Philadelphia Union starting XI: Konopka; M. Farfan, Okugo, Williams, G. Farfan; Daniel, Carroll, Adu, Lahoud; Martinez, Pajoy

Philadelphia Union bench:

Rochester Rhinos starting XI:

Rochester Rhinos bench:

Use this space to discuss the game. Please do not use it to post illegal streams, troll, or attack others.

PSP photographer was on hand as the Philadelphia Union took on their I-95 rivals, the New York Red Bulls. Here's a look at what he saw.

The starting XI.

Gomez goes for the overhead volley.

New York's Ryan Meara with a save.

The Brotherly Game held a live Q&A with its readers yesterday. The following is the transcript of the chat.

Who is the better holding midfielder? Gomez or Carroll? (and obviously why to go along with that)

by Joel Prushan on Apr 29, 2012 10:32 PM

Carroll.

Gomez is a box-to-box midfielder and has played extremely well as one this season.

It's hard to imagine the assist being nicer than a backheeled goal. But Michael Farfan set up Freddy Adu's winner with a hypnotizing run, and the Union held on to earn their first road win of the season over Chivas USA at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Philadelphia is now unbeaten in their last three, and Chivas USA remains winless at home.

Columbus Crew starting XI: Gruenebaum, Miranda, Marshall, Gehrig, Francis; Urso, Mirosevic, Gaven, Finlay; Vargas, Schoenfeld

Columbus Crew bench: Lampson; Vukovic, Williams; Anor, Grossman, Tchani; Renteria

Philadelphia Union starting XI: MacMath; Williams, Califf, Valdes, G.

Behind every great team...are great people. Or so they say. Every training session, scrimmage, media session and match played there are people working behind the scenes to see that it all runs smoothly. In what will be an the first in a series of articles looking into the "Plight of..." these people, we have one who is nearly invaluable to the successful efforts of a Major League Soccer team: the equipment manager.

Tonight is do-or-die time for the U.S. men's Under-23 national team. A win tonight against El Salvador and the Americans stay alive in the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament. Anything less than a win and the United States will see the dream of an Olympic berth eliminated.

U.S.

Saturday evening the Chicago Fire return home to Toyota Park to play the Philadelphia Union in front of what is expected to be a near sellout crowd. While any team would like to start their season off on the right foot, especially at home, this game presents an opportunity to send a clear message to the rest of the Eastern Conference: The Fire are a force with which to be reckoned in 2012.

Good morning! News has, once again, been slow, but we will still be bringing you everything we can find that you should be reading (apart from what you will find here). The biggest item on the agenda in Revs nation is, of course, the injury crisis in defense. I swear, it seems like we're having this problem every year, and I thought the new focus on strength and conditioning could prevent this.

U.S. men's national team veterans Brek Shea, Juan Agudelo and Freddy Adu headline a strong 19-man roster for the U.S. Men's Olympic Qualifying squad.

U.S. Under-23 head coach Caleb Porter announced the team on Monday and the only real surprise was the omission of Hertha Berlin midfielder/defender Alfredo Morales, whose release was not mandatory for the tournament.

The results of our recent poll are complete. You, loyal readers, have collectively chosen your preferred starting lineup for tonight's battle against the forces of hipsterism. As decided by the masses, we present The People's Starting XI: As you can see, you've gone with a classic 4-4-2 that features Mwanga and Pajoy in a beautiful young buck/wizened vet offensive tandem.

The PSP writers discuss how the Philadelphia Union look ahead of the start of the 2012 season. Part two will appear on Wednesday.

Despite the Union defense finishing second in the league in 2011, we've seen some defensive tinkering in the preseason. What formation can we expect to see most?

Ah, awards season. The Golden Globes! The Grammys! The Oscars! The Unis!

Yes, it's the Unis. So don your powder blue tuxes while I, Mr. Tim Carr, the host and award presenter, do a cheesy lounge musical medley of "I'm looking over a four leaf clover," "Union Man," and "Doop," then hand out arguably the most important trophies on Earth: the Unis.

Olympic Roster Mock | MLSsoccer.com

There are 13 players of age that make both lists. Eight of those are from MLS. D.C. United and the Philadelphia Union look to get hit hardest.

While neither pundit picked Zac MacMath, he's probably in the converstion. The of age players that both list?

Scott Kessler: Hi everyone, I'm hoping we get some questions on such short notice.

Comment From Jared
I'm sure you will. I'll start it off. Have you heard any rumors on further moves the Union is planning?

Scott Kessler: Jared, I've been looking around without much success of late.

Alright, it was just released so I figured I'd do a quick breakdown here and highlight who I thought would be protected and who ended up being protected and what it might mean for the team.

The actual protection list from the Union's website.

My Own List (Posted November 5th)

Mondragon, Williams, Califf, Valdes, G.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

After the Philadelphia Union gave away the lead to draw with Houston at PPL Park on August 6, we posted an article that, among other topics, looking at the consistency question. The question wasn't so much consistency on the field—little did we know that the Union were in the beginnings of an eight game winless streak.

PSP photographer Nicolae Stoian's photo essay of the Phialelphia Union's 1–2 loss to Houston Dynamo in the first leg of the Eastern Conference semifinal.

Leaving the tunnel

The National Anthem

That will be a yellow card.

Califf on Carr.

PSP photographer Nicolae Stoian was on hand for the final game of the regular season in New York. Here's what he saw.

The starting XI

Mapp looking to move.

Marfan is taken down.

This is not a foul.

Amobi Okugo holding off Luke Rodgers.

The Philly Soccer Page " Preview: Union v Columbus
Eight league games without a win. While positivity continues to pour out of the Union locker room, the team-and the fans-need a win soon or hope will turn into anxious fatalism. Columbus comes to town knowing that anything less than three points could see them drop within striking distance of the Union and Dynamo, a dangerous place to be as the season winds down.

The Major League Soccer Players' Union has released the latest batch of player salary numbers. The numbers are offered both by team and player and show the wide range of salaries in the league. This latest release is most interesting because it reveals the wages of some of the league's most recent signings.

After each match the contributors to New England Soccer Today will rate the performances of the New England Revolution players who made an appearance on a 1 to 10 scale (1 horrendous, 5 average, 10 perfection). This week Sean Donahue and Brian O'Connell contributed ratings for the New England Revolution's 4-4 draw at the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday.

Welcome to the New England Revolution vs. Philadelphia Union live game thread! Tonight will be the Revs' first match in 17 days as they play the fixture that was originally postponed due to hurricane conditions two weekends ago.

I won't bother with much in terms of preliminaries since the Revs - Union preview was just put up earlier today, except to say that Monsef Zerka is making his full Revolution debut on the right side of midfield.

Time: 8pm ET

Location: PPL Park, Chester, PA

TV: Galavision

At 4-11-11, the New England Revolution hold the worst record in the east. And they hold the ignominous honor of being the team the Union most thoroughly thrashed this season.

On Friday, the US national team will play its first match in Southern California under Jurgen Klinsmann. It wasn't Klinsmann's idea to play this match here of course but it is a great chance for the locals to get familiar with their locally-based national team manager.
Klinsmann, who has long resided in nearby Orange County, will trot out a host of new players as the U.

On Friday, the US national team will play its first match in Southern California under Jurgen Klinsmann. It wasn't Klinsmann's idea to play this match here of course but it is a great chance for the locals to get familiar with their locally-based national team manager.
Klinsmann, who has long resided in nearby Orange County, will trot out a host of new players as the U.

Lost in the roller coaster ride of losing Ruiz and gaining Adu is the one offensive signing no one is quite sure what to expect from.

Union

The Union went down two goals in the first half of Wednesday night's friendly against Harrisburg City Islanders before answering with five second half goals to finish 5–3. Tweets from fans at the game say that Peter Nowak made the starting XI—MacMath; Williams, Miglioranzi, Califf, G. Farfan; Okugo, Adu, Daniel, Le Toux; Paunovic, Mwanga—run laps after the first half.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

Slowly but surely, Columbus has pulled themselves up the Eastern Conference ladder. Even as their top two strikers suffered injuries and the rest of their lineup rotated in and out of favor, the Crew scraped points together.

And when Philadelphia faltered, nobody was left to deny the Crew their place atop the East.

US Forward Eddie Johnson joining MLS via allocation

Chivas still has top spot in the order, but passed on Feilhaber and Adu. Seattle is 6th and would likely have to trade up to get him. But he is a forward...

Jason and Jared are back, in the usual place, to talk about the craziness that was the past week. Things start with USMNT talk from Wednesday night's Klinsmania before moving on to Major League Soccer's new TV contract. Jason has a chat with Ben Berger of footiebusiness.com, then Jason and Jared hash out announcer candidates.

Full slate of games in Major League Soccer and WPS. Before we get our regular look at attendance, here are a couple of other business stories from the weekend. One quick note. Special thanks to the folks at World Football Daily and American Soccer Show for having me on in the last couple of days to talk about some of the big business issues in American soccer.

In a press conference at PPL Park today, Freddy Adu was officially announced as a member of the Philadelphia Union.

Adu and head coach Peter Nowak posed with Adu's number eleven jersey (which he acquired from Levi Houapeu in exchange for "a nice dinner") after answering questions from the media.

By Andrew Villegas Freddy Adu is coming, er, staying, stateside. On the outs at Benfica, and after four unsuccessful loan stints, Adu has decided that it's probably a better bet to keep his place on the U.S. Men's National Team by seeing the field and getting some meaningful playing time in MLS. And who could [.

By Andrew Villegas Freddy Adu is coming, er, staying, stateside. On the outs at Benfica, and after four unsuccessful loan stints, Adu has decided that it's probably a better bet to keep his place on the U.S. Men's National Team by seeing the field and getting some meaningful playing time in MLS. And who could [.

In last week's Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci argued that baseball fans need to back off and give 18-year old phenom Bryce Harper room to make mistakes and grow.

When Freddy Adu was 18, he was already the highest paid player in MLS and agitating for playing time. His coach, Peter Nowak, famously responded, "nobody is above this team.

Yup, if Ives is to believed, and he's usually reluctant to post anything until it's a done deal, Adu is coming back stateside and checking some of his oversized attitude to try to re-establish himself as a regular on the USMNT under Klinsmann. How, you ask? Well, he's going to be unveiled as a new DP signing in the next few hours for the Philly Union.

Time to pop bottles and hang with models, Philly fans. The Nowak/Adu reunion tour appears to be on and PPL Park is about to party like it's 2004. I wish I had a joke to insert here but I have to say that if this is a baller-ass move by Nowak; the Union just got that much closer to locking up the East.

STARTERS
The NSC Minnesota Star will host Breast Cancer Awareness Night at their home game on Sat Aug 27 v Montreal and will be wearing, auctioning & selling one-off pink Admiral kits. Please give them your support.
dN
This will be the 20th season of the English Premier League.

I wrote a guest post at the Good Men Project on my unusual feelings every time the US and Mexico square off. As a chicano with fair-skinned guero-itis, my life has been a series of chameleon assimilation acts, with the star confused as to his real persona. When the US and Mexico face off, I am forced to pull off mask after mask.