Goals by Gregory Garza and Ellis McLoughlin gave the USA a 2-1 victory over previously unbeaten Costa Rica to win Group B of the CONCACAF Under-17 Qualifying Tournament in Kingston, Jamaica. The USA qualified for the Under-17 World Cup for a record 12th straight time.
Category: Soccer America Daily
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Surprise Atlanta shares USL-1 lead with Whitecaps
[USL-1 & USL-2 RESULTS] The Atlanta Silverbacks are the USL-1’s early surprise, sharing first place with the defending champion Vancouver Whitecaps. The Silverbacks beat the Carolina RailHawks, 2-0, on goals by David Hayes and Justin Moore to preserve their undefeated season, improving their record to 2-0-2.
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What They’re Saying
“Clint [Dempsey] has been on the verges of the team since he came over in the transfer window. He has been good in training and chomping at the bit to get on and prove he can offer something to Fulham.”
— Fulham coach Lawrie Sanchez on American midfielder Clint Dempsey, who scored the winner in Fulham’s 1-0 victory of Liverpool, which alleviates the Cottagers’ relegation fears. (AFP)
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D.C. United finally gets a win
D.C. United finally got its first win of the season and its first under Coach Tom Soehn. Defending champion Houston awoke at the expense of Colorado. New England repaid the only team to beat it this season, and Jason Kreis‘ debut as Real Salt Lake head coach was a thriller with the Red Bulls. Soehn had raised some eyebrows, especially the bushy ones of Jaime Moreno, by benching the Bolivian star for the first half of Thursday’s 1-1 tie with the Revs. Soehn invoked further changes for the visit of Chivas USA (2-3-0) Sunday and United (1-3-1) won 2-1 with goals by Moreno and Christian Gomez.
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Clint Dempsey’s first EPL goal golden for Fulham
[VIDEO] In England, Clint Dempsey scored a very valuable goal for Fulham. Edgar Castillo and Santos moved into the Mexican league quarterfinals. Hannover 96 and Steve Cherundolo kept their UEFA Cup hopes alive. Eddie Lewis and Leeds are headed to England’s third tier.
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Guti performance leads Real Madrid in win over Sevilla
[EUROPEAN RACES] Real Madrid moved into second place behind Barcelona in the red-hot Spanish title race with a 3-2 victory over Sevilla at the Bernabeu Stadium on Sunday. Schalke 04 clung to a one-point lead in Germany’s Bundesliga with two games left thanks to a 1-0 victory over Nuremberg. Fenerbahce opened up a five-point lead on Besiktas with a 1-0 at the second-place team in a battle of Turkish Super Lïg leaders.
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Ferguson in agony until United clinches EPL title
On Championship Sunday, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson spent the day watching his grandson play soccer and then watched horse racing on television when he returned home. “When that was finished and I had nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs,” the 65-year-old Scotsman said, “I watched the last 15 minutes at the Emirates Stadium, and I was in agony.” Chelsea’s 1-1 draw at Arsenal on Sunday clinched United’s first league title since 2003.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, What They're Saying
What They’re Saying
“Milan Baros merely wanted to tell [Stephane M’Bia] something he didn’t know how to say in French: ‘leave me alone and give me breathing space.'”
— A statement from French club Lyon, claiming its Czech striker Milan Baros wasn’t trying to insult Rennes’ Stephane M’Bia when Baros pinched his own nose and waved his hand in front of it while facing the Cameroon-born midfielder. Baros has been suspended for three games for the gesture. (Reuters)
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Man. United has chance to clinch EPL title on Sunday
[TV PREVIEW] Manchester United and Chelsea must put aside the disappointment of being eliminated from the UEFA Champions League and refocus on the English Premier League race. A huge match takes place in Spain, where third-place Real Madrid hosts second-place Sevilla on Sunday.
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Sevilla faces Espanyol in all-Spanish UEFA Cup final
Defending champion Sevilla beat Spanish rival Osasuna, 2-0, and advanced, 2-1, on aggregate to the final of the UEFA Cup, where it will meet Espanyol in an all-Spanish clash May 16 in Glasgow. Espanyol beat Werder Bremen of Germany, 2-1, away to go through, 5-1, on aggregate in Thursday’s other semifinal.
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OFF THE POST: Witnesses vouch for miracle header
There were only 37 people in the stands when English amateur clubs Holker Old Boys clashed with Chadderton FC and nobody had a video camera. But eyewitnesses confirmed that Holker Old Boys’ captain Graham Capstick did indeed score with a header from 57 yards out. “I can honestly say that he scored with a header from inside his own half,” Holker right back David Robinson told the Evening Mail.
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American Hilgenbrinck scores winner in Chile
[VIDEO] Illinois product Chase Hilgenbrinck scored the gamewinner for Chilean First Division club Nublense in its 1-0 victory over O’Higgins, which hadn’t lost at home since April 2006 and had never lost to Nublense. Hilgenbrinck, who at Clemson University was teammates with Oguchi Onyewu, has started 13 of Nublense’s 14 games this season, mostly at left back until he was moved to left midfield to fill in for an injured player.
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San Francisco soccer with ties to Spain
It’s not often that a major American city boasts a pro soccer team within its true borders. The New York Red Bulls play in New Jersey. FC Dallas is based in Frisco, the Los Angeles Galaxy in Carson and the Chicago Fire in Bridgeview. But San Francisco now has a USL-1 team, the California Victory, which will play at the edge of Golden Gate Park in Kezar Stadium, once home to the San Francisco 49ers. The man behind the Victory is Dmitry Piterman, who emigrated from Ukraine to the USA at age 15 in 1979, graduated from UC Berkeley (across the bay from San Francisco) and started accumulating a fortune in San Francisco area real estate. Three years ago, he bought Spanish club Deportivo Alaves while keeping his eyes on opportunities in the USA.
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USA looks to extent U-17 streaks
[MAKING A LIST] The USA can wrap a berth in the Under-17 World Cup for a record 12th straight time if it ties or beats host Jamaica Friday at CONCACAF’s Group B qualifying tournament or Canada and Trinidad & Tobago tie in the first game. The USA, which also faces group leader Costa Rica on Sunday, takes an 18-game unbeaten streak in CONCACAF qualifying into the weekend action.
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Barcelona president Laporta to lecture Monday at Stanford
Joan Laporta, president of famed Futbol Club Barcelona, is scheduled to lecture at Stanford University on Monday afternoon.
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Mexico’s Toluca crushed in Libertadores Cup
Argentine youngster Juan Manuel Martinez scored a hat trick in 13 minutes late in the first half to lead of Colombian champion Cucuta past Mexico’s Toluca, 5-1, in the first leg of their Libertadores Cup second-round series. In the other Thursday matches, Paraguayan champion Libertad came from behind to win at Brazil’s Parana, 2-1, while Nacional of Uruguay beat Mexico’s Necaxa, 3-2, in Montevideo.
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The Jason Kreis era begins in Salt Lake
[TV PREVIEW] Jason Kreis, the man who has scored a league record 108 goals, retired on Thursday and immediately launched a new career. He’s leaving the Real Salt Lake captaincy and replacing his boss, John Ellinger, after RSL started the 2007 season with an 0-2-2 record. Ellinger, who failed to guide Real Salt Lake to the playoffs in its first two seasons, lasted longer than any other coach in MLS history who had gone that distance without taking a team to the playoffs. When the 34-year-old Kreis steps on the sidelines Saturday against the New York Red Bulls, he will become the youngest person in MLS history to serve as head coach of a team. Real is keeping Ellinger, who was credited for Freddy Adu‘s arrival to Real this season, as Technical Director/Director of Soccer Operations. But General Manager Steve Pastorino has resigned.
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Robust stuff in United-Revs clash at RFK
In the run-up to Thursday night’s D.C. United-New England tussle, Revs coach Steve Nicol said whether or not it was a great match, it would be passionate and fierce and rugged. Was it? As Nicol might have replied if asked, “Aye.” Scuffles, hard tackles, aerial duels, a controversial penalty, a hotly disputed ejection, and an ESPN2 audience fueled a intense if inelegant 1-1 tie. The Revs struck just seconds into the second half when Andy Dorman slotted the rebound of a Taylor Twellman shot, and D.C. equalized five minutes later with a Jaime Moreno penalty kick.
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Libertadores Cup win streak ends for Brazil’s Santos
Santos could have broken the Libertadores Cup record of eight straight wins it shares with Vasco da Gama by beating Caracas FC in Venezuela on Wednesday night but tied, 2-2. In a battle between the only two Argentine clubs left in the competition, Boca Juniors beat Velez Sarsfield even though Martin Palermo missed his second penalty kick in four days. Palermo is famous for missing three penalty kicks in one game while playing for Argentina against Colombia in 1999.
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‘The biggest financial prize in world soccer’
A report by accountancy firm Deloitte & Touche says that the teams promoted this season from the English second tier to the English Premier League will be rewarded with up to $120 million, thanks to the EPL’s new TV deal. Birmingham City and Sunderland have already clinched promotion. Four other teams will play off for the remaining spot, which will be decided in a May 28 final at the new Wembley, a game the report called, “the biggest financial prize in world football.”
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D.C. hopes to get it right against Revs
[TV PREVIEW] Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney talked to New England coach Steve Nicol on the eve of the Revs’ Thursday night (ESPN2, 7 pm ET) clash with D.C. United, the preseason favorite that has lost its first three games.
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Forza Milan!
AC Milan put on a display of attacking soccer reminiscent of the great Milan teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s and crushed Manchester United, 3-0, on Wednesday night to advance to the UEFA Champions League final. All but forgotten as a European contender after last season’s Calciopoli scandal left it reeling, Milan was far the better team over the two legs of its 5-3 aggregate victory over United, which had been the toast of Europe for its 7-1 demolition of Italian club Roma in the quarterfinals. Milan moved into the final against Liverpool on May 23 in Athens, which will be a rematch of the 2005 final in which Milan blew a 3-0 halftime lead and lost to Liverpool on penalty kicks.
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Milan-Liverpool, championship ledger
AC Milan and Liverpool, who meet in the final of the UEFA Champions League on May 23 in Athens, have a long history of success in Europe. Before they met in the 2005 final, they had won a combined 11 European Cup titles in 14 appearances in the final. Milan’s six championships rank second behind only Real Madrid’s nine. Liverpool’s come-from-behind victory over Milan in Istanbul was the Reds’ fifth title in six appearances in the final.
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U.S. U-17s beat Canada, 2-1, to edge closer to World Cup berth
The USA remained perfect at the CONCACAF Under-17 qualifying tournament in Kingston, Jamaica, with a 2-1 victory over Canada on Wednesday night, setting the stage for the possibility of clinching a berth at the 2007 Under-17 World Cup on Friday night.
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OFF THE POST: World Cup sparked German baby boom
Germany has one of the world’s lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman compared to about 2.1 in the USA). The German government’s recent efforts to promote procreation have included offering one-year paid maternity leave to working mothers. But the most effective population booster so far appears to have been hosting the 2006 World Cup: nine months later birthrates in parts of the country increased by nearly 30 percent compared to last year at the same time. The newborns have dubbed the “Klinsi Generation.”