Category: Soccer America Daily

[USA-PANAMA REPORT CARD] Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney grades the U.S. players and comments on their performance in their 2-1 quarterfinal win over Panama in the Gold Cup …

[GOLD CUP] Fitness and resolve propelled the U.S. through 120 minutes of play and numerous rugged incidents as it defeated Panama, 2-1, at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia Saturday night to earn a spot in the Concacaf Gold Cup quarterfinals.

[GOLD CUP] The USA rallied from a goal down to beat Panama, 2-1, in overtime and advance to the semifinals of the Gold Cup against Honduras on Thursday. Kenny Cooper converted the winning penalty kick after he was kicked high in his chest by defender Roman Torres in the area.

[MANCHESTER UNITED] Manchester United was forced to cancel its trip to Indonesia and Saturday’s match against an Indonesia Super League XI in Jakarta when the hotel it was scheduled to stay at was attacked by terrorists Friday. Blasts struck the Ritz-Carlton as well as the Marriott, killing eight people, according to early reports. The friendly, United’s first in Indonesia and part of a tour of four Asian countries, had sold out the 100,000-seat Bung Karno Stadium.

[OFF THE POST] Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan gave the each of the team’s players a $270,000 watch when they paid him a visit in Abu Dhabi en route to an exhibition tournament in South Africa.

[AMERICANS ABROAD] American Johann Smith made his debut for Croatian club Rijeka in its 1-0 loss Thursday at Luxembourg club Differdange in the first leg of their Europa League preliminary. Other Americans to play in second qualifying round action were U.S. U-20 Mikkel Diskerud (for Norway’s Stabaek in the UEFA Champions League) Ryan Guy and Marcus Tracy (Europa League).

[MLS PREDICTIONS] All five games this weekend match teams from opposite conferences, and all of the Eastern teams are at home as the playoff race – with the top four teams in the East bunched within a point – tightens up. For all of Soccer America’s predictions, as well as TV viewing information, and to see how we’ve fared so far this season …

[U.S. SOCCER] U.S. Soccer Chief Operating Officer Jay Berhalter, one of the most influential persons in American soccer, is leaving the federations to head up the Kentaro Group’s new office in the United States.

[TELEVISION WATCH] The  inaugural World Football Challenge kicks off Sunday at Stanford Stadium, where Inter Milan meets Chelsea in the opening game of the six-game series that will be available live on the ESPN networks.

[WPS] Sky Blue FC and the Washington Freedom set a Women’s Professional Soccer record Wednesday night for goals in a game when they played to a 4-4 tie. Cat Whitehill scored the late equalizer for the Freedom, robbing Sky Blue a chance to pull away from Chicago and the Freedom in the playoff fight. In Wednesday’s other game, Boston’s 1-0 win over Chicago moved the Breakers into third place, four points ahead of Chicago and Washington, tie for fifth place.

[MLS] Who needs David Beckham for long-range shooting when you have Alecko Eskandarian, Landon Donovan and Eddie Lewis? All three scored on volleys from distance in the first half to lead the Galaxy to 3-1 win over the New York Red Stars in Beckham’s first game back with the Galaxy. All were given acres of space by the hapless Red Bulls, who have not won an MLS game in more than two months, a span of 11 games.

[USA-PANAMA] The USA puts its unbeaten record against Panama on the line when it faces the Canaleros Saturday in the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup at Philadelphia’s Financial Field (TV, live, 8 p.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel and TeleFutura). The match marks the third consecutive Gold Cup that the teams meet in the knockout phase.

[MLS] The New York Red Bulls, this season’s worst MLS team, with two wins in 20 games, have acquired Austrian midfielder Ernst Obster from sister club Red Bull Salzburg of the Austrian first division. The left-footer has won two Austrian Bundesliga titles with Salzburg, in 2007 and 2009, but the 25-year-old played only five league matches in the 2008-09 season.

[DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY] Carmel United SC followed up on its under-15/16 title in last year’s U.S. Soccer Development Academy with the under-17/18 championship, beating D.C. United’s academy team, 1-0, in Thursday’s final at the Home Depot Center.

[MLS] David Beckham is set make his return to MLS, but much of the questioning at Wednesday’s press conference in Hoboken was not about Thursday’s important clash the Los Angeles Galaxy has with the New York Red Bulls at Giants Stadium (TV: Fox Soccer Channel, 8 pm ET), but about the Englishman’s commitment to MLS.  “I’m committed to the MLS as an ambassador,” Beckham insisted during the press conference. On Thursday night, fans will get their first chance to see whether Beckham remains committed as a player …

[TELEVISION WATCH] On Wednesday morning, David Beckham stopped by NBC’s “Today Show” and talked with host Matt Lauer about a range of subjects. “At the end of the day, I’m a soccer player,” said Beckham, but you have hardly known by the questioning, which concentrated on topics such as movies, modeling, tattoos and marriage. Lauer did bring the commitment issue — soccer, not marriage — asking Beckham to comment on the criticism leveled at him by Galaxy teammate Landon Donovan. If Beckham had any doubt about the work he has ahead to promote soccer in United States, he got his answer when Lauer mangled Donovan’s first name …

[MLS PREDICTION] Asking if anything can stop the New York Red Bulls’ slide into oblivion is akin to Yogi Berra‘s favorite comment about if fans don’t want to go to the ballpark, there’s no way to stop them. This team is a walking double negative. There’s always hope with Juan Pablo Angel up top, but not much. When David Beckham begins his comeback tour on Thursday for the Los Angeles Galaxy against the Bulls, not likely is a repeat of the 5-4 thriller these teams played in The Swamp two years ago.

[SUPERLIGA] Cuauhtemoc Blanco‘s goal on a 25-yard free kick in the second half gave the visiting Chicago Fire a 2-1 victory over the defending champion New England Revolution and moved it into the final of the 2009 SuperLiga against Tigres, a 3-2 winner over Santos in Wednesday’s other semifinal at Gillette Stadium.

[REAL MADRID] Real Madrid, which will head to North America next month to face Toronto FC and D.C. United in preseason exhibitions, chose a remote Irish estate dating back to the 1100s as the site of its first week of summer training with new signing Cristiano Ronaldo. Golf is a main attraction at Carton House, which lies on the 1,100-acre estate 15 miles west of Dublin and boasts two golf courses. But it has gone in the soccer business, installing a field with a state-of-the-art playing surface, complete with an irrigation system identical to that at Manchester United’s Old Trafford, to attract big-time teams.

[LIBERTADORES CUP] Juan Sebastian Veron — who backed out of a deal at the last minute to join MLS’s D.C. United for the 2008 season — won the Libertadores Cup Wednesday when his Argentine club, Estudiantes, beat Cruzeiro of Brazil, 2-1, to win the final by the same score on aggregate.

[USL TEAMS OF THE WEEK] Minnesota’s Ricardo Sanchez, who had a goal and an assist in the Thunder’s 3-0 win over Montreal, and former U.S. U-17 international Jamie Watson, who had a goal and three assists in the Wilmington Hammerheads’ 4-0 victory over the visiting Western Mass Pioneers, earned the USL First Division and Second Division Player of the Week honors, respectively. For the USL-1 and USL-2 Teams of the Week …