, playing with a man advantage for 84 minutes but failing to convert a host of chances, and Los Angeles fell again, this time on penalty kicks, after the game ended in a 0-0 tie.

[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Liverpool and Chelsea meet for the fifth time in the Champions League in the last five years when they open their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series Wednesday at Anfield. Reeling from its 5-1 loss in the Bundesliga on Saturday, Bayern Munich traveled to Barcelona without its two central defenders.

[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Manchester United’s bid for an unprecedented five championships in a season continues Tuesday when it hosts Porto in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series. Red-hot Arsenal travels to Villarreal in Tuesday’s other match.

[MLS NAMES & NUMBERS] Seattle and Chivas USA are 3-0. FC Dallas is 0-3. Los Angeles coach Bruce Arena was furious after the Galaxy fell, 3-2, at home to the Colorado Rapids on a Conor Casey hat trick that included the second-fastest goal in MLS history — off the Galaxy kickoff!

[AMERICANS ABROAD] U.S. defender Jonathan Spector suffered another setback when he suffered a concussion in West Ham United’s 2-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday. He was treated for six minutes on the field after being hit going up for a header. “He couldn’t remember much of it but he was fine,” said Hammers manager Gianfranco Zola. “He doesn’t remember me — which is a good thing!”

[WPS] A last-minute goal by Tiffeny Milbrett gave FC Gold Pride a 2-1 win over the Boston Breakers and marked a storybook ending to the first full weekend of play in Women’s Professional Soccer. Milbrett, the former national team star with 100 goals for the USA, had been overlooked in each of the WPS drafts and allocations and only made the Pride after asking for a tryout. She came off the bench in the opener and scored in the 89th minute to cap an exciting game at Buck Shaw Stadium.

[SCOUTING REPORT] The USA will aim to win its group for the fourth straight time when it faces European champion Germany, African runner-up Cameroon and Asian semifinalist South Korea in Group C at the 2009 Under-20 World Cup, which will be played Sept. 24-Oct. 16 in Egypt.

[MEXICO] Changing coaches in the middle of qualifying or before the World Cup is nothing new for Mexico. But having four coaches in less than a year — Hugo Sanchez, Jesus Ramirez, Sven Goran Eriksson and now Javier Aguirre — is extreme. Aguirre returns to take over the Tri in remarkably similar circumstances to those that existed eight years.

[GOLD CUP] The USA opens play at the 2009 Gold Cup on July 4 against Grenada at Qwest Field in Seattle. It also faces Honduras in Washington, D.C., on July 8 and Haiti at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., on July 11. The Honduras match comes a little more than a month after the USA faces the Catrachos in World Cup 2010 qualifying in Chicago. The Gold Cup follows a busy June for the USA, which is also playing at the Confederations Cup in South Africa. For a look at the three U.S. opponents …

[WPS] Women’s Professional Soccer moves into full gear with three games over the weekend. Marta’s drawing power will be put to the test when Los Angeles travels to Sky Blue FC. Chicago travels across Illinois to face St. Louis on the campus of SIU-Edwardsville, while FC Gold Pride hosts Boston in the WPS Game of the Week on FSC. For a look at this week’s games …

[USL-1] For many years, there’s been talk of a second pro team joining the Red Bulls (nés MetroStars) in New York. It won’t be a second MLS team but a USL-1 team set to play at Hofstra University in 2010.

[HEXAGONAL] Honduras did it again. For the fourth time in the last four World Cup qualifying cycles, the Catrachos beat Mexico in San Pedro Sula. They got two goals from Carlos Costly and one from the former Los Angeles Galaxy striker Carlos Pavon and defeated the reeling Tri, 3-1. The result propelled Honduras into third place and dropped Mexico into fourth. Costa Rica claimed second behind the first-place USA thanks to a 1-0 win over El Salvador.

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING-EUROPE] Spain, England and the Netherlands remained the only teams with perfect records at the midway point of World Cup 2010 qualifying in Europe. Northern Ireland held on its surprise lead in Group 3, while Ireland got a late goal from Robbie Keane to earn a 1-1 tie at Italy. The Czech Republic slumped to a 2-1 loss at home to Slovakia. For more on European action and all the results, goalscorers and standings …

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING-ASIA] Australia moved to within one point of clinching a berth in the World Cup finals with a 2-0 win over Uzbekistan. South Korea took over the lead in Group B with a 1-0 victory over North Korea.

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING-SOUTH AMERICA] Wonder why there’s so much controversy about playing international matches at high altitude? Four days after Diego Maradona‘s Argentina looked like world beaters in a 4-0 victory over Venezuela, it traveled to La Paz, at almost 11,000 feet above sea level, and got hammered by Bolivia, 6-1. The irony: Maradona had backed Bolivia’s campaign to get FIFA’s ban on matches at high altitude lifted.

[HEXAGONAL] It’s only the third day of World Cup 2010 qualifying in the Concacaf zone, but Mexico and Honduras meet in a critical match for both teams Wednesday in San Pedro Sula (TV: Telemundo, live, 9:30 pm ET). If one team loses, look for its coach to be on his way out. One player who isn’t in San Pedro Sula is New Mexico product Edgar Castillo. Called in as a last-minute replacement for the injured Giovanni Dos Santos, Castillo was unable to travel with Mexico to Honduras because he lost his passport.

[HEXAGONAL] Ever wonder what the impact of a tense match like Saturday’s World Cup qualifier between the USA and El Salvador has on a coach? El Salvador coach Carlos de los Cobos was hospitalized Sunday, complaining of dizziness. He was released Monday and joined the short-handed Salvadoran national team for its next qualifier against Costa Rica Wednesday at the Saprissa Stadium in San Jose.

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] On Wednesday, the first team could qualify for the 2010 World Cup, joining host South Africa in the 32-team field. Australia would clinch a berth in the finals with a victory over Uzbekistan in a game that kicked off at 5 a.m. ET and a tie between Bahrain and Qatar later in the day. The Australia-Uzbekistan match launched a crucial day of World Cup qualifying. Here’s a look at the most intriguing games, all available on television, on each of the three continents other than Concacaf on a day when there will be a full slate of games …