Category: Soccer America Daily

TUESDAY: UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals AC MILAN-BAYERN MUNICH (TV: ESPN Deportes, live, 2:30 pm) Last year, AC Milan thoroughly dominated Bayern Munich, winning 4-1, at the San Siro and going through to the quarterfinals, 5-2, on aggregate when it faced the German club in the UEFA Champions League. This year, Milan has rarely played well. […]

… April Fools! The web was littered with April Fool’s stories on Sunday. One concerned Barcelona, which has struggled this season after winning La Liga and the UEFA Champions League in 2006, and the future of its Dutch coach, Frank Rijkaard. The web site goal.com reported Sunday that Barca would replace Rijkaard with Bruce Arena […]

Ronaldinho says he wants to stay at Barcelona, and he played like he meant it, leading the Catalan club to a 2-1 victory Saturday over Deportivo Coruna that moved it two points ahead of Sevilla in the race for La Liga title. There has been extensive speculation that the Brazilian star was unhappy at Barca […]

Both Manchester United and Chelsea got scares before winning on Saturday and remain separated by six points at the top of the English Premier League. United was trailing 1-0 at halftime against Blackburn Rovers before goals from Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Park Ji-Sung and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer sealed a 4-1 win. Chelsea kicked off later […]

Manchester United is the most valuable club in the world, according to the latest valuations by Forbes Magazine. United isn’t just the most valuable soccer club, but it’s the most valuable club in any sport, edging the NFL’s Washington Redskins, who were valued at $1.423 billion in 2006. (Other 2006 U.S. sports leaders: MLB’s New […]

By Mike Woitalla Executive Editor There were very few people in Mexican soccer who felt Cuauhtemoc Blanco didn’t deserve to be on Mexico’s 2006 World Cup squad. Unfortunately for Blanco, one of them was Mexico coach Ricardo La Volpe, who took a lot of heat for leaving one of the greatest scorers in Mexican history […]

By Ridge Mahoney Senior Editor The MLS Preseason, also known as the Time of Posturing and Prognosticating, is over. Let the real games begin. D.C. and Houston won’t have to wait until next weekend for their liberal doses of reality. They play away to CD Guadalajara (Tuesday) and Pachuca (Thursday), respectively, in the second legs […]

“Over here no one has really heard of my dad, it is great. Some people know the players who are playing in the Premiership now, but older ones like my dad, the people who we would regard as legends, they have never heard of. It is just a totally different life for me. No one […]

Eintracht Frankfurt, the kind of opponent Kasey Keller and Borussia Moenchengladbach really can’t afford to drop points against, tied last-place Gladbach, 1-1. Keller was beaten by an 11th minute header. With seven games left in the season, Gladbach is in last last place, five points deep in the relegation zone. Also in Germany, Steve Cherundolo […]

Manchester United hopes to hang on to its six-point lead at the top of the Premier League when it hosts Blackburn on Saturday (TV: Setanta Sports USA, live, 10 am ET). Second-place Chelsea visits last-place Wigan (TV: Fox Soccer Channel, live, noon ET). United has a shot at repeating its 1999 treble. It’s through to […]

Back in June of 2005, a Franz Beckenbauer was caught by a speed camera driving 45 mph in a 20 mph zone. But three officials in the traffic police department decided the man who won World Cups for Germany as a captain and coach should get a break. So they claimed the car was an […]

New York product Gabriel Ferrari and Freddy Adu again provided the goals as the U.S. U-20 national team beat Haiti, 2-1, on Wednesday in Frisco, Texas. Three days earlier, Ferrari, who joined Italian Serie A club Sampdoria in January, had scored twice and Adu struck once in the U-20s’ 3-2 win over SMU. Against Haiti, […]

On Wednesday, Mexico beat Ecuador in Oakland, Calif., in a game that was sold out two weeks before kickoff while on the same day a crowd nearly a fifth smaller attended the USA’s game against Guatemala in Texas. ”We probably could have sold another 50,000 tickets,” said David Alioto, executive vice president for Earthquakes Soccer, […]

By Ridge Mahoney A deal that has been simmering for about three weeks to send Clint Mathis from Colorado to the New York Red Bulls needs only league approval to become official, says Rapids head coach Fernando Clavijo. “Once Clint realized that he was not going to be in my plans for the starting 11, […]

“It was a really ugly moment. I had [Jermain] Defoe’s shirt in my hand to swap for mine. But Terry rammed into me with a really hard shove and snatched it. We were down the tunnel. Terry took the shirt and ordered all the England players into the dressing room.” — Andorra captain Oscar Sonejee, […]

By Ridge Mahoney Hernia surgery for Pat Noonan. A dislocated shoulder suffered while surfing for Michael Parkhurst. Midfield stud Shalrie Joseph demanding a trade after contract talks stalled. Joey Franchino leaving the team during a preseason trip to New Orleans for “personal reasons.” If any good team has struggled through a rough preseason, it’s New […]

USL has terminated its troubled USL-1 club, the Virginia Beach Mariners, releasing all their players and reducing the USL-1 to 12 teams just two weeks before the start of the 2007 season. The fate of the PDL’s Submariners remains to be determined. The Mariners’ demise came after the apparent sale of the team from Norfolk […]

The U.S. women’s national team will welcome 32 players into residency training camp on April 2 at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. for a four-month period that will lead into the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup in China. The USA will break camp at the end […]

Retired women’s soccer icon Mia Hamm gave birth to twin girls late on Tuesday. Her husband, Los Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, was in flight from Florida when the babies were born and was on speaker phone with Hamm during the delivery.

Mexico beat Ecuador, 4-2, in Oakland, Calif., in front of 47,416 fans in game that was sold two weeks ago. Francisco Palencia, who spent last season with Chivas USA and is now with UNAM Pumas, opened the scoring 29 seconds into the game. Ecuador took a 2-1 lead on goals by Carlos Tenorio and Giovanni […]

After getting shut out in its last three Euro 2008 qualifiers, England finally found the net against Andorra, a nation in the middle of Spain whose entire population could fit into Wembley stadium. The 3-0 win on second-half goals by Steven Gerrard, who struck twice, and David Nugent, puts England in a three-way tie for […]

By Ridge Mahoney SOCCER AMERICA REPORT CARD (1=low; 5=average; 10-high) RATING PLAYER (CLUB CAPS/GOALS) STARTERS: 5 Kasey Keller (Borussia M’Gladbach GER 97/0) 6 Frank Simek (Sheffield Wednesday ENG 1/0) 5 Jay DeMerit (Watford ENG 1/0) 5 Jim Conrad (Kansas City 21/1) 5 Jonathan Spector (West Ham ENG 5/0) 4 Clint Dempsey (Fulham/ENG 26/6) 6 Michael […]

By Ridge Mahoney A younger, less experienced U.S. team than the one that beat Ecuador, 3-1, Sunday battered futilely against a Guatemalan wall and came away with a 0-0 draw at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas. Alternately forging up the flanks and hitting long balls into the heart of the Guatemalan defense, the U.S. […]

“I think it was a good learning experience, particularly for our younger players. It’s a different kind of game, one that they need to see, because we all understand that we are going to see these kinds of games in qualifying. At times tonight it seemed like we were afraid to make a mistake.” — […]

By Ridge Mahoney There’s something bizarre happening in Dallas. By replacing a Finn, an Irishman and an American with a Colombian and an Argentine, among other changes, Coach Steve Morrow has already transformed the identity of his team. Effective yet predictable is out, stylish and unorthodox is in. “I want us to play more one-touch […]