Author Archives: Soccer America

Inter Milan battled through to the Coppa Italia semifinals with a 5-4 aggregate win after an enthralling 3-2 victory at Juventus Wednesday night. Trailing 2-1, the Nerazzurri had to rely on another dubious penalty decision to bring them back into the match before reserve forward Mario Balotelli slotted home a fantastic second to seal the […]

The unrest at Liverpool continues. While the backroom has made peace, the club’s fans are so desperate to replace owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett that they’ve started a fundraising scheme to oust the Americans. Described as a “longshot” member-share scheme by the Associated Press, the group, called Share Liverpool FC, will today begin collecting […]

Brad Guzan has been denied an English work permit, thus ending Aston Villa’s pursuit of the Chivas USA goalkeeper. An English panel ruled on Thursday that the U.S. international did not meet the necessary requirements. Villa bid $4 million to bring the player to the Premier League from MLS. The 23-year-old had been training earlier […]

David Beckham has been left out of Fabio Capello’s first England squad. The Italian tactician, who took charge of the national team following England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008, omitted Becks and included two new players in a provisional group of 30 to play in next Wednesday’s friendly against Switzerland. Capello cited a lack […]

Emmanuel Adebayor was on target once again as Arsenal defeated Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United, 3-0, for the second time in four days at the Emirates Stadium. The lanky striker scored twice in the FA Cup fourth-round victory on Saturday and opened the scoring once again in the Premier League victory on Tuesday, taking his recent […]

ESPN writer Frank Dell’Apa tells us that Major League Soccer has earned more than $30 million in transfer fees since 1996. To be sure, $30 million is a negligible percentage of the worldwide soccer market over the last 11 years, but if recent trends are anything to go by, the league’s transfer revenue looks set […]

The Columbus Crew is on the hunt for a designated player, and according to the Columbus Dispatch, that player might be Poland captain Maciej Zurawski, who has fallen out of favor at Celtic, his current club. The 31-year-old has made precious few appearances for the Hoops this season and reportedly wants to sign for the […]

For years, the African Cup of Nations has been a feeding ground for Europe’s top clubs in search of cheap foreign talent. Andrew Dixon of USSoccerPlayers wonders whether MLS scouts, fixated on bolstering their squads with Latin American talent, have even bothered to make the trek to Ghana this year, because if they are, “they’re […]

As the Liverpool backroom continues to lick the wounds from its recent civil war, American business mogul Robert Kraft has publicly declared his interest in the English Premier League club. As Dubai International Capital hovers above the unsettled atmosphere at Anfield, waiting to buy out Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Kraft tells Sky […]

Claudio Reyna has had a rough go of it since joining the New York Red Bulls early last year as the team’s first designated player. A high price tag ($2.5 million for two years) was followed by an understated, if disappointing first season in MLS, in which the Red Bulls made it as far as […]

A month after failing to sign Argentine playmaker Juan Sebastian Veron, D.C. United has now infused its squad with five new South American players: Peruvian goalkeeper Jose Carvallo, Colombian defender Gonzalo Martinez and three Argentines, forward Franco Neill, defender Gonzalo Peralta and midfielder Marcelo Gallardo. Some would say that in retrospect the club has done […]

Major League soccer for years has tried to emulate the National Football League and the National Basketball Association by turning its annual college draft into a major media event. However, Paul Gardner of the New York Sun points out that the “SuperDraft,” as it’s known, is unique to the United States in the worldwide game […]

As reported last November, the CONCACAF Champions Cup has been rebranded as the CONCACAF Champions League. As such, it will adopt a format similar to UEFA’s Champions League, although instead of 32 teams, the CONCACAF tournament will have 24. “This is a project we’ve been working on for more than a year,” CONCACAF general secretary […]

A Rob Hughes report from the International Herald Tribune focuses on the match-fixing attempts that recently threatened to undermine the African Nations Cup. A man representing a Singaporean betting syndicate asked players and officials from two teams, Benin and Namibia, to throw their first-round games against Mali and Guinea, respectively. Thankfully, on both occasions the […]