Category: Section 2 Around the Net

Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber has admitted that the league will be hit hard by FIFA international dates next season, but said there’s not much that can be done about it, Luis Arroyave reports. “There are 13 weekends affected by international play and we have a 30-week season,” Garber said in Chicago. “To not […]

Europe’s soccer governing body UEFA has warned Poland that it risks losing the 2012 European Championship if it does not reinstate the country’s suspended Football Association. The Polish FA was suspended Sunday by the government, which said the organization had failed to tackle corruption. It appointed an administrator to run the body instead. Both UEFA […]

Every year bar one so far, the Major League Soccer MVP award has gone to a player prolific in tallying goals and assists. Only goalkeeper Tony Meola in 2000 bucked the trend when he helped the Kansas City Wizards win MLS Cup. Pat Walsh reckons it’s time to show a little more imagination in our […]

Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan bought the team eight years ago when he made $64 million from selling his mobile phone company. His team is close to the bottom of the Championship (England’s second tier), does not own its stadium, Selhurst Park, and is mortgaged to a hedge fund, Agilo, that caters for “distressed companies.” […]

At the third attempt, Scotland has persuaded Argentina to play a friendly game at Hampden Park in Glasgow next month. The first request fell through when Argentina demanded 100 percent of the gate money and television revenue. The Scottish Football Association didn’t go for that at all. Then the SFA polled its own fans to […]

“If that happened to someone on a school team, you’d tell them, ‘Clear off and go play the piano or the flute’.” Franz Beckenbauer reacts to an own goal from Bayern Munich defender Martin Demichelis in Tuesday’s 1-1 Champions League draw with Olympique Lyon.

“People aren’t happy in the France team. [Coach Raymond] Domenech plays with people but if you keep doing that, you stumble in the end. It’s ever so sad because there’s an amazing quality in that group and it’s all being wasted.” Goalkeeper Gregory Coupet burns his bridges with the French national team.

“By playing like crap on Saturday we’ve put ourselves in a familiar situation where we’re forced to get a result.” Quakes goalkeeper Joe Cannon looks forward to his team’s game at FC Dallas Thursday.

“By early 2002, the club had only played nine seasons of top flight football in 90-odd years of existence, and were in the third division drawing paltry crowds of around 200. Then Árpád Pászkány arrived.” Andy Clark tells the remarkable story of Romania’s unlikely Champions League participants, CFR Cluj.

If you’re going to fix a game, then you should try and aim for one that no one cares about. At least that might have been the philosophy behind a reported attempt to fix a UEFA Cup game last month between Marsaxlokk of Malta and visiting Croatian team Slaven Belupo. The Malta Football Association has […]

Multi-chinned Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has reportedly reduced the asking price for his club from $810 million to between $504-540 million. In case you’re interested.

“I gave you access in South Africa and I shouldn’t have given you access. It won’t happen again. From now on, no matter how many miles you travel to get an interview, you won’t get one.” Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson claims he’s never speaking to the press again, ever. So there.

“In those moments of tension, when your pulse is going 180 a minute, we were happy because we had scored a goal and we only intended to celebrate it with the fans, because in this section we also had friends and family.” Barcelona defender Carles Puyol defends his team’s rejoicing after a late penalty-kick winner […]

“Relationships suffer, parents, your family, birthdays, weddings, vacations … that’s what makes what I do so special, because I sacrifice a lot to do it, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Eight more years. That’s my goal, to get to 2016 — if my body allows me to.” Abby Wambach sets out her […]

The story that broke Monday in the Sports Business Journal about the Las Vegas Sports and Entertainment Group buying an undisclosed stake in the Columbus Crew was an exaggeration, according to both the team and Paul Caligiuri, the former U.S. national team player who is spokesman for the investor group. Shawn Mitchell reports both sides […]

When it comes to putting money into soccer, business is business, while environmental causes and workers' rights are the domains of naïve idealists. This must be the case given the reaction of Utah's local media to the announcement Monday that mining company Rio Tinto has bought the naming rights to Real Salt Lake's new stadium […]

Both of Major League Soccer’s L.A. teams have had their struggles this season. But with just a handful of games left in the fight for a Western Conference playoff spot, there is a markedly different mentality between the L.A. Galaxy and Chivas USA. At Chivas, coach Preki said after the weekend’s hard-fought 2-1 in over […]

Not that Sven Goran Eriksson was desperate for fresh talent or anything, but a forthcoming book from former English Football Association Executive Director David Davies claims that the ex-England coach wanted to naturalize four EPL foreign players so that they could play for the national team. In ‘FA Confidential,’ Davies writes that after Euro 2004, […]

It’s not just the injuries and the tight schedule that are killing D.C. United. It’s also the lackluster play, the poor discipline, the missing confidence and the inability to score. As Steven Goff observes following Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at FC Dallas, the regular season, like the team’s Concacaf Champions Cup campaign, looks like it has […]

Houston Dynamo’s Canadian midfielder Dwayne De Rosario was back home at weekend as his side traveled to play Toronto FC. He took the opportunity to let the Canadian Soccer Association know about player discontent on the national team. “There’s just so much to be said,” said De Rosario. “The players really have no say. And […]

It seems like only last week that Toronto FC coach John Carver was saying that if his team failed to make the playoffs, he would entirely understand if he was given the sack. After failing to beat the Houston Dynamo at home on Saturday — a result that effectively, if not mathematically, ended TFC’s season […]

Some would argue that with the prevalence of reality TV and the past decade’s obsession with celebrity culture, the dumb revolution has already happened. But then they didn’t watch New England lose 1-0 at Columbus Saturday, foolishly trying to play what its coach Steve Nicol condemned as “pretty passes.” “In the first half, if not […]

Another unhappy MLS coach was New York’s Juan Carlos Osorio, who was incredulous that his team could concede five goals at home, including four in the first half alone. Not that he’s going to go on about it. “I have been beaten before,” Osorio admitted. “But never in my life allowed four goals in the […]

“The issue is whether his flaws are really fixable.” Jen Chang addresses the problem of Eddie Johnson, the U.S. national team striker currently struggling at Cardiff City in the English league’s second tier.

“I think we tried to be a bit too gung-ho. We’ve got to try and have more of an English mentality. You wouldn’t have seven-eight-nine guys pushing up in the box trying to score a goal. You’d have six-seven-eight men back defending. Maybe we got to start doing that a bit more.” Two-goal Darren Huckerby […]