So. On Sunday we will see MLS Cup set, hopefully, another viewership record, thanks to the star power of the Galaxy.

Wow, it's only been four years. Feels like four hundred. But now, the Galaxy are back. And, as far as anyone in the mainstream knows or cares, is better than ever. Let's see, how does that speech go?

The Galaxy, whom I consider victors of the tournament. You players who in less than a few hours will be acclaimed champions by millinos of your compatriots. You who have no equals in the terrestrial hemisphere. You who are so superior to every other competitor. You whom I already salute as conquerors.

The Galaxy's opponents, meanwhile, barely existed the last time LA won the title, have a stupid name, don't have any very popular players, and no one is giving them a chance. None of them have ever played a game of this magnitude before. (Edit - except Rimando...and come to think of it, Olave may have had the occasional pressure packed game in freaking Colombia...but...click here to read more...

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Hm, I've kinda been tunnel-visiony about MLS Cup, what with The Most Important Team In The World going to play the Galaxy and everything. (See what I did there?) (No, seriously, Real Salt Lake has this scrappy underdog thing going that I find both irritating and frightening. I sat through the Sol gagging against Sky Blue, and if this god-damned game isn't looking like its identical twin brother, then, in the words of "Bored of the Rings," I don't know lunch from din-din.)

...so, yeah, like I said, let's see what's happening elsewhere.

*raises the shades of the window*

*sees mushroom cloud*

Okay then.

Thierry Henry said to the reporters,
"A man ain't nothin' but a man.
Before I'll let Ireland go to the Cup
I'll score the winning goal with my hand, Lord Lord,
Score the winning goal with my hand."

I'd love to trot out a "And where in the rules does it say you can't touch the ball with your hand?" crack. Pity The Simpsons did the joke already along those lines.

Justice...click here to read more...

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My previous comments notwithstanding, I wanted to pass this along. I'm not going to waste a lot of time commenting, but I thought an update was appropriate

As predictably as rain in October, the FAI today formally appealed to FIFA for a replay of the Ireland/France match that was won on an admitted Thierry Henry handball.



I understand the impulse, and sympathize with the motives, but if you can sit through this entire video you're a far braver man than I, or you have a low tolerance for repetition:


Videos aside, IRELAND IS RAISING A STINK about this, although one has to guess that the odds against them even getting a hearing are remote at best.

It doesn't...click here to read more...

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Since John (see below) is on the Thierry Henry story, I'm taking a pass on it, for two reasons:

First, because we really don't need two posts on the same topic and second because, frankly, there's just nothing to say. The referee is directly behind Henry and so has no chance to see what occurs. The linesmans' view is blocked, so ditto.

Soccer is a lot like life: it's unfair. Your heart breaks for Ireland, who've gotten the shaft in this whole deal from Day One, and after 500 or so years of misery you'd think the Irish could catch ONE break in something but I guess that's not to be.


So we'll move on to the brief moment when it looked like the US might actually be involved in the game yesterday:


Some people are dismissing this as a less than brilliant goal, and while it's not exactly the result of overall offensive strategy, skill and execution...click here to read more...

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From Major League Soccer:

2009 MLS Expansion Draft Rules

Senior Roster
* Teams may protect 11 players between their Senior and their Developmental Roster.
* If the Player’s contract expires at the end of 2009, he will still be considered part of the Team’s Senior Roster.
* If a Team protects a player, it is not obligated to exercise the player’s option. It may renegotiate a new budget number for the player as in previous years.
* If a player retires, he will not be a part of the Senior Roster, but his Team will lose its right of first refusal to him should he ultimately decide to play.

Developmental Roster
* Players on a Team’s Developmental Roster, other than Generation adidas players who have not been graduated at the end of the 2009 season and Home Grown Players, will be part of the expansion draft.
* Generation adidas players (who have not been graduated at the end of the 2009 season) and Home Grown players are automatically...click here to read more...

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If I'm Jonathan Ullman, present of the Soccer Hall of Fame, I'm so pissed off at Cobi Jones right now I can barely see straight.

It was the Year of Our Lord 2006. Cobi had missed the MLS playoffs for the first time ever, having followed up a triumphant 2005 double year with a truly miserable train wreck under his old friend Steve Sampson.

Then, according to Tim Leiweke, either late in 2006 or early in 2007, he and Cobi had a conversation that went something like this:

Cobi: I've decided to retire.
Tim: We've signed David Beckham.
Cobi: ...next season.

Grant Wahl documented most of what happened afterwards. But one of the little ripples of that decision was to delay Cobi's Hall of Fame eligibility for a year. That year would have been this.

Meanwhile, the Hall followed up major media-friendly inductee events featuring Alexi Lalas and Mia Hamm by inducting no one, thanks to the blinkered and stupid soccer media. Offers from handsome, well-spoken and erudite bloggers...click here to read more...

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Okay, apparently I have to once again settle the conspiracy idea.

Los Angeles hosts MLS Cup three count em EDIT - oops, four - times. Twice, Galaxy makes the semifinal, loses twice. Third time, Galaxy out in first round after giving up the worst comeback in soccer history. Fourth time, Galaxy misses the playoffs entirely, Chivas USA bounced in the first round.

Two years in a row, Blanco bounced out in the semifinals.

Two years running before this season, Beckham bounced out of the playoffs in the final game.

This year, Seattle is allowed to leave the playoffs without a single goal (presumably, we're aware that a Sounders-hosted Cup would have sold out in, like, two minutes).

When people say MLS isn't Serie A....yeah, it sure isn't.
___________

And now, the State of the League as delivered by MLS Commissioner Don Garber.

Fine, so it's not going THAT well. But you gotta think The D is pretty happy, and not simply because...click here to read more...

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While it isn't going to remind anyone of Super Bowl week, ESPN has started a fairly substantial promotional campaign leading up to Sunday's MLS Cup game, with loud,
splashy, quick-cutting spots flickering across flat panels in bars, lounges and airports even as we (figuratively) speak.

Of course one of the featured elements is advertising the appearance of David Beckham, which is hardly surprising, since using Chris Wingert as the marquee attraction isn't likely to set the viewing meters ablaze.

(Speaking of which, have you seen the re-cut of the famous California tourism ads
where Hollywood types make puns about "working" in the Golden State? You know, the ones that end with the shot of Maria Shrivers' heavily botoxed "I'm a Kennedy" puss and then pan over to Arnold, looking frighteningly cadaverous, saying "When can you start?"? Those spots are now back in rotation, edited to include David Beckham kicking a ball into the ocean and saying "...but somebody's got to do it". Just...click here to read more...

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All you who criticized Bruce Arena, said the game had passed him by, said he relied too much on old veterans...all you who said Dema Kovalenko was a one-dimensional hack...all you who said there was no way Ricketts or Berhalter would make it through the whole season...all you who said that Beckham and Donovan couldn't work together...all you who said a team starting two rookies in the back line couldn't win...well, where are you now? All these naysayers and non-believers - where are you now? Huh? Yeah, that's right. Looks like SOMEONE owes the Galaxy an apology.

I'm guessing no one before the season predicted a Galaxy-Salt Lake final. Houston and Chicago fans are entirely free to demur, but I thought the semifinals were pretty intense. To me, this shoots down the idea that parity means the games are boring. Each of the teams were flawed in some ways, none of them played perfectly - but that's part of the intensity. I suppose it's because I had a fan interest, but I thought this...click here to read more...

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Right about now is probably a good time to start yet another serious discussion of finding a better way to determine a winner in a soccer match of enormous magnitude besides the dreaded PK shootout.



Someplace else.

Not that I'm a fan of the thing - far from it. It's just that the gut punch delivered to the Fire and their fans last night after 120 minutes of emotion, drama and desire seems worthy of something more than just another tedious discussion of the rules of the game.

For now, well, this stuff is why we hold playoffs: Have a great season but hit a dry patch at the wrong time and you go home with...click here to read more...

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Pity poor Don Garber.

No, not because he has to put up with reporters all the time; he handles himself pretty well amongst the unwashed, freeloading, neck-plastic wearing keyboard bangers of the world:


But so far, the Conference Championship weekend, one of the biggest TV ratings grabs of the MLS season, has been, if not a disaster then the next best thing to it.

(Yes, I'm taking pity on those of you who didn't sit up half the damned night waiting for Southern California to figure out how to generate electricity and ended up hitting the DVR. Fair warning.)


LA-Houston was the kind of scheduling that MLS needs: a high stakes ESPN match featuring name players - including the long awaited "David Beckham in an MLS game that matters" storyline - and it ends up kicking off around 11:30 Eastern on a Friday night, waiting in the lobby until West Virginia and Cincinnati...click here to read more...

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Virginia kept playing until Wake Forest imploded in the penalty kick shootout

NC State scored in the seventh minute and held on against Boston College

Final is at 1pm ET on Sunday...click here to read more...

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So I promised my wife I wouldn't swear as much these days, for fear that our child will one day greet her preschool teacher as a Saracen pig-dog. Fine, I thought, the Chivas series is over, I can take the pledge.

Then I read something in the new book, "We're Ripping Off Freakonomics," by Simon and Stefan, that really frosted my cupcakes. It was one sentence, but it was sentence from the pits of Hell itself. Nothing would do for it but to summon a vocabulary of such rage, venom and filth that would make D.H. Lawrence scratch his testicles in horror.

No, it wasn't the chapter on which national team overachieves the most. Sure, the answer to that is "Who gives a crap?" And sure, it was pretty offensive, at least to my delicate sensibilities, that the answer turned out to be Saddam Hussein's Iraq, whose national team program was the "beneficiary" of a training regimen that made the pages of Human Rights Watch. Of course, this wasn't as bad as when Simon and Stefan published "Olympinomics"...click here to read more...

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*UPDATE: Germany cancels Saturday friendly vs. Chile

Germany and the world footballing community are in shock this morning at the news that Hanover 96 captain and German national first choice goalkeeper Robert Enke apparently committed suicide yesterday by stepping in front of a speeding train.

German police sources have confirmed that a suicide note was found. Details have not been released.

Enke, who suffered a long, frustrating series of injuries over the years, including a recent bacterial infection, was still dealing with the loss of his two year old daughter from a rare heart defect in 2006 had recently emerged from the long shadow of Oliver Kahn and Jens Lehmann and appeared on course to start for Germany in South Africa next Summer.


All DFL players will wear black armbands in the next gameday as a tribute to Enke, as will his former teammates at Tenerife. Another...click here to read more...

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Press Release from the United Soccer Leagues:

USL Statement regarding USL First Division

TAMPA, FL – United Soccer Leagues issued the following statement regarding the USL First Division in response to the announcement of an application before the United States Soccer Federation for a new Division II Men’s Outdoor Professional League submitted, in part, by former USL-1 franchises.

Statement:

United Soccer Leagues, founded in 1986, continues to be the only organization with Division II and III Men’s Outdoor Professional Leagues sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, providing over 20 years of professional league management experience to its member clubs at all levels of the game.

The new ownership of NuRock Soccer Holdings has made a significant investment in United Soccer Leagues through its acquisition of the business and the retaining of strategic business partners such as Nike, Inc. and Premier Partnerships, which is led by the highly-respected duo of...click here to read more...

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Here's a fun game for you. Who is Jere Longman referring to in this sentence? I'd provide a link to Longman's New York Times article, but the answer is given in the link. Also whited out the club name, but if you're stuck, you can at least give that hint.

Another hint - it's nice to see that the New York Times still wakes up every morning and says to itself, "How can we insult Dan's intelligence today?"

Speaking of Mainstream Media - so, Ian Plenderleith on When Saturday Comes interprets the new Washington Freedom ad as a shot at DC United, Kevin Payne, and MLS. Not so, says WPS. Instead, it was a shot at a bigger target - Dan Snyder, the NFL, and the Washington Racist Nicknames.

[quote=George Perry, SVP, Washington Freedom]DC United is a very important partner of the...click here to read more...

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Press Release:

OWNERS OF PROFESSIONAL SOCCER TEAMS IN ATLANTA, CAROLINA, MIAMI, MINNESOTA, MONTREAL, ST. LOUIS AND VANCOUVER FORM NEW PRO SOCCER LEAGUE TO BEGIN PLAY IN 2010



Nov. 10, 2009 – The owners of the Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina Railhawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps, formerly of USL-1, together with St. Louis Soccer United today announced that they have formed a new professional soccer league to play in the United States and Canada beginning in April 2010.



The team owners yesterday submitted an application for sanctioning of the new league as a Division II Men’s Outdoor Professional League by the United States Soccer Federation. An application for sanctioning as a Division I League will be submitted to the Canadian Soccer Association shortly and applications to other sanctioning bodies in the region will be submitted as needed.



Joey Saputo, President of the 2009 USL-1 champion Montreal Impact, was recently...click here to read more...

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EDIT - BREAKING NEWS! Preki re-nominated for Hall of Fame! Feel free to factor in his performance over the weekend. (Yes, I know you're not supposed to.)

Now that I've got my head out of the oven, let's warm up with some trivia.

Depending on what happens Friday night, one bit of statistical weirdness will fall. There are eight teams in the league who have never moved nor folded from 1996 to today. Every MLS Cup has featured at least one of those teams. The Galaxy are the last team in the playoffs that answers that description.

Dema Kovalenko is YET AGAIN in serious danger of making the MLS Cup finals with his third different team; Brandon Prideaux can conceivably top that by being on his third different MLS Cup-winning team. (Alejandro Moreno and Ezra Hendrickson completed that feat last year.) Landon Donovan is in danger of getting his fourth ring; Eddie Robinson is trying for his fifth. Robinson, De Rosario and Jaime Moreno are the only guys with four right now...I think....click here to read more...

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National Soccer Hall of Fame Press Release:

ONEONTA, NY (November 9, 2009) – The National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum distributed the 2010 Player Ballot today to all voters. The ballot features 24 retired national team and professional players who all have contributed to the growth of soccer in the United States. Among the players on the ballot are three FIFA Women’s World Cup winners who helped launch the Women’s United Soccer Association in 2001, and ten men who have played in the FIFA World Cups of 1990, 1994, 1998 or 2002. Five players on the ballot had international careers and were among the early pioneers of Major League Soccer. The players on the ballot are:

* Mike Burns
* Mauricio Cienfuegos
* Raul Diaz Arce
* Thomas Dooley
* John Doyle
* Marco Etcheverry
* Robin Fraser
* Chris Henderson
* Eduardo Hurtado
* Dominic Kinnear
* Roy Lassiter
* Shannon MacMillan
* Joe-Max Moore
* Victor Nogueira
* Peter...click here to read more...

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The morning after a team gets knocked out of the playoffs there's always a good deal of finger pointing, blame seeking and what-iffing.

As dutiful, diligent, longtime fans of the Beautiful Game, we all know perfectly well that blaming a loss on any one play or one call is simply unfair.

What about this or that pass or this or that shot or this or that run that someone did or didn't make? Soccer consists of 90 minutes of opportunities - taken and missed - and the fact that so many games are low-scoring or no-scoring affairs demonstrates just how tenuous the whole deal is.

OK, have I been clinically analytical and dispassionate enough yet? Good.

Here's Emmanual Osei tossing New Englands' season down the crapper:

...click here to read more...

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