The Islanders used two late goals to advance Wednesday Night Tropical Storm Hanna has reaked havoc on Haiti and it also delayed the start of tonight's CONCACAF Champions League match between Puerto Rico and Alajuelense. For the first time ever a Costa Rican club has been eliminated from a CONCACAF tournament by an American club with [.

Sorry about the lack of posting, my vacation was a good one, but it is now time to get down to business. These are the first rankings since the beginning of the North American soccer season. Please keep in mind that these are weighted against the results of last season.
1. Cruz Azul - Mexico
2.

The draw for the group stage was actually conducted at the same time as the qualifying round, but for reasons known only to CONCACAF, the groups were announced yesterday. Here they are - the details will get filled in as the qualifying round progresses.Group ADC UnitedSaprissaCruz AzulMarathónGroup BHouston DynamoL.

Via DIAaDIA - Vielka Cádiz Franco
Otro panameño ficha en el extranjero.
Ahora fue el delantero Edwin Aguilar, quien fue contratado por el club Herediano para jugar la próxima temporada del Campeonato Nacional de Invierno del fútbol costarricense.
El estreno del nuevo equipo de Aguilar será el próximo lunes cuando enfrenten al Brujas en la primera jornada.

I got home from work a few minutes ago, so I've missed most of the Montreal Impact-Real Esteli match. Tonight's matches in the Champions League are on, so let's go!Scores and liveblog beneath the jump. Montreal Impact 1-0 Real Esteli Alajuelense 0-0 Puerto Rico Islanders (10')Isidro Metapán 0-0 MarathónGjertsen scored in the first half.

The time has come for North America's answer to their European counterpart. The Champions League begins tonight. In this space I will rank and give a brief preview of the eight preliminary matchups. Several of the teams come from leagues that have played internationally very little over the past few years, so those teams will be unranked.

The preliminary round draw for the first CONCACAF Champions League should pose little trouble for the MLS teams but a major headache for one unlucky USL team.

New England faces Joe Public FC, the Trinidad and Tobago side that often pops up in CONCACAF competition. Chivas USA will play the second Panamanian side in the draw, Tauro FC.

Cruz Azul, the previous number 1, lost to San Luis on Tuesday 2-1; but even with a 2-0 victory over Tecos, Cruz Azul fell to fourth. Costa Rican side Saprissa destroyed recently promoted Ramonense 5-0, shooting the defending champions to the top of the rankings, becoming the first Costa Rican team to be first.

You need to go check out FC Football Blog - the best in Football Highlights. With Match Stories and Video Clips galore from all over Europe's top leagues.
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A big du Nord welcome to ShalrieJoseph.com
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And Presto-Chango just like that, Kevin Keegan is shown the door at Newcastle.

The draw for the first CONCACAF Champions League was held today. Now that the tournament is finally starting to take shape, it looks interesting. We'll see how it shapes out and whether or not MLS can get four teams in (New England and Chivas USA need to get past Joe Public and Tauro FC, respectively).

Well, that was awful.

Chivas USA looked like a team that had studied their CONCACAF Champions League opponents Tauro FC of Panama on the airplane ride down (ahem) going down 2-0 tonight in their preliminary stage two-game series.

Chivas USA did everything wrong.

They gave away a soft early goal, applied pressure, but failed to capitalize, and then swooned on the second (where exactly was Panchito Mendoza?

Things I would've blogged over the past three weeks had I not been racing all over China:

- Cleveland rules USL's Second Division.

- The USL teams are outperforming MLS teams so far in the CONCACAF Champions League, about which I'll have more later. The biggest shocker: Puerto Rico taking a road draw at Costa Rican power Alajuelense.

Personal note: Can someone out there - anyone out there - hook me up with a ticket to see Rage Against The Machine on Wed Sep 3 here in Minneapolis, at the Target Center. I very much want to see this. Anyone. Please. Thank you.
Total heartbreak for Oguchi Onyewu yesterday as this team Standard Liege lost 1-0 in the Champions League at Liverpool, giving up the winning goal in the 118th minute.

Sign me up for this. This sounds FREAKING AWESOME.

I mean, you get 4 MLS teams, 4 Mexican teams, 1 (maybe TWO) USL First Division teams and a handful from the Caribbean and Central America and what you get is WIN.

The preliminary round draw is now set, with the 8 winners moving through to play the 8 teams who already qualify for the group stage.

The new CONCACAF Champions League continues to gather pace with the draw for the preliminary round. Not all of the slots have been confirmed, but here they are: Municipal-Jalapa loser vs. San Francisco FC Joe Public vs. New England Revolution Alajuelense vs. Puerto Rico Islanders Cruz Azul vs. Hankook Verdes Harbour View vs.

Below are the collated results for the Preliminary Round of the 2008-09 CONCACAF Champions League. Ties are a two-match, home-and-away series, higher aggregate score wins, and away goals count. If aggregate and away goals are level, a 30-minute extra time period is played with penalties if necessary.

Cruz Azul (1) lost to San Luis (8) 2-1 on Tuesday, most likely moving them from the top spot for next weeks rankings. There is the possibility of Alajuelense (3) becoming the first Costa Rican team in the ranking's short history to be ranked first.
New England (23) visit Chicago (16) in the game of the week, pitting the only ranked MLS sides.

Major League Soccer, the league with no team that wants to make the playoffs. Out of five games, all five were draws, which doesn't make things interesting for the weekly rankings.
The top two teams in the rankings did poorly in the SuperLiga this week; neither made it to the knockout stages.

Interesting stuff going on in the world of North American soccer this weekend. On Thursday Chivas USA and the LA Galaxy both turned down the Western Conference lead while playing to a very entertaining 1-1 draw. Only one of the four teams that could take the conference lead with a win did, with Real Salt Lake taking the top spot.

The Islanders used two late goals to advance Wednesday Night

Tropical Storm Hanna has reaked havoc on Haiti and it also delayed the start of tonight's CONCACAF Champions League match between Puerto Rico and Alajuelense. For the first time ever a Costa Rican club has been eliminated from a CONCACAF tournament by an American club with the USL-1 side doing the honors.