“It’s been an incredible experience but all I remember now is the great things. Winning this tonight now puts to bed everything else.”
— Los Angeles-bound David Beckham after winning the Spanish La Liga title with Real Madrid, which he joined in 2003. The 2007 league title was Real Madrid’s first major trophy since Beckham arrived. The team went through six different coaches while Beckham was with the club. (Associated Press)
David Beckham and Roberto Carlos departed Real Madrid as champions on Sunday when the Merengues won Spain’s La Liga title for the 30th time with a 3-1 victory over Real Mallorca at the Bernabeu Stadium. Real Madrid finished tied with Barcelona, a 5-1 winner over Gimnastic Tarragona, but captured the tie by virtue of its advantage in the tiebreaker (head-to-head play).
[USL RESULTS] The Rochester Rhinos opened up a two-point lead on idle Vancouver in the USL-1 thanks to a 5-2 win over Charleston on Sunday. Five different players scored for the Rhinos, who have played three more games than the Whitecaps. Seattle won, 1-0, at Carolina on Frenchman Sebastien Le Toux‘s goal to move into third place four points behind Rochester. In the USL-2, the expansion Bermuda Hogges remained winless with losses at Baltimore and Richmond.
The first group of clubs that will field U-16 and U-18 in the inaugural season of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy , which kicks off this fall, have been chosen. The first 11 are: Atlanta Fire United Soccer Association (Georgia), B/W Gottschee (New York), Capitol Area Soccer League (North Carolina), De Anza Force Soccer Club (Northern California), FC DELCO (Pennsylvania), FC Greater Boston Bolts (Massachusetts), Michigan Wolves (Michigan), Nomads Soccer Club (Southern California), Players Development Academy (New Jersey), Seacoast United (New Hampshire) and FC Westchester (New York).
Jocelyn Angloma, the 41-year-old former French international, did it again, scoring his second goal of the Gold Cup to help tiny French department Guadeloupe knock off Honduras, 2-1, and advance to the semifinals, where it faces Mexico on Thursday at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Once again, Mexico put on a subpar performance, but it escaped from Houston’s Reliant Stadium with a 1-0 win in overtime over Costa Rica, which finished the game with eight players. In the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader at Foxboro’s Gillette Stadium, Canada cruised past Guatemala, 3-0.
Cameroon headed a group of four countries that qualified this weekend for next January’s African Nations Cup in Ghana. The Indomitable Lion beat Rwanda, 2-1, on Sunday for their fifth win in five games. Also through to the finals are Angola, the easy winner in Group 6, and Morocco and Tunisia, which made sure of their place with wins on Saturday. For complete African Nations Cup qualifying results and goalscorers …
United States U-20 national team coach Thomas Rongen named the 21-player roster that will represent the U.S. at the Under-20 World Cup in Canada June 30-July 22. Rongen’s squad features 14 pro players, the most ever for a U.S. Under-20 World Cup team. It includes Michael Bradley, who is playing for the senior national team at the Gold Cup, Freddy Adu, who has already played in two U-20 world championships, and Josmer Altidore, the youngest player on the team at age 17. For the complete U-20 roster …
This game could have been over by halftime, or at the very least put away with eight minutes left; instead the USA sweated out several minutes of stoppage time before the referee’s whistle extinguished the flickering hopes of Panama, 2-1, in the Gold Cup quarterfinals at Gillette Stadium Saturday afternoon.
Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney grades the U.S. players’ performance in their 2-1 Gold Cup quarterfinal win over Panama.
Eastern Conference teams scored 20 goals in their four games as D.C. United belted Chicago, Toronto derailed Dallas in a battle of the FCs, and six-goal deadlocks resulted from the New York-Kansas City and New England-Columbus tussles. In the West, Chivas USA extended Colorado’s losing streak to three matches, and the Galaxy knocked off RSL in the battle of the basement. Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney reports on last weekend’s MLS action.
There was a bizarre twist to one of soccer’s great success stories of the year when 13 members of Haiti’s U-17 team vanished, then reappeared at New York’s Kennedy International Airport, where they were scheduled to fly to South Korea for an international tournament in preparation for the U-17 World Cup there later in the summer. After Haitian Football Federation president Yves Jean-Bart appealed on a Haitian Creole-language radio station in New York to the players to “reinstate themselves as soon as possible,” the players all returned to the team.
It was not a good Gold Cup for Cuba. After Cuba was unceremoniously dumped from the tournament with a 5-0 loss to Honduras in Houston on Wednesday night, it was revealed that two players, veteran striker Lester More and Osvaldo Alonso, may have tried to defect.
Twice in the recent past Panama has stretched the United States nearly to the breaking point. Saturday at Gillette Stadium (4 p.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel, Univision) Panama will get a chance to finally snap the American hex against it in the first big competitive test of the U.S. national team under Bob Bradley. The U.S. is 4-0-2 against Panama and has won the last four games by shutout. Yet there have been a few close calls.
Whoops, they did it again. For the third time this season, Real Salt Lake and FC Dallas fought a close game, and once again, a slice of superb finishing denied RSL the result it knew it deserved. Dominic Oduro drilled a low shot just inside the far post two minutes into stoppage time to beat RSL, 1-0, Thursday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium. RSL coach Jason Kreis was ejected for vehemently protesting a collision he believed merited at least a RSL free kick
[MLS WEEKEND PREVIEWS] The top two teams in the Eastern Conference square off after playing each other two weeks ago, reeling Chicago visits resurgent D.C. United, Toronto and Los Angeles play home games after swinging yet another trade, the Revs and Crew round off a triple-header, and with Houston off this week, Colorado heads to Home Depot Center for a crucial Western Conference encounter with Chivas USA.
“I haven’t been in good shape this season. I can work much harder and I want to make sure that I’m at the same level as the rest of the team next season.”
— Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho acknowledging that he let his Spanish club, Barcelona, down because of his lack of fitness.
David Beckham will play the final game of his European club career on Sunday when Real Madrid hosts Real Mallorca with the Spanish league title on the line (TV: GolTV, live, 3 pm). Despite an ankle injury that kept him out practice, Beckham should play in what concludes a four-year career with Real Madrid. A victory would give Real Madrid the title and end a four-year title drought, its longest in more than a half a century.
The Gold Cup moves into the quarterfinals with two games Saturday and two on Sunday. The USA meets Panama in a replay of the 2005 final on Saturday at 4 pm on Fox Soccer Channel and Univision …
Instead of a six-episode special on the life of new arrivals David and Victoria Beckham, NBC will air a one-hour special called “Victoria Beckham: Coming to America” on Monday, July 16.
Brazil, which will face the USA in the first round, has named its team for the Under-20 World Cup. Coach Nelson Rodrigues‘ squad includes Lucas and Carlos Eduardo, two of the most influential players on 2007 Libertadores Cup finalists Gremio, and four European-based players, David Marinho of Benfica (Portugal), Marcelo of Real Madrid (Spain), Jo of CSKA Moscow (Russia) and Luiz Adriano of Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine).
Igor Vrablic, a star on Canada’s 1986 World Cup team, was one of two men arrested in Waterloo, Ont., last week in connection with a drug raid that netted 8.5 kilos of marijuana, 3,000 ecstasy pills and drug paraphernalia, as well as $11,000 in Canadian money and another $6,000 in U.S. currency. The Slovakian-born Vrablic scored in Canada’s 2-1 victory over Honduras that clinched a berth in the 1986 World Cup finals — Canada’s only appearance in the finals — and started in two of the games in Mexico.
The U.S. under-17 boys national team will travel to South Korea, host of this summer’s Under-17 World Cup, for the Eight Nations Tournament to be held June 17-24. The USA is slated to play Japan on June 17, Nigeria on June 19 and New Zealand on June 21 in three different World Cup venues. For the U-17 roster …
Toronto FC’s wheeling and dealing continued Wednesday when it traded Edson Buddle to the Los Angeles Galaxy for Jamaican national team defender Tyrone Marshall. The deal came the same day MLS suspended Marshall three games and fined him $1,500 for a tackle on FC Dallas forward Kenny Cooper in the 89th minute of the Galaxy’s game on June 9. Cooper’s leg was broken on the play that resulted in a red card for Marshall.
[TV PREVIEW] Thursday’s ESPN2 game looks like the mother of all mismatches. But it’s not. Western Conference leader FC Dallas (6-5-1) visits last-place Real Salt Lake (0-3-6), the only MLS team yet to post a victory and smarting from fines and other disciplinary measures meted out by MLS (kickoff: 9 pm ET).
The USA-Mexico showdown at the Gold Cup will have to wait for later. Mexico again struggled but held off Panama, 1-0, on Wednesday in Houston to finish second in Group C and avoid a date with the USA in the quarterfinals. Instead, it’s Panama, one of the most dangerous teams in the tournament, that Bob Bradley‘s Americans will meet in a difficult quarterfinal test.
