[TV PREVIEW] Los Angeles and FC Dallas meet with neither team in good form, Chicago hosts Chivas USA in a .500 showdown, the Red Bull Road Show stops at RFK, and struggling Columbus hosts the defending champs.
Tag: mls
Posted inSoccer America Daily, What They're Saying
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
“We adhere to FIFA’s rules and regulations regarding the release of players. If David continues to be called up we’ll drive him to the airport.”
— Los Angeles Galaxy president Alexi Lalas on future call-ups of David Beckham to the England national team, which might conflict with the Galaxy’s MLS and friendly games. Lalas added that MLS fans understand that “the bigger picture is important. (BBC Radio Five Live)
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Beckham is happy to be with the lads
David Beckham set up two goals in his first competitive game for England since the 2006 World Cup and his 96th international appearance. Beckham’s promising comeback set the stage for more England appearances late in the summer and into the fall — just as the Galaxy moves into the stretch drive of the MLS regular season. With England still fourth in Group E, Coach Steve McClaren will be counting upon Beckham to play for England in its five remaining qualifiers.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Depleted Houston faces Rapids in MLS Thursday clash
[TV PREVIEW] Without Dwayne DeRosario and Pat Onstad representing Canada at the Gold Cup, defending champion Houston continues its quest to shed its losing record when it hosts Colorado, which has the services of U.S. international Pablo Mastroeni, who’s serving an international suspension for the red card he received at the 2006 World Cup. Ridge Mahoney previews MLS’s Thursday Night Game …
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Red Bulls’ rally shows they’re for real
On the list of things to do for a team making its move in MLS: Coming from behind on the road to win against a conference foe? Check. The rabid fans at BMO Field can be intimidating, but they were stunned – as were their heroes – when Juan Pablo Angel scored twice in less than three minutes to overturn a 1-0 Toronto FC lead and take Red Bull New York (6-2-2) back atop the Eastern Conference with a 2-1 victory.
Posted inSoccer America Magazine, Story
Bradley Plunges Into New Job
Before he had the tag of interim national team coach removed in May, U.S. coach Bob Bradley plunged into his latest job as he does everything else: meticulously and relentlessly, even a bit zealously. Bradley’s appointment as men’s national team coach set the stage for the busiest summer for the men’s programs in more than […]
Posted inSoccer America Magazine, Story
Hope Returns North of the Border
As MLS savors the rabid reaction to Toronto FC, Canadian Soccer Association officials are planning to use BMO Field and the FIFA U-20 World Cup as catalysts for a revival of their national team programs. Through the window of his condominium, Toronto FC captain Jim Brennan can see the home of Major League Soccer’s newest […]
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Canada has strong MLS flavor
[GOLD CUP PREVIEW] The Gold Cup was the scene of Canada’s greatest achievement of the last 20 years. Indeed, its 2000 Gold Cup victory stands as the only bright spot for a program that has languished and fallen far behind its North American rivals, the United States and Mexico. The national team program is in transition. It hasn’t had a full-time head coach since Frank Yallop left a year ago to return to MLS as the coach of the Los Angeles Galaxy. Dale Mitchell won’t take over as his replacement until after the U-20 World Cup in Canada. Interim coach Stephen Hart will coach Canada at the Gold Cup. Canada has a considerable pool of talent to draw upon from overseas and now in MLS
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Medford sets sights on Costa Rica’s first Gold Cup title
[GOLD CUP PREVIEW] Costa Rica is a team in transition. Gone is Coach Alexandre Guimaraes, who led the Ticos at the 2002 and 2006 World Cup and will coach Panama at the 2007 Gold Cup. Star Paulo Wanchope announced his international retirement after the 2006 World Cup and is now playing for FC Tokyo in Japan.
Former Costa Rica star Hernan Medford leads the Ticos in his first major international tournament as national team coach. For the Gold Cup, Costa Rica will be at close to full strength with 11 holdovers from the 2006 World Cup and four players based overseas, including former Los Angeles Galaxy defender Pablo Chinchilla, who now plays in Austria.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Red Bull Alert at Toronto’s BMO
[TV PREVIEW] The roughest stretch of the season is underway for the New York Red Bulls, and they started poorly with a 3-2 loss in Kansas City Saturday. Clint Mathis was ejected for elbowing Kerry Zavagnin in the throat and he could get an extra game tacked onto his suspension, which would rule him out of NYRB road tests Wednesday at Toronto and Sunday at D.C. United. Counting the KC game, NYRB plays six of seven on the road. In any case, Mathis won’t be on the field at BMO Field tonight, when the Red Bulls (5-2-2) meet an expansion team that dropped its first four matches but has rebounded with three wins, a loss and a tie in its last five games. TFC left back Kevin Goldthwaite is also suspended.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Dynamo departures challenge defending champ
Striker Brian Ching may be mired in a slump, yet his departure to join the U.S. team for the Gold Cup couldn’t be more poorly timed for Houston coach Dominic Kinnear. Dwayne DeRosario, who despite his struggles leads the Dynamo with three goals, is with the Canadian team, and Ching hasn’t scored since netting two – his only two goals this season – against Colorado a month ago.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Money Matters in Salt Lake and Toronto
Real Salt Lake has some money to play with, having gained about $70,000 in cap space by swapping Jeff Cunningham and Alecko Eskandarian, and earning $250,000 for the allocation received upon the retirement of now-coach Jason Kreis.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Haiti has hometown edge in Group A
[GOLD CUP PREVIEW] Haiti will be the home team in Group A at Miami’s Orange Bowl. For Haiti’s first ever game at the Gold Cup in 2000, a crowd of almost 50,000, most of them Haitian supporters, turned up at the Orange Bowl to watch the USA beat Haiti, 3-0. Haiti enters the Gold Cup as arguably the hottest team in CONCACAF. Its victory in the Digicel CUF Cup final in January touched off wild celebrations in Port-au-Prince. (Its U-17 team qualified for this summer’s world championship in South Korea, knocking out defending world champion Mexico, in one of the biggest upsets in CONCACAF history at any level.)
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
U.S. U-20s crush Canada, 4-1, in Ottawa
The U.S. U-20s are sure making its hard for Coach Thomas Rongen to make his final selections for the Under-20 World Cup, which begins later this month. With a lineup featuring several players on the bubble, the USA crushed Canada, 4-1, on Sunday afternoon at Ottawa’s Frank Clair Stadium, a U-20 World Cup venue. Andre Akpan, Preston Zimmerman, Johann Smith and Sal Zizzo all scored for the USA, which concludes its two-game trip to Canada with a rematch Wednesday in Kingston.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Eddie ‘Hat Trick’ Johnson lights up MLS
Eddie Johnson downed New York with his second consecutive hat trick, Houston rallied to take the Texas shootout against Dallas, Chicago stopped a five-game winless skid by beating Columbus, and the cross-country clasico between D.C. and LA ended goalless. Ridge Mahoney recaps all this weekend’s MLS action …
Posted inCollege Soccer Reporter, Story
Wake-Forest recruit Bone heads Parade All-America team
Wake Forest-bound Corben Bone heads the 2007 Parade All-America High School Boys Soccer Team. Bone has starred for Dallas club Solar since 2001. Solar teammates Cameron Brown (who will attend North Carolina) and Kaoru Forbess (a junior who moved to the Dallas area from Arkansas) are also Parade All-Americans. For the complete 2007 Parade All-America High School Boys Soccer Team …
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
East leaders, Texas rivals meet in MLS action
[TV PREVIEW] An clash of two of the Eastern Conference leaders and a Texas showdown in the West highlight the ninth week of MLS play. A few teams have already lost players to international duty and many more will join the U.S. team on Monday, so this will be the last chance for coaches to field their strongest squads for quite a while.
Posted inStory, Youth Soccer Insider
Intelligent Crossing
One reason so many crosses don’t end up producing a scoring chance is because players too often send them in blindly. They figure that if they’re on the wing, just whip the ball into the middle. Even in the pros, you see this time after time. A player moves down the wing and launches a cross even if there are no teammates in front of the goal. If you haven’t got a forward waiting for the cross, then you’ve got to look for other options, like turning back and looking for a midfielder.
Posted inSoccer America Confidential, Story
The Loan Moan
Hollywood must truly be the land of make-believe, in sports as well as films. When asked if David Beckham, whose return to the English national team sparked a flurry of proclamations between FIFA and the Galaxy about his availability, might be loaned out to a European team during the MLS offseason, Galaxy president Alexi Lalas couldn’t pass up yet another chance to whip up the waters of controversy.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Brennan’s strike for Toronto tops MLS golazos
[VIDEO] MLS can be justly criticized for several facets of its play, and the current goalscoring rate of 2.55 goals per game isn’t spectacular, yet more than a few of the goals have been just that. Each of the five nominees for Goal of the Week last week deserved high praise: Toronto midfielder Jim Brennan belted a 35-yarder to take the prize, yet it only edged out Maykel Galindo‘s 30-yard smash after bouncing up from a midfield tackle and a great free kick by Christian Gomez.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
MLS STATISTICS: Who’s to blame for the goal dearth?
Kansas City’s 4-3 win over New England last Saturday was the highest scoring game of the 2007 season, but MLS goalscoring so far this year remains just barely over 2.5 goals per game. In fact, five teams have scored fewer than one goal per game. The lowest-scoring team in the league is none other than defending champ Houston, which has mustered just five goals in eight games. Just slightly worse in futility in front of the net are Columbus, Toronto, Real Salt Lake and Chicago. New England and Kansas City are tops, scoring at a rate of two goals per game. For up-to-date MLS standings, schedules, leading scorers, attendance and goalscoring averages …
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Tremors in San Jose; Fire eyes Chilean star
Soccer America’s Ridge Mahoney provides the latest on efforts to bring back the Earthquakes and the Chicago Fire’s courtship with Chilean legend Marcelo Salas …
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Canada calls up seven MLS players for the Gold Cup
Canada called up 20 players and three reserves for the 2007 Gold Cup, which starts on June 6. Canada’s 20-player roster includes six players from MLS teams — three from Toronto FC two from the Los Angeles Galaxy and one from the Houston Dynamo — and three USL players — two from the Montreal Impact and Martin Nash, brother of NBA star Steve Nash, from the champion Vancouver Whitecaps. The only uncapped player is Antonio Ribeiro of the Impact. Toronto FC captain Jim Brennan turned down an invitation to play for Canada to concentrate on MLS play.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
Gold Cup teams to take 22 MLS players
[MAKING A LIST] Twenty-two MLS players were called up for the 2007 Gold Cup. Expansion Toronto FC led all teams with four players (including Chris Pozniak whom Canada is listing as a “reserve.”). New York (which shares the overall MLS lead with New England), D.C. United (last year’s regular-season champion, D.C. United) and Real Salt Lake were the only MLS teams not to have anyone called up for the Gold Cup. The list of 22 players includes Amado Guevara, who is persona non grata at Chivas USA, but not Mexican Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who will later join Chicago from Club America. In addition, six Gold Cup players play in the USL-1.
Posted inSoccer America Daily, Story
CONCACAF releases Gold Cup rosters
[GOLD CUP ROSTERS] CONCACAF released the final rosters for all 12 teams that will compete in the 2007 Gold Cup June 6-24 at six U.S. venues. The roster for each team consists of 23 players. A player may only be substituted in the event of a serious injury up until 24 hours before the team’s first match. For complete rosters …