subscribe to podcast1 Major League Soccer Weekend Preview Show: MLS Talk Podcast

With my sin­cer­est apolo­gies for the long World Cup absence, this edi­tion of the Major League Soc­cer Talk Pod­cast looks towards this weekend’s action, with Real Salt Lake and New York tak­ing cen­ter stage. But before we do, we talk Bob Bradley, Cham­pi­ons League and U.S. Open Cup with the show’s new per­ma­nent co-host, Christo­pher Riordan.

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

0 comments

Strong Semi-Finals Sets Up Sigi Bowl US Open Cup Final

by Daniel Feuerstein on September 2, 2010 · 8 comments

LHUSOpenCupLogo Strong Semi Finals Sets Up Sigi Bowl US Open Cup Final

All you ever wanted was two strong semi-final matches that were going to lead into an inter­est­ing and intrigu­ing big cham­pi­onship final that had the pomp and cir­cum­stance. Well who would’ve thought that one man would play a role in US Soccer’s ver­sion of England’s FA Cup? But here it is folks, Sigi Schmid, who lead the Colum­bus Crew to the 2008 MLS Cup Cham­pi­onship and won the US Open Cup at our Nation’s Cap­i­tal last year for the Seat­tle Sounders, will play each other on Tues­day, Octo­ber 5th at Qwest Field.

DC United 1:2 Colum­bus Crew A.E.T.

After the ter­ri­ble league sea­son that DC United had to endure as well with a mid-season coach­ing change, the US Open Cup was their last chance to earn a title of any kind. It looked like fate would be on their side in the 13th minute as it looked like Gino Padula took down a DC player and a spot kick was awarded. Pablo Her­nan­dez calmly took the shot and con­verted for the one goal to nil lead.

Through­out the match DC and the Crew had plenty of chances to score to either get an equal­izer or a two goal lead. But in the 59th minute cards were fly­ing out from ref­eree Chris Penso. Danny O’Rourke and Pablo Her­nan­dez had a bit of an argu­ment dur­ing a chal­lenge. O’Rourke saw yel­low while Her­nan­dez saw red and DC United shock­ingly were down a man thru the entire match.

As the clock was tick­ing towards the 90th minute it looked like DC United was on their way to another mir­a­cle vic­tory in the US Open Cup and we’re ready for their third con­sec­u­tive final match, but in the 89th minute Marc Burch tried to stop Andy Iro’s shot. Unfor­tu­nately he deflected the ball by acci­dent and into his own net. Heart­break at RFK as the match was mov­ing on towards Extra Time.

But the Crew would get that game win­ner from their top play maker Guillermo Bar­ros Sch­e­lotto in the 98th minute when Carey Tal­ley fouled a Crew player in the area. Got his book­ing and Sch­e­lotto con­verts his spot kick for the lead and the vic­tory. This was a very tough defeat for DC United as they had one minute of reg­u­la­tion left and what­ever stop­page time was going to be added for the sec­ond half to move on into their third final match. But now they will have to sit at home and watch the final.

Seat­tle Sounders 3:1 CD Chivas-USA

The defend­ing US Open Cup Cham­pi­ons had a tough oppo­nent for them­selves as well since Chivas-USA was also hav­ing their trou­bles in the league. A tough sea­son for first year head coach Mar­tin Vazquez saw his side go down a goal early as Steve Zakuani was ter­ror­iz­ing Chivas-USA all match long. He made a solid pass to Nate Jaqua who con­verted his first of the match in the 10 minute.

But the Sounders sen­sa­tion that is Fredy Mon­tero once again came up big for a goal in the 58th minute with the help of Zakuani once again as he made a nice cross into the area and a slid­ing Mon­tero con­verts past Zach Thorn­ton for the two goals to nil lead. There was a sense of fear from the Sounders sup­port­ers when Jesus Padilla pulled on back in the 68th minute.

But Jaqua con­verted his sec­ond goal of the match in the sec­ond minute of three in sec­ond half stop­page time to seal the vic­tory and host­ing the US Open Cup Final at Qwest Field. Not only will the win­ner advance to the Qual­i­fy­ing round of the 2011–2012 CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons League, but the Sounders will get a shot at becom­ing the first back to back US Open Cup Cham­pion since the NY-Pancyprian Free­doms of the Cos­mopoli­tan League in 1982 and 1983.

But at the same time this will be the bat­tle between the Mas­ter and his pupil, as cur­rent Colum­bus head coach Robert Warzy­cha was Schmid’s assis­tant with the Crew from 2006 thru 2008 till he took over the reins last year. This year’s US Open Cup Final will be very excit­ing to see when Tues­day, Octo­ber 5th comes. I know that I’m excited for it.

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

8 comments

CONCACAF Axes The Hex for 2014 World Cup Qualifying

by Daniel Feuerstein on September 1, 2010 · 8 comments

View Image

Every World Cup cycle we are always ready for our US Men’s National Team to improve with new play­ers and chal­lenge the best or what is con­sid­ered the best teams within the Con­fed­er­a­tion of CONCACAF. That also includes the trip to Esta­dio Azteca and of course our rivals com­ing to the freezer at Colum­bus Crew Sta­dium dur­ing the final round of qual­i­fy­ing of every World Cup. Well unfor­tu­nately things are going to change for this com­ing qual­i­fy­ing cycle and that means one thing. The bor­der war derby has been scratched.

From Ives Galar­cep I just found out about the new struc­ture for the 2014 World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign and I have to say it’s a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion for both Mex­ico and the USA. The main rea­son is that these two sides will not face each other at all unless it’s a Gold Cup Final or the annual Inter­na­tional Friendly matches that will always be on Amer­i­can soil.

In the first round there will be eight groups of four with the top two win­ners of each group advances to a sec­ond round with four groups of four, then the top two win­ners of each group will enter the final round as two groups of four. The win­ners of both final round groups will advance to the World Cup while the sec­ond place fin­ish­ers will face each other in a play­off for the third spot. Or if FIFA decides to elim­i­nate the half spot play­off with South Amer­ica since Brazil auto­mat­i­cally goes in as the host coun­try, then CONCACAF could get four auto­matic spots for the top two fin­ish­ers of both groups.

Noth­ing is offi­cial til July of 2011. Once a date within that month has been secured on FIFA’s Inter­na­tional cal­en­dar, that’s when all six Con­fed­er­a­tions will sub­mit a qual­i­fy­ing pro­posal and the qual­i­fy­ing draws for the 2014 World Cup will pro­ceed. But from what has been writ­ten, it sounds like CONCACAF’s new World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing plan will be accepted.

Of course the idea of this new qual­i­fy­ing plan is to give the smaller known nations a chance to face the big boys of North Amer­ica, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and the top two Caribbean sides like Jamaica and Trinidad And Tobago. But if that was the real case then the last two qual­i­fy­ing cycles I thought were strong enough to achieve that goal.

When I heard the rumors of this change hap­pen­ing I thought I could help out CONCACAF by cre­at­ing my own World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing plan with the help of the FIFA Coca-Cola Rank­ings. Using the cur­rent August 11th CONCACAF Rank­ings as an exam­ple, those ranked first through twelfth would be apart of four Semi-Final Round groups as the last posi­tion would be fought for through early qual­i­fy­ing stages.

In round one nations ranked from twen­ti­eth to last will face each other through home “n” home qual­i­fy­ing. Round one win­ners will face each other in round two and those teams ranked four­teenth through nine­teenth will start in round two as well. Round 2 win­ners will face each other in round three to fight for the final semi-final group spot with the excep­tion of group D. Thir­teenth ranked nation will await the win­ners of round 2. All ear­lier round qual­i­fiers will be con­tested as goal aggre­gate qual­i­fiers along with the Away Goals Rule.

Then the top two win­ners of each semi-final group will advance into the dream pro­posal of an eight nation final round group. That would mean the World Cup qual­i­fy­ing bat­tles between Mex­ico and the USA would remain in-tact and things would be just fine. But as I have said if CONCACAF has this new idea for World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing accepted by FIFA, then the biggest rivalry of the Con­fed­er­a­tion will be pushed out and that is some­thing CONCACAF can’t lose.

Six pre­cious points on the line between the top two sides of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and what does it mean when you have new tal­ented play­ers mak­ing their way to the National Team and they won’t play their top rival dur­ing qual­i­fy­ing. At the same time you never know if Mex­ico and the USA will play each other in the final of next year’s Gold Cup tournament.

I hope FIFA will inform CONCACAF’s com­pe­ti­tion com­mit­tee that this pro­posal is rejected and just stick with what has worked the last two qual­i­fy­ing cycles.

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

8 comments

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - AUGUST 10: Bob Bradley, head coach of United States Soccer stands on the sidelines before the first half of a friendly match at the New Meadowlands on August 10, 2010 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)


Reports have come out this evening con­firm­ing that Bob Bradley will stay as coach of the US Mens National Team for another four years.  Just as spec­u­la­tion was grow­ing that Bradley would be out, Jur­gen Klins­mann would be in, and US Soc­cer was going to make some sig­nif­i­cant changes before the next World Cup, it seems that every­one has cho­sen sta­bil­ity over trans­for­ma­tion.  There are sev­eral dif­fer­ent ways to look at this:

This was the right move

Bradley may not be the most charis­matic char­ac­ter of all time, but he did well.  Under his stew­ard­ship, the US won the Gold Cup, got to the finals of the Con­fed­er­a­tions Cup, won the CONCACAF qual­i­fy­ing group, and won its World Cup Group.  While the US did crash out of the World Cup by los­ing to Ghana in over­time, that game was as close as a game could be, and had the US won it, this deci­sion would be a no-brainer.  While major coun­tries like France and Italy were hav­ing per­son­al­ity break­downs in South Africa, Bradley kept our boys loose, focused and together as a team.  The team was in great shape phys­i­cally, and despite the obvi­ous lim­i­ta­tions of the US squad, espe­cially after Char­lie Davies and Oguchi Onyewu suf­fered seri­ous injuries, the team met its main objec­tive – get­ting to the knock out stage.  Bradley has earned the chance to take the team to the next level.

This is a disaster

 Bradley is not the guy to take the team to the next level.  He made some fun­da­men­tal mis­takes in our tac­tics that cost the US a chance to really make a mark in South Africa.  What was Ricardo Clark doing there against Ghana?  What was Gooch doing in there against Slove­nia when he could barely walk?  Were it not for a sav­ing goal by Lan­don Dono­van, the US would have been going home in the group stages, and this deci­sion would have been a no-brainer.  Fur­ther­more, that run at the Con­fed­er­a­tion Cup was not much of a run – we got slaugh­tered by Italy and Brazil in the group stage, lucked into the knock out stage, and blew a two goal lead in the final that could have deliv­ered a his­toric moment for US Soc­cer.  Finally, win­ning things in CONCACAF is no great chal­lenge.  Even Steve Samp­son could achieve that!  If the US is ever going to move up from the JVs to the Var­sity squad of soc­cer nations, it needs new leadership.

Hon­estly, it really does not matter

There is no more over-valued job than coach of the national team.  You don’t really develop play­ers in that posi­tion, — you sim­ply pick the best 23 avail­able and see what hap­pens.  Per­haps a coach like Ray­mond Domenech can cause a team like France to fall apart, but only a fool would say that Vicente del Bosque caused Spain win in South Africa.  Spain won because they have the best 23 play­ers in the world.  The US will have more suc­cess when they have bet­ter play­ers, and the coach of the team has only the most mar­ginal impact on grow­ing the pool of play­ers that can suc­ceed at the high­est level.

What do you think?

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

55 comments

MLS, adidas Extend Partnership Through 2018

by Randy Capps on August 30, 2010 · 22 comments

The new Adidas MLS soccer ball on display during the MLS SuperDraft at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA, on January 14, 2010.

Major League Soc­cer and adi­das have extended their part­ner­ship agree­ment through 2018, accord­ing to a press release Monday.

The two have been part­ners since the first sea­son of MLS back in 1996.

The United States is a breed­ing ground for ath­letic tal­ent and we need to ensure our home­grown ath­letes have viable oppor­tu­ni­ties to play soc­cer at the high­est level,” said Patrik Nils­son, pres­i­dent of adi­das Amer­ica, in the release.  “We need to accel­er­ate the model for soc­cer devel­op­ment in North Amer­ica to attract and keep elite tal­ent engaged and excited about pro­fes­sional oppor­tu­ni­ties in the sport.  We share a long-term vision with MLS to develop the game and are excited to fos­ter the next gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can soc­cer stars.”

MLS com­mis­sioner Don Gar­ber also weighed in, adding “One of the major rea­sons Major League Soc­cer has become one of the top soc­cer leagues in the world is due to the sup­port and com­mit­ment of adi­das. They have a clear vision for the sport in North Amer­ica, and they see MLS as a cor­ner­stone of that vision.  Our exten­sion with adi­das is a major state­ment by an inter­na­tion­ally respected brand that MLS is increas­ing in value and that our com­mit­ments to sta­dium con­struc­tion, strate­gic expan­sion, player devel­op­ment and improve­ment in the over­all qual­ity of play are play­ing dividends.”

I find it dif­fi­cult to see this as any­thing other than fan­tas­tic news for MLS.

Why?

Con­sider for a moment that the NFL, NHL and NBA are star­ing down the bar­rel of poten­tial labor strife as their respec­tive CBAs expire in the next two years.

With this deal, report­edly worth around $200 mil­lion, and the new col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment already in place, MLS arguably finds itself in a more sta­ble posi­tion in terms of long term growth and labor peace than every other major sport in America.

What do you think? Excited about the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Gen­er­a­tion Adi­das pro­gram? Won­der­ing why MLS extended a deal that had four years left on it? Chime in below.

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

22 comments

soccer balls Take Me Out to the Ballgame   Week 22

The Week 22 num­bers look like this…

  5 year comparison
  Week 22 170 GP YTD
  Avg +/- GP Avg +/- Avg +/- GP
 2006   13,932     6   15,082     15,361     143 
 2007   16,209   16.34%   6   16,311   8.15%   16,005   4.19%   144 
 2008   15,294   -5.64%   9   16,350   0.24%   17,036   6.45%   148 
 2009   16,236   6.16%   6   15,903   -2.73%   16,559   -2.80%   155 
 2010   19,215   18.35%   8   16,628   4.56%   16,628   0.41%   170 
YTD — 170 Games
  Aver­age Median %<10K %>20k
 2006    15,082     13,036    21.18%   17.06% 
 2007    16,311     14,804    8.82%   25.29% 
 2008    16,350     15,078    11.76%   24.12% 
 2009    15,903     14,629    15.88%   20.00% 
 2010    16,628     14,434    7.65%   22.94% 

Here are the atten­dance com­par­isons to 2009:
Read the rest of this story»

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

10 comments

Feuerstein’s Fire Episode #23

by Daniel Feuerstein on August 30, 2010 · 2 comments

Daniel F Daniel Feuerstein Joins Major League Soccer Talk

Tues­day, August 31st 8:00PM EDT — 5:00PM PDT

Guests:
Blake Comp­ton Returns To Dis­cuss Offi­ci­at­ing Deba­cle of CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons League Group Match Between San­tos Laguna & Colum­bus Crew
More dis­cus­sion of offi­ci­at­ing prob­lems in CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons League
Andrew Bucholtz: Van­cou­ver Soc­cer Blog­ger Dis­cusses MLS in 2011
Mike Buy­tus: Charleston Bat­tery Sup­porter dis­cusses USL-2nd Cham­pi­onship & New D2 Stan­dards
Re-Capping Red Bulls Vic­tory Against San Jose Earthquakes

Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 2nd 8:00PM EDT — 5:00PM PDT
Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Semi-Finals Re-Cap Show
DC United Vs Colum­bus Crew
Seat­tle Sounders Vs CD Chivas-USA

GD Star Rat­ing
load­ing…

2 comments