Category: Soccer America Daily

[ENGLAND WATCH] Who will fall first? Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez? Or its despised American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett?

Draft day deals sent U.S. internationals Alecko Eskandarian from Real Salt Lake to Chivas USA, his fourth team in 14 months, and Chris Albright from Los Angeles to New England, while a deal for Jim Curtin to leave Chicago for Chivas USA was reportedly agreed upon on Monday. Champion Houston lost Zimbabwean Joseph Ngwenya, who scored the Dynamo’s first goal in MLS Cup 2007, to Austria Kaernten, last in the T-Mobile Bundesliga at the winter break. For all the team-by-team MLS offseason player moves …

[U.S. WOMEN] The USA completed a sweep of the the Four Nations Tournament in Coach Pia Sundhage‘s debut tournament when it beat host China, 1-0, in its final game on Sunday.

[SPAIN WATCH] Atletico is still haunted by the decision of its late president Jesus Gil y Gil to disband its youth program in 1992. Raul, who was 13 when he switched allegiance from Atletico and Real Madrid because of Gil’s decision, scored Sunday for La Liga leader in its 2-0 victory over Atletico to give him 11 goals against his former club.

[AFRICAN NATIONS CUP] Host Ghana’s Black Stars entered the 2008 African Nations Cup as one of the tournament’s favorites, but they will have to play better than they did in their opener if they are to contend for the championship. Sulley Muntari’s 90th-minute goal gave Ghana a 2-1 win over Guinea.

Generation adidas players were taken with six of the top eight picks in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft. The lowest GA pick was UC Santa Barbara’s Eric Avila, taken by FC Dallas with the No. 19 pick. The Gauchos and Santa Clara led all colleges with four players each taken in the ’08 draft in Baltimore. For all the 68 picks …

[AWARDS] Jeff Vennell, the athletics director at Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., won the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s Honor Award at the awards banquet held Friday in conjunction with the 2008 NSCAA Convention in Baltimore. For all the NSCAA coaching awards …

[USA-SWEDEN GRADES] Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney grades the U.S. players’ performance in their 2-0 victory over Sweden on Saturday.

[AMERICANS ABROAD] Midfielder Michael Bradley headed home Dutch club Heerenveen’s final goal in a 4-0 win over AZ. It was the 20-year-old’s eighth league goal of the season. In England, keeper Tim Howard slapped away a powerful header from Wigan’s Marcus Bent to help Everton win, 2-1, and move into fourth place of the English Premier League. Three EPL clubs with Americans saw their relegation woes increase this weekend.

Generation adidas players were taken with six of the top eight picks in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft.

Ridge Mahoney’s pre-draft analysis
Kansas City head coach Curt Onalfo, who holds the No. 1 pick in Friday’s MLS SuperDraft (TV: ESPN2, live, 2 pm ET), believes this year’s pool of players is relatively solid, yet readily admits his rival coaches might not share that opinion. For a look at what teams might take whom with the top picks …

[USA-SWEDEN] Two players have left camp and at least one other is injured, so the choices for U.S. coach Bob Bradley will be limited somewhat when he names his 18 players who will face Sweden Saturday at Home Depot Center (TV: Fox Soccer Channel, 8:30 p.m. ET).

Paul Kennedy updates WPS’s launch plans
After more than three years of work on the startup, a new women’s pro league moved one step closer to reality with Thursday’s announcement that it will be called Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). “Today’s a day for celebration,” said Tanya Antonucci, the WPS commissioner who has overseen the project since being talked into it at a gathering of Stanford soccer alumni — she played for the Cardinal in the mid-1980s — shortly after she left Yahoo!, where she served as general manager of its World Cup partnership with FIFA. For details on WPS …

[PREVIEW] The 2008 African Nations Cup kicks off Sunday when host Ghana faces Guinea in Accra. With such international stars as the Black Stars’ Michael Essien, Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, the African championship is now arguably the second most popular continental championship in the world behind the European Championship. It is certainly the most impactful. Dozens of players were reluctantly released by top-level clubs across Europe for the three-week tournament. For a look at the tournament, television information and our predictions ..

All 10 English Premier League games being played Saturday-Monday will be available on American television, included relegation-threatened Fulham hosting Arsenal on Saturday morning. All nine games from Mexico’s Clausura 2008, which kicks off Friday night, will also be available on U.S. outlets. La Liga action features the Villarreal-Valencia derby.

Zach Thornton, waived by Colorado after the 2007 season, has returned to New York, where he began his MLS career in 1996. For all the team-by-team MLS offseason player moves …

[U.S. YOUTH ROSTERS] A new cycle for the U.S. under-20 national team begins Thursday in Bradenton, Fla., with the start of a mega-camp for players born in 1990. They will be joined on Sunday by 16 players — including Generation adidas signees Josh Lambo and Brek Shea — who will form the core of the team U-20 head coach Thomas Rongen is taking to the Copa Chivas that begins next week in Guadalajara, Mexico.

[ENGLAND] Havant & Waterlooville, which plays in the sixth level of English soccer, won Wednesday’s English FA Cup third-round replay with a 4-2 win over League One (third division) leader Swansea City to set up a date in the fourth round at Liverpool that could earn it $2 million in revenues