“It was unbelievable effort by every single guy, which is why it feels so rewarding right now. If we can continue doing this, who knows?”
— New York Red Bulls defender Chris Leitch after his team ousted two-time defending champ Houston from the MLS playoffs with a 3-0 win on Sunday. (MLSnet.com)
“It sounds like they’re singing when they talk.”
— Louisiana product Joseph Lapira, the 2006 Hermann Trophy winner at Notre Dame, says he’s starting to understand Norwegian but has yet to become fluent since joining Norwegian Second Division club Nybergsund in April. Lapira was drafted by Toronto FC in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft but opted for Europe. (The Observer)
“The team was happy with the news about Beckham, but what people don’t know is that we’ll also have George Clooney as coach and Brad Pitt as assistant manager.”
— AC Milan defender Kakha Kaladze on David Beckham‘s arrival on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy. (Irish Times)
“Our season is not beyond my wildest dreams — because they usually involve Elle Macpherson.”
— Paul Duffen, the chairman Hull, which this season is playing England’s top tier for the first time in the club’s 104-year history and finds itself only six points out of first place after 11 games. (BBC)
“David Beckham has been a class act with us from Day 1, and I’ve got no regrets of any kind on that commitment that we’ve made. But do I understand that that commitment is not going to work and will not be deemed a success if at the end of the day we have another year like the last two? I get it. And so does David.”
— Tim Leiweke, the CEO of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Galaxy, in an article by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl, who reports that David Beckham has an out clause in his five-year contract that would allow him to leave the Galaxy after three years, following the 2009 season. (SI.com)
“We are restructuring our scouting network and we are refocusing our attention on key targets rather than the existing wider approach.”
— A Chelsea spokesman after the club released 15 members of its 25-man scouting department. The club has been disappointed at the relatively small number of youngsters recruited from abroad who have made an impact with the English Premier League club. (The Guardian)
“We’re all agreed in principle and everybody’s happy. A short-term loan works. … He’s going to be back in March and we believe it’s going to be around March 1 and he will be available for our opening game.”
— Los Angeles Galaxy coach Bruce Arena on David Beckham‘s loan to AC Milan that was finalized on Thursday. (ESPNsoccernet)
“It was the first game we didn’t lose — we’re all very proud.”
— Pedro Almeida, a motorcycle mechanic who coaches East Timor, known as the world’s worst soccer team thanks to its last-place FIFA ranking, after a 2-2 with Cambodia. The tie ended East Timor’s six-year losing streak since its start in international soccer six years ago, when the Southeast Asian nation gained full independence. The team is comprised of soldiers, grocers and port workers who receive no compensation for their efforts on the field. (Reuters)
“I figured if I’m going to take MLS seriously and want to make it a really good league and develop it, I should come now and not in three years’ time. It took me three months to come to a decision of what I wanted to do, but the guys here have helped me in my decision by showing me around the city and what they want to do with the team.”
— Fromer Arsenal and Sweden Freddie Ljungberg, 31, upon signing with MLS 2009 expansion club Seattle Sounders FC for a reported $2.5 million a year. (Seattle Times)
“I want to apologize for my comments after our game on Saturday night against Kansas City. I was still caught up in the heat of the match. I regret implying that we were looking for payback. I know my comments don’t reflect the feelings of my teammates or the club.”
— A statement by New England midfielder Shalrie Joseph released by the club. During the Revs’ game against Kansas City, Khano Smith was red-carded for a foul on Hercules Gomez, who earlier this month delivered a tackle on Rev Steve Ralston that broke Ralston’s right fibula and ended his season. Joseph told the Boston Globe that “we definitely wanted to give him [Gomez] payback and make him know we didn’t appreciate what he did to Ralston.”
“The Beckham stuff came from him. It was the English player who made his lawyers phone us having decided to play for Milan. Beckham, very probably, will be with us from the start of January, he will stay with us for two or three months then he will go back. It is not definite that he is coming.”
— AC Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani. (Reuters)
“There is absolutely no suggestion on anyone’s part that David [Beckham] will not play for the full five years of his contract.”
— MLS Deputy Commissioner Ivan Gazidis, who also said that a loan of David Beckham to AC Milan will not be approved unless Beckham returns to the Los Angeles Galaxy in time for the MLS regular season start in March. (Reuters)
“This is a one-off incident and the practice isn’t prevalent in UAE football. It’s the players’ personal choice to use black magic and very much their own decision.”
— Ahmed Mohammed al Rahomi, spokesman of the Dubai Sports Council after two players, including United Arab Emirates’ star striker Faisal Khalil, were arrested on suspicion of practicing “black magic” and casting spells against other players. (The National)
“As a dad I know how hard it can be to get kids to eat fruit and vegetables and things they need but these are meals they would probably eat already. They are just more healthy and are designed to get the kids eating the things they need without necessarily realizing they are eating well.”
— David Beckham, unburdened of MLS postseason play, has partnered with British food manufacturer GO3 on a new line of health food snacks for children. (The Sun)
“We will provide this franchise with players from our academies around the world and the ones we will build in the States in order to make a profitable franchise that shareholders will be compensated for our efforts. We want profits but the most important thing will be to make a competitive team. That will go to the heart of supporters. We think we know how to do it.”
— Joan Laporta, president of Spanish club FC Barcelona, which has submitted a bid for an MLS expansion franchise in Miami. (SportsBusiness Journal)
“Some fans were probably coming out for the first time tonight, and we put on a good show in the first half and taught them a little bit about soccer in the second half and how to manage a game.”
— Houston defender Craig Waibel after a crowd of 30,361 watched the Dynamo defeat a David Beckham-less Los Angeles Galaxy with three first-half goals to clinch first place in the West and eliminate the Galaxy from playoff contention. (Houston Chronicle)
“At first it smells brilliant, but soon fades to nothing.”
— The Daily Mirror‘s Chris Wilson suggests a sales pitch for L4Men, the aftershave Liverpool FC is putting on the market in time for the holiday shopping season.
“Let’s stop the hypocrisy — let’s just stop doing these matches. We cannot tolerate our Marseillaise being jeered.”
— Bernard Laporte, the ministerial secretary of state for sport, suggesting that France no longer play friendlies against North African countries. Tunisian fans jeered “La Marseillaise” before Tuesday’s friendly between France and Tunisia at the Stade de France, prompting government officials to say that any France match in the future would be stopped if the anthem was booed. The incident at the game followed similar problems in recent years against Algeria and Morocco. (AFP)
“We have an agreement – we don’t eat them, they don’t eat us.”
— U.S. defender Frankie Hejduk, an avid surfer, declines one of Trinidad’s famous shark sandwiches while on the Caribbean island for Wednesday’s World Cup qualifying game. (U.S. Soccer)
“They left us stuck in the plane for an hour and a half. Inside the hotel, we also had numerous difficulties during the night. There was a discotheque and a lot of shouting near the players’ rooms. Four or five players were ill because of the [hotel] food. This creates a certain difficulty.”
— Brazil coach Dunga, who also noted that a Brazilian flag was burned at Pueblo Nuevo stadium and the national anthem was jeered, details the Venezuelan hospitality surrounding last weekend’s World Cup qualifying game, which Brazil won, 4-0. (Reuters)
“I felt very sad [watching the game on TV]. … I felt I let the team down, but it is a decision I had to make for my future. I want to be free. It was my decision to make, to leave my family and my country, not knowing when I could go back. But I needed to be free for myself, for my life, to choose my future.”
— Reinier Alcantara, one of two Cuban national team players, along with Pedro Faife, who defected before Cuba’s 6-1 loss to the USA on Saturday in Washington, D.C. (Washington Post)
“[The San Jose] Earthquakes will benefit from the training and coaching models of Tottenham, who currently sit bottom of the Premier League.”
— Britain’s Sky Sports describes the “strategic partnership” between English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and MLS’s San Jose Earthquakes that was announced on Thursday.
“Yes, they do watch the Borat movie. I know the country’s politicians didn’t like it, but the players find it funny. They get the jokes and don’t think the movie makes fun of Kazakhstan. It makes fun of the U.S. more than it does Kazakhstan.”
— Arno Pijpers, the recently fired coach of Kazakhstan, which faces England Saturday in World Cup qualifying. (The Sun)
“First of all, the important thing in the next three games is to win and get as many points as we can. [The] playoffs are the goal right now and if I’m able to score some goals to help the team or get some assists, that would be great. … I grew up here in Dallas and Jason [Kreis] was someone that I looked up to. He was always scoring a lot of goals and doing his backflips. … I feel so fortunate to have scored close to the number that he has scored.”
— FC Dallas striker Kenny Cooper, who has scored 16 goals and has three games to break the club’s record for goals in a season, which Jason Kreis set in 1999 with 18. (MLSnet.com)
“You are out of order. Absolutely f****** out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can f*** off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that f****** crap. No f****** way, lies.”
— A short excerpt from Newcastle interim coach Joe Kinnear‘s press conference in which he swore 50 times. The English FA is considering charging Kinnear with bringing the game into disrepute. (ESPN SoccerNet)
