Just A Word Before I Go

Yep, I'm heading out again. This week to Jacksonville, you know the place that Hurricane Ernesto has its eyes on later in the week? Yeah, that's the place. So I hate flying to begin with, and I'm flying out the day after a plane crash and to the place that is in line to get a hurricane...lovely...

Anyway, wanted to jot down a few thoughts before heading out, and so my friend/colleague Brian Straus from the Washington Post Express doesn't give me any more grief for only writing once every 2 weeks. :)

1. Congrats to the Richmond Kickers for winning the USL 2 Title with a well-deserved 2-1 win over archrival Charlotte on Saturday. The Kickers got goals from two of their most dependable players, Chris Carrieri and League MVP Robert Sjjemba, and were in control of the game throughout. Richmond was a missed penalty away from winning the USL 1 Title last year before moving down a level, and this year they ran away with the regular-season and comfortably finished off the "double" by putting the very game Eagles away. It was a great season and great achievement for one of the top soccer organizations (regardless of level) in the U.S. The only down side; only 3,200 people showed up to watch them win the title at home. They play DC United in an exhibition Wednesday, also in Richmond. DC will trot out their reserves, and I'll bet the crowd will be close to 5k. Weird...

2. Speaking of United, do you think a few flaws were exposed against L.A. on Saturday? A 5-2 defeat at home that was every bit as much of a butt-kicking that Chicago laid down on them last year in the playoffs, and this was in front of a season-best 24k. I heard from some of my colleagues that Kevin Payne and and a few other DC execs were none too happy with the performance, and let the team know about it. Landon Donovan showed why he is probably the best player in the league when he "feels it," and he apparently did Saturday, scoring twice and directly causing an own goal. He loved that the crowd was after him as wel. He seems to get off on that. Maybe U.S. fans should start booing him during U.S. home games? Just a thought.

One final point on DC. Craig Stouffer from the Examiner got some telling quotes after the game, maybe none more inflaming than from former DC United player Santino Quaranta. I won't steal Craig's thunder by republishing them here, but go online or get a copy of the paper and see what 'Tino had to see about DC's defense. That should be some great bulletin-board material for United.

One final "final" point on DC. They're still the best team in the league, but the "fear factor" about playing them this year might be gone. They've looked rough the past 5 games, and even their U.S. Open Cup win over an uninspired New York wasn't exactly art. They've got a big game on the road this weekend against the most improved team in MLS, Chivas USA. If United can't get at least a point on the road, the race for the MLS Cup could officially be wide open. Speaking of Chivas...

3. Chivas beats Houston 3-2 in controversial fashion. Agreed w/ Eric Wynalda and Rob Stone; the no-call penalty kick in the waning moments of that game Saturday was one of the worst I've ever seen. DeRosario was fouled, hard, deliberately, in the box. should have had the opportunity to tie that thing up. I understand it's tough for a referee to call 2 pk's on one team in a game, but if you swallow your whistle on that type of play, then you're pretty much telling every team "If I called a penalty on you earlier, I will now let you get away with murder." Maybe that's a reach, but if you haven't seen it, go back and watch it. You'll be shaking your head. Houston coach Dominic Kinnear is probably going to get fined and suspended for his chasing after the ref after the game, but I'd do the same thing in his shoes. That was just a shame.

Okay, got to go catch a plane. Hope you all have a great week, thanks as always for reading, and I'll be back this weekend for some more insight and analysis.

3.

Finally, a new post

Yep, believe it or not, I make a new entry. Sorry folks, between my Vegas vacation and trying to catch up on my real job, soccer's had to take a back seat recently.

It's been an interesting few weeks, starting w/ the recent success of MLS against Chelsea in the All-Star game, and then DC United's impressive performance against Real Madrid. You see DC play so well in both games (they had 8 in the All-Star game), but then they kind of ratchet it back a peg or 2 now that they're back in MLS. They looked bad against New York and Bruce Arena, then played a great 2nd half against Colorado at RFK to get the draw. Even with David Stokes playing his first minutes for United, United should have won that game (those of you who have followed my work over the past few years know I don't have much confidence in Stokes).

By the way, nothing on television makes me cringe more than when ESPN has Brandi Chastain do her in-game interview w/ Peter Novak. Brandi was a great player, is a great person, and really knows the game. Sadly, that hasn't translated to tv, where she continues to stammer and stutter when asking the coaches questions. Novak isn't exactly a quote machine, so the minute or so those two share on tv every few weeks is just a complete train wreck. I can appreciate what MLS is looking for in talking to coaches during the game, but have we gotten any truly gems of information from these guys? Even the normally talkative Dave Sarachan and Frank Yallop can't make it interesting. Can't wait for Brandi's first in-game "chat" with Bruce Arena, can you?

Speaking of Bruce, is it just me or is he acting like the most bitter man in sports these days? Check out the interview he did w/ Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl last week http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/grant_wahl/08/15/arena.qa/index.html

His whole tone in the article seems to be that of a guy who feels he was "done wrong" by U.S. Soccer and that they are nothing without him. I guess we'll see. There's no denying the tremendous impact he had on the program during his 8-year tenure, and I'm not one of the ones who will throw it all away because of a bad performance in the World Cup, but geez, Bruce, you couldn't possibly expect them to keep you for another 4 years after everything that's happened, could you? Apparently he did. As one pretty high ranking source in the US Soccer world told me last week, "Bruce's problem is that his ego has eclipsed the size of his brain."

Congrats to the Richmond Kickers and Charlotte Eagles, both of whom won their playoff series this past weekend and will vie for the USL 2 Championship Saturday evening at U of R Stadium in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond goes into this as the favorite; they've got the home-field advantage, and they won 3 and tied 1 against Charlotte this year. However, the Eagles blew out Pittsburgh by a 6-1 aggregate scoreline over the weekend, while Richmond sluggishly made their way through Cincinnati 2-1 aggregate. Should be a great game, and if you're in the area, plop down a few bucks and go see the best 2 teams in USL 2 slug it out. If you can't get there, you can watch it on Fox Soccer Channel.

Speaking of FSC, how awesome was it to have this past week? 2 MLS games, and then just a ton of EPL games as England began their season on Saturday? Some nice surprises, and to see the U.S. duo of Convey and Hahnemann contribute to Reading's 3-2 stunner over Middlesbrough was fantastic! Then, even down several players to injuries, Chelsea hammers Man. City 3-0 to get their campaign rolling. Man. United also started out strong w/ a 5-1 win over Fulham, who appear to be a team headed for relegation at the start.

That's about all for today, kids.

Sorry I haven't kept up on this as I had hoped. Too much going on, but now that the summer travels are over, and I'll be glued to my tv set watching all things soccer as well as football (the American kind), I should be a better contributor.

As always, thanks for reading!

Been Gone Way Too Long

Sorry, folks, it's been almost 2 weeks since we last spoke. Between my conference in Orlando last week (yayy!!) and my attempt to catch up on my work back here (boo!), it's been a little chaotic. So, let's talk about the past couple of weeks.

1. DC United's streak finally ended, not at the hands of Chicago, as I predicted, but by the worst team in the league in Real Salt Lake. DC dominated large portions of the game and should have been ahead comfortably, but Peter Novak's decision to take out Freddy Adu and replace him w/ John Wilson in an attempt to sit on a 1-0 lead for 35 minutes was a bit puzzling. Wilson is this year what Brandon Prideaux was last year; a serviceable defender who makes some truly awful decisions, loses his mark, and makes you cringe every time he attempts a tackle in his 3rd of the field. Sure enough, Wilson gets called for 2 penalties in a 4-minute span of stoppage time to give Real the win. Granted, the 2nd foul wasn't so obvious, but if you were JUST called for a penalty in stoppage time, what makes you think the ref would swallow his whistle seconds later? Wilson accepted responsibility, but part of the blame has to go to Novak for what seems to be a tendency to play more conservatively as the season wears on. I stand by my statement of a few weeks ago when I said DC was head and shoulders above everybody else in MLS this year. No reason for them to be playing around with teams like Real and Columbus (the Open Cup game last night is a good example). Get a lead and go for the throat, guys!

2. My good friend Brian Straus recently went up to Rochester and hung out with some of his Sheffield Wednesday friends who flew over to watch the team on their recent USL tour. He's got some good stories and insight in his writeup here: http://www.ussoccerplayers.com/latest_soccer_news/523555.html

3. Another guy who's making some inroads is Craig Stouffer from the DC Examiner. Craig's done some heads up work over the past several weeks, breaking the story on Lucio Filomeno leaving DC United, and then scooping everyone else by nearly 2 weeks on the John Harkes to New York story. Between Craig, The Washington Times' John Haydon, and The Washington Post's Steve Goff (arguably the best soccer beat writer in the business), DC soccer fans have without question the best coverage of any other soccer city in the U.S. Keep up the great work, guys!

4. So why don't they just go ahead and make this Saturday's MLS/Chelsea game a DC/Chelsea rematch? With Landon Donovan out, as well as players from Chivas and New England, DC's got 9 guys on the roster as it is. After that, they fly out to Seattle to take on Real Madrid next Wednesday. While I don't expect MLS to win either game, it's nice to see that the best MLS team this year will get a real chance to show their stuff to (hopefully) large audiences here and around the world. Some young players like Bobby Boswell, Brian Carroll, and Josh Gros could really make some waves if they play well. Notice I didn't even mention Freddy Adu?

5. Want to know why a lot of youth players n the U.S. get disgusted with soccer and give up as they get older? Check out this video and see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8-SyOeS3lA&search=soccer
Those coaches should be ashamed of themselves. That would assume, of course, that they had shame, which I'm pretty sure they don't.

That's about it for today, folks. Again, sorry to be gone for so long, but I'm afraid it's going to happen again next week, as I get my long-awaited Vegas vacation. I'll put something up Saturday or Sunday before I go, though. As always, thanks for reading and take care!