Category: Soccer America Daily

[OFF THE POST] German goalkeeper Lutz Pfannenstiel, 35, has signed for his 24th club, the Norwegian third division’s Mangerud Star.

[MLS] Los Angeles Galaxy coach Bruce Arena says he expects David Beckham back from his loan spell with AC Milan in time for the 2009 MLS season.

The USL First Division will kick off its 2009 season on April 11 with two games, including a match between the defending champion Vancouver Whitecaps and the Charleston Battery. The biggest change in the league format is the creation of a two-leg series, used in earlier rounds of the playoffs in USL-1 since 2000, to decide the championship. For the complete schedule …

[WORLD CUP 2018/2022] Qatar, which will host the 2011 Asian Cup, is the latest country to enter the race to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.

[MLS] Tough times are rare but not unknown for the Dynamo; as such, its players and coaches are doing what they have done for years when beset by setbacks. They look ahead, and move on.

[DIGICEL UNCAF CUP] Host Honduras beat El Salvador, 2-0, for its third straight win at the Digicel Cup Cup and moved into the semifinals, where it will face Guatemala or Panama, which meet Tuesday in the final game of the group stage. Despite the loss, El Salvador moved into the semifinals ahead of Nicaragua, which could only tie Belize, 1-1, and clinched a berth this summer’s Gold Cup.

[MLS] Swiss midfielder Raphael Wicky, who earned $160,000 last year but was limited to five games (138 minutes), has been re-signed by Chivas USA.

[ITALY] Forget for a moment that David Beckham‘s loan deal between the Galaxy and AC Milan ends March 8 and the European transfer window expires Saturday, making it impossible that he complete the Serie A season unless a deal is reached by Saturday. It took only one goal — one more than he scored in his first season with the Los Angeles Galaxy — for talk to speculation in the European to begin that David Beckham could be staying at AC Milan.

[SPAIN] Real Madrid made it five straight wins under new coach Juande Ramos with a 1-0 home win over Deportivo Coruna on Sunday that left it as the only team with any hope of catching leader Barcelona. And that’s a stretch: Barcelona thumped Numancia, 4-1, at the Nou Camp on Saturday and remains in the lead by 12 points.

[DIGICEL UNCAP CUP] Three-time defending champion Costa Rica moved into the semifinals of the UNCAF Cup with a 3-1 win over Guatemala on Sunday. Honduras also advanced with a 4-1 victory over Nicaragua on Saturday.

Oguchi Onyewu‘s Standard Liege, the defending champion in Belgium’s Juliper League, moved into first place, while Porto regained the lead in Portugal ahead of Benfica and Sporting, which both had to settle for ties. In Turkey, Sivas is the surprise leader. In the French Cup, seventh-division Schirrhein’s Cinderella story ended when it fell at home to Toulouse, 8-0, in the round of 32.

[USA-SWEDEN REPORT CARD] Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney grades the U.S. players’ performance in their 3-2 victory over Sweden on Saturday …

[HEXAGONAL COUNTDOWN] Be it a competitive match or a friendly, be it played in January or June or any other month, breaking down a bunkered defense is a difficult task. Several elements are essential for success in such situations and against Sweden on Saturday the U.S. men displayed enough of them to win their first match of 2009. In wowing a crowd of 9,918 at Home Depot Center by scoring all three goals in a 3-2 victory, Man of the Match Sacha Kljestan displayed one of those elements, a clinical finishing touch. He curled a free kick from 35 yards into the top corner, he confidently tucked away a penalty kick, and he polished off his hat trick with a crisp first-time strike.

[AMERICANS ABROAD] Jay DeMerit connected on a fine volley for second-tier Watford in an FA Cup victory. In the same competition, keeper Tim Howard recovered after lapse against Liverpool. Oguchi Onyewu helped Standard Liege take a two-point lead in the Belgian Juliper League. For a wrapup of Americans Abroad. …

[ENGLAND] The top five teams in the Premier League are still alive in the FA Cup, though co-leader Liverpool, fourth-place Aston Villa and Arsenal all drew and need replays to advance to the fifth round. The so-called “big four” — Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool — were kept apart in the fifth-round draw held on Sunday.

[SIGN OF THE TIMES] AIG, the American insurance giant so closely identified with last September’s economic crisis, will not renew its sponsorship with English club Manchester United when it expires in May 2010 and is seeking to reduce expenditures related to its agreement between now and then.

[AMERICANS ABROAD] Landon Donovan upped his scoring total to four goals in five friendly games for Bayern Munich as he struck twice after entering as a 60th minute sub in Bayern’s 5-0 win over second division Mainz. The 26-year-old, on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, is now Bayern’s leading scorer in midseason-break friendly games.

[HEXAGONAL] Less than three weeks before facing the USA in the first game of final-round World Cup qualifying, Mexico is plagued by suspensions, injuries problems and the fact that several key players aren’t seeing consistent action with their European club teams. Whether that’s good news for the USA is open to debate.

[OFF THE POST] Referee Gary Bailey ejected Me-Tu, a parrot, from the Hertfordshire Senior Centenary Trophy quarterfinal because his whistling kept bringing players to a standstill.

[HEXAGONAL COUNTDOWN] The revolving door has finally spun to a halt, so no longer will U.S. national team players wonder whom they might line up with Saturday when they face Sweden in the first match of a very busy 2009. Home Depot Center is the venue for the match (8:30 p.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel, Galavision) that kicks off perhaps the most grueling year in the team’s history.

[MLS] The precise details won’t be known until all the paperwork and documentation is done, but Colombian attacker Fredy Montero has signed an MLS contract to play for Seattle Sounders FC.

[MLS] In its first two seasons, Toronto FC has consistently packed its stadium and turned a profit, which are two accomplishments much more established MLS teams can only dream about. In year three, it is committed to getting things right on the field, and completed a vital step in that process by signing attacker Dwyane De Rosario, a native of nearby Scarborough, Ont., to a new contract.