Category: Soccer America Daily

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] Rafael Marquez‘s flying kick at U.S. goalie Tim Howard in last month’s Hexagonal opener landed the Mexico captain a two-game suspension.

[ENGLAND] The Arsenal-Chelsea semifinal date is on for April 18 at Wembley Stadium after the Gunners rallied in the last quarter of an hour, getting a tying goal from Robin van Persie and a controversial winner from William Gallas to beat Hull City, 2-1, in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.

[WPS] Women’s Professional Soccer awarded its eighth franchise to Philadelphia, which will begin play in 2010. The Philadelphia ownership group, led by David Halstead and Matthew Driver, hopes to play in the stadium being built in Chester, Pa., for the MLS team also scheduled to debut in 2010.

[MLS] Tuesday is a big day in D.C. United’s efforts to obtain funding to build a stadium in Prince George’s County, Md. Maryland lawmakers have been bombarded with emails from soccer fans from around the world, but anti-tax activists are prepared for a fight.

[MLS] Two more former USL Sounders have moved up to the MLS level. Defender Zach Scott and forward Roger Levesque are the newest additions, bringing the total of USL “graduates” to six. Already on board were goalkeeper Chris Eylander, forward Sebastian LeToux, midfielder Sanny Nyassi and defender Taylor Graham.

[MLS] Former D.C. United defender Mike Zaher, who scored a stunning goal for UCLA at Buck Shaw Stadium during the NCAA playoffs two years ago, will be playing his home games on the Santa Clara campus this season.

[TELEVISION] ESPN2’s coverage of Thursday’s opener between the Seattle Sounders FC and New York Red Bulls will be the first of 83 regular-season MLS games available on national television. Game will air on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer en Espanol and TeleFutura. For all the games on national television …

[WPS] Tiffeny Milbrett scored 100 goals in 202 international matches for the U.S. national team, but that wasn’t good enough to get selected in the recent Women’s Professional Soccer draft. FC Gold Pride was the only one of four clubs to respond favorably to the 36-year-old striker’s request for a tryout, after which she won a spot on its 24-player roster for the 2009 season.

[MLS] Landon Donovan made his first preseason appearance for the Galaxy since returning from his loan to Bayern Munich and helped create his team’s goal in a 1-1 tie with Chicago in Tempe, Ariz., on Saturday.

[MLS] Not until the regular season begins can it be ascertained if Real Salt Lake is indeed for real, but it couldn’t have done much else during the preseason to be convincing.

[MLS] A New England team weakened by injuries lost to the USL-1’s Carolina RailHawks, 1-0, in its final preseason match Saturday.

[MLS] Jeff Cunningham scored in the first minute but late in the match had to be removed when FC Dallas lost its starting goalkeeper to a red card as Clube Atletico Paranaense prevailed on penalty kicks to win the USA-Brazil Challenge, an annual competition between the teams.

[ENGLAND] Liverpool’s shocking 4-1 win over Manchester United on Saturday brought life back to the English Premier League title race, but Reds manager Rafael Benitez says the Reds have a difficult task ahead of them if they are to catch United.

[EUROPE] Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Bojan Krkic had big games for Inter Milan and Barcelona, the Italian and Spanish leaders, respectively. Injuries to Bayern Munich’s Miroslav Klose and Chelsea’s Deco could spell the end to their 2008-09 campaigns. For who’s up, who’s down, who’s in and who’s out …

[WORLD CUP 2010 QUALIFYING] Trinidad & Tobago’s World Cup 2010 hopes suffered a setback when captain Dwight Yorke was handed a four-game suspension and fined $4,200 for his outburst at the end of the Soca Warriors’ 2-2 tie at El Salvador last month.

Sky Blue FC and the Los Angeles Sol defeated Women’s Professional Soccer opponents in preseason action. For the results and goal scorers …

[AMERICANS ABROAD] Michael Bradley scored two goals for German club Borussia Moenchengladbach in a 4-2 win over FC Cologne that moved Gladbach into a tie for 15th place in the Bundesliga with Bochum (inside the relegation zone on goal difference). Bradley has scored four of his five Bundesliga goals since the winter break and helped Gladbach escape from the cellar.

[CONCACAF UNDER-20 CHAMPIONSHIP] The USA’s bid for its first Concacaf U-20 championship failed when it fell to Costa Rica, 3-0, in Sunday’s final in Macoya, Trinidad. While the Americans qualified for Egypt 2009, marking the seventh straight time they will played in the under-20 world championships, they hardly dominated. In five games, they scored only five goals and were handed three red cards. The final marked the second game in which the USA had been outshot by a margin of more than 3-1.

Paris St. Germain lost a chance to take the lead in France’s Ligue 1 when it fell at home to Marseille, 3-1. PSG and OM are both one point behind Lyon, which fell at home to Auxerre, 2-0. Porto opened up a four-point lead in Portugal when Benfica dropped a 2-0 decision to Vitoria SC. For all the weekend results in Europe’s major leagues and Mexico …

[WPS NOTEBOOK] It’s only 16 days until the Women’s Professional Soccer opener, and clubs are busy at work in preseason camps, beginning the cuts to get their rosters down to 22 players (including four developmental players). U.S. national team veterans Kristine Lilly, Tiffeny Milbrett and Brandi Chastain have set the tone with goals in early action.

Goals were scarce in the first leg of the round of 16 in the UEFA Cup: only 12 in eight games. Marcus Tracy, the 2008 Hermann Trophy winner, was an unused sub for Aalborg in its 2-0 loss at Manchester City. For all the results and goalscorers …