“For the most part, it was ‘Really?’ and then ‘Why?’ I walked them through my decision-making process … They definitely bought into it.”
— Andrew Hauptman on the reaction of friends and family to his purchase of the Chicago Fire from AEG for a reported $30 million. (Chicago Tribune)
The Seattle Sounders and Atlanta Silverbacks needed penalty kicks to win their USL First Division semifinal series and move into Saturday’s championship game in Seattle (TV: Fox Soccer Channel, live, 10 pm ET). The Sounders, the 2007 regular-season champions, have won three USL-1 titles. Before this season, Atlanta had never won a postseason game in its eight years of existence.
[AMERICANS ABROAD/VIDEO] A week after getting his first Dutch Eredivisie goal, Michael Bradley pounced on a rebound to score his second in Heereveen’s 3-2 loss to Utrecht. On-fire Bradley had scored twice on Thursday in a 5-2 UEFA Cup win over Swedish club Helsingborg. Clint Dempsey, who scored a goal in each of Fulham’s last three games, came up empty in a 3-3 tie with Manchester City.
The stars came through with the goals but the real story of a 3-0 Women’s World Cup quarterfinal defeat of England stems is that just about every U.S. player shone. Abby Wambach, Shannon Boxx and Kristine Lilly scored, yet defender Cat Whitehill earned two assists and her back-line counterparts, led by Stephanie Lopez and Kate Markgraf, smothered nearly everything the English threw at them.
German giant Bayern Munich struggled to a 1-0 win over Portuguese club Belenenses at home in the first leg of theeir UEFA Cup first-round series. Italy striker Luca Toni scored the only goal for Bayern in a match watched by a crowd of 64,000 at the Allianz Arena.
[TV PREVIEW] The Wizards will get an up-close lesson on how to defend and still be dangerous in the attack. They have allowed 39 goals this season. Only the Galaxy has given up more. Chivas USA has conceded just 22 goals in 24 games – second only to Houston in the stingy department – yet have scored 39, one fewer than Kansas City.
[TV PREVIEW] Most of the time, a road point is cause for rejoicing, but nobody on the Fire was hopping around Thursday night at Pizza Hut Park after a 1-1 tie.
[TV PREVIEW] Spoiler is about the only role the Galaxy can play down the stretch as it seeks to salvage some pride at home, where it has won only one of the last five league games. It has lost to Dallas twice (2-1 and 3-1) this season in the pre-Beckham era and hasn’t been able to transform its stirring effort in the SuperLiga into league success.
So far at the Women’s World Cup, the USA has been more bruising than brilliant, but it might use the quarterfinal against England to refine its game a bit. England has reached its first quarterfinal by beating Argentina and tying Japan and Germany, and while it and Australia can be considered the weakest teams to reach this stage, there’s been enough uncertainty in the U.S. game to gauge the English chances at something more than nil when they meet on Saturday (8 am ET, ESPN & TeleFutura). Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney previews the USA-England clash and the other three quarterfinals. …
Three players hit significant milestones in USL First Division all-league honors with Montreal’s Gabriel Gervais being selected for a sixth time. Portland’s Andrew Gregor and Rochester’s Johnny Menyongar were named all-league for the fourth time in their career. Montreal and Portland led all teams with four selections each on the two all-league teams. For the first- and second-team selections …
So he could leave the Irish national team camp and skip a Euro 2008 qualifier against the Czech Republic, Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland claimed his maternal grandmother, who had helped raise him from age 5, had died. The Irish federation put him on a private plane to return home. When the grandmother announced that reports of her death were greatly exaggerated, the 21-year-old said it had been his paternal grandmother who had died. And if he had known it was that grandma, he wouldn’t have skipped the game. Well, that grandmother was also able to prove her existence – and she wasn’t too pleased to learn her demise wouldn’t warrant a national team absence.
Cheryl Salisbury’s goal two minutes into stoppage time gave Australia a 2-2 tie with Canada and sent the Socceroos into the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup and eliminated the Canadians, fourth at the 2003 finals in the United States. Brazil was the only team to win all three games, completing its sweep in Group D with a 1-0 win over Denmark.
The U.S. national team will play the third game on African soil in its 101-year history when it faces 2010 World Cup host South Africa Nov. 17 in Johannesburg in the Nelson Mandela Challenge Cup.
“They’re saying that the ball boy was annoying him from the start.”
— Jose Quispe, spokesman for Peruvian club Cienciano, whose goalkeeper Juan Flores was red-carded and arrested for kicking a ball boy. Flores was apparently upset after the boy tossed the ball on the field instead of handing it to him. (Reuters)
Michael Bradley scored twice to lead Dutch club Heerenveen to a 5-3 victory over Swedish club Helsingborg in the first leg of their UEFA Cup first-round series. Bradley scored in the 20th and 60th minutes in the home win. For updates on all the Americans on UEFA Cup entrants …
Up until the final seconds of the match, FC Dallas defender Clarence Goodson had been almost as threatening an attacker as Carlos Ruiz. But in those final seconds, Goodson flicked on a long ball that sent Ruiz free into the penalty area, where he dodged past Chicago keeper Matt Pickens and slammed a shot through two defenders into the net for the tying goal. Chicago, seeking its first win ever in Dallas, instead settled for 1-1 tie that improved its record slightly to 8-10-7 and left it with only two-point lead over Columbus and Colorado in the race for eighth place in the overall standings. All three teams have five games to play.
Deuce is on the loose: Clint Dempsey goes for goals in four straight games when Fulham hosts Manchester City. Two early-season clashes with big implications are Barcelona-Sevilla in Spain and Roma-Juventus in Italy. But the match of the week is Manchester United-Chelsea at Old Trafford, where all the attention will be on Israeli Avram Grant, who makes his debut as interim Chelsea manager in place of Jose Mourinho.
[TV PREVIEW] The Crew are fighting for a playoff spot yet Toronto FC has yet to be officially eliminated from postseason contention, and despite a inexorable goalless streak that seems to pre-date the franchise itself, it will come out charged up, as always.
[TV PREVIEW] New York can clinch a playoff spot and just as importantly prove it can beat the three-time MLS Cup finalist New England, which it has been unable to do in two previous meetings this season. These two teams could very well be paired as the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
[TV PREVIEW] Like the Crew, the Rapids have slipped in and out of the eighth playoff place and face a rugged road game against an opponent with nothing to lose.
Three years after Jose Mourinho arrived at Chelsea in a blaze of glory, he quit quietly. Having just led FC Porto to the UEFA Champions League, he delighted reporters at the press conference introducing him as Chelsea manager in 2004 by talking about himself. “Please don’t call me arrogant,” said the Portuguese coach, “but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.” Special he was with his flair for the dramatic, concluding with his shocking exit on Wednesday night.
[SPORTSMANSHIP] In English League Cup play on Tuesday, Leicester City allowed Nottingham Forest to take the ball from the opening kickoff and score without opposition. Leicester City came back to win, 3-2, in what was a replay of the match last month that was abandoned at halftime because Leicester player Clive Clarke suffered a heart attack. Forest was leading, 1-0, when the original match was abandoned, but that goal did not carry over into the replay.
DaMarcus Beasley became the first American player to play for two different clubs in the UEFA Champion League when he came on in the second half of Glasgow Rangers’ 2-1 victory over German champion VfB Stuttgart before almost 50,000 fans Wednesday night at Ibrox.
Forget about the playoff implications of Wednesday’s night Real Salt Lake-Los Angeles showdown. They’re aren’t any and never were any, save for the mathematical madness of possible points accrued minus potential points squandered by bubble teams multiplied by variance in the number of games to be played. Playing for pride and next year’s contracts, and a nice and noisy crowd of 24,633 given fair and sufficient warning of David Beckham’s absence, the Gals and Real swapped penalty kicks and golazos to end up tied, 2-2.
[TV PREVIEW] Since taking over the Fire, head coach Juan Carlos Osorio’s team has posted a 4-2-2 record and edged into the playoff octet. To stay there it will need better performances in its last six games, as no team chasing a postseason spot has a tougher schedule.
