Newcastle boss Chris Hughton was just delighted with his team's professional win at St. James' Park this afternoon, in front of  a good Geordie crowd of  43,067, the second biggest attendance of the day in England. Andy Carroll 4th goal this season Newcastle won fairly comfortably with goals from Gutierrez, Carroll and Simpson, before Dean Keates [. Click to continue reading...

Perhaps not remembering what happened to Duane the last time someone wanted to move the Columbus Crew, Jason Davis over at MatchFit USA decides he wants to take a crack at getting rid of the team everyone loves to hate now that they win a lot.

Last night, only 10,109 could be bothered to watch the men in yellow go down to Real Salt Lake.

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With an average attendance of 48,750 last season, Newcastle United are the 18th best supported team in Europe. In England only Manchester United, who top the whole league, and Arsenal manage to beat Newcastle's average attendance, although Celtic managed 9th and Rangers managed 16th. Given the mess we were in last season and the fact that there [. Click to continue reading...

I turn my back for one minute and Creepy Jose Romero turns into a 14-year-old dick. On Houston selling lots of tickets for the weekend:

No Sounders FC practice today, but thanks to the Dynamo press crew that really does a nice job, I've learned that Houston's home field is down to upper level end zone and sideline seats.

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This week the teams of the United Soccer League First Division were meeting in Beaverton, OR talking about the upcoming 2010 season under new owners, NuRock. One of the most interesting reports coming out of this meeting is talking about a possible hiatus for the USL Second Division. There are some facts to bring that truth out.

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Some pretty pedestrian stuff so far this week, perhaps everyone still in shock after our thrashing on Saturday. First of all a surprising statistic has been released: Bolton's attendances rose last season by 8%, one of only two clubs to see a rise in attendance. I don't know if you noticed but last season (and more so this current season) the Reebok has been looking strikingly empty.

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The first round of MLS playoffs (aka MLS Conference Semi-finals)Â always spurs heated discussion about its playoff format as well as the League's two conference structure.

Let's take an overview of various playoff format options and League structures for Major League Soccer. There should be three objectives to a playoff format and League Structure:

1) Crown a worthy champion

2) Entertain the fans

3) Maximize revenue for the teams and League

No matter what playoff format is used or what tweaks are made to improve it, a percentage of fans will criticize it and offer other imperfect solutions.

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Representatives from Manchester United and Liverpool lead a list of twelve Premier League clubs who are expected to watch QPR wonderkid Raheem Sterling in action this week.
Sterling has been picked for the England Under-16 side to play Northern Ireland in the Victory Shield on Thursday.
Scouts from United and Liverpool were in attendance at a QPR Under-18 match over the weekend to have another look at the striker. Click to continue reading...

Hajduk Split have had a terrible start to the season in Croatia, especially by their elite standards, sitting 14 points behind leaders Dinamo Zagreb after 12 games up until this weekend. Fan anger though with no reports of any incidents or threats prompted police to step-up security during training and at matches this week.

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Bath City played a scoreless draw with Bromley on Saturday, and I was not there to see it. It was the first home match of the season I have missed (except for one pre-season friendly). You might wonder what possibly could have kept me away from Twerton Park at such a critical juncture in City's season. Click to continue reading...

Guingamp suffered a 3-0 defeat away at Laval last night, a result that sees them drop into the relegation zone for the first time this season.

Guingamp went behind in the 34th minute, Steve Haguy opening the scoring for the Tangos (1-0, 34 mins).

The game reamined 1-0 until the 81st minute when EAG cracked and conceeded 2 late goals.

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HOWDY guys.
FP used to hate Saturday's when he was working at one of the major supermarkets (doesn't matter which one, they as bad as each other).
But now Saturday's are a day for a bit of R and R.
This has nothing to do with Glory, but sharing is caring, right?
Anywho, Glory take on Melbourne Victory tomorrow, and with game-day so close there's quite a bit going on. Click to continue reading...

Don't you just love it when you begin something and think you are close to finishing when you realize you are better off starting all over again? I've had that happen here with what I thought was going to be a new look for this place. I had spent a couple weeks on a new design when I just basically hit a wall with it and couldn't get myself to go any further with it.

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No surprise there, then: in a tanking economy where even the nation's most popular league, the NFL, has had trouble selling tickets and Major League Baseball's attendance fell 6.9%, it's not a shock to learn that as Soccer America reports, MLS' attendance fell overall by 2.9% in the regular season just concluded, falling from 16,460 in 2008 to 16,037.

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Major League Soccer's regular season wrapped up yesterday and here are the final attendance figures:

Team G Total Avg Med Hi Lo Change Seattle 15 463,455 30,897 32,404 33,108 28,548 NA Los Angeles 15 306,240 20,416 19,718 27,000 16,649 -21.5% Toronto 15 305,167 20,344 20,384 20,902 19,843 1. Click to continue reading...

After years in coaching in Spain and now England, it seems Fabio Capello has turned on his Italian compatriots...or at least is now far enough away to not fear a violent attack from the ultras. At an seminar organized by the Italian FA about the state of calcio, Capello is quoted as saying:

"It's the ultras who give the orders in Italy.

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Newcastle had the 3rd highest crowd over the weekend in England. The visit of Doncaster Rovers attracted 43,949 to St. James' Park Newcastle's crowd of 43,949 on Saturday was beaten only by Manchester City's attendance of 44,906 against Fulham (2-2) on Saturday and Liverpool's attendance of 44,188 yesterday, when the mighty Manchester United  were the [. Click to continue reading...

The final regular season numbers look like this...

5 year comparison  Final Week YTD   Avg  +/-  GP  Avg  +/-  GP  2005  18,417   6  15,108   192  2006  20,277  10.10%  6  15,504  2.62%  192  2007  20,575  1. Click to continue reading...

Port Vale 1 - 1 Cheltenham Town
I wonder if Robbie Williams was there? A Port Vale fan - does he bank roll the club?
Apparently Cheltenham could have gone in 3-0 down at half time. They rallied and dominated towards the end of the second half. Pook's goal was a scorcher but Bird and Hammond had good chances which were not put away. Click to continue reading...

Guingamp suffered their third straight away defeat at the hands of FC Metz last night.

Guingamp started the game brightly creating 3 good chances in the first half but Giresse, Soumah and Diallo were all unable to take their chances.

At half-time the game remained 0-0, Guingamp's failure to take their chances would once again come back to hurt them.

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Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson finally lost patience with Gareth Southgate after sacking him following Tuesday night 2-0 victory over Derby County.

"The long term future of the club was a key decision in replacing Southgate. One good result wasn't going to change that decision,"
"We had a strategy for Gareth's replacement.

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For all of its flaws, there are a few things that Major League Soccer does right; the game is the healthiest and most financially viable on the professional level it's ever been, soccer-specific...

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Well it looks like the Middlesbrough Boo Boys have finally had their way, Gareth Southgate has been sacked as manager of Middlesbrough.

This is absolutely ridiculous. As a Middlesbrough resident (But not a fan) I know how completely fucking fair weather the fans there are.

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[video sent to us from See the Cup] Brazilian team Santos won the inaugural ladies Copa Liberatadores on Sunday, or to give the tournament its full and excellent sounding Spanish language title: Copa Libertadores de Fútbol Femenino. A healthy crowd of 14,000 were in attendance at the Estádio Urbano Caldeira to see Santos beat Paraguay's Universidad Autónoma [. Click to continue reading...

The Chicago Fire and Best Buy helped launch the anticipated release of FIFA 2010 on Monday night with hundreds of soccer, Fire, and Blanco fans in attendance.

A line of patient fans snaked out the door at 875 N. Michigan Avenue on a perfect Monday night. Fans were able to meet Cuathemoc Blanco, Baggio Husidic, Patrick Nyarko, Wilman Conde, and Jon Busch.

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EFW Oktoberfest 2009 has arrived
"Sometimes I feel like throwing my hand up in the air" sang Candi Staton in her hit tune 'You Got The Love'. Well, we know just how the Statonmeister felt because we feel like doing the same right here, right now. Lord, we just don't care - owing to the fact that the EFW team are going on an EFW - just how we like it. Click to continue reading...

After week 31 the numbers look like this...

 5 year comparison  WK 31 217 GP YTD  Avg +/- GP Avg +/- Avg +/- GP  2005  18,417   6  15,957   15,108   192  2006  20,277  10.10%  6  16,157  1.25%  15,402  1. Click to continue reading...

Chivas USA 2 San Jose Earthquakes 2

Chivas USA Coach Preki's body language in the closing minutes of this game (off of bench, hands on hips, hand smacked into palm, etc.) told you all you needed to know about the coach's frustration and the recognition this was a perfect (lost) opportunity to put the Galaxy and Dynamo under pressure Sunday.

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Guingamp were held to a 1-1 draw at home to a well organized Dijon side at home last night.

Injuries to key players meant that Zvunka had to make some changes to the team for the game, the most notable being Gilbert Imbula Wanga who made his first professional appearance for the club.

Zvunka also decided to play two strikers, bringing Mathieu Scarpelli in to partner Mustapha Allaoui up-front.

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For me, I mean. I have no idea if you are in the same boat as me; perhaps you've been able to split your attention. Club and country, all at the same time. I'll admit that I've had some tunnel...

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There's still not a lot of new information coming in on the accident that Charlie Davies was involved with early Tuesday morning. There is still no word on who the driver is or their condition.

Steven Goff was reporting this morning that US coach Bob Bradley visited Charlie on Wednesday morning and that he was responding to doctors but was still heavily sedated.

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There's not a lot of new information coming in on the accident that Charlie Davies was involved with early Tuesday morning and still no word on who the driver is or their condition.

Steven Goff was reporting this morning that US coach Bob Bradley visited Charlie on Wednesday morning and that he was responding to doctors but was still heavily sedated.

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FIFA World Cup 2010-bound Mexico and a young Trinidad and Tobago side battled to a very entertaining 2-2 draw last night at Port of Spain's Hasely Crawford stadium. While attendance to the game was quite poor because of the Soca Warriors already being knocked out of the qualification process, several Mexican and Trinidadian soccer babes [. Click to continue reading...

I was surprised to see the attendance at yesterday's ISL game between Persebaya and Bontang given as less than 4,000. This for a newly promoted side rich in tradition who took 6,000 to their play off against PSMS at Soreang earlier in the year.
It seems the club's supporters, known as Bonek, are peeved at the hike in ticket prices. Click to continue reading...

When the U.S. men's national team takes on Costa Rica tonight (8pm, ESPN2)Â in World Cup qualifying in Washington D.C., U.S. national team fans will honor the one American starter who won't be in attendance: Charlie Davies.

USA fans are being encouraged to stand and cheer and wave these signs in the ninth minute (8:01-8:59)Â of tonight's match to honor Davies, who is in a Washington D.

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