Category: Section 2 Around the Net

Italian World Cup winner Daniele De Rossi’s father-in-law was killed Thursday in a suspected Mafia hit.

Scores from the first leg games of Thursday’s UEFA Cup second qualifying round.

As the English Premier League kicks off on Saturday, there’s more money, more hype, and more expensive imported players than ever before. Yet even before a ball’s been kicked, everyone knows there are only four teams that can realistically hope to lift the title. Most bets will be on Chelsea or Manchester United, with Arsenal […]

The 46th Bundesliga season kicks off this weekend amid an as yet unsettled row about TV rights, reports Raphael Honigstein. The German Competition Commission looked into the league’s six-year, $4 billion deal running from 2009-2015 and found it “unacceptable,” concluding that centralized marketing was a de facto cartel, and that a free-to-air highlights program must […]

U.S. national team and Toronto FC midfielder Maurice Edu could be on his way to Glasgow Rangers for $5 million, reports Steven Goff.

Edu’s national team colleague Benny Feilhaber has firmed up his move from Derby County to Danish first division club AGF Aarhus.

Here’s the draw for round two of the English League Cup, the competition that no one wants to admit is 20 years past its sell-by date.

Watch the video footage of a Dutch TV interview with new FC Twente manager Steve McClaren, the man with the personality of a wet winter Sunday in Detroit. Strangely, McClaren has adopted the accent of a foreigner speaking English. No Steve, this doesn’t mean you are now speaking Dutch.

L.A. Galaxy right-sided midfielder David Beckham is to appear on a London double-decker bus at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

The South African government announced Wednesday that the cost of staging the World Cup will rise by a further 2 billion rand ($258 million). The overall projected costs will rise from 9.6 billion rand (just below $1.25 billion) to 11.6 billion (around $1.5 billion). Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi said the figure covered “all infrastructure” […]

Clint Mathis is to try a second spell at Real Salt Lake, paperwork pending, the team's GM Garth Lagerwey has confirmed. Just as England coach Fabio Capello hopes that marriage will settle Wayne Rooney down, Lagerwey reckons that the birth of Mathis' first child on Monday will help steady the wayward career of the forward […]

How we sniggered last year when former RB New York Managing Director Marc de Grandpre said upon dismissing coach Bruce Arena that the expectation at owner Red Bull's HQ was nothing less than the MLS Cup. Now, says Pat Walsh, it may not be beyond the team to achieve that goal as early as this […]

The news that Europe’s top leagues feature many foreign players is hardly going to stop the front page presses, but no doubt FIFA President Sepp Blatter will find the statistics useful in his ongoing crusade to try and contravene European Union employment laws. A study published Thursday by the Professional Football Players Observatory states that […]

Meanwhile further south, United Soccer League Division One’s Charleston Battery reached its first ever Open Cup final by beating the Seattle Sounder on penalty kicks. The Battery hero was Dusty Hudock, who “literally saved the Battery’s chance at a national championship,” writes Andrew Miller. Hudock, who has been with the Battery 10 years, made two […]

Last season Derby County was the EPL’s relegation favorite before a ball had been kicked. This season, newcomers Hull City and Stoke City are in the same position ahead of Saturday’s kick-off. Stoke’s manager Tony Pulis is realistic about the task ahead, and has spent the summer coping with the new realities of life in […]

As English soccer becomes increasingly focused on money, weddings and celebrity wives, and less on the actual game, a new magazine aims to cash in on the decline of quality soccer journalism and lower the tone of the medium even further. ‘Football Punk magazine, owned by former Liverpool defender Phil Babb, is set to become […]

Which is easy to do off-field, perhaps less so in the middle of an intense professional game. We’ll see.

In a long anticipated move, U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller, 38, is to join MLS expansion franchise the Seattle Sounders.

U.S. defender Cory Gibbs joined the Colorado Rapids Tuesday after the L.A. Galaxy passed up its chance to sign the player.

David Beckham claimed that departed L.A. Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit was "comfortable with the players," but Landon Donovan was "less inclined to buy into that line of thinking," writes Grahame Jones. The forward spoke of being disrespected by Gullit, while acknowledging the difficulties for first-time foreign coaches of taking on a team in Major League […]

It's rarely been the case in recent years, but D.C. United has started taking the U.S. Open Cup seriously. It took the revolutionary step of fielding a first-choice lineup against New England Tuesday and reached the final with a 3-1 win. The Revs, by contrast, rested several players, with elimination the predictable consequence. "We have […]

“The Los Angeles Galaxy looks more and more like a Saturday Night Live sketch every day,” writes Steve Davis in the aftermath of the sacking of GM Alexi Lalas, and the departure “for personal reasons” of coach Ruud Gullit. The new vacancies will create “ample room for the next round of material that will keep […]

The owner of Manchester City, the former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has skipped bail with his wife and fled from Thailand to Britain, claiming that he could not expect a fair trial on corruption charges in his native country. His wife, Pojaman, was already sentenced to three years in prison two weeks ago for […]

Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann made it clear after his appointment that he viewed the team as a long-term project, and that it could take years for his new policies to take effect. But neither fans nor team officials have that kind of patience, and already questions are being asked after Bayern’s first competitive game […]

England coach Fabio Capello is not concerned about Wayne Rooney’s famous on-field temper, last aired against the United States in May at Wembley. Since Rooney married over the summer, he’s apparently going to be a much more settled man. Neither does Capello care if the Manchester United striker enjoys the odd cigarette.   “I don’t […]