[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] Whether he plays wide or in the middle, whether it’s up front or in midfield, whether it’s on the ground or in the air, there’s no stopping Cristiano Ronaldo. The 23-year-old Portuguese star scored his 10th goal in his last 11 appearances in Europe and 36 goals in all competitions this season to lead Manchester United past Roma, 2-0, in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series on Tuesday in Rome.
Category: Soccer America Daily
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Teen Bojan, a pleasure to watch
[UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE] True to its principles, Barcelona went to Germany with the idea to attack Schalke 04, and, sure enough, scored an early goal by 17-year-old Bojan Krkic that held up for a 1-0 victory in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series on Tuesday. His goal made him the second youngest player to score in the Champions League.
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What They’re Saying
“I think we should welcome all peaceful people to our country. They get to pursue the ‘American Dream’ and we get to benefit from all the wonderful things that immigrants bring to our country — like good old fashioned soccer. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”
— Drew Carey, TV star and part owner of the Seattle franchise that will join MLS in 2009 (REASON.TV)
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Raw beef not good idea for Korean team
[OFF THE POST] A K-League game was postponed after players from Gwangju Sangmu suffered severe food poisoning from a dish of raw beef mixed with rice served at a popular restaurant in Gwangju during their team meal. “This is the first time an incident like this has caused a delay in games,” said a K-League official.
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D.C. downed in Mexico
[GAME REPORT] If Luis Montes isn’t a regular starter for Pachuca, D.C. United players and coaches would like to know why. In the Concacaf Champions Cup Wednesday night at Estadio Hildago, he came on as a halftime substitute and proved to be the perfect focal point for an attack that couldn’t stop squandering chances.
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MLS champ Houston has some holes to fill
[PREVIEW] The 2007 MLS champion has yet to hit its stride and is in the midst of a stretch that would be tough for any team, even one that has all its players healthy and available. The Dynamo is missing a few bodies for its semifinal, first leg encounter with Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica in the Concacaf Champions Cup Wednesday (10 p.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel), but it could have two players added from the squad that lost in feeble fashion to New England, 3-0, in its MLS opener last weekend.
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Ruiz injury adds to Galaxy woes
[MLS] The life of Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit isn’t going quite the way he hoped it would. At the tail end of a 4-0 thumping in Colorado Saturday night that marked Gullit’s coaching debut in MLS, the Rapids’ Ciaran O’Brien crashed into Carlos Ruiz from behind. The tackle removed both players from the game; O’Brien with a red card and Ruiz hobbling from a knee injury that Tuesday required arthroscopic surgery.
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Deep Revs re-group for Chicago
[MLS] If any MLS team might be well-prepared to lose two of its best players, it’s New England, which takes on Chicago Thursday in the first game of the ESPN2 doubleheader (7:30 p.m. ET) minus Taylor Twellman and Steve Ralston.
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USA splits at U-16 Mondial Minimes under new coach Cabrera
[YOUTH] In the first international tournament under new U.S. under-17 national team coach Wilmer Cabrera, the USA finished with two wins and two losses and captured seventh place at the 36th annual Mondial Minimes hosted by tiny French club FC Montaigu. Carlos Martinez led the Americans with three goals, including the winner against England. Luis Gil, who scored against China, and Alex Shinsky, who had an assist in the win over China, were the youngest members of the team at age 14.
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D.C. renews USA-Mexico club rivalry
Only one MLS team will face Mexican opposition in the Concacaf Champions’ Cup semifinals this year, with D.C. United drawing the short straw to face defending champion Pachuca on Tuesday. Houston, which was eliminated by Pachuca in last year’s semis, opens its two-game semifinal series against Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica Wednesday at Robertson Stadium, which is a formidable enough task. Yet D.C. is facing a tough opponent that plays at altitude and has been winning domestic and international trophies regularly for the past two years.
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Player attacks ball boy and fan
[OFF THE POST] Gustavo Semino of Chilean club Huachipato was red-carded for pushing a ball boy and then punched a field-invading fan. Semino, whose strike reportedly knocked a tooth out of the fan’s mouth, was apprehended by police and arrested, as was the fan.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, What They're Saying
What They’re Saying
"I don’t have to stand here like a rocket scientist and tell you what we need because I think it’s pretty obvious what we need. We need creative players who can put the ball in the back of the net. And we’re working tirelessly on bringing those players here."
— John Carver after his first game as Toronto FC coach, a 2-0 loss to Columbus on Saturday. (The Globe & Mail)
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Hugo Sanchez gets the boot
[MEXICO] Hugo Sanchez, whose 16-month stint as Mexican national team coach included two losses to the USA and one tie with the archrival, has been fired. Sanchez’s ousting comes two weeks after he failed to qualify Mexico for the 2008 Olympic Games.
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Beckham to appear on Jay Leno Show
[TV] David Beckham, who earlier in March was featured on “60 Minutes,” will appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on Tuesday (NBC, 11:35 pm ET/PT)
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U.S. women headed to Juarez
[WOMEN’S OLYMPIC QUALIFYNG] U.S. women’s national team head coach Pia Sundhage named her 20-player roster for 2008 Concacaf Olympic women’s qualifying tournament that begins Wednesday in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The squad includes four relative newcomers who spent last fall playing in the U.S. college ranks — Rachel Buehler, Tobin Heath, Lauren Cheney and Amy Rodriguez — and Kacey White, whom Sundhage knows from having spent two years playing club ball in Sweden.
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UEFA Champions League TV Schedule
The UEFA Champions League moves into the quarterfinals with games Tuesday and Wednesday this week and next. Action kicks off Tuesday with a pair of games: Roma-Manchester United and Schalke-Barcelona. For all this week’s Champions League action …
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Fenerbahce dances to samba beat
[IN THE SPOTLIGHT] Brazilians have long had a big impact in countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and France, but their influence has now spread to countries like Turkey, where Fenerbahce, coached by former Brazilian great Zico, is expected to start five Brazilians on Wednesday when it hosts Chelsea in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal series.
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Bermuda and Bahamas claim last Concacaf spots
[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] Bermuda, coached by former Howard University coach Keith Tucker, defeated the Cayman Islands, 3-1, Sunday to win their open stage series, 4-2, aggregate and advance to the second stage of World Cup 2010 qualifying in the Concacaf zone against Trinidad & Tobago.
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Japanese World Cup player Suzuki signs with Timbers
[USL] The Portland Timbers signed 2002 Japanese World Cup player Takayuki Suzuki for the 2008 season. Suzuki, who has made 55 appearances and scored 11 goals for Japan, is considered the club’s most significant signing since joining the USL in 2001.
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MLS dream continues for youngsters
[SUENO MLS 2008] Briant Reyes, a 16-year-old Salvadoran-American midfielder from Downey, Calif., was selected as the Winner of Sueno MLS 2008: The Dream Continues by Chivas USA, while 16-year-old Gabriel Funes, an Argentine-born forward from Arlington, Texas, was selected by FC Dallas in the culmination of the reality show televised on Univision’s popular weekly sports show, Republica Deportiva.
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Red-hot Fernando Torres, sinking Barcelona, Italian violence
[THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY] Spaniard Fernando Torres scored in Liverpool’s sixth straight home game, tying a Reds’ record, and helped them beat Everton, 1-0, in their Merseyside derby. Barcelona was all but eliminated from Spain’s La Liga race when it blew a two-goal lead against Real Betis and lost, 3-2. Italian soccer was again marred by violence when a Parma fan was accidentally run over by a bus as it attempted to leave a service station at which Juventus and Parma fans were trading insults. For all the weekend developments across Europe …
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MLS Game Summaries, Standings, Schedule
New England, Columbus and Colorado started the MLS season with impressive wins …
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Flying start for Crew, Revs and Wizards
The first MLS opener for David Beckham turned into the worst drubbing of his brief Galaxy career, two young Gambians led the Revs to a spanking of Houston in a rematch of MLS Cup 2007, and the ballyhooed offseason FC Dallas signing turned victory into disappointment. For the first week of MLS 2008, we’ll examine how much impact was wielded by some of the players signed for that purpose.
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EPL’s ‘American team’ sinks further; Derby goes down.
[AMERICANS ABROAD]Chances that Fulham — the English Premier League team with five Americans – might avoid relegation took another blow when it could muster only a 2-2 tie with the league’s worst team, Derby. The tie made Derby, which has two Americans in its ranks, the first team in the 16-year history of the Premier League to be relegated by March.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, What They're Saying
What They’re Saying
“I’m finding it hard not to criticize some of the decisions tonight but I’ve just been told I’ll be fined if I do. I don’t want that to happen. Referees have a tough job, but some decisions change games, and that’s happened tonight.”
— Thrifty David Beckham pinpoints the reason his Los Angeles Galaxy lost 4-0 to the Colorado Rapids, which last season finished 10th in MLS’s overall standings. (AP)