Soccer America Archives

[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 …

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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] 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.

[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] 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.