Category: Section 2 Around the Net

"Someone who should be casting his eye on [Michael] Owen is Arsene Wenger. In 2001, he prematurely hailed the injury-prone flop Francis Jeffers as the 'fox in the box' his side needed — and he has been looking for a penalty area specialist ever since." Rich Evans ponders the next move for England striker Owen, […]

Christian Ziege, assistant coach at Michael Bradley's Bundesliga team Borussia Moenchengladbach, has resigned just days after the team finished bottom of the German league at the season's halfway point. The former Liverpool and Bayern Munich player was reportedly unhappy at having too little say in team matters. Also, his head coach Hans Meyer, appointed in […]

The question is not so much whether Blackburn Rovers was right to sack manager Paul Ince on Tuesday, writes Paul Wilson. Rather, should the club have appointed him in the first place? Like the appointment of Roy Keane at Sunderland, Ince's recruitment was "risky," he says, because "in both cases the club boards seemed to […]

Women's Professional Soccer is set to announce Monday a three-year, $10-million deal with German company Puma to be its official equipment supplier, writes Matthew Futterman. "Women's soccer is on a tremendous growth pattern in the U.S.," said Jochen Zeitz, Puma's chief executive. "This is a huge opportunity for us." Its decision to join forces with […]

AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti was initially not thought to be wildly enthused at the idea of taking L.A. Galaxy midfielder David Beckham on loan. Now, however, he thinks that Beckham will boost his injury-depleted squad when he arrives in January since Italian national team midfielder Gennaro Gattuso is out for the season with a […]

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has said there is no way the 2010 World Cup will be moved from South Africa, after admitting earlier this year that soccer's world governing body did have contingency plans to move the event. "There definitely is no plan B or C, the only plan is to make the South African […]

As Canadian midfielder Dwayne De Rosario is traded to his hometown Toronto FC, Andrea Canales lauds a player who "spun the notion that North American soccer consisted just of the U.S. and Mexico on its head by becoming one of the very best in MLS." At the same time, she wonders if his recent slump […]

English native Roger Faulkner was the president of the 1994 World Cup Detroit Host Committee when a natural grass surface was laid at the Silverdome and four games attracted average gates of over 70,000. "Since then, we've seen absolutely nothing," he told Jo-Ann Barnas. Without a professional team, Michigan soccer is "getting left behind in […]

Glasgow Celtic "will battle it out with a host of European rivals to land American star Sacha Kljestan," writes a Scottish Sunday newspaper, without citing sources. It said the Chivas USA midfielder "is being tracked by Monaco, Heerenveen, FC Twente, Leverkusen, Schalke and Wolfsburg."    

Copa Sudamericana champion Internacional of Brazil turned down an offer of more than $6.8 million from the L.A. Galaxy for Argentine midfielder Andres D'Alessandro, reports Brian Lewis. He takes this as meaning "Landon Donovan is surely leaving Los Angeles. His trial at Bayern Munich must be going well, because if the Galaxy are tossing around […]

"I always said the door of the national team is open for all the players. I will check him in January and after that I will decide if he is ready, if he is OK for the next squad." England manager Fabio Capello says that Newcastle's Michael Owen is still in contention for the national […]

"[Didier] Drogba has been at Chelsea for many years and is doing well there. We have our strikers who are also doing well here. It is just media speculation." Inter Milan Sporting Director Marco Branca insists his club will not be signing the Chelsea striker in the January transfer window.    

“The capital [London] gets gridlock, unaffordable houses, overpopulation, pollution and a lousy standard of living, but, on the upside, if you want to stare at a Titian or the Rosetta Stone, it is the place to be. The National Football Museum, like all projects of historical worth, has to be based where it is accessible. […]

"The truth is that when Uefa brought in their Champions League they were not so much breaking new ground as buying time. They do know the nature of their beast. It is unbounded by any force but the one of self-interest. What happened this week was not football competition but money-spinning." James Lawton adds his […]

"We're amazed at the support by our fans." Toronto FC's senior director of business operations, Paul Beirne, expresses the team's surprise that it has already sold out its quota of 16,000 season tickets for the 2009 season.    

"Three spies from Pachuca came to inspect our practice today. It's not fair. We didn't watch their practice. It's not fair." More high jinx from the Club World Cup as Manuel Jose, the coach of Egyptian club Al Ahly, accused Mexican side Pachuca of spying on his team's practice. The two teams meet Saturday in […]

"Hopefully it will be a great game and we can convince people that the 4-1 is forgotten. It's something that I don't like thinking back to and I understand people want revenge." Barcelona's Mexican defender Rafael Marquez hopes to banish the memory of last season's 4-1 defeat at Real Madrid in this Saturday's superclasico at […]

U.S. women's national team midfielder Shannon Boxx, 31, was close to quitting last year because she was emotionally drained, writes Corinna Knoll. But the Olympic gold medallist was re-energized by the appointment of Pia Sundhage as coach in November 2007. "I was close to being done," Boxx said. "It started to become a job. I […]

UEFA President Michel Platini has said that the 2012 European Championship, to be hosted jointly by Poland and the Ukraine, could take place solely in Poland if the stadium in the Ukrainian capital Kiev is not finished on time, according to Polish newspaper Dziennik. However, Platini is cool on a previously aired idea that Poland […]

World soccer’s governing body FIFA has named the contenders for the 2008 World Player and FIFA Women’s World Player awards. The award will be presented January 12. There are no U.S. players on either list. The male nominees are Kaka (Brazil), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Fernando Torres (Spain) and Xavi (Spain). The women […]

UEFA will decide Monday whether to punish Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney over his clash with Aalborg's Kasper Risgard at Old Trafford in Wednesday's Champions League group game. Any suspension would mean him missing at least one game when the competition's Round of 16 knockout phase begins in February. Risgard claimed Rooney deliberately stomped on […]

Eleven-year-old Evan Mundine of Bastrop, Texas, is selling his autographed soccer memorabilia to help find a bone marrow donor for the wife of his favorite player, Real Salt Lake’s Andy Williams. Marcia Williams has leukemia. The fifth-grader broke his legs two years ago while playing soccer and, while recovering, received soccer balls, jerseys and photographs […]

“For us to win the league we need Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal to mess up their season. It is very rare that three teams all mess up. So there’s no point waiting for our direct adversaries to slip up because it won’t happen. They all have a lot greater financial means than us.” EPL-leading […]

Michael Arace ponders Sigi Schmid's departure form the Columbus Crew and, after listening to both Schmid and Crew GM Mark McCullers, is still not clear on "how the first major professional team title in Columbus history was followed, in short order, by uncomely divorce." "I wish it hadn't come to this, but it was unavoidable," […]

The Champions League group stage "has become such a tiresome, irrelevant farce that it is threatening to bring this once-great competition to its knees," writes Scott Murray. He compares the lack of surprises in this year's group stage with the 1979 European Cup, when it was a straight knockout competition featuring only actual league champions, […]