Author Archives: Ridge Mahoney

[MLS] Journalists really shouldn’t make game predictions public, since objectivity is a prerequisite to doing the job properly, and there’s nothing neutral about sticking your neck out declaring this team or that team — or in the case of soccer, neither team – is going to win. But we’ll go out on a limb and submit a prediction that New York will beat Seattle, 2-1, in the MLS 2009 season opener Thursday at Qwest Field

Finally, MLS has docked in Vancouver. Commissioner Don Garber flew to the Canadian city Tuesday to wrap up final details and attend a press conference Wednesday to announce Vancouver will join MLS as the league’s 17th franchise in 2011.

[MLS] Two more former USL Sounders have moved up to the MLS level. Defender Zach Scott and forward Roger Levesque are the newest additions, bringing the total of USL “graduates” to six. Already on board were goalkeeper Chris Eylander, forward Sebastian LeToux, midfielder Sanny Nyassi and defender Taylor Graham.

[MLS] A New England team weakened by injuries lost to the USL-1’s Carolina RailHawks, 1-0, in its final preseason match Saturday.

[MLS] Not until the regular season begins can it be ascertained if Real Salt Lake is indeed for real, but it couldn’t have done much else during the preseason to be convincing.

[MLS] Landon Donovan made his first preseason appearance for the Galaxy since returning from his loan to Bayern Munich and helped create his team’s goal in a 1-1 tie with Chicago in Tempe, Ariz., on Saturday.

[MLS] The Red Bulls wound up their preseason by beating one of only two teams to top them last year in elimination matches. At the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., New York defeated Crystal Palace Baltimore (USL-2) with goals by Khano Smith at the tail end of the first half and ex-Palace midfielder Matt Mbuta early in the second period.

[MLS] It seems appropriate that an ambitious plan melding soccer and baseball facilities would toss up a curveball. By a 3-2 vote, the Portland City Council Wednesday approved a funding plan by which more than $60 million in public monies would be loaned so Merritt Paulson — owner of the USL-1 Timbers and minor-league baseball Beavers — can build new stadiums for both teams. However …

[MLS] A few days after its spiritual and emotional leader, defender Claudio Suarez, announced his retirement, Chivas USA regained a measure of its Guadalajara tradition by signing a forward born in that city.

[MLS] Red Bull coach Juan Carlos Osorio‘s success last year rebuilding his team with midfielders and defenders from South America and Concacacf was mixed, so he’s turned to Europe, specifically Spain.

[MLS] A league that has been beaten over the head dozens of times at the ballot box, city council meetings, and legislative sessions is perhaps one vote away from adding another Northwest city to its lineup. The five-member Portland City Council votes Wednesday on a proposed agreement between potential MLS operator-investor Merritt Paulson, who owns the USL-1 Timbers soccer team and minor-league baseball Beavers, and the city to renovate PG&E Park, currently the Beavers’ home, into a first-class soccer facility and build a new baseball park downtown near where the NBA Trailblazers play.

[MLS] Jon Conway and Jeff Parke, who  tested positive for a banned substance and were suspended by MLS in October for 10 games, will be able to train with their teams once the MLS regular season begins next week.

[MLS] The MLS Players Union has released the list of 2009 player salaries and much of the inevitable interest is focused on two categories: the new Designated Players, and some high-profile signings not in the DP range, at least officially. Only Seattle has signed a new Designated Player, to wit Swedish midfielder Freddie Ljungberg, who will earn $1.3 million in base salary. That’s twice as much as the DP deal awarded to the Crew’s Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who after winning dual MVP awards – regular season and MLS Cup – while leading Columbus to its first MLS title, has been bumped up to $650,000 in base salary ($775,000 in guaranteed compensation). He earned a base salary of $250,000 and $375,000 guaranteed last year.

[MLS] If “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” as the king himself utters in “Henry IV, Part II,” the word hasn’t been passed to members of the Columbus Crew.

[MLS] Becks will be back in MLS this season, but only for a few months. Under terms of an agreement in the works for more than a week and officially announced Sunday, David Beckham will stay with AC Milan until the end of the Serie A season May 31 and return to the United States to finish the 2009 season with the Galaxy.

[MLS] Chivas USA lost a preseason scrimmage Saturday and may have also lost veteran defender Claudio Suarez to retirement.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Once every few years, soccer surpasses the limits and boundaries of rationale, and skews into the seemingly impossible. It happened again Thursday in Torreon, Mexico, just as it did six years ago in San Jose, when the original MLS Quakes rallied from a 4-0 aggregate deficit to beat Los Angeles, 5-4, in the MLS playoffs. By the same aggregate, and a similar scenario, Santos Laguna overturned a 4-1 deficit.

[MLS] Team-bonding and good competition are two reasons MLS coaches take their teams on foreign trips during preseason. Such jaunts occasionally involve adjusting and adapting to changing circumstances dictated by weather and other factors, and on the final game of its Argentine tour Seattle encountered both a tough opponent and unexpected circumstances.

[MLS] No look at the calendar is needed to perceive that the MLS preseason is ebbing away. The marking is tighter, the pace is faster, and a team like Chivas USA, which played its first MLS opponent in 2009 Wednesday at Home Depot Center, finds out quickly what it’s been missing.

[MLS] FC Dallas scored early, on the hour, and late, yet those three goals weren’t quite enough to match the output of the team’s host in Brazil, Clube Atletico Paranaense, which defeated its MLS partner club, 4-3, Wednesday at the Arena da Baixada in Curitiba.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] The venue changed, but the flow of play and result didn’t. Cruz Azul — leading its quarterfinal series with Mexico City rival UNAM, 1-0, from the first leg – dominated Pumas on their own field, and took the second leg by the same 1-0 score Wednesday at Estadio Olimpico Universitario.

[CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] The only MLS influence in the Concacaf Champions’ League semifinals will come from a few of its former employees. Ex-D.C. United striker Nicholas Addlery, former Crew goalie Bill Gaudette, and the first of two Northern Irish head coaches hired by Dallas, Colin Clarke, were among the celebrants in San Pedro Sula Wednesday after the USL’s Puerto Rico Islanders defeated CD Marathon, 1-0, in the second leg of their quarterfinal series.