Author Archives: Ridge Mahoney

According to a source, New York Red Bull has asked, and been refused, permission to talk to Fire head coach Juan Carlos Osorio. But that’s not the end of it, not by a long shot.

MLS teams won’t have the option of adding a second Designated Player next year unless they trade for another team’s slot. The league’s Board of Governors rejected a proposal to add a second DP slot per team next year, perhaps because only four teams used the mechanism in 2007, and also because too much of a thing that might turn out to be good is not good.

[MLS CUP 2007 PREVIEW] New England and Houston played a spectacular 3-3 tie during the regular season. In their other match, the Revs won, 1-0. How the defenders and goalkeepers will fare in this year’s final is the topic of our third and final analysis leading up to MLS Cup 2007 (Sunday, noon, live on ABC & Telefutura).

[MLS CUP PREVIEW] In the second installment of our stories setting up the MLS championship game between New England and Houston at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney looks at the midfield matchup.

Big games, like cup finals and most other matches as well, are won and lost in the middle of the field. Yet mano-a-mano skirmishes are just one facet of the overall battle, so the duels of Dynamo Dwayne De Rosario and Rev Shalrie Joseph will be fascinating but not necessarily definitive as to which team wins.

Former Chicago Fire general manager Peter Wilt, who had been spearheading the effort to land an MLS franchise in Milwaukee, has left his post. As chief executive officer of Milwaukee Professional Soccer LLC, Wilt negotiated a partnership with the Wisconsin Youth Soccer Association but couldn’t bring together the necessary financial and political components to facilitate a successful expansion bid.

Negotiations to play Interliga matches at the Oakland Coliseum were unsuccessful, and so additional games have been scheduled for Robertson Stadium in Houston and Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. Interliga dates for Jan. 3 and Jan. 8 had been left open in the original schedule with the possibility they would be played in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[MLS CUP PREVIEW] In the first installment of our stories setting up the MLS championship game between New England and Houston at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney looks at the fowards.

Today’s the day Chris Armas officially hangs it up. At age 35, sent to the sidelines by a troublesome hip and the wear and tear of a dozen pro seasons, the MLS prototypical holding midfielder played 264 regular season games and 37 more in the playoffs with a zeal and hunger seemingly unaffected by fatigue, weather or circumstance. He’ll walk away reluctantly, happy and sad, as well he should. Nobody ever wore the colors of his club and country more humbly yet as proudly as did Armas. He played in four MLS Cups and helped the Fire, which he joined after two seasons in Los Angeles, win a league title and four U.S. Open

No surprise here: On Friday, the MLS Board of Governors approved a Seattle franchise to start play in 2009 as the league’s 15th franchise. MLS commissioner Don Garber will be in Seattle Tuesday for a formal announcement. The new team will play at Qwest Field, home of the NFL Seattle Seahawks, and might or not be called the Sounders, the nickname used by a popular but ultimately defunct North American Soccer League franchise (1974-83) as well as a current member of United Soccer Leagues.

By tried-and-true methods — efficiency on set plays and the unerring daring of Dwayne DeRosario – Houston duly returned to the MLS Cup by beating Kansas City, 2-0, Saturday. But those elements are only part of a formula that for the past two seasons has proven tough to break down even under pressure. Nate Jaqua powered home a Richard Mulrooney corner kick late in the first half to break open a goalless game and DeRosario drilled a low shot with nine minutes left for the clinching goal as Houston won its fifth postseason match (out of seven) since the franchise moved from San Jose in December, 2005.

[MLS PLAYOFF PREVIEW] Defending champion Houston, which also won titles in 2003 and 2005 as the San Earthquakes, battle the Kansas City Wizards in Texas on Saturday for a spot in MLS Cup 2007. Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney previews the match-up. …

If all 1-0 games featured the teams sharing 36 shots equally, dozens of crunching tackles, and a moment of flair a la Taylor Twellman on a chilly Thursday night, so much more popular in America MLS might be.

[MLS SEMIFINAL PREVIEW] In the 12-year history of the MLS playoffs, many higher-seeded teams have been bumped off at home by lower seeds. But not the New England Revolution. It is unbeaten at home in the playoffs. Its 8-0-4 record includes a perfect 5-0 mark against the Chicago Fire in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2006. It also beat the Fire, 3-1, in their regular-season meeting at Gillette Stadium in May. On Thursday, New England hosts Chicago. The winner goes to MLS Cup 2007.

There’s been nothing but stony silence from MLS headquarters regarding the recent carnival acts in New Jersey and Los Angeles, and for this Commissioner Don Garber and his fellow executives should be commended.

After all, what can be said about dysfunctional organizations in the league’s two biggest — and by many standards, most important — markets? In the space of 24 hours, they’ve jettisoned the only two coaches with national-team experience who’ve won two league titles in their first three seasons. Bruce Arena lasted 16 months, Frank Yallop survived slightly longer, 17 months.

The elimination of Chivas USA, which tied Kansas City, 0-0, at Home Depot Center to lose its series, 1-0 on aggregate, means both regular-season conference champions are out of the playoffs. D.C. United having been ousted by Chicago on Thursday. Second-place finishers Houston – which is aiming to become MLS’s first repeat champ since D.C. United won the league’s first two championships in 1996 and 1997 — and New England advanced by winning their home legs, 4-1 and 1-0, respectively over shorthanded opposition.

Kansas City finished tied with Chicago for fourth place in the Eastern Conference, and can take heart from what the Fire did against top seed D.C. United,: Win at home, tie on the road, see you in Texas (against either Houston or Dallas). Kansas City takes a slim 1-0 edge to Home Depot Center and faces a Chivas USA whose forward tandem of Ante Razov and Maykel Galindo has been hit by injuries.